Explanation of the Arma 2/DayZ Engine

[Devinnspell 5]

It's very prominate that Arma 2 and DayZ's optimization is faulty, and this is mainly pointed at the engine that the game runs on (a game engine is the program used to create the game like Unity 3D, Unreal, Frostbite, etc.). Now some don't quite understand what it is about the engine that leads to faulty performance on even the powerful machines (hence why we have people running i7s and gtx 780s that still only get 60 fps on high but can achieve ultra at 100+fps on BF4, which is very well more advanced in the graphics department). The first thing to note that Arma's engine throws alot of the processing over to the CPU, the GPU is still pretty important (hence why my Intel HD 4000 doesn't quite cut it so well). The biggest problem with the engine is how it renders/loads in the world and objects in the world. Even the latest and greatest hardware still has a limit to how many things it can handle at one time, which ties into what happens with Arma and DayZ. The engine tends to render in objects well before they are even within your viewing distance, which strains your hardware since its having to keep track of the objects in front of you and the others that you can't even see yet. Another observation I've made is with your view relative to the rendering of objects. I'm sure you have noticed that when you look off into the ocean (where no objects exist) you jump up like 5-15 frames, and it seems that objects are only rendered in the direction you are actually facing. Some of you are probaly thinking this is a good thing since it means you won't be getting strained by unneccessary objects, but although that is true, it also means these huge frame drops and changes which can be very annoying. This is just unfortunately how the engine works, but with a lil extra coding these problems could be tweaked and hopely we'll see better performance by the time we hit full release. I'm sure maybe I'm not 100% correct on everything, but this is just how I see it, so feel free to correct me on anything I might have left out or screwed up.

[kingfury4 65]

It's correct, if you look down at the ground or up in the sky, I'll jump 30-40 frames. But when I look back towards the city or whatever it takes a hit back down to 20ish.

[Devinnspell 5]

It's correct, if you look down at the ground or up in the sky, I'll jump 30-40 frames. But when I look back towards the city or whatever it takes a hit back down to 20ish.

I hate a bad framerate of like 20, but I would rather be consistent 20 than jumping from 30 to 20.

[bummel313 12]

I have done a lot of missionbuilding for Arma2 ACE mod communities and from what I have seen a thing that usually causes server performance itself or at least indicates problem is the rpt log file.

Just checked it for dayz I got a file of about 2.5mb size (clientside). Would be interesting to see how the serverside rpt looks like.

I have literally seen servers break down in performance down to less than 10fps serversided because the machine was too busy writing logs (like up to 10mb/s).

[Devinnspell 5]

I have done a lot of missionbuilding for Arma2 ACE mod communities and from what I have seen a thing that usually causes server performance itself or at least indicates problem is the rpt log file.

Just checked it for dayz I got a file of about 2.5mb size (clientside). Would be interesting to see how the serverside rpt looks like.

I have literally seen servers break down in performance down to less than 10fps serversided because the machine was too busy writing logs (like up to 10mb/s).

Interesting find but we are discussing the client performance, server performance is a whole other monster.

[terminal_boy 860]

It will interesting to see if the Headless Client server implementation trialled on A2 by ShackTac and others can be used for the SA.

Anything that takes the CPU load off players machines can only be a good thing.

[Devinnspell 5]

It will interesting to see if the Headless Client server implementation trialled on A2 by ShackTac and others can be used for the SA.

Anything that takes the CPU load off players machines can only be a good thing.

I just think they need to tweak the engine to not render the objects prematurally, and also tweak how objects are rendered, because there is a reason why cities get laggy.

[Devinnspell 5]

Its also useful to mention that the engine doesn't fully utilize multi-core CPUs.

[bummel313 12]

Interesting find but we are discussing the client performance, server performance is a whole other monster.

 

I would say its thing related to each other. If the server doesnt perform well the client wont certainly get high performance on his end either.

And most people wont be able to tell the difference from a pure client side performance issue to a server related one....

 

But at a point I have to admit performance under RV engine games, specially in MP, is a monster.....

 

 

Edit: Not sure about the client side multicore use. But on the serverside the ladder ends with the second CPU.  So I would be the suprised if the dev team wouldnt end up using a headless client or a headless client like solution.

Edited January 5, 2014 by bummel313

[Devinnspell 5]

I would say its thing related to each other. If the server doesnt perform well the client wont certainly get high performance on his end either.

And most people wont be able to tell the difference from a pure client side performance issue to a server related one....

 

But at a point I have to admit performance under RV engine games, specially in MP, is a monster.....

 

 

Edit: Not sure about the client side multicore use. But on the serverside the ladder ends with the second CPU.  So I would be the suprised if the dev team wouldnt end up using a headless client or a headless client like solution.

RV engine? thats what its called?

[bummel313 12]

RV engine? thats what its called?

 Isnt it? Might have been confused here....We might as well call it the ARMA2 engine just to be clear...

 

 

Edit: Just read it up: The engine is called "Real Virtuality 3" (thats for ARMA2 of course)

Edited January 5, 2014 by bummel313

[Devinnspell 5]

 Isnt it? Might have been confused here....We might as well call it the ARMA2 engine just to be clear...

I looked it up, it is the RV engine but since it is only really used for Arma, it is referred to as the arma engine.

[weparo 613]

RV = Real virtuallity.

 

One thing that holds true for A3, and I'm optimistic that it does for SA too, is the importance of the disk and Ram speed. Often enough people only stated the size of the ram/disk. Speed matters!! I run a SSD on a Sata III port, and going from 1.6 GHz DDR3 to 1.866 GHz DDR3 gives a permanent +5 frames boost. That's why I've decided to buy 2.4 GHz Ram, but that's another story :D