ArmA 3 Performace Options Often Overlooked

in arma3 •  8 years ago 

This is basically a quick guide for everyone who has a great or semi-new system that doesn't perform as well as they hoped.

Useful Startup Parameters

  • nologs -- Especially If you run arma on a HDD, SSD's this has less affect but it stops thrashing your PC with unneeded IOPS writes
  • maxmem=2047 -- Technically this cannot be >2047 as Arma is still only 32-bit, but some things have changed and I can not verify the end product ArmA or windows (or windows WOW) uses the 1st 2GB for itself, some have claimed that > 2047 works, but I doubt it.
  • exthreads=7
  • enableHT -- For Intel CPU with Hyper-Threading
  • cpuCores=# -- For all non HT CPUs AMD and Intel (CAN NOT be used with -enableHT)

Note to AMD CPU's:

"-enableHT" is for Hyperthreading that is technically only Intel CPU's so you can test the above as is but I feel it won't work, if it doesn't work then do the following. Remove -enableHT ans use -cpuCores=#​

Other Suggested fixes

  • In Game Settings - Mouse Acceleration = OFF
  • In Game Settings - Mouse Smoothing = OFF
  • In Game Settings - VSYNC = OFF (VERY IMPORTANT)
  • Windows and BIOS/UEFI power saving options - Disable all - keep an eye on CPU temperatures
  • Add ArmA 3 folder to your Anti-Virus' "Exclusions List"
  • Steam: Close Friends List, Go Offline, Don't Have many Chats
  • AMD users: Disable Tessellation

ArmA3.cfg

Found in "c:\Users\username\Document\Arma 3"

  • refresh=120; (note: make this match your monitor most common are 60, 75, 120, 144)
  • GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1;
  • GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=1;

Above all else:

Remember that Arma is unique in the gaming world, and as such it is one of the hardest games to tweak out there ;)

Run Arma 3 with High CPU priority

It's quite easy to test the performance stability increases.

  1. Start ArmA
  2. Load a mission preferably one you know hurts your system performance.
  3. When it's loaded note your FPS (try FRAPS for Free to test http://www.fraps.com/download.php )
  4. Alt-Tab out of ArmA (leave it running)
  5. Press "Windows Key + R" (or right click the start button and select "run")
  6. type or copy/paste this in exactly (all quotes are necessary):
    Code:
    wmic process where name="arma3.exe" CALL setpriority "128"
    Hit Enter

I have noticed in the past that you may not get ArmA to run more FPS, but you can gain performance and "feel" by smoothing out the frame rate drops -- that is, when ArmA bounces from 25FPS to ~ 10FPS. You can make it more consistent you game will be better all-round.

If it doesn't work PM me and we can delve further into the rabbit hole of ArmA tweaking.

Spoiler: Making the above automatic

Hoping you get some FPS, Never give up always learn more,

Fedaykin Wolf

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