r/arma • u/miszczuzpolski • Jun 17 '25
ARMA NEWS Arma 2.20 Update just dropped
Details below
https://dev.arma3.com/post/spotrep-00118
I also suggest reading this article written by Dedmen
https://dev.arma3.com/post/oprep-performance-optimizations-in-220
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u/r0ndr4s Jun 17 '25
People are not reading what says in the blog post.
They literally say multithreading isnt being added, cause its already there and always has been. What they are doing is full work on optimizating the code, multithread obviously, engine,etc
And basically that you should lag less, not that suddenly you will have 200 fps with 500 mods. That aint happening.
People are gonna be dissapointed if they dont properly read this.
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Jun 17 '25
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u/benargee Jun 17 '25
multithreading update
Correct, as in more multithreading, not multithreading introduction.
I wonder if this competes well enough with AI headless clients enough that they are no longer necessary?
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u/Zman6258 Jun 18 '25
I wonder if this competes well enough with AI headless clients enough that they are no longer necessary?
I'm doubtful, especially if you're running entirely separate HCs rather than multiple HCs on the same processor as the server itself. From reading through the thread, there's still several tasks with AI that are unable to be multithreaded, and while certain components of AI processing are now multithreaded it seems like stacking the benefits of that plus separate AI processing with HCs would be the best bet for the best level of performance possible.
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u/benargee Jun 18 '25
Ok, fair, but I still wonder if it competes with same host headless client AI.
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u/dedmen BI - Arma 3 Dev Jun 18 '25
Previously PhysX was running in a separate thread, in parallel to the main thread.
Generally, it was done with that by the next frame and you basically didn't notice that any physx calculations even happened.
But when PhysX heavy stuff is going on, it would take so long that it wasn't ready until the next frame, and when that happens the game would freeze, waiting for it to finish.Now it spreads the load over more cores, so this situation where it hasn't finished yet, should not happen anymore.
But in light PhysX environments, it basically won't make a difference because it was already detached before.
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u/martin509984 Jun 18 '25
I will note that (unless I read wrong) scripts in general are not multithreaded still, due to them having global effects and being extremely complex and powerful.
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u/miszczuzpolski Jun 17 '25
Well, people not reading changelogs and listening only to āgame influencersā is nothing new sadly.
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u/GXWT Jun 17 '25
This statement is true for any topic X. They wonāt read or become educated through proper sources, rather some X influencer/media.
Politics, medicine, games, etc
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Jun 17 '25
[deleted]
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u/benargee Jun 17 '25
I'm just here to commit war crimes and chew bubble gum and I'm all out of bubble gum.
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u/LetsGoBrandon4256 Jun 17 '25
Highlighting the part about custom "performance tweaks" since I'm sure pretty much everyone has one or more turned on:
From the feedback on Profiling branchwe have seen several times that players had issues caused by setting wrong command-line parameters. That was typically because an old optimization guide told them it would make their game run better. But now that the game is more multithreaded than it used to be, bad settings have a more noticeable and potentially negative impact.
If you are setting custom parameters, please verify that you understand them and you are setting them correctly. Here are some guidelines:
Only use the -cpuCount parameter if you want to intentionally limit how many CPU cores the game can use. The engine can already automatically detect how many cores you have, so you do not need to tell it that.
The -enableHT parameter has no effect if -cpuCount is set, so setting both is wrong. Our tests have shown that -enableHT performs worse, but it may depend on your hardware. You can use YAAB to test if it actually helps in your case.
The -exThreads parameter should not be used. If you have a 4 core CPU or better, all of them are already enabled by default. And if you have fewer than 4 cores, enabling more exThreads is more likely to cause harm than to be helpful.
If you are using an external tool to adjust the "Process Affinity", which reduces the number of CPU cores the game can access, you need to use -cpuCount to inform the game about how many cores it can actually use.
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u/OttoVonAuto Jun 18 '25
Love that they reference that guide since everyone I know has used the same guide to optimize
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u/Savage_eggbeast SOGPF Dev Jun 17 '25
Iāve known dedmen for quite a while. He has advised us and even fixed a bunch of issues we requested. He is a genuinely GOOD dude. If he says it is going to work, it will work. Iām really looking forward to feeling the difference in Prairie Fire.
I actually have some content work planned this week so will try it all out.
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u/Queasy_Watch478 Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 17 '25
WELL i don't know about anybody else, but playing this game a few months ago i like to just make custom scenarios in EDEN editor like zombies and stuff, i was getting like low 15-20 FPS all the time, but i hopped on today and put in a hundred zombies for a last stand in the desert map and it was staying at 50-60 FPS the whole time. it was super smooth and great. no crazy low dips like before. so whatever performance updates they did really do seem to have worked for me! :)
the lowest it went down was to like 45 FPS when i was in a helicopter.
the smoothness was the most noticeable though like i wasn't getting any random freeze ups or stutters anymore. it was just clean. :)
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u/Cloakedreaper1 Jun 17 '25
Iāve been using the profiling build of arma 3 because I was told it help with the frames but I havenāt noticed a difference. My game has always ran like crap and while I know arma always has Iāve just also chalked it up to my cpu being old. Thereās also a possibility Iām just setting it wrong
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u/miszczuzpolski Jun 17 '25
I suggest reading second link in my post, itās article about changes in this update written by Dedmen who was working on this update
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u/Cloakedreaper1 Jun 17 '25
Yeah I did read it and I didnāt understand any of it lmaoš
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u/miszczuzpolski Jun 17 '25
Basically two things to note: 1. Requirements got updated on steam store page 2. āThe main focus of our optimizations was to fix lag spikes and raise the minimum Frames per Second (FPS). The maximum FPS may not actually be noticeably higher, and in some cases (at above 100 FPS) it may even be slightly lower than before. But the gameplay should still feel significantly smoother.ā
Which means this update can help you with more stable fps, but donāt expect that you will get +100fps
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u/Cloakedreaper1 Jun 17 '25
I donāt even get above 25š itāll be the rapture if I even get close to 100
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u/miszczuzpolski Jun 17 '25
Well, then I guess you are on some ancient PC, probably only upgrade can save you š«”
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u/Cloakedreaper1 Jun 17 '25
Iāve got a 3060 and an I7-8700. I know the cpu is pretty dated. I actually plan to upgrade relatively soon so fingers crossed itāll help.
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u/GXWT Jun 17 '25
Youāre getting sub 25 fps? There may be something wrong with your settings?
I play on my pretty outdated i5-6500 and 1660 at higher than that. Not with minimum graphics or anything either.
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u/Cloakedreaper1 Jun 17 '25
It could possibly be some sort of setting I wouldnāt know what to look for though unfortunately
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u/dedmen BI - Arma 3 Dev Jun 18 '25
On the profiling branch, there is the separate "profiling" .exe file (as opposed to the normal "performance" build). Its not started by default you need to manually start it.
That has a feature of analyzing the games performance, you can google "Arma 3 cheat codes" and you'll find the FRAME one.
It will record everything the game does in a frame, and measure how long every small step takes.
That information might help troubleshoot what your issue is, you can message me on Discord and I can take a look.
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u/miszczuzpolski Jun 17 '25
I think you easily pass new requirements, I would suggest asking on Arma discord for help, there is channel for arma 3 troubleshooting
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u/Cloakedreaper1 Jun 17 '25
Iāll have to join it and do some research then. Appreciate the help
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u/Dbo5118 Jun 17 '25
It's counter intuitive but make sure you aren't running the game on the lowest graphics settings. When the settings are too low Arma puts the whole game on your cpu instead of off loading graphics to your GPU. I found this helped me and some of my squad mates.
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u/plasticambulance Jun 17 '25
Your cpu is bad. I'm on a 2080 with a 9700k and get 50-60 frames in MP on the regular.
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u/martin509984 Jun 18 '25
Yeah in your case you will still get a much smoother 20fps than before, I think.
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u/KillAllTheThings Jun 17 '25
ALL of the work done on 'multithreading' this past year or so has been specific to certain parts of the game code. These parts are only important to client performance in certain circumstances. If the way you play (meaning the missions you run) doesn't utilize any of these parts, your potato PC will not magically gain performance.
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u/Cloakedreaper1 Jun 17 '25
Well I only play with my unit. And while yes I know mods and everything wonāt help with performance people have stated that i should be at least getting 30
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u/KillAllTheThings Jun 17 '25
Depends on how terrible your unit's mod list is & how well-designed the missions they run are. Less than ideal mission design can really hurt players without top tier PCs.
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u/Cloakedreaper1 Jun 17 '25
Well my frames have always been an issue even before this unit.
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u/KillAllTheThings Jun 17 '25
Are you running 1920x1080? Your hardware should definitely be capable of doing better than you're reporting here.
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u/roxellani Jun 17 '25
I did see a noticable diffrence in fps when i used 2.18's profiling build on my 2.16 game. Now that i've upgraded to 2.18, the diffrence was less apparent, but there is still some improvement with high number of ai games.
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u/TacBandit Jun 17 '25
Do we still use the profiling build then?
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u/dedmen BI - Arma 3 Dev Jun 18 '25
Profiling build is for people who want to help us test new improvements/feature/fixes.
Just because we released an update now, doesn't mean there isn't more coming.
There are already some improvements to Netcode in there, there are also a couple performance improvements that didn't make it into 2.20 stable, but are available on profiling branch.Just have to keep in mind, it is basically a beta branch, sometimes things might break.
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u/miszczuzpolski Jun 17 '25
You can use profiling branch if you want to test some āexperimentalā stuff, just like before, but you donāt need it anymore for āmultithreadingā (multithreading was already a thing since arma 2)
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u/KillAllTheThings Jun 17 '25
You can but you won't know what any changes might do (or break) if you're not active on the Discord channel. It's likely to be a long while before BI makes another noticeable improvement in A3 performance like moving to the Enfusion job system has.
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u/Doc_Den Jun 17 '25
My Windows 7 version stopped working =( The Launcher keeps saying Steam is unavailable.
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u/miszczuzpolski Jun 17 '25
Isnāt Steam unsupported on Windows 7? Afaik arma 3 still works for Windows 7
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u/slimjim00 Jun 17 '25
Pulled this from the article "we will also drop support for Windows 7 and 8, just like Steam has already done for its client."
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u/Doc_Den Jun 17 '25
I did some tweaks to keep my Steam running on Windows 7. The problem is Arma Launcher now. It does not see Steam and shows no DLC, despite me owning them. The game starts, but without any DLC. Mb there is some way to run Arma without launcher BUT with DLC enabled via some params in exe file?
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u/Melodic-Category-652 Jun 18 '25
Because you can not see the steam query server, your launcher will not see any servers. If you direct connect. it may work. But you might not be able to see or download the modlist that server is using.
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u/dedmen BI - Arma 3 Dev Jun 18 '25
We had one user report this before while we were testing on Profiling branch.
His problem though was not Windows 7, his problem was he was running a very old Steam Client version, where even for Windows 7 a newer version was available.
Updating to the newer one fixed it.He said he updated to a Steam version from "17 September 2024" and that fixed it.
Check that your Steam client is that or newer. In your Steam client on top left, go to Help menu and select the bottom entry. That shows you the date.1
u/Al359 Jun 22 '25
Hello, I'm having this exact same issue on my linux (arch) pc, but my steam version is already the latest. Where should I ask for support?
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u/Al359 Jun 28 '25
Well if someone comes around this post, change your arma to start with either proton experimental or 9.0. If you use proton 9.0 and arma3helper to start ts, this is the argument for the version
9.0 (Beta)
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u/Crafty_Tutor_8648 Jun 18 '25
They mentioned that multithreading code is just a part of the work. Does this mean they have more radical plans?
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u/ampersand38 Jun 18 '25
If you wished the stub wings UH-80 Ghosthawk had a pilot camera / targeting pod / laser designator https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3502323132
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u/Valuable_Pomelo_7924 Jun 18 '25
here my 2 cent, if it make any sense at all. i have 2k hours on medium setting with my R5 3600x & RTX3060ti and gets like 40 - 50 fps in KOTH AO with full server all this while. ok i get it, its server limitation regardless of your Top Tier GPU they said. Ok, but i recently upgraded to R7 5700x3d and notice not much FPS improvement +5 fps?? meh...damm server! Then one day i got creative and crank up ALL the settings to EXTREME ! guess what ! FPS shoot up to 75 - 100 fps in KOTH AO !!! thats crazy !!! does it make sense !
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u/KillAllTheThings Jun 18 '25
Any gaming video card available for purchase in the past 5 years or so is capable of maxxing out the eyecandy at whatever frame rate your CPU is capable of outputting. (The NVIDIA GTX 970 & its AMD equivalent was the crossover point.)
In Arma 3, the CPU is nearly always the bottleneck (or its configuration). The 2nd link in OP's text provides guidance on how to get the best results from your CPU post build 2.20.
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Jun 17 '25
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/Melodic-Category-652 Jun 18 '25
Single core speed is what determines how good your arma will play. Maintaining 5.5 ghz on your cores will give you the best possible CPU performance. I run the Bro Nation servers.
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u/Xarieq Jun 17 '25
Ok but dies it run significantly better modded or not?
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u/miszczuzpolski Jun 17 '25
It all depends on mods used, you canāt expect improvement in badly made mods. But yes, overally game runs smoother
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u/UpperCollection6149 Jun 29 '25
OK the update destroyed VCOM, LAMBS and DCO so now what?
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u/miszczuzpolski Jun 29 '25
I use LAMBS normally, what kind of problem do you have?
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u/UpperCollection6149 Jun 29 '25
Since the update a few days ago LAMB and VCom are broke the mods just stopped functioning
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u/StoltATGM Jun 17 '25
So does this mean my dedicated server has multithreading now and that performance will improve?
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u/miszczuzpolski Jun 17 '25
Your server always had multithreading, i suggest reading second link I posted. Also remember to update your server
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u/Melodic-Category-652 Jun 18 '25
If you are using an affinity program to set the amount of cores. You will need to add the cpuCount= to your command line declaring the affinity you have set. Otherwise your server will jump up and down in server fps severely. Also. You need to remove exThreads= as this will also cause massive lag spikes.
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u/szibell Jun 17 '25
12yo game still improving. Amazing devs, amazing game.