Optimizing DayZ for those with low end PC's

[sibexus 26]

This is meant for those of us who have a low end PC and want to make DayZ playable. It's a list of things to try if your game is running like crap and need more help. Some of these items don't affect the game directly, but help your system, which can increase game performance indirectly. This does not include any 3rd party software, only things you can do with your system to increase performance. This does not mean that if you follow these steps your game will be magically running at 100 FPS, but if you struggling with low FPS and believe you can get more from your system then try these things. My system is an Acer Aspire X1420G that I bought at Wal-Mart 2 years ago and I get avg. 40 FPS. I have an AMD Athlon II x4 645 @ 3.1Ghz, 4GB generic Ram and the only upgrade from OEM is an Nvidia GeForce GT 430. I will not go into detail in the list of items, you can google for more information specific to your system or hardware. And this is not a step by step, just a list of items you may not have tried, and some other info. If you have any tips you'd like me to add, just let me know.

*Back up your system or settings before doing any of this, I take no responsibility!

• Defrag Hard Drive.
  
• Make sure your system is clean of virus, malware, etc...
  
• Ensure your firewall is not blocking or limiting Arma 2 in any way.
  
• Check your router settings for conflicting port forwarding, or set up port forwarding for Arma.
  
• Download the latest drivers and firmware for ALL your hardware, including motherboard, routers, graphics cards etc..
  
• Set advanced system settings for max performance (system properties or advanced system settings in control panel), click on "advanced" tab. Click on the settings button in the "performance" area. Set "Visual Effects" for "Best Performance." Under the "Advanced" tab go to virtual memory and uncheck automatic, select "custom" and enter the same number in the initial and maximum box equal to twice the amount of ram you have. Example: 1GB of RAM = 1024, If you have 4GB of RAM you would enter 8192 in both boxes. Make sure your hard drive is defragged before doing this.
  
• Make sure you have the official drivers for your graphics card and not just what Windows tells you is right. This can go for "built-in" graphics as well.
  
• Add Arma 2 OA to your list of applications in your graphics driver software. For example: Open Nvida Control Panel, manage 3D settings, click on program settings tab, click add and navigate to your Arma 2 OA executable file and add it. Make sure it's operation arrowhead and not just arma 2, DayZ runs on OA.
  
• In your graphics driver control panel, turn off "threaded optimization" or equivalent.
  
• In your graphics driver control panel, set maximum pre-rendered frames to 1 (other settings may work better, up to 8)
  
• Turn off all other settings in your graphics driver control panel such as Ambient Occlusion, anti-aliasing, anistropic filtering, etc...
  
• Any settings that allow you select "performance", do so
  
• If your processor is overheating, your system will run poorly, check for proper cooling
  
• Ctrl-Alt-Del and open task manager. Close any unnecessary programs and processes before starting the game. You may need to play around with what you can close and can't.
  

Startup Parameters

More information on these can be found HERE. You can add these in Six or DayZ Commander in options/settings.

The startup parameters I'm using are below. You may need to adjust the cpuCount and exThreads depending on your CPU.

-nosplash -cpuCount=4 -exThreads=7 -maxMem=2047 -skipIntro -world=empty -maxVRAM=2047

Arma 2 OA config file

You can find this file in Documents/Arma 2/ArmA2OA.cfg

Open it with notepad. (the below settings are mine, brief explainations are in red)

Before editing this, open your game and go to video options > advanced and change any options you are sure of. (change video memory to default to get the most out of it, make sure your resolution and 3d resolution match.)

language="English";

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=48387;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

Resolution_W=1366;

Resolution_H=768;

refresh=60;

winX=16;

winY=32;

winW=800;

winH=600;

winDefW=800;

winDefH=600;

Render_W=1366; (make sure this number is the same at the above "Resolution_W")

Render_H=768; (make sure this number is the same at the above "Resolution_H")

FSAA=0; (0 = off for better performance)

postFX=0; (0 = off for better performance)

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=4; (the lower the number, the better the performance, you may need to play with it)

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=8; (the lower the number, the better the performance, you may need to play with it)

HDRPrecision=8;

lastDeviceId="";

localVRAM=1025966080;

nonlocalVRAM=1878716416;

vsync=0; (0 = off, depending your system you may have it on or off - try it)

AToC=0; (0 = off for better performance)

PPAA=0; (0 = off for better performance)

PPAA_Level=0; (0 = off for better performance)

Windowed=0;

Once this is edited, save it. Right click the file and open properties. Click on "read-only" so Arma doesn't change it back automatically.

Edited October 27, 2012 by Sibexus

[darquan 9]

Also a good idea is RamDIsk:

I havent actually figured how to use it with play with six, but with a dayz commander it is pretty simple: just set a newly created ramdisk in the dayz folder.

It actually helps with loading times. A bit. I'd say around 15-20% in speeding the loading times for me.

[gripton 3]

Iv read this on some twelve other forums easily. It's been disappointment each time..follow it step by step. This is the first one which advises to set the file as read only.. If this works images going straight through cherno is a nice smooth line. I'll report back if it's not just more lost hope. :)