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FPS Problems Preventing Gameplay

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Hello everyone,

So, after reading up about DayZ, I decided to buy the game and give it a try.

Unfortunately, I'm having serious FPS problems which are effectively preventing me from being able to play, so I'm hoping the community can help.

When trying to play the game without altering any settings apart from the in-game graphics settings, I'm only able to get an FPS up to and around 15, however most of the time It's much less than that.

After trying various suggestions posted on forums, etc, I've been able to improve the playability, where in some cases my FPS can be between 20 and 45, however, there are still instances where the FPS will suddenly drop to the point the game isn't playable, even in open areas.

I'm also unable to play in urban areas, where there are lots of buildings and structures, etc.

Before going any further, below I'll list my system specs and also what I've done up to now to improve the problems.

System Specs:

Intel Core i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz

8 GB DDR3 RAM (3.46 GB Usable)

500 GB Samsung 850 EVO Solid-State Drive

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (2048 VRAM)

Windows 7 Professional x86 (32-bit)

Although the computer isn't a high powered gaming rig, It's still able to play games such as EVE Online and World of Tanks at maximum with practically no FPS drop at all, so I'm sceptical that It's due to the PC itself, apart from possibly the CPU and/or memory.

Changes Made:

- Adjusted the in-game graphics settings, so that everything is running on the lowest setting possible - increasing the settings seems to make the problem worse.

- Adjusted the .062 file with the following parameters: Scene Complexity to 500,000, ShadowZDistance to 100, View Distance to 2200 and PreferredObjectViewDistance to 1800.

- Adjusted the .cfg file with the following parameters: Render changed to match the resolution (1920 x 1080), added GPU_MaxFramesAhead with a setting of 1 and added GPU_DetectedFramesAhead with a setting of 1.

- Added the following launch options within Steam: -winxp, -newui, -cpuCount=4, -exThreads=7, -maxMem=3072, -maxVram=2048, -nosplash and -noPause.

- The computer has had a thorough housework along with everything optimized, Anti-Virus and Firewall disabled during tests, DayZ.exe given High Priority CPU usage and the GPU drivers are up to date and optimized.

Altering the above settings either makes no difference at all or makes the problems worse.

At the moment, my working theory of the problem is being caused by the game not being optimized i.e. server side, the CPU somehow not being powerful enough as I believe DayZ only uses a single core, a problem with the system memory of the GPU memory.

Id very much appreciate some help so I can start enjoying the game, and hopefully this thread will help other players who are experiencing similar problems to me.

Thanks in advance,

Alex

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Someone will have to confirm this, but I think it's just your pc that's too weak

My pc is way too weak to handle the game properly, but whenever there is no source of light, particle effects like smoke or rain i can play at consistent 30~ fps

My view distance is set to 500 though, I recommend lowering yours to at least 1000 meters, along with preferred object view distance

Edited by Pyongo Bongo

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2 hours ago, Alex Holland said:

Adjusted the in-game graphics settings, so that everything is running on the lowest setting possible - increasing the settings seems to make the problem worse.

That's where you are going wrong, this way you practically disable your videocard and put all the work on the cpu, and since the game is not yet optimized it is already cpu heavy.

I used to get between 30-80 fps on an i5 750 @2.6 GHz with 8 GB RAM and a GTX650 Ti OC 2 GB. I may have a screenshot somewhere showing my settings at the time, but will have to search for it, will post or link it here when I find it.

 

Remove the launch parameters because they do nothing in DAYZ SA. Also restore your original config file and test with in-game settings before you alter anything.

Why can you use only so little of your RAM? Do you start the game with the x64 client?

 

Edit, found the settings, use this as a template and try to optimize for your own system:

egGKsxm.jpg

Edited by nl
added settings
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45 minutes ago, nl said:

Why can you use only so little of your RAM? Do you start the game with the x64 client

Windows 7 Professional x86 (32-bit)

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5 minutes ago, atomquark said:

Windows 7 Professional x86 (32-bit)

Ah yes, but why? His CPU is 64 bit...it would already increase performance because now he can use only 4 GB of memory and that INCLUDES his VRAM. Going to 64 bit OS will make an extra 6 GB of memory available and no doubt give better performance (both in the game as in general computing performance.

Edited by nl
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For your Win 32 setup I suggest the PAE patch to get access to all your installed memory (like Win7 64) - this was a soft invented by a guy (called Pae) that has caught on - I used it  when it first came out and had no problems for all the time I was still  on win7 32 as my main OS.  There is NO technical reason whatever that Win7 32 "will not" access all your memory, it's an ancient  Microsoft artifact that limits access to 4 GB.

I used the patch, - it also sets up a multiboot for you, (so you can check for differences between the two memory usages) - the original patch works perfectly and I recommend it. There are some careful steps to follow, setting it up, but the bottom line is, it works.

I don't have the original link to Pae's site here (its on my 7-32 setup, sorry, I have 4 OS on this machine)  .. but here is a good (recent) write up and explanation. Check around, see what you think before you try it. IMseriousO It is good work (seems to have become Pae's claim to fame)

I repeat, I'm recommending this because it worked 100% for me, it is an honest and intelligent software patch. But this is your own decision to make.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/unlock-64gb-ram-32-bit-windows-pae-patch/

 

*

also - by the way - make sure when you are playing you have ALL your auto updates off.. like eg Windows auto update downloads, and you aren't checking for new emails every 5 minutes, and etcetcetc.. Put all that stuff on manual only.  Totally everything from Adobe to Microsoft to Skype wants to get on your bandwidth behind your back. -  It's a pain.

xxp

Also you can find Win7 64 pretty cheap now. I use it, I don't like Win 10 much.

Edited by pilgrim*
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7 hours ago, Alex Holland said:

- Added the following launch options within Steam: -winxp, -newui, -cpuCount=4, -exThreads=7, -maxMem=3072, -maxVram=2048, -nosplash and -noPause.

As @nl said, remove all of those old launch parameters, they are archaic and haven't been used in a *many* patches, those alone will seriously mess things up.  Also delete your config, then restart steam and DayZ and it'll create a new default config to start from.   Good luck.

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Guest

Hey guys,

Firstly, thank you for all of your replies in trying to help me with this FPS problem.

As suggested, I've removed the launch parameters, deleted the configuration files (which the game re-created) and adjusted the settings to match that of @nl

Unfortunately none of these changes have made any difference at all and my FPS is now between 1 - 4.

Indeed this PC can support a 64-bit OS, however, I made the mistake of buying the 32-bit OS when I decided to format the PC to remove the pre-installed Windows 8 OS.

@nl your second post got me thinking, because technically the CPU and GPU should be able to play the game as yours can, however, unlike me you've got full access to your RAM.

My system has 3.46 GB of usable RAM and the GPU has 2 GB RAM, so I was under the impression that the PC itself could use 3.46 GB of RAM and that the GPU RAM was separate and could be used in full for games.

Are you saying that due to the OS restriction, the PC can only use 3.46 GB RAM in total i.e. I effectively have 10 GB memory physically installed including the GPU's memory, but the system can only use 3.46 GB?

If that's indeed the case, then I can understand why the system can't play the game as it would probably be under the minimum requirements.

Thanks!

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8 hours ago, Alex Holland said:

Hey guys,

Firstly, thank you for all of your replies in trying to help me with this FPS problem.

As suggested, I've removed the launch parameters, deleted the configuration files (which the game re-created) and adjusted the settings to match that of @nl

Unfortunately none of these changes have made any difference at all and my FPS is now between 1 - 4.

Indeed this PC can support a 64-bit OS, however, I made the mistake of buying the 32-bit OS when I decided to format the PC to remove the pre-installed Windows 8 OS.

@nl your second post got me thinking, because technically the CPU and GPU should be able to play the game as yours can, however, unlike me you've got full access to your RAM.

My system has 3.46 GB of usable RAM and the GPU has 2 GB RAM, so I was under the impression that the PC itself could use 3.46 GB of RAM and that the GPU RAM was separate and could be used in full for games.

Are you saying that due to the OS restriction, the PC can only use 3.46 GB RAM in total i.e. I effectively have 10 GB memory physically installed including the GPU's memory, but the system can only use 3.46 GB?

If that's indeed the case, then I can understand why the system can't play the game as it would probably be under the minimum requirements.

Thanks!

Yes, with 32 bit the system can use a maximum of 4 GB, this 4 GB includes VRAM so 6 GB of memory is not used in your system. You can try the software pilgrim suggested or buy windows 10 64 bit, it's not really that expensive escpecially the home version. You have pro now but do you need it?

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I second the recommendation to switch to Windows 10. In addition to the RAM limitations, you are one of those that will most likely benefit from Game Mode. 

Also, the GTX 660 is not enough to run this game well. You might try setting your Video Memory to something like 1024 in the meantime. I know that sucks, but it could allow your system to instead make use of some more of your RAM. As it stands, you are very likely hitting your page file like crazy which is slow as balls, even on an SSD, when compared to typical RAM read/writes.

Edited by ColdAtrophy

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Guest

Well I think it would be best for me to upgrade, so I'll probably go for Windows 10 Home 64-bit.

So, for the time being I'll play around with the settings a bit more on the off-chance.

The PAE patch sounds interesting, however, the risk of corruption worries me somewhat.

I guess a system image saved elsewhere would safe-guard against this.

Thanks for all of your help and suggestions - all much appreciated.

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