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DeclaredEvol

Optimizing CPU for ArmA II Successfully?

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Over the past few years, I've been trying to figure out what might be a way to get ArmA II with massive amounts of AI running good. I've gone from one thing to another but FPS only gets boosted by slim amounts. Of course there probably is no cure for such amounts of ai but I was thinking it would be worth it to just ask.

Is it possible to run ArmA II higher than 20fps with 500+ AI?

Are there any ways to Optimize CPU usage so that way if you've got 500+ AI running on a mission, you can still withstand at nearly 30+ fps? I have probably one of the best PC builds around, but it isn't enough to handle such incredible amounts of AI. I run the game usually at 50+ FPS, and whenever AI get busy or there are many AI it becomes almost natural for it to slow down by 40 FPS total. The game takes a bit of a upper cut whenever the CPU portion of the game kicks in. None of the issues are Graphical, therefor I should only need help specifically for getting my CPU Usage concentrated on running ArmA II. The optimization of the game as of now is in fact so good that I am running it on a SSD Hard Drive. I'd be amazed if anyone has ever got 80+ FPS with ArmA II in a sandbox, my guess is that it will never happen because ArmA II is not optimized for neither Extreme end PC's or Low End PC's. In fact its not optimized for any of them since the game runs typically low FPS at any given time.

IF!! Anyone has some methods, please share... I think I've tried everything out there and I am a true ArmA::Holic.

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Did you ever tried to (ab)use dedicated server?

Idea is simple: Ai which isn't under players control is, in MP environment, controlled and calculated by the server.

So if you make your Mission as MP Mission, then start a dedicated server on your own PC and connect with ArmA 2 locally, the client doesn't have to calculate the AI anymore.

Simply said, you go from one task (ArmA 2 only) to two tasks (ArmA 2 and dedi server).

Try it and report the outcoming.

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Myke;2177739']Did you ever tried to (ab)use dedicated server?

Idea is simple: Ai which isn't under players control is' date=' in MP environment, controlled and calculated by the server.

So if you make your Mission as MP Mission, then start a dedicated server on your own PC and connect with ArmA 2 locally, the client doesn't have to calculate the AI anymore.

Simply said, you go from one task (ArmA 2 only) to two tasks (ArmA 2 and dedi server).

Try it and report the outcoming.[/quote']

Alright, I'll give it a shot tomorrow... i'll put a few photos etc on here...

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Are there any ways to Optimize CPU usage so that way if you've got 500+ AI running on a mission, you can still withstand at nearly 30+ fps? I have probably one of the best PC builds around, but it isn't enough to handle such incredible amounts of AI. I run the game usually at 50+ FPS, and whenever AI get busy or there are many AI it becomes almost natural for it to slow down by 40 FPS total. The game takes a bit of a upper cut whenever the CPU portion of the game kicks in. None of the issues are Graphical, therefor I should only need help specifically for getting my CPU Usage concentrated on running ArmA II. The optimization of the game as of now is in fact so good that I am running it on a SSD Hard Drive. I'd be amazed if anyone has ever got 80+ FPS with ArmA II in a sandbox, my guess is that it will never happen because ArmA II is not optimized for neither Extreme end PC's or Low End PC's. In fact its not optimized for any of them since the game runs typically low FPS at any given time.

IF!! Anyone has some methods, please share... I think I've tried everything out there and I am a true ArmA::Holic.

Your approach of the topic CPU is wrong. It doesn't matter how powerfull and new your PC is and it isn't a big matter of optimization. You can bring any CPU to it's knees, it's just a question of the workload. And Saying "FPS low at any time" is just wrong , it does well scale with the CPU power, but with limits for every CPU. Its more a question of game design and the Arma series with it's editor is simply "open" to build missions with this amount of AI.

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500+ AI is actually a lot and is a heavy load for any CPU. Even large scale MP missions don't use that many (and if they do close to that it's often bad, grindy design).

Note that most of other shooters render 10-15 much less sophisticated AIs at any one time at most.

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Your approach of the topic CPU is wrong. It doesn't matter how powerfull and new your PC is and it isn't a big matter of optimization. You can bring any CPU to it's knees, it's just a question of the workload. And Saying "FPS low at any time" is just wrong , it does well scale with the CPU power, but with limits for every CPU. Its more a question of game design and the Arma series with it's editor is simply "open" to build missions with this amount of AI.

Naw 8)

You just mis-understood my point, I am running an i7-2700k @3.5ghz+. I disabled the virtual cores for its optimization because ArmA doesn't really understand those cores. Now when I said FPS low at any time it is actually true, I did a test just last night trying 'only' a Blufor Squad vs a Opfor Squad and I made a script for both of them to not move period until I radio in. And the performance was 50+ FPS, and as soon as I radioed in to let them start moving. The FPS went super fast down to 25 FPS, and the answer why would be because let the AI Scripts commence. CPU Core Threading for Micro AI and Waypoints are not good enough to resemble a well playing game. I don't want to make anyone angry by saying that, but I have no choice. I'd rather give everyone the proof than to sit back and say the game runs fine. That right there is a sign that ArmA II is typically running on a low fps all of the time. Because you would never fight just one single unit, its more than likely the game has little optimization for cores and threading.

Last night Gambla, I ran the game at 200% potential without AI. My FPS at times was 50+, the only times I went down to my 20's were when I was in forests with tons of leaves. I had my 3D RES at MAX, AA at MAX, Graphical Settings at max. The game 'was' choppy, but not in every place which tells me that its not a matter of Graphics. If you have a good Graphics Card you should be able to run ArmA II, but even if you have a good CPU Processor its not going to work good enough if you're not playing on someones server. As mentioned before, the optimization is neither for low end nor extreme end PC's. You might as well play on what you got, because I usually have about the same FPS as anyone else offline.

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You can't do much from an user point of view to improve performance besides upgrading or overclocking your hardware. I wouldn't treat Arma as a regular game neither. Apart from that, there are no games that let you put 500 or more AI and pretend to run any good. Also, i think that setting all graphics to max is a big mistake, but that is just my opinion.

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I did a test just last night trying 'only' a Blufor Squad vs a Opfor Squad and I made a script for both of them to not move period until I radio in. And the performance was 50+ FPS, and as soon as I radioed in to let them start moving. The FPS went super fast down to 25 FPS, and the answer why would be because let the AI Scripts commence.

Well, moving, orientate, scan for enemies/obstacles/whatever surely takes more CPU power than just standing still and watching the sunset. ;)

In that context i wouldn't use the term "bad optimization" or anything similar. Remember what the AI has to calculate at each move, every split second. Unlike as in other games, they aren't just bots, moving blindly and doing more or less pre-scripted stuff. They have to act and react exactly as the player has to. So, a halfway authentic AI surely needs a lot of CPU power which then surely leads to some drops in FPS.

I wont tell you to stop your research nor that you just have to accept it and move on. Keep going whatever you do.

Maybe something that might be interesting to be investigated: run a test with a group with different behaviour. Personally i would expect a lower FPS hit with AI set to "Careless" compared to the same AI set to "Danger" or "Stealth".

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Absolutely, I had tried something similar last night. I wanted their firing mode to be Never Fire and their Attitude to be careless, the game was about 20FPS better however... when the AI wants to start moving around it brings the FPS down some.

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And don't forget that each bullet is calculated in the game world. It's not hitscan like in BF3 or CoD.

When hundreds of bullets are calculated every frame and some of them ricochet and penetrate various stuff and change trajectory when penetrating coupled with AIs in stealth/combat mode where much more scripts come into play (finding cover, calculating killzones, calculating routes around them, much more LOS scans per given time, etc) - it's a totally different kind of load than just 50 AIs standing in one place in Aware mode which is rather light on CPU.

Bots in other games don't even do stuff AI in ArmA2 does in Aware or even Safe mode.

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Actually 8)

BF3 does have some dynamic path finding skills... they just go through a flow chart of animations and instructions. Though the characters throughout story mode you play with are instructed to do specific things...

For BF3

To be more descriptive, the engine has a built in cover system for AI. And it tells the AI if they can take cover or not near objects... they usually just place the little path nodes in front and behind the objects and synchronize the object and the node together so the AI recognizes the object at hand. For instance, you wont see AI run up to little rocks that were blown off from a grenade because it wasn't compiled before the game began. The reason they never included AI online is because it would be too complicated for the AI to look good like they did in Campaign. So yeah, you're right and wrong at the same time...

Edited by DeclaredEvol

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