Hardware Issues: Tips/Tricks/Solutions

[bravo 6 0]

what if you use more menus? will FPS drops?

[Jack-UK 0]

Hmm well it probably would follow that pattern.. GUI's might lower the FPS, e.g. in Karr's RTS map.. i'll have to check tho as i dont run my FPS counter much...

[jumpinghubert 48]

@DaleyG

how you disabled the hud in the screen?

[Infam0us 10]

@DaleyG

how you disabled the hud in the screen?

You can do it in the difficulty options

[-CS-SOBR-1st-I-R- 0]

Hey thanks for this great summary!

I tried the GPU overclocking... and thats the result.

Club 3D / Radeon 9600Pro

Before OC'ing

Core: 398 Mhz

Mem: 300 Mhz x 2 = 600 Mhz

After OC'ing

Core: 444.60 Mhz

Mem: 312.52 Mhz x 2 = 625.04

Hey thats a gain of: 46.6 Mhz Core (11.7 % more) and 25.04 Mhz Mem (4.17 % more). More than I expected.... great

[smed1786 0]

i remember a while back with my old computer i was having trouble with bf2 I was able to play it in a smaller window other than fullscreen this helped alot, although i suppose it takes away from the experience in a smaller window but it did allow me to play the game but...i dont remember exactly how to do it (making this usless), if anyone does can you please post how if its possible for arma

thanks

[psycosmos 0]

i remember a while back with my old computer i was having trouble with bf2 I was able to play it in a smaller window other than fullscreen this helped alot, although i suppose it takes away from the experience in a smaller window but it did allow me to play the game but...i dont remember exactly how to do it (making this usless), if anyone does can you please post how if its possible for arma

thanks

ArmA Startup Parameters

Quote[/b] ]

-x= Numeric, used to set resolution width

-y= Numeric, used to set resolution height

-window Displays ArmA windowed instead of full screen

(can be used in conjunction with -x/-y: -window -x=800 -y=600)

[Comm 0]

Good Evening,

I just bought Arm A Saturday afternoon and noticed that I was encountering graphical glitches (this had happened to me during the Demo version and though that the full version would have fixed the problem).

(It's the same graphical glitches encountered by another member on this thread, http://s158.photobucket.com/albums/t90/knockedeye/ those are the glitches I'm currently encountering along with the 2D images)

I've went through several other forums that had the same problem and none of the fixes have worked

I've reverted back to the old Catalyst 6.7 drivers (to no avail) then went back to the newer 7.4 drivers (The 2D problem seems to have disappeared in infantry units)

The problem only occurs while I'm inside either a BLUFOR or Independent APC, Car or Truck. I've tested it using helicopters and OPFOR vehicles but the problem only exists in the two sides.

Edit: Just got through and hour and a half of play time WITHOUT Graphical glitches but after that mark, Glitches occurred left, right and center.

I've heard that many with ATI cards are experiencing this problem and was wondering if anybody has found a solution to it or if a Patch or fix was in the process of completion?

The Machine that I'm using is as follows

Intel Pentium 4 3.0Ghz

Windows XP (with all the current Updates)

1024mb of Ram

Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro with 256mb (Newest drivers)

(Not the best I know, but what can I do as a Student/Reservist)

Thanks,

Ben M.

[Jack-UK 0]

The X1600 series seems to be the MAIN culprit for these graphical glitches they do appear in other series of cards, but the main issue appears to be with the X1600 series...

Try lowering you texture detail to LOW or VERY LOW and this issue should be much reduced... If your card is an AGP card then you can set the AGP Aperture setting in your BIOS to 256 and that should also help.

If not then im afraid i cant really help and you've gotta hope ATI get their act together

Hope u get it working

[Comm 0]

The X1600 series seems to be the MAIN culprit for these graphical glitches they do appear in other series of cards, but the main issue appears to be with the X1600 series...

Try lowering you texture detail to LOW or VERY LOW and this issue should be much reduced... If your card is an AGP card then you can set the AGP Aperture setting in your BIOS to 256 and that should also help.

If not then im afraid i cant really help and you've gotta hope ATI get their act together

Hope u get it working

Thanks for the info.

I was able to play without graphical glitches for about an hour or so then I encountered the glitches again. I guess it's sort of a luck of the draw thing.

I'll try the suggestions you gave me, and praying that they work. Otherwise I'll still play the game while waiting for an ATI/Atari Fix to the problem.

Thanks again.

[PilusPrimus_aka_jONATHAN 0]

Found a solution on the BTS board that worked like a charm for me and my ATI problems, same as described below:

Quote[/b] ]Hi ive just got the UK release of Arma and im getting these weird graphical issues. I have the latest ati drivers, turned everything on full/ lowest and normal graphical settings and i still get it. Ive followed this guide, and tried forcing 24bit Z buffering aswell as triple buffering but nothing seems to work. Ive even tried overclocking my gfx card but no use. What does seem to work (if onoly for a short while, maybe 10 mins) is if I alt tab to my desktop and come back in i dont experience it for a short while. Any ideas on how to fix this will be most appreciated.

Im running a P4 2.8 Ghz with 1024Mb of RAM with a radeon 9800

Here is a link to what happens:

http://s158.photobucket.com/albums/t90/knockedeye/

Many thanks

KnockedEye

Edited by knockedeye on Feb. 16 2007,18:27

Apparently, ArmA + ATI doesn't like hyper-threading. As soon as I turned it off in my BIOS, this problem completely disappeared.

Ironically, this Bug-Tracker post lists this as a minor problem. If only they knew, right?

Here's the bug-tracker thread for reference:

http://bugs.armed-assault.net/view.php?id=2285

My specs:

Toshiba P90 Satellite Notebook

Intel 3.0ghz HT processor

2g ram

ATI 9700 Mobility Radeon w/ 128M non-shared VRAM

ATI Catalyst drivers v.6.7 (using DHModTool4)

I will post this in separate thread also, since there's so many users affected.

Thanks to Giova, who posted the bug and ended my headaches.

See you in the field -J.

[yippyfn 0]

I've got an ATI card, and it has been a chore to play the game because of very poor performance, and a few random CTD’s. The crashes aren’t the main problem, the reason I can’t really play the game is because performance typically starts lagging badly in a mission with more than a few soldiers. Also very distracting is the occasional disappearance of textures. It often seems to happen in a city: the textures for buildings, soldiers, and vehicles just disappear, and all I can see are the untextured shapes. I there anything I can do to play this game? OFP used to run fine, and I love this game, but it is pretty much unplayable right now because of a combination of piss poor performance, graphical glitches, and the random CTD every now and then.

My specs:

Dell Dimension 8300, Intel Pentium 4 cpu 3.00Ghz

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB with driver version 6.14

Soundblaster Live (I think?)

512MB  RAM

ArmA 1.06 U.S.

DirectX 9.0c

[Mountaineer 0]

Help I get message error compiling pixel shader PSWhite when launching 1.07.

Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) Language: English (Regional Setting: English)

System Manufacturer: NVIDIA

System Model: AWRDACPI

BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~2.2GHz

Memory: 2048MB RAM

Page File: 300MB used, 3639MB available

DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT

Manufacturer: NVIDIA

Chip type: GeForce 7600 GT

Display Memory: 256.0 MB

Current Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (85Hz)

Monitor: SONY CPD-E200/E200E

[Balschoiw 0]

Just a little tip that has laready been mentioned but maybe there are people who can benefit from feedback.

Yesterday I have deleted my primary partition (with backup :-) )

and added a new hardrive to my comp plus a fresh WinXP install (you gotta love it compared to uberslow bugged Vista), threw in the latest set of drivers, BIOS flashed, etc and created a partition for Arma exclusively and installed and patched it to 1.07.

I was quite surprised to see a massive performance boost. In some areas of the game the FPS almost doubled compared to the FPS I had when Arma was sitting on the Windows drive.

I kept my computer clean with defrag and all that, but I would never had expected such a rise in performance when installing it to a clean partition plus a fresh XP.

Having a partition for Arma alone is no bad choice imo.

Edit: Oh and I haven´t even oc´ed my GPU up to now as witht he old installation.

[Jack-UK 0]

Cool, thanks for the feedback

Was the hard drive u bought faster? or was it at a similar speed but the formatting of the HD itself give the performance boost?

[Balschoiw 0]

It´s still the same old one. The new one is for data storage purely.

IMO the solo-partition and the clean format and clean XP gave Arma that boost.

It´s crazy, now I can play with normal AA , shadows normal , textures high, viewdistance 1200 and all texture and detail setting on high no matter if I am in the woods or out in the open.

Before I did all that, I had textures on normal, AA very low, viewdistance 1000, no shadows at all and it still lagged.

Me is happy

Hardware:

2800 XP+

GeForce 7600 GT AGP

2 Gig DDR Ram

Not a real up-to-date rig, but very nice performance now

Oh, and the Gfx card is still not overclocked

[Jack-UK 0]

haha thats great performance for that rig =)

i tried ArmA on a new partition but i didnt get any performance boost.. i stop a lot of stuff running in the background tho anyway, i cant stand it lol, maybe thats why i didnt get much of an effect.. The amount of stuff which is automatically added to your startup list these days is amazing :| Itunes, Quicktime, loads of stuff.. can really slow ur pc down :S

But still, often a seperate partition is great so long as you've got a good amount of space left

[bonko the sane 2]

just traded my XP32 for XP64, when i bought the new pc i planned 64bit from the start but i had some mobo driver issue, but now i got all latest drivers and bios, and what can i say, ArmA rocks on XP64 SP2, in northern saharani FPS stay well above 30 in the midst of heavy action with 2500VD and all settings on high except postprocess, AA and AF are on low but overriding 3D app set at 8X in Nvidia Control Panel.

E6600

BFG8800GTX

2x1GB 800Mhz RAM

2x320 sata II

MSI i975x mobo

Xfi extremegamer

no overclocking

[Jack-UK 0]

Cool, have you tried setting the AA to Application controlled and then whacking up the settings in ArmA? it should gain u a few more FPS... at least thats the experience of most people...

[Mezevenf 0]

After reading over everyones machines and their subsequent performance it seems my PC is falling rather short in terms of performance for what I have.

This is my PC;

Processor: AMD Athlon64 Processor 3500+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.2GHz

Memory: 2048MB RAM

Video Card: HIS RADEON X850XT

Sound Card: SB Audigy Audio [9000]

Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)

I run the game on these settings;

Visibility 1200

1280*1024*32

Terrain Detail: Normal

Objects Detail: Normal

Texture Detail: Normal

Shading Detail: Low

Postprocess fx: Low

Anisotropic filt.: Low

Shadow detail: Low

AA: Disabled

Blood: Low

Using the ArmA Benchmark I get <2000points. I started out getting 1500 points, but after killing *every* process that wasnt essential, disabling my 2nd monitor I manage ~1930pts. I tried OC'ing the video card, moving those normal values to low, disabling shadows completely, lower res, but all still yield under 2000points with no noticeable FPS improvement.

Also, on the fourth test my computer doesnt load the ground textures till the camera comes to a stop, same on the 2nd test too!

Is my computer just not up to doing any better? From viewing other peoples results it seems it could be doing a lot better with higher settings too! :'(

Any help is appreciated, sorry about the massive post.

[Jack-UK 0]

You shouldnt worry about the ArmA marks, i think most of them are taken using Normal settings + 1024*768 res too.

All you need to do is find a playable FPS for you. You have a high resolution so that will eat up a lot of FPS and personally if u're getting a framerate of around 20-25 on that GFX card i think thats probably the best u can get. But wait around and hope that someone with the same card or similar spec as u will come along and comment

[-Puma- 2]

After reading over everyones machines and their subsequent performance it seems my PC is falling rather short in terms of performance for what I have.

This is my PC;

Processor: AMD Athlon64 Processor 3500+, MMX, 3DNow, ~2.2GHz

Memory: 2048MB RAM

Video Card: HIS RADEON X850XT

Sound Card: SB Audigy Audio [9000]

Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)

I run the game on these settings;

Visibility 1200

1280*1024*32

Terrain Detail: Normal

Objects Detail: Normal

Texture Detail: Normal

Shading Detail: Low

Postprocess fx: Low

Anisotropic filt.: Low

Shadow detail: Low

AA: Disabled

Blood: Low

Using the ArmA Benchmark I get <2000points. I started out getting 1500 points, but after killing *every* process that wasnt essential, disabling my 2nd monitor I manage ~1930pts. I tried OC'ing the video card, moving those normal values to low, disabling shadows completely, lower res, but all still yield under 2000points with no noticeable FPS improvement.

Also, on the fourth test my computer doesnt load the ground textures till the camera comes to a stop, same on the 2nd test too!

Is my computer just not up to doing any better? From viewing other peoples results it seems it could be doing a lot better with higher settings too! :'(

Any help is appreciated, sorry about the massive post.

hi! I have somewhat the same specs. u should get 15-40 fps with that system. As jack said forget about arma mark, it dosent really tell u anything.

the things i have done to make the game smoother and playable:

-disabled pagefile on all drives(u have 2gb so try it)

-disabled shadows

-installed arma to empty HD(u could create new partition just for arma)

-defragg often

true that u dont get high fps, but thats just arma: Its not designed to play at high FPS. I think the question here is the smoothness.

my system:

3800+ @2600

7600gt (abit overclocked)

2000mb ram

resolution:

1280x1024(dont like the lowers 1's)

everything normal, but shadows off AA off, AF low, postprocessing low.

[Mezevenf 0]

I will buy some new hard drives thanks for the tips!

No shadows does help the fps lots, but I love shadows!

[-Puma- 2]

yeah i love the shadows too, but somethings need to go. In ur case i would get a new GFX card. dx9 cards are cheap ATM, and u could even get 8600gt for 150 euros (I would go for 7900/x1900).

If u don't mind some reading and booting i would recommend u do some overclocking.

heres a guide to get u started:

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/AMD/138

[bonko the sane 2]

the 8600 is not a gaming card, serves as a glorified video player and not much else, at least get the Foxconn 8800gts 320Mb or the new ATI...or wait