ArmA Performance - System Tweaks

[ParabolicAJB]

I've been playing ArmA3 for a month now and have been experimenting with ways to improve FPS, I've read all the google results about the tweaks you can do to the config files (as I'm sure many of you more seasoned players have done also) and TBH do not think they yield any significant improvements.

 

However I have been monitoring CPU and GPU usage and concluded that any CPU/GPU throttling does seem to affect overall performance.  ArmA3 does not make great use of system resources (especially GPU) so I found my GPU (GTX 660Ti) was not 'turbo'ing' to it's maximum speed.  This can be affected by many factors including temperature, but my system is watercooled and such has no issues.  By adjusting the power settings in the nVidia driver for the Arma3.exe application, my GPU now clocks to maxmum speed regardless of how much utilisation it's getting.  I beleive there are also similar settings available to ATI/AMD users but I am not familiar with them specifically myself.  FYI I use MSI Afterbuner to monitor my GPU, and display it on my G15 keyboard (it also logs it so you can view history if you can't watch it in realtime).

 

You can also do similar with the CPU using the Windows power options in control panel, but it's not application specific so could pin your CPU at max speed and increase power consumption/heat when idling.  Windows also 'parks' CPU cores when not in use, you can google this and find many guides on how to disable this which ensures all cores are available when needed, however this is probably not necessary.

 

Another advanced tweak is in your BIOS to the processor C-states, this is not advisable to alter for the novice user, but I have disabled all C-states and left 'SpeedStep' and 'TurboBoost' enabled which ensures my CPU is clocking up to the correct speed, rather than perhaps clocking down when ArmA3 does not utilise it effectively.  This will potentially increase power consumption, but when my PC is on it's gaming 90% of the time, the impact for me is negligeble, your mileage may vary - I actually tested this with my electric smart meter and the impact at idle was not substantial (perhaps in the order of 20watts).

 

*I should add - please read this advise with caution (!), any changes you make to your system from default has the potential to cause issues and potential failure of components.*

 

I hope this helps anyone who has issues or is looking for other ways to optimise their performance.

 

Regards, Alex.

[Ryko]

The real question is: what is your before / after performance improvement?  Is it worth the effort of tweaking?

[ParabolicAJB]

I don't think my max FPS changed, but it was smoother with less variation, I still take a hit on EU#1 when there's a lot of units together however overall the experience is much more consistent.