Ryzen performance tweaking - System design

[Mahatma Gandhi]

In case you're thinking about getting a Ryzen build and are wondering what's important to consider to get good performance in ArmA3.

Here some experience and info:

ArmA3 is very CPU heavy as all of us know. The new AMD Ryzen platform is great for many reasons as we all know. Question: Is it also good for ArmA3? The honest answer is: Yes, it is, and it will deliver particularly good frametimes, but as for other systems, there are some important things to consider when you build or buy your Ryzen system and if you don't, you'll be disappointed.

1. You need a Ryzen CPU with a high clock.
- This means you should not go for non-X CPUs if you are not planing to overclock the
system. If you're happy to overclock, a good choice are the Ryzen 5 1600 and 1600x (the
latter is almost the same price) and the 1700 and 1700x. In the final setting you should at
least reach 3.8GHz for good performance. Ryzens CPUs are not difficult to keep cool but
if you are planing to overclock the CPU, you should get a decent cooler. It doesn't need to
be a High End Cooler. Mine is a Slim Rock BeQuiet.

2. You will need very good RAM
- There is no other game out there that is more hungry for RAM performance than ArmA3.
This is particularly true for RAM latencies. Hence, you want to combine your Ryzen CPU
with high end RAM. I would absolutely not recommend to try and save money at this end.
What you want is 3200MHz memory with Samsung B ICs on them. The safest buy to get
those is to take the AMD optimized G.Skill FlareX 14-14-14-34 or G.Skill TridentZ
3200MHz CL<16 (meaning CL15 or CL14 - CL16 is a bad choice - no Samsung B).

3. You can take a B350 board, better is a X370 board.
- you can overclock your Ryzen CPU on any B350 or X370 Board. The difference really
comes when you want to tweak your RAM. The X370 boards have much better options in
the UEFI/BIOS to tweak RAM settings.

4. ArmA3 is not particularly GPU demanding
- This is true for any builds. You want to have a Radeon RX480 or Nvidia 1060 or anything
above.

Teaking: So if your get together an average Ryzen build (1600x;1700) like I do (mine is actually a mITX FormFactor) System and set your RAM to XMP @ 3200MHz and the CPU to 3.8GHz all cores (thats something that basically every system will achieve) and run the YAAB benchmark at low preset, you will get about 50.5FPS with excellent Frametimes (much better than Ivy bridge - Broadwell Intel i5). From here you can achieve a lot through RAM tweaking. If you have a X370 Board like I do, simple RAM timing tweaking without touching the CPU or RAM clock resulted in ~57 FPS in YAAB at low preset or ~48.5 FPS in standard preset. Ultra preset can be GPU bottlenecked so it makes no sense to compare here.

To help tweaking the system, here is a screen shot from my last YAAB results and my RAM timing settings.

https://ibin.co/3eEszP3EPCdZ.jpg

https://ibin.co/3a72eZKmX6eM.png

Hope that helps and good luck with your Ryzen build. I can definitely recommend them!

Mahatma

P.S.: If you've got questions regarding your Ryzen build and how to optimize it, I am happy to help.

[Demon_Hawk]

Hey man, i'm rockin a 1700X & 1080 ti.

Normally i can fix just about any PC related issue but for A3, I'm at a loss.

Mind if I take you up on your offer for assistance? Even though I am over 18 months late?

[Mahatma Gandhi]

If you don't mind I am another 9 days late? Happy to help! What are your system specs and can you post a screenshot of the Ryzen Timing Checker?

[Demon_Hawk]

Originally posted by Mahatma Gandhi:

If you don't mind I am another 9 days late? Happy to help! What are your system specs and can you post a screenshot of the Ryzen Timing Checker?

Well im 73 days late, guess we're playing steam tag lol

Specs are as followed


CPU = Ryzen 7 1700x @ 3.5Ghz

GPU = Nvidia GTX 1080 TI 11gb 'Duke'

RAM = 16GB TeamDark DDR4 2273Mhz (2273 is the highest I can set my RAM without tweaking timings and voltages and remain stable)

MOBO = Asrock AB350 Pro4 (non M)

SSD(s) = 1x256gb Adata SATA SSD and one Crucial M.2 NVME at 512gb

If you have Discord, feel free to add me as I don't peruse Steam forums often =

Nova_Hawk#4225

To be honest, I forgot I even commented on here until I did another google search of 'Ryzen performance Arma 3', saw this post, then saw the comments section lol

[Demon_Hawk]

Also, for RTC ---> https://ibb.co/1mwn1HN

[Mahatma Gandhi]

I'll get back to you in a week... holidays ;-)

[Demon_Hawk]

Originally posted by Mahatma Gandhi:

I'll get back to you in a week... holidays ;-)

Yeah bro, have a great Vaca!

[Mahatma Gandhi]

Hi Nova, hope all is well!

To get started... Your RAM is the problem. Arma3 is more RAM than CPU bottlenecked. I got about 30% Performance in the YAAB at fix CPU clock just by overclocking the RAM from 3200MHz CL14 to 3600MHz CL15 (+sub timings). That being said, you should invest your time here. The best way to do that is. Flash the BIOS with AGESA 1.0.0.6 on your Board (not the latest for the Ryzen 3k). Next you use the Ryzen DRAM Calculator and try to get from the memory what you can get. Which Kit is that exacltly?

Here is a pretty good video that describes the procedure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOqhyVNPhaM

[Mahatma Gandhi]

If even at the right BIOS with the help of the DRAM Calc. You are stuck at below 2993MHz, you should switch to better RAMs. I highly recommend the Crucial Ballistix 3000MHz CL15. They have the new Micron E Dies and are pretty cheap.

This Model: BLS2C8G4D30AESBK / BLS2K8G4D30AESBK

And they have good overclock potential!

[Demon_Hawk]

Hey man, yeah all is well. Hope you had a great holiday too, man.

I will take a look into this as RAM OCing and adjustments are one of the things out of my skill base, but I guess now's a good time to start.

I will look into adjustments to my current modules with what limited I can do. If I can't get anything positive from them, i'll look into getting a different set of modules altogether.

I did a search for your RAM and my usual supplier (Newegg) doesnt seem to have a 16gb kit available in Canada, currently. I'll keep tracking :)

[TheToxicEnd]

hey any tipps im running a Ryzen 5 2600 and a RX 580 and im only getting 35 FPS on medium settings is my pc just to bad? ;/

[Mahatma Gandhi]

Whats your RAM speed?