windies

I honestly doubt DX12 alone is going to do much for ArmA. Problems really aren't with the API being used but the engine. I would be more interested in hearing if any of the work on Enfusion is going to make it's way into the expansion and therefor into ArmA 3.

From some of the frame time analysis I've seen, the actual process itself tends to stall out a lot on basically nothing. I'm just guessing but it could be that during these "pauses" it's waiting for data to be streamed into the process work space. AFAIK what's stored in the file mapping API, even if it's stored in RAM, resides outside the process work space therefor it has to be paged in in some way. Yeah you can see this as hitches and stutters in game but even if you don't notice a stutter or hitch it could literally stall the process out enough on a constant basis to create a significant frame time overhead. Again I'm just guessing but it seems plausible. Pretty sure even with the HC, AI Pathfinding is calculated on the server and on the client both and is sync'd together over the network. The slowdown you get is the FSM's initializing and again AFAIK They're still purely in script and due to the serial limitation of SQL cannot be processed in parallel which is sorely needed. The HC is another one of those band-aid type fixes that I would rather not see. Not only would a new scripting language capable of parallel processing need to be introduced, be it Java or whatever, but then all the FSM's and scripts currently in the game would then need to be ported over and depending on how they're coded it would most likely cause a huge headache. Although really all that would realistically need to be ported over would be AI algorithms and most of the simulation and physics. Again would still be a headache but it's not like it's not doable. I think as far as multiplayer is concerned, a lot of the disparage in performance between MP and SP stems from data streaming and needless simulation processing on both client and server due to flawed design and implementation. MP hits the commit charge in the nuts figuratively. Easily you can get a 12gb commit charge if not more playing with 10-12 people with moderate amounts of assets with a starting commit charge of 1-2gb. You only have a 3.5gb work space, probably closer to 2gb realistically, so you're basically streaming about 2-3x your process work space on the fly. In a sense, whats really needed is a new engine foundation, something they can build on and port as much of the current engine into, while revising and updating what needs to sorely be fixed. Hopefully what they are doing with Enfusion but we will wait and see.

How is DX12 gonna be a kick in performance since we're majority limited by the engine and not by the API? Didn't they say the same thing about DX11 in ArmA 3? Highly doubt a new API is the savior to A3's woe's, be happy if I'm wrong I just seriously doubt it.

Tanoa definitely looks multitudes better than Altis IMHO.

The problem with MP isn't really to do with object count but more to do with increased simulation which basically adds to frame time therefor making rendering slower. Actually I don't think any of the performance issue's currently present within ArmA really have much to do with the rendering aspect, unless you increase resolution or AA or settings until it DOES become a factor, rather it has much more to do with how much simulation is going on and therefor increasing frame time. I actually tend to think that the issue's with Altis and it's size stem from the data streaming that BI uses to constantly stream data into and out of the process work space, not so much object count or view distance. If you think about it, if the process is waiting for data to be streamed into the work space, that's cause for a stalled thread right there. It's probably why draw calls aren't much the issue but the actual size of the island is the issue. Also why it would seem older content runs better, because it's smaller data sizes being streamed. How that plays into Tanoa and performance I think will depend more on it's detail and data size rather than raw object count or anything render related. It's one of the reasons why I've always been a proponent of 64 bit binaries. I think it would be one alleviation of a problem, but only if they truly do away with the actual streaming and map completely to RAM, something which would probably require work on the engine which I think they are reluctant to do. It would probably increase the minimum RAM requirement to 8-12gb+ but if that's what's needed for a stable platform then so be it. RAM is honestly pretty cheap anymore.

As an example, from a functionality pov how do bipods differ from BF4 in ArmA? They're actually quite similar in function for the most part with roughly the same imparted limitations. For that matter how does FFV differ from BF4? They both share very basic commonalities in implementation.

@ Bad Benson I think you're pretty much correct about it being like a house of cards no one wants to touch. I also think the engine was built to have so much functionality within scripting that it's also limited by this. From my understanding SQL is very serial. Also I think there are a lot of engine design choices for the sake of scripting that compound the performance issue's. Rendering being synchronous to simulation, inefficient data streaming instead of effective memory management which honestly is a pretty hackish" way to do it and I don't mean data streaming in general simply the way BI did it to overcome 32 bit limitations that they experienced back in ArmA not even ArmA 2. I think because the AI is so tied to scripting in it's execution that being able to effectively parallelize it without honestly another scripting language or serious work to SQL is practically impossible. It's just A LOT of things that compound the issue and it's frankly because they've let it reach this point while probably using the excuse "Some things are too hard" even to themselves. It's not that I don't get it, it's just that I sometimes honestly wonder if BI would be happy reaching a point where their engine basically won't run anymore because they basically keep adding and adding and adding without ever fixing or maintaining anything. If anything hardware is just going to keep getting more and more parallel in it's operation as far as logic units are concerned.

I agree with it not really being worth it for ArmA. There's gains to be had even in ArmA by overclocking under certain circumstances where the engine isn't thread locked to hell. You just generally won't notice it 95% of the time though. GPU usage doesn't equal anything but GPU usage. It's not a performance metric, it's not even really a metric of how hard the GPU is working. It's simply how many GPU cores or shaders, IIRC, are active. It's not even like CPU usage where you have one unit doing processing and it's a metric of how busy that unit is during a polling interval. If rendering requires 600 shaders and you have 1000 shaders, then you're only gonna use 60% of your GPU no matter what speed. How fast that work is done, how fast that frame is rendered as far as the GPU is concerned is based on how fast those shaders can calculate which is what clock speed is. Usage doesn't change when overclocking. You're not suddenly creating more shaders on your GPU by overclocking. Usage doesn't lower when overclocking. This whole thing about overclocking at 99% usage or it's a waste or usage having anything to do with performance is seriously BS more or less. There's no correlation, none. This engine outgrew the best hardware the second parallel processing became the norm and CPU's started having more than one core. That's just a fact. Having the best hardware anymore means very little to ArmA's performance. A G3258 will run the game as well as an i7-5960X within a very comparable margin of error. Considering how "CPU Intensive" ArmA is, that's just plain sad. ---------- Post added at 03:15 ---------- Previous post was at 03:11 ---------- Probably because you can't comprehend it. It's OK though, keep laughing. Ignorance is bliss they say.

The workload is still the same, it's still rendering. The only difference is the simulation, sound, AI etc in ArmA being mitigating factors to performance. Case in point, as far as overclocking the GPU us concerned it doesn't matter. Whether you get better performance in ArmA is is irrelevant to whether GPU clock speed has any correlation to GPU workload or usage as was the argument. It's still beneficial in ArmA anyways, it's just that you really don't see much of an improvement because there's very little rendering overhead versus the massive simulation and core thread overhead. To the thread topic, Yeah it will produce more frames. Will it produce a lot more? Probably not. Has nothing to do with GPU workload, but it has to do with the entirety of the thread being stalled by things like simulation, scripting and AI taking up a major bulk of frame time. You're still increasing the speed at which you can calculate that Rendering workload, but if it's only .5-1ms out of a 16-24ms frame time then it's not going to make a big difference. ---------- Post added at 17:17 ---------- Previous post was at 17:15 ---------- At this point you have your own logic and it's extremely flawed. Really ArmA isn't CPU limited or GPU limited, It's strictly engine limited at this point.

I can easily prove it using a utility such as Furmark or 3DMark. No matter GPU speed, either will run at 99-100% GPU utilization. Besides I'm not the only one that said that "explanation" is wrong. Also your thinly veiled insults generally summarize yourself better than me.

Again still wrong. If I have 1 render task per frame that takes 5ms at say 900mhz to compute but only uses 10% of the GPU and I increase that clock speed to 1000mhz and it only takes 4.5ms then I have increased FPS by like 10% or something like that, Point being usage and performance are irrelevant to each other irregardless of the math. Usage just simply means that X amount of the GPU's core's are in use. Has nothing to do with speed or performance. It doesn't matter if I'm at my target FPS or not, overclocking makes a difference as far as GPU tasks are concerned, usage being irrelevant. The reason it doesn't with ArmA is because of other threads operating within the same frame time stalling and causing that frame to take longer to render. In fact really, overclocking your GPU is actually having an affect on actual rendering thread performance. You're just completely limited by the engine, not even some "CPU limit point" but literally the engine itself. Anyways, there's no correlation between GPU usage and some CPU limit, increasing GPU speed simply increases how fast the GPU can calculate. It doesn't decrease GPU usage either.

Because they keep adding to it and adding to it. If they stop then they piss off all the people who don't care if the game runs like a potato. 95% of the problem is simply that the game is heavily scripted and most of it's functionality is written to be modified by script and also limited by that. The fact that it's so monolithic in nature is because of how heavily scripted it is.

The only thing I can think is that they are working on Enfusion as a solution to the inherent issue's in RV. If so I can understand why they're silent about performance improvement with ArmA 3 as there's probably nothing they can do, even though they could it would be a waste if Enfusion is the end goal. It's still a big IF but honestly I don't think they can bury their heads in the sand about the issue much longer. I highly doubt we will see it for ArmA 3, maybe ArmA 4 however?

Utilization is a workload metric, Not a measurement of speed that workload is done at. When you increase clock speed, you're increasing the speed at which the work can be done, not how much work can be done. A GPU at 1mhz can have 99% utilization and 1 fps while the same GPU at 1000mhz can have 99% utilization and 1000 fps. Clock speed and utilization are not necessarily indicative of each other.

FYI you can turn off downclocking by setting minimum processor state in power options to 100%. If you use constant voltage versus turbo multipliers and turbo voltages for overclocking then the speedstep or powersaving is pointless anyways.

Honestly I don't want to give up because there's no alternative to ArmA and what ArmA can be if it runs properly. I have lost respect for BI, but they could easily earn it back by fixing the core issue's. ---------- Post added at 01:11 ---------- Previous post was at 01:10 ---------- What do you mean run it 3-4x? 3-4 simultaneous process's or just open and close it 3-4 times?

You can still have bits and pieces of legacy code in an engine but still basically completely rewrite it. I guess it's kind of an argument in semantics but personally I see a difference between simply adding things and "tweaking" existing systems in an engine and completely redesigning said systems while still maintaining any working legacy code. Anyways I'm not trying to say source is or isn't really completely rewritten, just that there's a difference between defining an engine rewrite as tweaking versus optimizing and redesigning. RV needs huge changes, but they can be done to the existing engine. It's just going to take time. The problem really is that it should have began a long time ago. I never said it doesn't. It does. I just said Refactoring isn't the same as rewriting on the scale of most game engines in the business. The really big thing is they need to start caring how their game runs as much as if you can stick a .50 on someones head as a hat. Usability just as important as modding. ---------- Post added at 04:17 ---------- Previous post was at 04:16 ---------- If it makes it's way to ArmA, hopefully it a marked improvement. I think I remember reading somewhere that the intent for Enfusion was mainly for DayZ.

Aye, probably one of the bigger reasons I was initially upset was that ArmA seemed to be hyped up as really revamping the engine. Once you loaded it up though you clearly could see it was nothing but more of the same. Bloat on top of an already bloated engine. I don't see anything changing unless we as a community force BI's hand more or less. That will never happen though because majority of the community anymore are modders who care more about getting new scripting tools to play with rather than how the game runs.

No his performance sounds about right TBH. I get roughly the same performance IN ACTUAL SCENARIOS with a 4690K at 4.7ghz and 2 r9 290's crossfired as I did with a GTX 480 and a Phenom II 940. To the OP, the only thing you can do to improve performance is limit the scenario's you play as much as possible, as few active AI as possible, as few scripts running as possible, certain area's of Altis are known for having bad performance due to whatever factor object count or something. It is what it is, accept it I guess or move on. At least that's the common philosophy around here *shrug*. As for others having it run smoothly, I doubt it honestly. I think people just accept the 20-30 FPS. I know what you mean, I can't stand aiming at 30 FPS in ArmA, it's like trying to aim under water or something.

Completely rewritten being the keyword. If it's completely rewritten then it's only the Source engine in name and nothing else. Through BI developers own admissions we know that a lot of the problem with RV is that the engine is largely undocumented and very very hard to rewrite because of that. RV probably has never been rewritten on the scale that most engines are. Most of what changes through revisions are things that can be "added" for the most part and little of the foundation has changed between revisions. His statement really isn't far off the truth. "Refactoring" != low level revisions to the existing code base.

The beginning of ArmA 3 I spent time profiling memory and cpu usage in certain scenarios, it fell on deaf ears or was basically told it would never get better. According to Maruk I believe it was, the only way to improve usage would be to run endless calculation loops to spike usage higher and usage was a terrible metric to use for performance. That's utter BS and a cop-out if I've ever seen one. I spent time showing typical memory usage in most multiplayer scenario's, how it easily goes above 4gb and can easily approach 9-10gb over a short period of time and how rewriting data allocation from streaming based to preload based or at least a better hybrid system with less hard limitation would be beneficial, but again it really didn't matter and was given more spin on why it wouldn't be done or didn't need to be done and the current system was fine. They don't want help fixing it. They just want people to accept it how it is and keep buying their games. Something you and others seem to be excellent at which is probably why you're their target demographic and why they're successful. You're naive and you believe everything they say even though everything in front of you points to the opposite. They don't want to fix it, they don't need to fix it because there are too many people in this community and sadly this world like you who are, and forgive me for saying it, basically nothing more than sheep. You'll believe any spin they put out, like now you're arguing how they support their products so great but we're sitting here arguing back and forth about performance and it's the same argument that's been going on since ArmA and you even agree it's bad, yet they "support" their products right? Seriously, at some point words are nothing more than words and promises are broken. At least for me, it's not constant complaining or whining, I barely even post anymore. I don't even have 1 post a day for the most part. I'm also not offended by your posts, more amused and amazed by the naivety as well as the sheer hypocrisy. You seem to read this anger or malice in my posts for some reason. It's amusing. Your monkey comment is simply typical though. It's the typical ad hominem that has become common around these forums when someone has a disagreeing viewpoint and they can't dispell or disprove it with any tangible facts, kind of like how you can't and your whole viewpoint can basically be summed up as "I believe". I hate to inform you but you believing is not a fact in and of itself. You believe BI are working towards performance without tangible proof, when I have all the tangible proof in the world as performance has done nothing but gotten worse over time. The only proof you have is their word, which honestly means little compared to their work. Again your "belief" is based on naivety, it's based on the word of others rather than the hard proof/facts in front of you. I have no hard feelings towards you and it's certainly hard to feel threatened in any way by such a lack of free thought or intelligence.

Ever notice how if you have something negative or criticism, you're moaning like a child? Even though said person tells you to keep giving feedback. So what is it KeyCat, you want people to give feedback or just shut up and say nothing if you don't agree with it? :rolleyes: Also why is it that when people don't have any facts to their arguments, only opinions, they have to go ad hominem to get their point across? Ever notice that? So I'm a monkey covering his ears now because I don't submit to your logic? Actions speak louder than words. What action has been done insofar as performance and stability is concerned? That's really all that needs to be said. They can say what they want, but if they aren't actually doing it then it's utterly pointless what they say. They've been saying it for years, here we are. Also for me being a hypocrite or contradicting... I can't fix the problems with posts or words, the only people who can fix the problem are the developers. I still want to let them know that the performance is not, provide feedback just like you say to in a civil manner. Reading comprehension FTW! Seriously, how is that contradicting or hypocritical? It's almost like you just want to argue for the sake of arguing. How "Childish" to label you using your own label. You say give feedback in a civil manner and oppose that by labeling everyone childish whiners basically. Yet you can't even pose an argument without ad hominem attacks like saying I'm a monkey or calling people childish because their views differ from yours. You call people childish but you're basically the one who is childish because you apparently can't tolerate others with differing opinions. It's sad really but the saddest thing is how common it is on this forum.

I don't waste lifetimes, most of my posts took me maybe 10-20 minutes to write at most. I barely even post anymore anyways. ---------- Post added at 02:58 ---------- Previous post was at 02:49 ---------- Most of what I speak of comes from experience playing across a multitude of server environments and missions. I'm not expecting 100fps in a 100 player domination server or the like, but frankly 20 fps is very underwhelming and disappointing to say the least. I've also been in small closed coop group missions with very little actively running scripts and have seen performance drop down the same as if I was in a 50 player CTI mission because of location, object density and AI counts and just plain multiplayer being much slower than single player. If we want to start waving the stick at modders and scripters and missions makers then BI needs to both give the tools to be able to profile performance which I know there are but they also need to provide a good stable running platform on which to mod and script and design missions. The latter is where RV fails for the most part and you can't really deny that and honestly that's kind of the whole issue. I really don't think anyone is trying to say that missions and scripts and mods can't negatively affect performance, I think what we are trying to say is that classifying that as the primary reason for performance problems in RV is basically just a scapegoat.

Because it's a direct response to optimization or improving their engine. It's not reading too much into it it's simply what he says. Maybe it's more about what you read into it? What do you mean? Because I say arguing about our viewpoints when we both want the same thing ultimately is a bit redundant? Sure I mean we can go back and forth about how a indifferent attitude is so much better than a forceful attitude towards change but it's ultimately pointless. My response is more aimed at someone like JumpingHubert, someone who can't understand that people differ from him. They improve it generally for mods/modders and things they can script or add on, it seems like very few low level changes are honestly done. I think they are afraid of breaking things, but honestly that's not really an excuse. So they can't afford to upkeep their engine properly in your eyes but they can afford to shell out 500,000 euro's to modders? Riiiiiiiight....... too young to understand the logic there......... Maybe just not naive or biased enough? Seriously most of your post is borne out of your viewpoint of " It's hard to be a developer/programmer". Hard to objectively discuss with bias. It's not about them being perfect, just about priorities. ---------- Post added at 14:10 ---------- Previous post was at 14:09 ---------- Flamebait much?

As Opendome posted, it's statements like that that honestly make it sound like they blame mods as the "root" cause of performance problems. There have been other instances where they have basically said the same thing. I don't doubt that they want to improve things, or even work to improve things. What I doubt is how far they are willing to go to improve things. Honestly I don't think they are willing to go very far at all. The problem ultimately is this, IF they weren't shortsighted enough to foresee the issue's the engine has on current hardware and with scaling to the content demand of it's own developers let alone mod makers, then they either didn't deem it important enough which is stupid TBH and I highly doubt or they don't feel that it can be fixed which makes most of their comments disingenuous to a degree and the whole "Mods are a central part of performance problems" mentality a huge scapegoat and also kind of bites the hand that feeds. That's the general problem I have with where ArmA is headed and where it's at right now and honestly it's the same problem everyone else has irregardless of personal attitude or reflection towards the problem or issue. The really stupid part, we all agree there's a problem, we just sit and bitch back and forth about perspective on the problem like somehow your perspective or my perspective is going to fix it. Truthfully all I really want from a perspective standpoint is to at least try to force some change. I'm not trying to fix the problem with my words or my posts but at least trying to create some pressure on the devs letting them know it's not OK to just leave things be because we're on the 4th iteration and these are problems that have existed since the 1st. No offense to you, but I truthfully think BI cares little about how well the game runs, or it would probably run better in the first place TBH. While I think they want to improve things I think bottom line is that they care that it runs, but as far as running well I don't think they honestly care. It's not like the issue's are new or anything and it's not like they're unfixable. They could easily focus on them and could have easily focused on them before. Instead they say things are too hard. I think the bigger issue's to them are filling the game with content and fostering mods and 3rd part content on their platform. One will make them more money whereas fixing the problems will not make them any. Look at where the focus was with the "Make ArmA not War" contest, content creation. It's about selling more copies and establishing a larger player base and ultimately larger customer base. They want the next DayZ and the money that comes along with it and I've said that for a long time. It's business and if this doesn't highlight to you that BI is a business and not some indie dev or your friendly neighborhood dev who is full of rainbows and good will then frankly you're probably jaded or biased to a large degree. Sarcasm aside I dunno a better way to put it. Also I think there's some lack of individualization concerning the devs when you kind of lump them together and say "BI". It's not like I think they're inherently evil or anything. I think most "Devs" care how the game functions. When I say BI or even the "devs" I mean the corporate mentality of BI itself, not the individual developers per se and in essence so does pretty much everyone else as the individual or even group focus of developers means nothing compared to the focus of the company as a whole. You could have 100 devs who want the game to run epic and are willing to do whatever it takes, but if the company ethos is to focus on content and ignore performance problems you're forced to do just that. ---------- Post added at 05:42 ---------- Previous post was at 05:36 ---------- Not everyone shares your herp derp attitude. Get over it.