DayZ Standalone Optimization

[gesundheitk 420]

I made this topic to suggest some improvements to the engine by implementing certain fixes to the vanilla of the DayZ Standalone. While the engine in ArmA II is really spiffy, and looks good on almost any setting Normal and up, it just has a lot of problems with systems that need fixing, and there has been quite a couple solutions released from the fanbase that I think should be added, and I'll add a couple more that may help as well. I'm going to start off with some more suggestions I've seen.

First thing I think that should be addressed is an FAQ section in either the forums or the website that covers things in Optimization. I'll show these suggestions and I think all of them should be added to an FAQ.

RAMDisk

For some reason, ArmA II's engine causes your harddrive's write speed to bottleneck your frames. This can be a serious problem if you're one of those users, like me, who like grabbing cheap WD Green Harddrives and sticking your OS into an already-full SSD trying to save a couple bucks. I believe that there should be some kind of support for fixing this problem. I'm not sure if this is an architecture issue, or just something that went wrong while writing the code for this, but I think it would be nice to introduce this in the FAQ section I previously mentioned, and if possible, get this all sorted out by the time the standalone ports.

Here's the video if you want more information on it.

Support for changing your CPU settings

Another thing I would like to see implemented is the ability to change up your CPU settings. There was some nice introductions to the ArmA II: AO optimization tweaks that I saw on the BISForums and think that these should be able to be changed in some kind of easier-to-use Settings log. I think, performance-wise, this can help greatly.

Here's the tweaks I am talking about.

Dual-Core processor:

-nosplash -cpucount=2 -exThreads=1

Quad-Core processor:

-nosplash -cpucount=4 -exThreads=7

Hexacore processor:

-nosplash -cpucount=6 -exThreads=7

Ability to 'cap' your FPS

I think the ability to 'cap' your frames per second can be a great idea to be implemented into the optimzation settings. While I'm not a graphical genius, I've always noticed that games like Borderlands 2, and San Andreas, which does implement Frame Caps, really does seem to help in performance. While they may be different engines, I think the concept is still pretty viable when it applies to the Virtual Reality engine. Besides, I hate whenever I'm entering a town, and I'm so used to that 60FPS while walking through fields that it dipping down towards the 20s can really ruin the immersive(ness?). I would much rather have my CPU and GPU focusing on other things than my framerate being at random levels, such as AA. While I also realize you can use FRAPS to cap your framerate, since FRAPS kind of takes away your performance, if anything it could keep you from achieving your desired 30FPS, and while it's implemented into the system, it's not going to be such an issue like an outside program.

An example of great Optimization is Borderlands 2's settings. Keep in mind, he's also talking about how it was badly ported from PC to console.

I'll add more to this topic later, but at the moment, I'm very tired and just wanted to ship this out to you guys. What do you think of it? I decided to post it in the suggestions since it is suggesting to place these things into effect.

Thanks!

[gesundheitk 420]

I decided to bump the topic because I want more people to see the suggestion, and whether or not this is a plausible idea.

do da bump

[Mos1ey 6301]

Enable vsync and change your video output to 30Hz.

Done.

Edited December 1, 2012 by mZLY

[OrLoK 16185]

Hello there

Did not the ramdisk thread on the BiS forums eventually come to the conclusion that a software based Ramdisk was somewhat innefective with the later builds etc?

Rgds

LoK

[mr_chabowski@live.co.uk 2416]

I'm a gamer, but not a particularly software-savvy guy, so forgive me if I'm speaking shit.

RE: PC options menu,

Whether for optimisation or not, an online game of this nature needs to have some standardisation, to negate exploitable settings, such as; gamma, grass detail and draw-distance.

RE: RAMDisk

The target to optimise DayZ is confirmed to be a MAJOR part of the standalone. PC games tend not to be optimised, because there's always a new video-card, or faster processor to be had.

Having seen what's still possible on xbox360 hardware with titles, such as, Hitman Absolution and Halo 4, I have a lot of faith in the abilities of rocket and the team.

Edited December 1, 2012 by Chabowski

[gesundheitk 420]

Enable vsync and change your video output to 30Hz.

Done.

Well there are two bad things about that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but settings your monitor refresh rate lower does not do anything but cause screen tearing. And V-sync tends to have a problem of, because it is capping the frames at a certain level, when it comes down to action it will only lower it down to an even more unplayable level, such as 20FPS, which would go against completely of what it is doing.

Hello there

Did not the ramdisk thread on the BiS forums eventually come to the conclusion that a software based Ramdisk was somewhat innefective with the later builds etc?

Rgds

LoK

Yeah, I heard about that. I'm not so sure, as I know OshiSeven had posted a video about his i7 and GTX 680 actually getting a boost in FPS because of RAMDisk, but it could be a lot more reasoning than his specs. I'll look into it more.

I'm a gamer, but not a particularly software-savvy guy, so forgive me if I'm speaking shit.

RE: PC options menu,

Whether for optimisation or not, an online game of this nature needs to have some standardisation, to negate exploitable settings, such as; gamma, grass detail and draw-distance.

RE: RAMDisk

The target to optimise DayZ is confirmed to be a MAJOR part of the standalone. PC games tend not to be optimised, because there's always a new video-card, or faster processor to be had.

Having seen what's still possible on xbox360 hardware with titles, such as, Hitman Absolution and Halo 4, I have a lot of faith in the abilities of rocket and the team.

Yeah, I agree. They should really focus on changing those little details as you said, but I do believe that their focus on optimization should really model after Borderlands 2. They offered some amazing settings, and gave a lot of room to change, and that actually did something when you changed them as you would notice that boost in FPS or scenery. Eh, who knows? I have complete faith in rocket, as he has not fed us dog food atm.

luv u all :)