RAM: Impact on performance? How much?

[tortuosit 485]

Hey guys,

 

not a 100% ArmA question but hey. You see my hardware stats in my signature. This december I bought an additional 1TB SSD, but also replaced my 1600 MHz Kingston RAM against some fast 2133 RAM, fastest possible RAM for my Gigabyte Z68 something mainboard.

 

I never really was interested in RAM upgrade, but now I am under the impression this has a positive impact on FPS, kind of like "+ FPS FPS anywhere" :D. Of course I cannot measure it now... different maps/viewdisctance/AI vs. CPU/ etc. you knwo what I am talking about.

 

So is my impression a placebo thing or what do you think? As I understand the computing, fast RAM should have an impact in CPU intensive situations, when there's a lot of AI calculation going on?

 

Thanks

[Greenfist 1863]

Arma 3 CPU vs RAM performance comparison 1600-2133= up to 15% FPS gain

 

Results will vary greatly, of course, but I personally measured nearly linear increase (+10%) in fps between my default 1600MHz and 1800MHz with the same timings.

[Windays 0]

I recently went from DDR3-1600 cas 9 to DDR3-2400 cas 11 and noticed a marked improvement in FPS in ArmA. Pure anecdotal but higher average and top end FPS but same low end FPS. The problem for me though isn't how high I can get the FPS it's always been can I get that FPS while doing anything of importance? Standing at a typical base in some domination/AAS mission on a random server I noticed easily a 10-12 FPS increase over normal. Once I got to where the fighting was though performance dropped like it usually does down to the same level, usually around 19-24 FPS.

[tortuosit 485]

Thanks guys! Yes of course, performance drop to absolute zero is what we all love about ArmA :D - it would not be ArmA if we lost this wonderful feature.

[ineptaphid 6413]

This is an interesting topic.In the last year my PC has mutated from :M/B H81M, CPU i5 4440, GPU GTX760,RAM 8GB of generic Crucial @ 1600.   It is now M/B z97K,CPU i54690K,GPU GTX980,RAM 16GB Hyper X Savage @24000

 

I have always had okay performance and I tend to run A3 on V.High settings with View distance at about 2000 and Obj.view at 1500 with 60fps on an empty map and about 30-40 on the normal SP missions I play.

Stangely though ,there has not been much change at all since upgrading.Maybe 5fps here and there-nothing noticable. I have not OC'd the CPU yet-Planning that for when my cooler arrives next week. I would have thought I would see a bigger change.I don't mind-it's just strange like I say.

[St. Jimmy 272]

This is an interesting topic.In the last year my PC has mutated from :M/B H81M, CPU i5 4440, GPU GTX760,RAM 8GB of generic Crucial @ 1600.   It is now M/B z97K,CPU i54690K,GPU GTX980,RAM 16GB Hyper X Savage @24000

 

I have always had okay performance and I tend to run A3 on V.High settings with View distance at about 2000 and Obj.view at 1500 with 60fps on an empty map and about 30-40 on the normal SP missions I play.

Stangely though ,there has not been much change at all since upgrading.Maybe 5fps here and there-nothing noticable. I have not OC'd the CPU yet-Planning that for when my cooler arrives next week. I would have thought I would see a bigger change.I don't mind-it's just strange like I say.

You also need to enable the XMP profile or OC manually the RAM so it goes to that 2400MHz. It's 1600MHz normally. Saying just in case.

[cosmic10r 2324]

I would say it entirely depends on what you had compared to what you are going to and then how cost effective that is.

I just got a new h100i gtx after my h100i pump died and I'm running at 4.4 ghz and with arma going I get about 54 degrees for the processor amd upwards of 60fps inland in and over 100 near the coast line. In mp on dedicated I'm getting in and around 40-50. Base clock is 3.2 with a 3.8 turbo.

The cooler was a similar cost to a ram upgrade but gained me more than 10% fps gain when over clocked. Depends what you are comfortable with.

What cooler did you order?

[PuFu 4591]

16GB Hyper X Savage @24000

holly batshit 24000MHz? you from the future?

[ineptaphid 6413]

holly batshit 24000MHz? you from the future?

Ah...remove one zero there. ;) To the two comments above:yes I have enabled XMP and the cooler is the 212 Evo.

[cosmic10r 2324]

Ah...remove one zero there. ;) To the two comments above:yes I have enabled XMP and the cooler is the 212 Evo.

I've read that is a good air cooler too. From a technical standpoint it would be interesting to run the arma benchmark now. Then after you install new cooler and then with OC.

[ineptaphid 6413]

I've read that is a good air cooler too. From a technical standpoint it would be interesting to run the arma benchmark now. Then after you install new cooler and then with OC.

Yeah-which benchmark though?Never found one I like and there is no official one,is there?

[KeyCat 131]

Ah...remove one zero there. ;) To the two comments above:yes I have enabled XMP and the cooler is the 212 Evo.

 

It's a pretty good cooler and I use one myself on a i7 6700K @ 4.7 GHz.

 

/KC

[cosmic10r 2324]

Yeah-which benchmark though?Never found one I like and there is no official one,is there?

No there isn't an official one...

I always used helos so I have a control cuz I've been using it since it came out..

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/142875-arma3mark-benchmark-your-arma-3/

Greenfist has a nice one too

https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/177406-yet-another-arma-benchmark/

  

It's a pretty good cooler and I use one myself on a i7 6700K @ 4.7 GHz.

 

/KC

Wow...that's sweet. what kinda Temps are u getting at 4.7

[KeyCat 131]

Wow...that's sweet. what kinda Temps are u getting at 4.7

 

Temperature is ~30 C idle and ~80 C when pushed. Not cold at load but the i7 has a rated TJmax of 100 C so it's well below that.

 

In my first post I forgot to answer OP about RAM speed and I always benefited from fast RAM in OFP>A3, my current speed is 3000 MHz. You will not double your FPS but it will be noticeable, ~15% gain as mentioned above is probably a good number to expect.

 

/KC

[Tankbuster 1733]

I changed from 16GB of DDR3 1333 in 4 sticks to 16GB of 1866 in two sticks. I've seen a small, but noticeable improvement in performance.

 

In my Domination edit, I've managed to recover a few client FPS with code optimisation, this new RAM has gained a solid couple more FPS.

[cosmic10r 2324]

Slightly off topic

One thing I noted while constantly benching the game for my system with the helo mission is that after the update to the memory allocator a few updates ago... in fast scene switches I didn't get pop in like I used to where you could watch the ground textures load in.

[ineptaphid 6413]

Slightly off topic

One thing I noted while constantly benching the game for my system with the helo mission is that after the update to the memory allocator a few updates ago... in fast scene switches I didn't get pop in like I used to where you could watch the ground textures load in.

Memory allocator?

[Greenfist 1863]

Slightly off topic

One thing I noted while constantly benching the game for my system with the helo mission is that after the update to the memory allocator a few updates ago... in fast scene switches I didn't get pop in like I used to where you could watch the ground textures load in.

Yeah, the 1.52 updated the default one to newer version. I didn't notice any difference with it, but I get more texture pop-ins in the current dev branch, which apparently has different allocators again. Of course, the reason might be something else too.

Have you tried Dwarden's performance mallocs? With SSE2? (info) (download)

[cosmic10r 2324]

Yeah, the 1.52 updated the default one to newer version. I didn't notice any difference with it, but I get more texture pop-ins in the current dev branch, which apparently has different allocators again. Of course, the reason might be something else too.

Have you tried Dwarden's performance mallocs? With SSE2? (info) (download)

 

One of the reasons you are my hero Sir!

 

from another performance thread

So quick test with those settings yielded me 51

 

Note i did go back to Vanilla as previous score was modded fairly heavily.

 

I changed cloud to standard and PIP to off. 

That bumped it up to 55fps  in the test

 

then i changed resolution to 1440p 

with same settings as right above, it yielded 54fps

 

Okayyyyy.... and update

 

I just installed Dwardens performance malloc.

at 1440p using same settings as last two tests... 54fps... buuuuutt

 

at 1080p

It gave me 63 which is a 8fps jump just using the malloc at 1080p

 

These were my tests... at 1080p i got an 8 fps jump with the sse2 one

[tortuosit 485]

So now after a while with the new RAM I am heavily under the impression this helped A LOT. Noticable. Like I gained 10+ FPS on average. Of course I have no technical precise comparison, but this is just how it feels.

[pvt. partz 248]

   I just bought some new RAM because I am getting so much stuttering even though my fps are generally around 40. It's expecially bad when I scope and zoom. Then when I "unscope", (is that even a word?) the graphics take a long second to regenerate, as opposed to instantly. My hardware is getting a tad old but still shouldn't be so sluggish.

   I'll report in when I get it installed.

Edited February 8, 2016 by pvt. partz

[ineptaphid 6413]

   I just bought some new RAM because I am getting so much stuttering even though my fps are generally around 40. It's expecially bad when I scope and zoom. Then when I "unscope", (is that even a word?) the graphics take a long second to regenerate, as opposed to instantly. My hardware is getting a tad old but still should be so sluggish.

   I'll report in when I get it installed.

Even with my new ram I had this issue-the thing that fixed it was Dwardens Malloc-it basically eliminated zoom stutter. I recommend anyone to use it-I gained a consistant 9 fps increase in the benchmark mission running 5 times in a row-up from 47 to 56.

Quick explanation of how to use here : https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/187645-non-optimal-system-perfomance-on-an-over-the-spec-system/

[pvt. partz 248]

 

Even with my new ram I had this issue-the thing that fixed it was Dwardens Malloc

 

    I was reading what you were discussing, regarding the malloc fix, on another post and decided to give it a go. I think it's just the type of missions I play (Pilgrimage/ROADS/etc) which I think is very demanding. I'm not sure if I am noticing any change by using the malloc or not. Maybe I'll make a short mission in the editor and try to compare with and without.

[ineptaphid 6413]

    I was reading what you were discussing, regarding the malloc fix, on another post and decided to give it a go. I think it's just the type of missions I play (Pilgrimage/ROADS/etc) which I think is very demanding. I'm not sure if I am noticing any change by using the malloc or not. Maybe I'll make a short mission in the editor and try to compare with and without.

Well what i did to compare was ran this- http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=19802

 

Run the Altis mission and check your score before using the malloc and then after.Myself and others ran it before and after 4 or 5 times and got consistently higher fps.Between 6-10 seems to be the norm. I run Pilgrimage and roads and other big SP missions as well-you should try it.

[tortuosit 485]

Even with my new ram I had this issue-the thing that fixed it was Dwardens Malloc-it basically eliminated zoom stutter. I recommend anyone to use it-I gained a consistant 9 fps increase in the benchmark mission running 5 times in a row-up from 47 to 56.

Quick explanation of how to use here : https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/187645-non-optimal-system-perfomance-on-an-over-the-spec-system/

The SSE2 one? And will it be replaced with an ArmA update? I guess it will happen...