Ai performance makes this game a complete waste of time.

[Isthatyoudave?]

Ive just set up in the editor a few units opfor and bluefor lierally a hand full. As soon as they spot each other the games fps goes down from 130 to 35-40 and it stays there. On the 144hz monitor with gsync this goes to a blurry juddery mess and a complete waste of time. The whole point of the game is completely lost due to the performce of the AI.

Even reducing the distance and objects down all the way down at that spot has the fps going to the exact same rate. How anybody plays this like that I will never know. Arma 2 was never like this in fact going back to arma 2 now on the latest hardware and it runs great even when AI kicks in.

honestly 130-to 35-40 is simply unacceptable for any type of engagement gameplay. Arma 3 is a scenery simulator nothing more now. The fps didnt tank as much as this pre Apex either. I could keep my fps at a resonable rate with my settings. 35-40 fps does not work for this type of game or anygame on a pc. Every patch the AI brings down the fps more and more as soon as the AI state changes happen. A scenery sandbox simulator can't even be classed as a game. with out being able to use the AI there is zero singleplayer content playable.

[Sgt Smash]

Specs?

[Sunshine]

Originally posted by Sgt Smash:

Specs?

[Chop111]

What would you like to be done? Everyone's experience is not the same, with frame drop and or stuttering. If you'd like some help or suggestions, people will help.
One thing to consider is the view distance settings in the Editor. Along with whether you have saved the file before testing it. I have seen a difference in performance when I have not saved the file recently.

[Wally_c64]

Originally posted by Isthatyoudave?:

A scenery sandbox simulator can't even be classed as a game. with out being able to use the AI there is zero singleplayer content playable.

Just your opinion buddy. I've done 2100 plus hours using AI and have had a blast doing so. You don't know what you're doing in game and are having a bad time with it, then thats just tough luck.

[Alaskan Glitch]

Actually, it isn't the AI that is slowing down Arma III. It is the number of objects you are encountering that is causing your slow-down. Every soldier, civilian, vehicle, or piece of equipment is going to consume CPU cycles. The more you encounter, the harder your CPU has to work.

There are lots of ways to improve your frame rate. Start by reducing the viewing distances to objects. Also disabling your FSAA will improve your frame rate by about 10%. If you are running an i5 or equivalent, with at least 8GB of RAM, there is no reason you should not be getting between 70 and 80 FPS in single-player and ~60 FPS in multiplayer.

If you are running something less than an i5, then you need an upgrade in order to run Arma III effectively. Arma III requires a minimum of an i5 and 8GB of RAM. The graphics card is not that important. A GeForce GTX 720 or better is more than adaquate to handle anything Arma III can throw at it.

[Isthatyoudave?]

Originally posted by Alaskan Glitch:

Actually, it isn't the AI that is slowing down Arma III. It is the number of objects you are encountering that is causing your slow-down. Every soldier, civilian, vehicle, or piece of equipment is going to consume CPU cycles. The more you encounter, the harder your CPU has to work.

There are lots of ways to improve your frame rate. Start by reducing the viewing distances to objects. Also disabling your FSAA will improve your frame rate by about 10%. If you are running an i5 or equivalent, with at least 8GB of RAM, there is no reason you should not be getting between 70 and 80 FPS in single-player and ~60 FPS in multiplayer.

If you are running something less than an i5, then you need an upgrade in order to run Arma III effectively. Arma III requires a minimum of an i5 and 8GB of RAM. The graphics card is not that important. A GeForce GTX 720 or better is more than adaquate to handle anything Arma III can throw at it.

It is not the number of objects at all. The fps drops only happen when the AI state changes happen.

You can have many AI on the map both sides. Keep them apart and not engaging each other and the fps stays high. I can have very high fps in the editor with many Ai groups and vehicles and aircraft.

Once the AI state changes start and they start to engage it is then that the fps drops to unplayable rates.

My monitor is 144hz gsync so when the fps goes down to below 60 it is a very unpleasant experience trying to play. If you only have a 60 hz monitor you wont struggle as much.

If yous can play at sub 60fps then thats your choice but sub 60 fps in pc gaming is not acceptable.

As I stated already in th OP reducing distances and object distances does not help with fps once the AI interactions start it is simply the limitations of the engine and code.

I am on a i7 7700k at 4.9ghz
16gb ram
on gt1080
z270 chipset
game running on ssd.

Those telling people to upgrade their pc's really do not understand Arma games what so ever. No amount of upgrading will sort armas AI problems out. Even in 10 years time you will still not be able to run arma 3 fully above 60fps even during AI engagments.

Now even using the editor and only having a couple of units each side to create a small fire fight still has the fps drop to the exact same rates.

This is the game engine which is not fit for purpose. The AI code is what cripples the game. The people who created the AI in arma ar not working for them anymore either so they have struggled to reverse engineer it to even understand what is going on.

Originally posted by Wally_c64:

Originally posted by Isthatyoudave?:

A scenery sandbox simulator can't even be classed as a game. with out being able to use the AI there is zero singleplayer content playable.

Just your opinion buddy. I've done 2100 plus hours using AI and have had a blast doing so. You don't know what you're doing in game and are having a bad time with it, then thats just tough luck.

I know exactly what I am doing with arma. You may be having a blast with very low fps during AI interactions but maybe this is because you are used to poor fps levels in general which many pc owners are. They think stutter and low fps is normal due to them trying to game on a pc that is basically a word processor. You maybe setting up games in the editor with very limited AI units and actually have very limited gameplay experience. I know how to set up games properly and have properly triggered AI. The point is Playing a game sold as a military sim and sandbox where realistically you can only have a couple AI engaging at anyone time in order to keep the game at a playable fps is rediculous.

Even the games built in missions and single player story has very limted AI engagement at any one time to get around the AI problems. Firefights are always between just a handfull of troops never anything like a proper firefight or engagement. Play some of the showcase missions especially armed assault. Game goes from 120-144 fps on my settings walking to the first engagment down to 35-40 once the AI engage at the compound. At that point the amount of troops isn't that great either.

Test it out set up a firefight and then reduce the distances down even to all the way off and look at your fps. It will not stay above 60fps. I know I have tested this over and over.

The apex updates introduced stutter into the game more noticable when flying around the maps. I dont have it so much just walking around mainly when flying. Again engine limitation even on current ssd's nothing to do with hardware or pc setup. People are still egtting huge memory leaks and major slow downs during basic gameplay and have to restart the game, again unacceptable.

If Arma 4 comes with the same AI engine and code it will fail big time, people will not take it anymore. The new engine has to be multithreaded properly and the AI has to work properly. Ai driving a truck that continues to crash into the only tree on the map in a wide area really isnt fit for purpose.

Adding more and more into a game that struggles with what it has already got is just stupid. The AI should have been either replaced and done from scratch or the rest of the game has to fit in with the poor AI code and enable fps to stay over 60fps when settings are downed down.

[Sgt Smash]

Have you checked you're power managemant settings in windows,Nvidia panel and mobo bios?

I have 6700k and 1080 and don't have your problems and nor should you!

[B✪✪tsy]

How many AI did you use? ArmA can't handle massive battles, that is just an unfortunate fact. Persistent AI on the map is already tricky to do if you want to keep up a playable fps, that why most mission makers chose to do spawning AI and only populate 1 location at a time. Also deleting dead bodies and triggers and stuff for optimization is important.

[Hagrid]

Have over 3000 hours in Arma over both 2 and 3 and have never experienced what you're on about. It would be extremely rare for me to ever get 130-140 fps but I've never had a drop that relates to ai state changes. You seem to have something seriously wrong with your game tbh. If I've played almost every scenario I can think of and have never experienced what you have, it must be a personal problem. Especially considering how everyone else is saying the same

[Dwarden]

A2OA has one AI brain per group
(group leader while rest just shadow the decision with own subset (reload,fire) separately)

A3 each AI has own brain, plus each leader and sub-leader has additional decision brain

hence the same AI count in A2OA and A3 yields higher CPU load on A3

[Kozak]

You're right, that would be completely unacceptable, if it actually typically worked that way. 130-30 fps does not sound like "bad design" it sounds like something wrong with the OS or computer, a conflict or something like that. An actual "handful" of units should not affect FPS at all.

Case and point : I don't have this problem. And I even use AI mods like ASR and VCOM, which greatly increase the workload.

It amazes me how many people encounter something that's obviously "not normal" and get all "oh, the devs suck, the game sucks, it runs like crap" instead of making the obvious connection that there is something abherrant going on with their PC.

Longtime series fan he may be, but a super sleuth he is not @@

[B✪✪tsy]

Originally posted by Hagrid:

Have over 3000 hours in Arma over both 2 and 3 and have never experienced what you're on about. It would be extremely rare for me to ever get 130-140 fps but I've never had a drop that relates to ai state changes. You seem to have something seriously wrong with your game tbh. If I've played almost every scenario I can think of and have never experienced what you have, it must be a personal problem. Especially considering how everyone else is saying the same

I have made 1 mission that really tests the CPU (Total WipeOut) and that dips my fps to 25/30 at the start of the mission. The FPS improves after killing a bunch of the AI, but at the start it is stressing my CPU quite a bit. Compared to my ArmA 2 missions there was not even that many AI active on the map.The comment of Dwarden explains the CPU stress in ArmA 3 completely.

[Captain n00by]

The AI in ArmA 3 is a lot more complex than the AI in the majority of other games, regardless of some issues.

Battlefield, GTA, etc, those games all have scriped AI in a short radius around the player's field of view, they do not do full independent and dynamic AI across a huge map and outside the player's view like ArmA does.

One question, though, is how the AI is threaded across multiple CPU cores and if that aspect could be improved.

View distance and physics also affect CPU use, so this might be one reason why we don't see more dynamic destruction in the game, as it would be too CPU heavy, unless it was offloaded to GPU like "Nvidia Physx" effects are, but those are more of a visual nature.

GPUs can also handle AI path finding these days, but I assume that would require a full rewrite of the engine.

[Rodi]

I play this on 25 to 30 fps lol

[Alaskan Glitch]

Originally posted by Isthatyoudave?:

Those telling people to upgrade their pc's really do not understand Arma games what so ever. No amount of upgrading will sort armas AI problems out. Even in 10 years time you will still not be able to run arma 3 fully above 60fps even during AI engagments.

In this you are mistaken. I am running an i5 and consistently get ~60 FPS in multiplayer (server configuration plays a role here). Single-player I get between 70 and 80 FPS, and my graphics card is not great either. I do not dispute that a change in the AI's state has an effect on frame rate, but it has more to do with the number of objects than the state of the AI. You can walk into a town without any civilians or soliders or any kind of AI and still observe a significant slow down in your FPS if there are a large number of other objects in the town.

There is absolutely no reason your configuration should not get better performance than mine. The only explanation I have is one of configuration.

Originally posted by Isthatyoudave?:

This is the game engine which is not fit for purpose. The AI code is what cripples the game. The people who created the AI in arma ar not working for them anymore either so they have struggled to reverse engineer it to even understand what is going on.

The people who created the AI code Arma uses is BIS, and while the same people who developed the AI code used 18 years ago may not be working for BIS any longer, the company still exists.