Low FPS and mouse help

[ShadowForce (DayZ) 0]

Hello DayZ users,

I finally got DayZ working tonight so this is my first attempt at running the game before so pretty new to it all.

There's a couple of things I'd like help with so thanks in advance to anyone who can offer some advice:

• My FPS in-game seems to be quite low
  
• There is a slight (but noticable and annoying) delay when I move my mouse
  

My system specs are:

AMD Phenom II x4 840 - 3.20Ghz

4Gb DDR 1333Mhz RAM

512Mb Nvidia GeForce 8500GT PCI-e

Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1

500Gb S-ATA2 HDD

At the moment I am running the game on 'Very Low' but getting from as low as 8fps near buildings and other stuff, up to about 16 or 17fps when theres not as much going on. Is my system spec too low to play this or is there something else going on? Is the mouse delay because of the low fps?

[resin_ 97]

Hey! Glad to see you made it. Lets try and troubleshoot.

In video options, disable aa, post-processing, and wait for vsync (for your mouse). I suppose getting rid of hdr wouldn't hurt too.

Test it out! Goodluck!

[ShadowForce (DayZ) 0]

Hello Resin, thanks alot for the instant reply. I have taken a screenshot of the settings I am running in game:

http://i46.tinypic.com/25s1mc5.jpg

When I took this particular screenie, the game was running at 16fps.

Thanks!

[wormholes556 34]

You should disable V sync. Other than that I'm really not sure why you're getting a low FPS, the settings and resolution you have it on are extra low.

[HaseDesTodes 315]

how about testing your setting offline, without dayz? i have noticed, that sometimes servers are bad to play on for some players... eg. a friend and me got like 10fps on one server, while an other friend had no problems there. usually i have always more than 40 fps, but someties servers just seem to be screwed up...

therefore i would reccomend testing it offline, to get the server out of the equasian...

just run the arma2oa.exe in ...\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead\Expansion\beta and test a bit

[xfortune 91]

Set your video memory to default (this is probably your issue)

Also add -winxp to the target, this forces the game to run in default DirectX 9 instead of the DX9 enhanced that it uses by default.

For the mouse delay, go into controls and turn mouse smoothing all the way down.

[DazTroyer 227]

Turn off AA and lower everything to normal. Then it's just a case of playing with things one at a time, there is a guide here somewhere that's very good.

Also fps can nose dive in towns but be pretty good in the country side, it's just how arma is I'm afraid.

Enjoy DayZ though, it's EPIC. :)

[kander 80]

The mouse seems to have an annoying 'momentum' algorithm (similar to Windows 7 I recall - I disabled mine on my laptop) where the faster you move it the further the cursor moves, as opposed simply to moving relative to the distance covered by the mouse.

This guide helped - as well as providing other smoothness tips by editing the .cfg file. NOTE this is not my own work - source cited below.

"Some Ini Tweaking:

Yes, you can tweak INI files. Noticably, when going to your "My Documents folder", try and find the .arma2profile and .arma2oaprofile files. You will see a lot of text. Now find these values and set them to this:

Code:

sceneComplexity=150000;

ShadingQuality=0;

MouseSmoothing=1;

For some reason nobody really understands yet, this also improves your performance. Feel free to tweak the TerrainGrid setting as well. This is basically the Terrain Detail setting but the ini setting allows you to tweak it even more. Higher values mean higher performance, with the max being 50. Try setting it to 50.

Note that you have to change the settings both in *.arma2profile as well as *.arma2OA profile in order to see an effect, for some reason."

SOURCE: Here

Edited August 22, 2012 by kander

[ShadowForce (DayZ) 0]

Okay so I've done all of the above, editing the config files and stuff, but the game is still running super-slow, the only time i get more than 16fps is when i look at the floor, which would suggest it may be something to do with draw distance? Ive also got 8Gb of RAM as of last night (I didn't upgrade for DayZ) but that hasnt changed anything anyway. Im looking to buy a new graphics card however mine is a bit old (about 4 years) thinking of getting a 1Gb GeForce GTX 560 Ti PCI-e 2.0

Any ideas?

[Titanic3 16]

Your video card is extremely poor in terms of performance. The only way to get high FPS is a hardware upgrade. I would recommend a Radeon 6870 or 560 Ti, the 560 is slightly faster but also costs about $50 more. Both will run Arma 2 on high flawlessly. What is your PSU and motherboard? If both are not good enough, I'm afraid you won't be able to upgrade at all.

Here's a comparison between a 8500GT and a Radeon 6870:

http://www.hwcompare.com/6091/geforce-8500-gt-vs-radeon-hd-6870/

Note the difference, the 6870 is about 1000x faster than your old and obsolete 8500.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Titanic3

[ShadowForce (DayZ) 0]

Hi Titanic3, I build computers as a little side business so I'm no stranger to computer hardware, but thanks for the heads up! My little old 8500GT does a grand job for stuff like Quake IV, Doom 3, Half Life 2, all on max possible settings, it was good when those games were the mainstream, but I'm mid-upgrade to this phenom system at the moment and whacked in my old 8500gt until i got round to buying a newer card. Poor little guy will be replaced tomorrow I've ordered a 560Ti (I prefer Nvidia cards despite being a big AMD fan) thought I'd treat myself as it's nearly payday :D

Will post some results when I get it working!

[Warped_Jack 16]

I've a feeling it's not (entirely) your hardware. I run DayZ on a 5/6 year old laptop with similar settings to the ones your posted above. An old radeon ati X1600 mobility graphics card (256MB), 2GB of RAM and a 2GHz dual core processor.

In the woods I get a decent frame rate 95% of the time, in towns it's slightly stuttery at times, but easily playable. Server choice plays a big role, mind. As stated previously, open up a game of Arma, tweak your settings there and see what works. DayZ performance is a little worse than Arma, so maybe aim low. If Arma runs fine, and DayZ doesn't, try other servers?

Also, does your interface resolution match your native resolution?

[onaturi 7]

also keep in mind on some servers i get low fps but thats cause of the server. Just play somewhere else i would say. Best where you get the lowest ping. But thats just server testing after all the option tweaking

[roguerazr 8]

There is no doubt this game is demanding.

With everything at max, even my GTX 670 struggles staying above 30 in spots.

Your mouse lag comes from this game harnessing a crap load of prerendered frames. You can minimize the effect by turning your "Mouse Smoothing" all the way low. You can find the setting under controls.

I am curious how you got this game to run at all on your machine. My average RAM usage while playing is about 3.4GB and my old laptops 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo would constantly max out and cause stuttering. Plus the GT 240m graphics it had with 1GB of ram would only get me around 20-25fps with everything on very low. How ever I did play the game with a second monitor that was 1680x1050.

[Warped_Jack 16]

I run the game in a silly-low resolution. Native is 1440x900, I run it at 67% of that or something, then with everything on low, and altered config file settings for better performance.

It leaves the game looking like an N64 game, but it works

[ShadowForce (DayZ) 0]

Ive got an updated system now:

AMD Phenom II X4 3.2 Ghz

8Gb DDR1333

1Gb Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti

Game runs very well on everything max now, never dips below 30 fps even in towns :D

[AMDftw 1]

every time i launch the game for the first time i get shitty FPS. I have to restart the whole game all over again to get the FPS back up. I know my system has plenty of power to push the game to the limit. Even if i disable eyefinity and play on one screen i still have to shut the game down and restart it. I don't know if the drivers (12.6 cata) or just a small bug somewhere else.

[canio22 1]

There is no doubt this game is demanding.

With everything at max, even my GTX 670 struggles staying above 30 in spots.

Your mouse lag comes from this game harnessing a crap load of prerendered frames. You can minimize the effect by turning your "Mouse Smoothing" all the way low. You can find the setting under controls.

I am curious how you got this game to run at all on your machine. My average RAM usage while playing is about 3.4GB and my old laptops 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo would constantly max out and cause stuttering. Plus the GT 240m graphics it had with 1GB of ram would only get me around 20-25fps with everything on very low. How ever I did play the game with a second monitor that was 1680x1050.

Even with my GTX 550Ti (on a decent server) i will get 60-80fps then like 40 in towns. I think your issue is the game probably isn't optimized for such a recent graphics card.