Consistent 10-20 FPS in DayZ, but not in ArmA 2/OA

[CanoGuy 3]

Despite being able to play ArmA 2 at a steady 30-40 fps at low settings with occasional drops (my PC isn't great), as soon as I log into DayZ, the game becomes an unplayable slideshow. I find this very annoying as DayZ was what influenced my purchase of ArmA in the first place. Please help!

My specs:

OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Professional

Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601

OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation

System Name SAM-TOSH

System Manufacturer TOSHIBA

System Model Satellite Pro L670

System Type x64-based PC

Processor Intel® Core™ i3 CPU M 330 @ 2.13GHz, 2133 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

BIOS Version/Date TOSHIBA 1.20, 18/05/2010

SMBIOS Version 2.6

Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1

Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7601.17514"

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB

Total Physical Memory 3.86 GB

Available Physical Memory 2.02 GB

Total Virtual Memory 7.72 GB

Available Virtual Memory 5.26 GB

Graphics Card: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650

Thanks in advance!

-Sam

Edited July 20, 2012 by CanoGuy

[suspense 210]

Its the result of object cleanup being bugged, theres nothing you can really do about it until Rocket releases a hotfix

[Tsyn 215]

A tip that helped me a lot:

Go to Start-> Documents -> ArmA 2

Find the files ArmA2.cfg and ArmA2OA.cfg and open them both in Notepad (Or whatever text editor you use)

Find the lines

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;
GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=3;

And change them both to:

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1;
GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=1;

That helped my framerate a ridiculous amount, hopefully it helps you too.

[LulzGamez 17]

A tip that helped me a lot:

Go to Start-> Documents -> ArmA 2

Find the files ArmA2.cfg and ArmA2OA.cfg and open them both in Notepad (Or whatever text editor you use)

Find the lines

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;
GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=3;

And change them both to:

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1;
GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=1;

That helped my framerate a ridiculous amount, hopefully it helps you too.

This worked wonders for me too. Now I can record and game even in rain/long grass without suffering from poor fps.

[CanoGuy 3]

Thanks for the replies! I tried your method Lulz, and I think I did see an increase in fps, bringing it to about 16 to 26 fps on DayZ. Still quite low, but a very substantial improvement. Nearly playable! Thanks! :D

Anymore tips that can push my fps past 30 would be great appreciated.

[CanoGuy 3]

New development. When I'm in rural areas with very little Zed, my fps reached 45! However, as soon as the Zombies appear it plummets once again.

Strange, as I can handle large scale firefights on ArmA... Do Zombies have a very complex AI?

[Tsyn 215]

New development. When I'm in rural areas with very little Zed, my fps reached 45! However, as soon as the Zombies appear it plummets once again.

Strange, as I can handle large scale firefights on ArmA... Do Zombies have a very complex AI?

There are several programs that may or may not help you, at the top of the list is ThrottleStop. This program will work wonders if your CPU is compatable. I suggest looking up some instructions of use before actually trying to use it. This can seriously overheat your rig depending on how you adjust the settings.

GameBooster Is another helpful program that will close unused programs, adjust your windows aero scheme, and improve performance by quite a bit.

ArmA 2 was made to run on a quad-core machine to my knowledge, but obviously not everyone has four cores of CPU to toss around games like ArmA. There's a startup parameter you can use to adjust the CPU's that the game should run on. This personally helped my FPS by quite a bit. To do it, you'll need to adjust your startup parameters in Six Launcher, or at the end of the shortcut you use to launch DayZ. The parameter will look something like -cpuCount=1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. A full explanation is here: http://community.bis...meters#cpuCount. I highly suggest reading this and finding out how many cores you've got, then set it accordingly.

Also, you can set your process affinity & priority. I normally only adjust the priority of the programs I run, but affinity is definately useful if you're running a lot of programs on your PC along with ArmA2. To set the priority, you'll need to start up Task Manager. You can do this by right-clicking your taskbar at the bottom and selecting 'Task Manager'. Using Ctrl+Alt+Del or Ctrl+Shift+Escape will also work. Once you have Task Manager open, you'll right-click on the running window of Arma 2, and click 'Go to Process'. This should give you arma2oa.exe. Right-click on that, click 'change priority' and select 'high'. If you select realtime, your process will most likely crash.

Some other thoughts would be to use such programs as Tune-up Utilities Tune Up Utilities will fully optimize your computer for whatever you're doing (you will complete a configuration process which will determine what settings to change based on how you use your computer). Tune-up is somewhat expensive, but I'm sure you can look around and find an 'alternative'.

Just some suggestions you should take to heart.

Hope this helps :)

Edited July 21, 2012 by Tsyn

[CanoGuy 3]

Thanks for the reply Tsyn! I don't know if changing the start-up parameters would make a difference sadly. I'm using a quad core machine after all. I'm looking in to ThrottleStop to see if it's compatible though. :)

Edited July 22, 2012 by CanoGuy

[Valec 55]

A tip that helped me a lot:

Go to Start-> Documents -> ArmA 2

Find the files ArmA2.cfg and ArmA2OA.cfg and open them both in Notepad (Or whatever text editor you use)

Find the lines

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;
GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=3;

And change them both to:

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1;
GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=1;

That helped my framerate a ridiculous amount, hopefully it helps you too.

I was fine before the last beta, but then experienced annoying fps lag/microstuttering. Adjusted the config as per your post and now everything is silky smooth. Good find, sir!

[liamz 1]

A tip that helped me a lot:

Go to Start-> Documents -> ArmA 2

Find the files ArmA2.cfg and ArmA2OA.cfg and open them both in Notepad (Or whatever text editor you use)

Find the lines

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;
GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=3;

And change them both to:

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1;
GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=1;

That helped my framerate a ridiculous amount, hopefully it helps you too.

I done exactly that now Six launcher won't open anymore lol.

Edited July 21, 2012 by liamz

[Tsyn 215]

I done exactly that now Six launcher won't open anymore lol.

Ehh... I'm not sure how that would fuck up your Six Launcher

[CanoGuy 3]

Just as an update:

My FPS problem is fixed. I used a program called 'AMD GPU Clock Tool' to overclock my GPU. I now have a steady 30-40 FPS.

Anyone with the same idea, be careful. It can melt your Graphics Card if you overclock it too much.

[luv1138 0]

I can't even locate these two files, I only found one for OA, and when I opened, it didn't exactly show what ever ur CFG opened, my said 3D resolution

[Irenicus (DayZ) 289]

I done exactly that now Six launcher won't open anymore lol.

Unrelated lol setting frames ahead only affects the game, not any other program, thats kind of obvious I would have thought.

Also, I didn't realise the default was 1000??? I mean geez no wonder some people have huge issues. Not only will that put a huge load on your CPU but it introduces mouse lag. Setting it to 1 or 2 works wonders. If I'd known people weren't aware of this I'd have posted this tip for people weeks ago!

[Irenicus (DayZ) 289]

I can't even locate these two files, I only found one for OA, and when I opened, it didn't exactly show what ever ur CFG opened, my said 3D resolution

mydocuments/ArmA2 and the other in mydocuments/ArmA 2 Other Profiles/ProfileName

[Irenicus (DayZ) 289]

Just as an update:

My FPS problem is fixed. I used a program called 'AMD GPU Clock Tool' to overclock my GPU. I now have a steady 30-40 FPS.

Anyone with the same idea, be careful. It can melt your Graphics Card if you overclock it too much.

OCing your gfx card is pretty pointless thesedays. It will gain you very little to no performance gain at all. All you are doing is risking Overheating it and shortening it's life span.

[fap 9]

OCing your gfx card is pretty pointless thesedays. It will gain you very little to no performance gain at all. All you are doing is risking Overheating it and shortening it's life span.

I've overclocked my already overpowered 7950 by more than 27%, temperatures are literally the same, my frames went up more than 15 in most demanding games.

Games like Counter Strike and L4D1/2 get over 70 frames with an overclock like that on a card like that.

Overclocking is harmless if you take 5 minutes to read up on what you're supposed to do, and it actually increases performance a whole lot.

What were you saying again?

:no offense meant, but this is just silly)

Edited July 30, 2012 by Fapguy

[Irenicus (DayZ) 289]

I've overclocked my already overpowered 7950 by more than 27%, temperatures are literally the same, my frames went up more than 15 in most demanding games.

Games like Counter Strike and L4D1/2 get over 70 frames with an overclock like that on a card like that.

Overclocking is harmless if you take 5 minutes to read up on what you're supposed to do, and it actually increases performance a whole lot.

What were you saying again?

:no offense meant, but this is just silly)

I know plenty about OC'ing but generally you don't see a massive improvement with OC'ing your gfx card. If it works for you though hey I'm all for it!

OC'ing my gfx card probably yeilds little to no results because my CPU is bottlnecking my system. I suppose I should have thought about that before saying what I did.

Btw my CPU is an old Opteron 165 with a 63% Overclock. Amazing CPU, as most CPU's will give you 10-20%, at least if you're running on air which I am.