settings. turn on this. turn off that? List for those new to the game!!

This will help us new to the game.

Please. those in the know list the dues and don'ts for those of us new to the game and wanting better FPS. the optimazation thread is 51 pages and 3/4 is people just talking. couple other threads have some ideas and then turned into A2 vs OFP2 debate. please just list some fixes for people to try. they dont have to be %100 verified. I know my way around a computer so just list the things you guys have heard and tried. i'll start

1. turn off Hyper Threading.

2. turn off vsync

3. set maximum pre--rendered frames to 8 in NV Control.

4. lower View Distance

etc

etc

lets compile a list for the new guys (including me) to burn though.

I have a 4890 @ stock with 9.8, Win 7 64 bit, 4 GB 1333 mhz DDRIII, Phenom X2 550 at stock.

Ideal view distance in terms of effectiveness/peformance is 6000m, if you can't use it set it to 2700-3500m.

Avg FPS difference: off against setting stated.

Texture/Video memory setting: Medium if 512mb of vidram, High if 1gb, Very high if 1gb+.

Objects: You want it at very high, if you can't run it at this setting, set to low or normal; 2-3 fps difference.

Terrain: You want it at very high, if you can't run it at this setting set to normal.

Shadows: you want it at very high, if you can't run it at this setting, set to normal; up to 5 fps difference, depending on graphics card.

Aniso: you want it at very high (16x), or at least high. No FPS diff on medium-high-end graphics cards.

AA: :D ...You may try it at low, or 2x without adaptive AA, if you're using an ATI graphics card.

Resolution: Match your 3D resolution to your Interface resolution, i.e. Interface: 1920x1080, 3D: 1920x1080 (100%).

HDR: You want it at low; it gives good HDR on glass, metal and clouds, also some mild blur over distance objects and while moving quickly. High is user specific: if you like heavy blur at 150-200m - use it; in fact, on a desert island it is ideal as it gives impression of high heat environment, not so good in Chernarus; FPS difference ~ 3 fps.

Grass - you want to enable it permenantly, or manually in some maps like Evo, Domination - set it to full if you intend on having it.

Nvidia specific: pre-rendered frames set it to 3-4 (default), I'm not familiar with Nvidia's new AA, and Alpha texture AA methods post GF 6800, but you do not want to use Supersampling. Use Multisampling or Transparent AA if the need arises.

ATi specific: if you're using Radeon 4xxx, you want to enable ATi Overdrive, set the fan to at least 35% if your card is overheating/you're getting pixel corruption/texture corruption. Make sure to match your stock clocks, but it should be so by default.

Catalyst A.I. Disable it on X2 or Crossfire setups if you're having trouble with FPS, gfx corruption. On single cards leave it on at Standard, if you're using Aniso at 16x (Very high in game), or AA for that matter, set it to Advanced, if you have additional CPU power.

Do no enable Aniso via your CCC, use in-game setting for Arma II, AA on the other hand provide better FPS via CCC setting, than in-game one.

Now, Vsync - you may disable it if you're having mouse lag, low fps when looking thru optics @ heavy vegetation/trees. I believe Nvidia Control Panel allows force Vsync off in Win/Vista OS, but for ATi - to turn off Vsync you need ATi Tray Tools version 1.6b: make Arma 2 profile, in Direct3D options Set Force Vsync (vista workaround) to Off, make a new shortcut to desktop.

Vsync is on by default, you may use Rivatuner 2.24 to enable Triple Buffering for Arma II. When you install Rivatuner, it installs D3DOverdrive, which allows you to enable Triple Buffering in DirectX API games. Use that app.

Turn off Hyper Threading for i7 cores.

Last one, if you want really high textures, but you're experiencing textures cache/loading, you want to use -maxmem=2047 in Arma II shortcut command line.

I'm running the game with -nosplash -cpuCount=2 -maxmem=2047 -world=empty command line. Noslpash - no intro, cpucount is number of actual cores, i7 = 4 cores, world=empty - does not load the island/objects in main menu, so the game starts up rather quickly, in 1 second after the green loading screen. :D

P.S. With the PC configuration stated above, I was able to install the game, update to 1.02, then to 1.03, set everything to Very high, except texture/vid mem @ high, HDR @ low, native LCD res to 1980x1080 with no issues at all, vid distance @ 3500m; except for an occasional CTD after quite a few hours of gameplay without restarting the app, but that could be Win 7 fault. I had Catalyst 9.7 at that time.

Tell us what you want to get out of the game, what is crucial for you, i.e. shadows, view distance, or perhaps you have a rather ancient system and can live with disabled shadows, no grass, and objects @ low textures/detail in the distance.

thanks for the great info. At the end of you list you must be talking about config. files? how do you mess with that? maybe a bit of a config. walkthrough...?

speks in sig...

---------- Post added at 05:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:14 PM ----------

sig wont show?

i7 @ 3.4

x58

W7 OS

gtx280

Put object detail on normal for the best performance and visuals. Anything below normal makes it so units are only visible at a short distance, anything above normal is worthless in terms of gameplay and brings down performance. Also put shadows on high, in my experience you don't lose any FPS from normal to high, but very high will take off a ton and the shadows don't even look better.

Regarding shadow quality: http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTI0OTg2ODM0NVI0V21CMUkxRlpfOV83X2wucG5n

Rest of the IQ comparison with different settings: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/08/10/arma_ii_gameplay_performance_image_quality/9

Eppidemic, I'm talking about the command line. Open the properties of Arma II shortcut then paste this in Target line:

-nosplash -cpuCount=4 -maxmem=2047 -world=empty

Example:

"C:\*\ArmA 2\arma2.exe" -nosplash -cpuCount=4 -maxmem=2047 -world=empty

With your rig you can max out everything, except texture quality/vid mem @ high, no AA (depending on resolution) and HDR is user specific as I said.

This will help us new to the game.

Please. those in the know list the dues and don'ts for those of us new to the game and wanting better FPS. the optimazation thread is 51 pages and 3/4 is people just talking. couple other threads have some ideas and then turned into A2 vs OFP2 debate. please just list some fixes for people to try. they dont have to be %100 verified. I know my way around a computer so just list the things you guys have heard and tried. i'll start

1. turn off Hyper Threading.

2. turn off vsync

3. set maximum pre--rendered frames to 8 in NV Control.

4. lower View Distance

etc

etc

lets compile a list for the new guys (including me) to burn though.

Try this thread, it's based on 1.02 but still relevant for 1.03 and tweaking.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18024779

man. I did the "target" that you said. it loaded up really quick. I also disabled HT on the i7. furthermore. turned off vsync. On all normal settings with AA on low and view at 1600. im topping out at 44fps. if i max all but textures, view, hdr off, at 1080 res. Its unplayable at 20fps. something is a little off....

Regarding shadow quality: http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTI0OTg2ODM0NVI0V21CMUkxRlpfOV83X2wucG5n

Yeah but look at vegetation shadows when you have it set to normal, they're just blocks.

Turn off "postprocessing" - I was so happy after I found out how this increases fraps and(!) gives a better view!

Yeah but look at vegetation shadows when you have it set to normal, they're just blocks.

That's why you want it at very high. Highest shadow setting of Armed Assault 1 equals to Arma II normal one if I remember correctly. :D

---------- Post added at 05:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:58 AM ----------

man. I did the "target" that you said. it loaded up really quick. I also disabled HT on the i7. furthermore. turned off vsync. On all normal settings with AA on low and view at 1600. im topping out at 44fps. if i max all but textures, view, hdr off, at 1080 res. Its unplayable at 20fps. something is a little off....

AA: :D Not in this game, buddy. The amount of foliage kills FPS like no other game.

I did some play with FRAPS in the editor yesterday aiming to find out what gives major performance increases. Reducing Anti-Aliaizing and Antisotroping filtering in GPU controls does. For example, reducing AF and AA from 16X to 8X settings nearly doubles FPS in main menu (Aircraft Carrier) and allows to gain 41 FPS in maxed out (Very High, 2580 m view distance) in Editor in the center of Chernagorsk.

However, it is very strange but campaign FPS still drops down to 20-25 FPS.

3. set maximum pre--rendered frames to 8 in NV Control.

This can create massive MouseLag to some people. If you do get MouseLag then change that number to "1".

it seems the foliage is the killer. it pisses me off. i can run any map @maximum settings, 1920x1200 @ 10k view distance with 30fps and higher (utes, porto, rahmahdi, sahrani, avgani, afghan village) but NOT chernarus, where i get around 10fps and have to set it all to normal :S

so annoying

Current settings, tweaked with inputs over the past few weeks

executable: -winxp -nosplash -world=empty -maxmem=2047 -cpuCount=2 -mod=@DFS_FPScounter

Intel Dual Core E6750, 5% overclock; 8800GTS 320mb, no O.C., latest driver as of this post:

"Average" 28FPS in open, 23 in towns for Chenarus

For Utes, I also get a couple FPS higher on average: