Low FPS ? - things to check

[gambla 118]

Low FPS - things to check :

First thing is that you won't get far if your hardware is just too weak or drivers are outdated. Have a first look at section "General" below. But if you follow each step, adding only some FPS

at each stage, you may can improve your minimal FPS significantly, probably to get it playable at all.

Why is it so hard to get decent FPS ?

1) Have a look into Wikipedia and read that A2 is from 2009, with the engine developed for 10 years. So the engine was developed and tested with available hardware of 2009 and later.

2) Read about what A2 is calculating realtime: "Every weapon in the game fires projectiles with real trajectories, drop off, and penetration characteristics. As such, no weapon system in the game is a "guaranteed" hit – only after the engine has simulated the event can it be determined if a given shot or missile has hit the target."

3) A2 offers a true and realistic open world that "features realistic day-night cycles, changing weather, fog and visibility, and a view distance of up to 15 kilometres"

Optimizing ArmA2 is basically only possible with a lot of testing. When you are starting with the video options, do not set everything to "low". A2 can perform better or equal with some settings on "high" or even "very high". Start your tests with all on "very high" except AF /AA on low, they have the biggest impact. This is caused by the engine moving the load to CPU or GPU for different settings.

I plan to update regularly. If you like it, we may can have it pinned.

my own Hardware:

All of this tested with my rig: ASUS P8P67 - Corei5-2500K@4400 - 8GB@1600 - GTX570 Phantom - OS: SSD 840Pro - DayZ: SSD OCZ Vertex1 - Win 7 Pro 64bit

For comparison of your basic gaming performance, my benchmark results :

3DMark06 30007

3DMark11 v1.01 P5959

3DMark Vantage P23374

3DMark Ice Storm 162272

3DMark Cloud Gate 16483

3DMark Fire Strike 3855

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

General

1) update Windows for performance / security (+ directx)

2) Install latest drivers for System/Mainboard and Videocard (GPU).

3) Compare general Gaming Performance with e.g. "3DMark" at http://www.futuremark.com (no advertising) or other tools

4) Compare builtin A2/OA benchmark performance at BI Studios: http://forums.bistudio.com/forum.php

5) Use tools like "CoreTemp" or "OpenHardwareMonitor" for

- check if CPU Turbo Mode working (intel)

- Logging min/max values of CPU speed and utilisation of CPU / GPU - (find bottleneck)

6) Use tools like "MSI Afterburner" for

- check if GPU switches to 3D mode

- GPU speed

- memory usage

7) Disable any Security Software only for testing (!) (disable LAN to stay safe)

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ArmA 2 / OA - updates / beta patches:

1) Update ArmA to the latest patch: http://www.arma2.com...=folder〈=en

2) Test beta patches from: http://www.arma2.com/beta-patch.php

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

biggest impact on your FPS:

a ) Hardware

- CPU and frequency (Mhz)

- GPU = Videocard

- SSD / HDD = streaming data

- Screen Resolution

b ) Video Options:

- Visibilty > 1600

- Postprocess effects > disable

- Video memory > default (uses all memory)

- Anisitropic filtering > low / normal

- Antialiasing > low / normal

- HDR quality > low / normal

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ArmA2.cfg and ArmA2OA.cfg - config files

-found in: C:\Users\yourname\Documents\ArmA 2

-after changes don't forget to set the file to "locked" (file properties)

ArmA2.cfg (default) of my GTX570:

language="English";

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=93750;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

Resolution_W=1920; > this should match Render_W

Resolution_H=1200; > this should match Render_H

refresh=60;

Render_W=1920;

Render_H=1200;

FSAA=1;

postFX=0;

HDRPrecision=8; > test different values, "0" should give best performance

lastDeviceId="";

localVRAM=1309081600;

nonlocalVRAM=2147483647;

winX=16;

winY=32;

winW=1920;

winH=1200;

winDefW=1920;

winDefH=1200;

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000; > test different values, like "0" or "1" - lower values can have major impact for ATI cards

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=2; > test different values, like "0" or "1" - lower values can have major impact for ATI cards

Windowed=0;

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hardware utilization CPU / GPU:

original thread at BI forums: http://forums.bistud...bla#post2169677

To verify my hardware's utilization running ArmA 2 / OA, i've done some measurements.

Tools: "Core Temp" and "MSI Afterburner".

Benchmark Scenarios:

1) ArmA2 Bench B02 - many AI units, heavy action, explosions, one scene (avg score: 25 FPS)

2) A2OA Bench E08 - few AI units, less action, different scenes (avg score: 73 FPS)

(note: The benchmarks were run twice in a row, so measurements include some seconds before, after and between, affecting the results)

Video Settings:

Visibilty 1600 (def.)

Brightness 1,0

Gamma 1,0

Quality Preference Very High

Interface Res. 1920x1200

3D Res. 1920x1200

Texture details very high

Video Memory default

Anisitropic Filter normal

Anti Aliasing normal

Terrain details very high

Object details very high

Shadow details very high

HDR Quality normal

Postprocess disabled

Blood low

results:

-Underlines known fact that A2 demands powerfull CPU and GPU.

-All four CPU cores are equally utilized.

-Both benchmarks are primarily very CPU heavy.

-E08 with different scenes, is very CPU and GPU demanding.

-B02 is limited by CPU due to many AI units and action, GPU core / GPU mem load is surprisingly low.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

SSD vs. HDD comparison credits to members "LikeASomebodyy" and "=DiG= Zgraphz"

"First off, SDD doesn't affect FPS directly, it affects the job the processor and gpu handle, if the pbo files are moved slow, fps is low, move the files fast, fps is high because the processor and

gpu are no longer bottle necking" (=DiG= Zgraphz)

Testing Environment: (Controlled Variables) (LikeASomebodyy)

GFX: EVGA Nvidia GTX 660ti

CPU: Intel i5 2500k @ 3.3GHZ (stock)

RAM: 8GB Corsair 1600 MHZ

HDD: 7200 RPM Hitachi 250GB

SSD: OCZ Vertex 4 64GB

Nvidia Driver 314.22

Latest DayZ and Beta patch

Program Settings:

RESULTS: (Benchmark over 60 seconds)

HDD: FPS

• Min:22
  
• Max:27
  
• Average: 24
  

​SSD: FPS

• Min: 35
  
• Max: 52
  
• Average: 44
  

​

Source Files:

HDDMINMAX.txt 71bytes 2 downloads

SSDMINMAX.txt 71bytes 2 downloads

Video Comparison: (Same server is being played in both videos)

HDD:

SSD:

Conclusion by "LikeASomebodyy" :

"Besides speeding up loading times significantly, an SSD will increase DayZ performance by around 15-20 FPS. If you already have a pre-existing SSD I highly recommend installing Arma2, Arma2 OA and DayZ on it, as it will make your DayZ experience more enjoyable."

original thread: http://dayzmod.com/f...dayz-completed/

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

System Energy Options credits to member "shadowboxer"

According to your "energy saving plan" and after the preset time, Windows powers down certain devices for saving energy. According to shadowboxer's experience, this had a significant impact on his FPS. HighEnd systems may not profit but it should be set to "High Performance".

found in: System Properties / System and Security / Energy Options > choose "High Performance"

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RAM drive credits to member "shadowboxer"

RAM prices should be still low, so if you already got a powerful CPU and graphicscard, you may should consider buying / upgrade to > 8 Gig RAM.

8 Gig should be the minimum for installing a RAMdrive. The typical Ramdrive for playing Dayz doesn't need to be bigger as e.g. 650 mb. You only need

to be aware that these Ramdrives reserve and lock this size of RAM from your system's RAM.

See the size of DayZ mods below: (list by Shadowboxer)

Dayz:Chenarus: 260mb

Dayz:Epoch: 550mb

Dayz:Fallujah: 550mb

Dayz:Isla Duala: 830mb

Dayz Lingor: 1.5gb

Dayz:Utes: 250mb

Dayz:Zargabad: 250mb

Dayz:+: 250mb

nice tutorial by: "OshiSeven"

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Audio Options:

- in addition to the optimisations a.m. above, turning down the "Samples" from default "32" down to "16" could have a light CPU impact

- a dedicated Soundcard is always recommended (can't test it)

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Feel free to add more useful improvements, resources and any other proven help.

cheers,

gam

Edited June 23, 2013 by gambla

[DirtyCry 118]

8) Get knowledge about anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering and different resolutions.

Edited June 3, 2013 by DirtyCry

[KateUpton 6]

8) Get knowledge about anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering and different resolutions.

Agreed, resolution can make you lag intensely. Same with the others.

[KateUpton 6]

Watch this video, If you followed it correctly your fps will improve. This video also helps you spot targets(snipers) more easily.

EDIT: This video was not made by me! Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheKtulu123?feature=watch

Rgds

K

Edited June 3, 2013 by KateUpton

[OrLoK 16186]

Hello there

If you want your list to be considered for pinning it needs a lot more useful info in it to raise it out of the norm. I'd scour the many many many fps threads here as well as the optimisation threads in BiS' forum etc.

Rgds

LoK

Guys, try to keep all the info to one topic.

Edited June 3, 2013 by orlok

[gambla 118]

Hello there

If you want your list to be considered for pinning it needs a lot more useful info in it to raise it out of the norm.

Thanks Lok,

there's not so much more really useful and confirmed (!) optimisations. I'll only add things that are proven, there are too many myths and false informations about increasing fps in A2. And i don't want to make this a competition. You guys decide if pinning or not.

[gambla 118]

Updated, any comments and suggestions are appreciated. Tell me what you think, thanks.

[gambla 118]

added sections:

Hardware utilization CPU / GPU

System Energy Options

RAM drive

Edited June 9, 2013 by gambla

[shadowboxer (DayZ) 6]

added sections:

Hardware utilization CPU / GPU

System Energy Options

RAM drive

hey, for the ramdrive section,if you want you could add when using ramdisk, it is not a necessity to use 4gb of ram, for example my ramdisk is 650mb, however that even is too much as dayZ-chenarus is 260mb big, in other words you only need to make it as big the file is, of course other mods are useless for this as they are of a considerable size,(4gb max for free ramdisk). but u are right on recommending atleast 8gb min of ram people should have to make an actual ramdisk, it also should be added for people with below 8gb or ram or less ramdisks shouldnt be higher than 1gb-1.5gb of ram as once the ram becomes a "drive" on it's own using ramdisk it cannot be used for normal system tasks (eg: running google chrome).it in a sense locks its usage only for exe's/programs "inside" the ramdrive itself

List of dayZ mods ramdisk is optimal for :

Dayz:Chenarus:260mb

Dayz:Epoch-550mb

Dayz:Fallujah:550mb

Dayz:Isla Duala:830mb

Dayz Lingor:1.5gb

Dayz:Utes: 250mb

Dayz:Zargabad:250mb

Dayz:+:250mb

EDIT: I got these figures from play with six

Edited June 12, 2013 by shadowboxer

[gambla 118]

great, thanks Shadowboxer

Hi Mods,

we get posts about fps issues daily. We really like to help the people, but they should work this list first. Correct me from wrong but i see the list nearly complete, updates as needed.

Could you now consider having it pinned ?

thank you

[gambla 118]

- added section "Audio Options"

Had some more tests : For the inbuilt ArmA2 OA Benchmark E08, i've gained a max. of 8 fps with these config setttings:

(It may has a bigger impact for low end systems and quality suffers when disabling AA.)

FSAA= 0

postFX= 0

GPU_MaxFramesAhead= 1

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead= 2

HDRPrecision= 0

Don't forget to set the arma2oa.cfg to "locked" (write protected).

Edited June 12, 2013 by gambla

[gambla 118]

Sadly, members seem to ignore this thread or are just unable to use the search function. My second request to the Mods, to have the thread pinned, is ignored again too.

It's ok for me, just wanted to help the people, but it's a waste of my time. So please close this thread, it's not updated anymore.

thanks,

gam

[=DiG= Zgraphz 84]

Let me school you all on the wounders of the world of ARMA, Changing the text files doesn't really do much of anything anymore(it's outdated) Useing the best system hardware is over rated. Why people think that dayz/ arma sucks, iit shouldn't suck because oh f me i have a good computer... why the f is it going so fing slow? hummm why is this happing, im gonna go look at a 100,000 other people asking the same question but no one is looking for the fing answer!. Its fing simple ladies and gentlemen. ARMA 2 REVOLVES AROUND INDEX SEARCHING!!!!!! hence the reason the enitre fing game is made up of hundreds of PBO files that are changed and modified for certain dlc's/missions/ guns/items everything, if your POS HDD isn't fast enough, it does not matter wtf you do to your setting, the game will always run like shit. u can have a beast computer, if your HDD is slow then your game is gonna suffer, i've played arma since 2009 i know every single little in and out that game has to offer, dayz even more so. FPS boosters, goahead( if you want your cd-key stolen) going out spending 400+dollars for a upgrade that didn't even make anything run faster... Get a SSD. get a gtx ge force 4 series or up, get a processor either Intel or AMD faster than 3.2 GHZ, and have atleast 6-8gigs of free ram. bam your shit is gonna run atleast 60fps on highest settings allowed, Lowest settigns allowed would give you about 115-125 fps. thank you ladies and gents good day!

Edited June 18, 2013 by =DiG= Zgraphz

[=DiG= Zgraphz 84]

nvidia ge-force gtx 660ti

Intel extreme duo 72esi 64gig Mother Board

Standard western 1TB digital Hard Drive 7200rpm

32Gigs of RAM

100Mbps Internet connection

850wat Thermal Lake powersupply

Corsairs h55 Water cooler pump.

You see that system spec, you'd think that would run Dayz like a champ. nope i had only 35 fps outside of cities and 15-25 fps in cities.

I decided to make a few changes so pay attention to the change.

nvidia ge-force gtx 660ti

Intel extreme duo 72esi 64gig Mother Board

Standard western 1TB digital Hard Drive 7200rpm

120GB Intel SSD(i installed Steam/arma/dayz) a

32Gigs of RAM

100Mbps Internet connection

850wat Thermal Lake powersupply

Corsairs h55 Water cooler pump.

now i get 70 fps no matter where i'm and that's with the settings on the highest possible, even tweaked my g-cards control panel for better image quality.

[LikeASomebodyy 6]

My specs are:

EVGA Nvidia 660ti GTX

Intel i5 2500k @ 3.3 GHZ

Corsair 8 GB RAM @ 1600 MHZ

Right now I've got Arma2, DayZ and Arma OA on my HDD which is an old 250GB 7200 RPM Hitachi and I will later reinstall it on my 64GB OCZ Vertex 4 SSD to test Zgraphz's theory.

I'll make sure to document everything and try to keep the testing environment similar. I've got an ass ton of free time right now.

Edited June 21, 2013 by LikeASomebodyy

[LikeASomebodyy 6]

Also his SSD is faster than mine so results won't be similar but it will be important to see if any significant increase in frames per second is observed.

[=DiG= Zgraphz 84]

i got a intel in my wifes computer, inside my computer i have the 120gb Kingston SSD, remember SSD doesn't increase FPS it just makes the Process between cpu and gpu alot easier thus no bottle necking on the HDD/SSD. Get the cheapest one, it'll still run circles are the 7200rpm

though, i did install her SSD on my pc to run a few stress test, did i notice a huge difference? not enough to make a fuss. so technically its all about size. (if your hardcore performance gamer, then yea go intel)

Edited June 21, 2013 by =DiG= Zgraphz

[LikeASomebodyy 6]

:beans:

For some reason, my thread with the results were deleted?

Edit: just merged with another thread

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/140532-why-ssd-is-good-for-arma2dayz-completed/

Edited June 22, 2013 by LikeASomebodyy

[gambla 118]

Update: Added section SSD / HDD comparison

Please feel free to correct any bad English. I'm not a native speaker.

Edited June 22, 2013 by gambla

[ShoxRacing 0]

I did everything in your post apart from the Ramdisk thing, i ran the 3DMark - http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/816035

Back when mod was quite new i never had such terrible fps problems,

in empty areas with no zombies i get 15-25 fps, inside buildings i get 30.

My most demanding game is bf3 and i run that fine at constant 60 on high with things like anti aliasing off.

Grid 2 being my newest new game i get constant 60 with everything on high too.

Edited June 22, 2013 by ShoxRacing

[monoking 22]

Arma 2 is extremely cpu dependant, an i5 or i7 clocked around 5.0ghz will get u acceptable frames on med only. BF3 doesn't stress the cpu much as arma 2 and atleast uses all cores/threads properly.

[gambla 118]

I did everything in your post apart from the Ramdisk thing, i ran the 3DMark - http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/816035

Back when mod was quite new i never had such terrible fps problems,

in empty areas with no zombies i get 15-25 fps, inside buildings i get 30.

My most demanding game is bf3 and i run that fine at constant 60 on high with things like anti aliasing off.

Grid 2 being my newest new game i get constant 60 with everything on high too.

Hi,

i'll check your scores tomorrow. Your rig isn't bad, that's right. But most AMD/ATI rigs just don't run well with A2. Which beta build have you installed ? There was one of the last that had a bad impact on your fps.

[ShoxRacing 0]

to be honest i didnt install any build, steam done it for me

[gambla 118]

1) You can check the patch / beta patch / build version here:

- start Arma2OA and check version at the bottom right

- start Dayz Commander and check install/update

Check DayzCommander for the versions run by Servers, then dl your client version (see first post). I don't use Steam so i have no clue how it works using Steam. Others may can help here.

> See this thread about the patch causing massive lag / fps drop.

2) Your scores seem fine but you need to compare your scores at futuremark. Compare your own with the results of other members using same hardware.

Edited June 23, 2013 by gambla