a SIMPLE guide to getting the most FPS

[GrumpyGat (DayZ) 497]

The FPS Dilemma

So, I have been seeing a ton of posts every week about how to really maximize the amount of juice you can squeeze out of your rig to get this game running with acceptable frame rate.

Unfortunately a lot of these include downloading programs, changing windows properties, harassing your parents for a better CPU, or tinkering with the your ARMA2 video settings.

Sure some of these solutions might work for some of you, but if your rig isn't at the current industry standard, then you will end up bogging down your CPU even more. I want to step up and give you the most simple and straight forward solution there is, and all it takes is tweaking your video settings the correct way.

Before you start

1. Before we do anything, Launch Arma, go to the video settings and click the default button. We want to start clean and fresh and work our way up to a nicely balanced setup.
   
2. Make sure you close any background programs, tasks, virus scans, torrents, or anything else that may effect your systems performance.
   
3. This isn't a required step but its always good to defragment your hard drive. Now, this isn't going to have any effect on your frame rate, but It will improve loading times, and overall performance. REMEMBER, never ever under any circumstances defragment a Solid State Drive (SSD). An SSD works completely different to a conventional hard disk and does not fragment files.
   
4. Sometimes, It's good to just open up your PC's case (if it's a desktop) and vacuum the inside. you can do this by using the vacuum hose attachment. be careful not to rub the end of the hose against any of the internal components! You don't want to risk damaging something. Make sure you get the fans on the CPU, the case, and the power supply. If you press the end of the hose flat against a fan just right, the fan will begin to spin at high speed, blowing out the dust. Alternatively you can use compressed air.
   

Ready to begin

Arma will decide whether to use your CPU, or your GPU, depending on your settings. Not many people know this and end up dropping their settings down, and not taking advantage of the GPU. This game is not well optimized and can put a heavy load on your CPU, so your going to need something with at least 3ghz to run it at a comfortable FPS. If your CPU can't run at that speed, don't fret! it's not the end of the world. If you have a decent GPU then you may be able to put the load on that. These days GPUs are very affordable and a lot of models can be overclocked, making them perform in the range of their higher end counterparts. I will not be going into overclocking in this tutorial as it is a long and arduous process and it differs from card to card. Now if you have a newer CPU, i5 or i7, and a current generation GPU then these settings should have you running at a solid 60fps. Mind you, Chernarus is a pretty intensive map. I'm running Arma on a 240gb Kingston SSD, in a i7 3770k OC'd to 4.9ghz, with a GALAXY GeForce GTX 660ti 3gb GPU and I STILL get frame drop in the bigger cities. It's just something you gotta accept with a game that isn't fully optimized. But our goal today is to get you running at a reasonable FPS, Ideally we want you within the 25-30FPS range. After 30 frame per second the difference is quite subtle.

Settings

If you don't have a good GPU installed, but you think your CPU can take it, these are the settings I would recommend:

• Visibility: 1500
  
• Texture Detail: Normal
  
• Video Memory: Normal
  
• Anisotropic Filtering: Normal (Used disabled if you are still having issues.)
  
• Antialiasing: Low (If you are still having issues disable it.)
  
• Terrain Detail: Low
  
• Object Detail: Normal
  
• Shadow Detail: Low
  
• HDR Quality: Low
  
• Postprocess Effects: Disabled (this is very important, this feature is useless.)
  

* You can play with the visibility until you are happy and you can turn the object detail down if you are still having issues. This should get you to a solid 25-30fps using just the CPU. The most intensive settings that will effect your performance are Antialiasing, and shading. Bring these down as low as they can go if your not happy with your framerate.

Now for those of you who have a good GPU, but a lower end CPU.

• Visibility: 2000
  
• Texture Detail: High
  
• Video Memory: High
  
• Anisotropic Filtering: High (Either use high, or disable it to avoid using your processor.)
  
• Antialiasing: Low (If you are still having issues disable it all together.)
  
• Terrain Detail: High
  
• Object Detail: High
  
• Shadow Detail: High
  
• HDR Quality: Low
  
• Postprocess Effects: Disabled (this is very important, this feature is useless.)
  

*These settings will put nearly the entire load onto your GPU and should keep things running in the optimal range. If you are still having issues the first things to address are your Visibility, Shadow Detail, and Antialiasing.

Now for those of you who have a High end CPU, and a top of the line GPU.

• Visibility: 4000
  
• Texture Detail: Very High
  
• Video Memory: Very High
  
• Anisotropic Filtering: High
  
• Antialiasing: Normal (If you are still having issues disable it all together.)
  
• Terrain Detail: Very High
  
• Object Detail: Very High
  
• Shadow Detail: High
  
• HDR Quality: Low
  
• Postprocess Effects: Disabled (this should always be disabled. disabling it will also effectively removes the stupid blurring when your low on blood.)
  

*These are the settings I run my rig at and I get a solid 60fps the majority of the time.

Final Notes

One thing to keep in mind is that sometimes, FPS lag can even be caused by a server with poor performance. The data packets being requested by your Arma client can be slowed by the servers connection or even your own, and cause the client to slow its whole process to sync with the incoming data, giving you the feeling of choppiness or lag. When your changing the settings above, do it while you are in the single player editor, it acts as a great control for your tweaking. I hope this is helpful to some of you and if you have any questions please shoot me a reply, I am always happy to help!

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

Great work grumpygat :beans:

[Death_Dealer 3155]

Looks great but video memory should be set to "Default". When you set it to low, normal, high, etc that's setting a cap on how much your video card performs, so it doesn't work to its full potential.

[Chris529 380]

Looks great but video memory should be set to "Default". When you set it to low, normal, high, etc that's setting a cap on how much your video card performs, so it doesn't work to its full potential.

I heard this from other guides as well

[NozRee 4]

doesnt the visibility work in dayz mod?

[Muncywolverine 236]

Thanks grumpy, i followed your advice and did get a noticable improvement.

One question though if i may.

1. I have a 3.6ghz cpu and a 1.5gb gpu (I think). What option setup would i want to take? (Meaning CPU or GPU based)

And yes i know my computer sucks. Haha.

Edited June 28, 2013 by Muncywolverine

[burritoman259 593]

Isn't draw distance on regular chernarus capped at 1800 meters?

[GrumpyGat (DayZ) 497]

Thanks grumpy, i followed your advice and did get a noticable improvement.

One question though if i may.

1. I have a 3.6ghz cpu and a 1.5gb gpu (I think). What option setup would i want to take? (Meaning CPU or GPU based)

And yes i know my computer sucks. Haha.

Your system doesn't sound that bad at all, I would start with the 2nd option, and slowly work your way up to where you are comfortable.

[GrumpyGat (DayZ) 497]

Isn't draw distance on regular chernarus capped at 1800 meters?

Officially yes, but I find it still makes a difference, perhaps the client still renders distant objects but simply doesn't allow you to see them.

[Aporis 422]

gtx 560ti and fx 6300 3.6ghz 6core CPU, 8 gb ram should i go for the second option Grumpy?

[Hetstaine 10852]

i5 @ 3.8ghz , gtx560ti and 4 gig ram on win7.

2013-06-28 19:13:31 - arma2oa

Frames: 3076 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 51.267 - Min: 29 - Max: 67

[DemonGroover 8836]

You Gamma Exploiter!!!!!!!!!!

[mickie9998 2]

You Gamma Exploiter!!!!!!!!!!

You're really an oppressing moderator.

The forums itself doesn't have much life left

and you would have to loosen it up to make it vigor.

[Rage VG 4033]

You're really an oppressing moderator.

The forums itself doesn't have much life left

and you would have to loosen it up to make it vigor.

And what, pray tell, are you basing that on?

[OhDan 39]

The visibility in DayZ is set at a default 1600 I believe

[RJTurneR 112]

Good tip for anyone, having over 60FPS on a 60Hz monitor with no V-Sync is pointless. If you have a 60Hz monitor, and are running at 100FPS, you will see a lot of screen tearing, because the monitor can not (Simply put) keep up. So if you leave V-Sync on, it will limit your FPS to 60, which is all you need really. You will only notice a considerable difference when running 90-100FPS when your playing on a 120Hz monitor.

I run a 3570k @ 4.5Ghz, x2 6870's in Crossfire, and triple SSD's, yet leave V-Sync on and then put all my other settings on High/Very High, excluding Postprocess, and will hit 60FPS solid and consistently when recording as well.

V-Sync is your friend, believe me.

[burritoman259 593]

You're really an oppressing moderator.

The forums itself doesn't have much life left

and you would have to loosen it up to make it vigor.

*Faceplam* Did you know, Believe it or not, It was a joke.

[Stoddy15 19]

What do you recommend for a 3570k, 8GB Ram and a GTX 770 for playing at 1080p? Should I have problems with SA with my system?

[RJTurneR 112]

3570k is one of the best price to performence CPU's out there right now, I have one myself, will handle DayZ easily, and should remain that way with the SA. If you haven't overclocked, or don't know how, it is worth doing so. The 3570k will OC pretty easily given good cooling and given how ArmA is CPU intensive, OC'ing won't go a miss. You should be able to run with majority of settings set to High, exluding Postprocess effects as it looks horrible with that on.

Not sure how much the 770 will help, the 700 series is new and I haven't seen much on them, but I can only guess they will handle DayZ fine, given how it is more CPU intensive anyway.

[DemonGroover 8836]

You're really an oppressing moderator.

The forums itself doesn't have much life left

and you would have to loosen it up to make it vigor.

Great joke.

Hang on.........

[GrumpyGat (DayZ) 497]

What do you recommend for a 3570k, 8GB Ram and a GTX 770 for playing at 1080p? Should I have problems with SA with my system?

Your system sounds decent, i would again go with the second option and then just bring it up and down where needed. and remember to disable the few options I specified in the post.

Also, the SA should be much more optimized than Arma so there should be any foreseeable problems.

[Cap'n (DayZ) 1827]

What kind of settings should someone with a 7870 and a 6300 go for? I'd assume mostly high(as I have it now), but I like to turn my AA up to normal/high because I've seen AA disabled and that ain't pretty.

[GrumpyGat (DayZ) 497]

What kind of settings should someone with a 7870 and a 6300 go for? I'd assume mostly high(as I have it now), but I like to turn my AA up to normal/high because I've seen AA disabled and that ain't pretty.

The 7870 is a good card, I would say high across he board should be just fine, and normal AA should be fine too. Again aslong as you are 30fps and above, you can fine tune it to your preferences.

[andrewmont 91]

Video Memory should always be set to default, shadow detail disabled will help FPS. Although defragmenting doesn't necessarily help your FPS much the placement of files on your hard disk will. I don't know if you had read my post on FPS but the software I had recommended wasn't for its defrag abilities but for the ability to move Arma 2 to the outer tracks of your hard drive.

[AbyssalNova 0]

Hi I'm new I've yet to download DayZ mod I have only downloaded the game so far doing the tutorial I am lagging very hard but I am defragging, updating graphics cards, and doing as much as I can I don't know why but I usually lag on steam games but I can run League of Legends on High pretty good but here even on everything low I have trouble..

My CPU is 2.6GHZ and my GPU is a NVIDIA GeForce 9100