Bizarre performance issues

[-TW-Fox 0]

Hi guys,

I'm running ArmA v1.05 on an 8800GTS with a Core2Duo E6700 and 2Gb of Ram.

I played ArmA 2 nights ago, as I always do. No problems, it ran great, as always. Nice smooth framerate at 1280x1024. Awesome.

Come to play again today. Double click the ArmA icon my desktop and the application crashes before the game loads - ArmA has generated errors and will be closed by Windows. I reboot, same thing.

So, I renstall ArmA. All is well - it loads up again now.

But I am getting horrifically unplayable performance. At 1152x864 or above, it's literally between 2-5fps most of the time. It's so bad that when a radio command is spoken, the voice is stuttery and crackling. It even affects the voices on Teamspeak - an external application - when I'm in-game with ArmA.

Does anyone know whats going on? I've changed nothing since I succesfully played ArmA just two nights ago! Same everything. All I've done is reinstall the game after it stopped working.

FWIW, all my other games still perform absolutely perfectly.

[jackass888 0]

no idea what caused it but you could try system restore

[walker 0]

Hi [TW]Fox

Sounds like a sound card issue. When you reinstalled another set of sound card options may have been detected. Check and see ArmA sound options as EAX and hardware in sound may need to be turned off. You may have had this in your first install but new drivers since your last install may have been detected by ArmA. Ah the wonders of windows update.

What sound card have you got?

Check and see if you also have an AC97 on-board/mobo sound card as well as any PCI XIFI sound card.

The AC97 and mobo driver issue are one of the commonest cause of problems.

Kind regard walker

[-TW-Fox 0]

Hi,

I like your thinking becuase the one thing I did do between it last working and now was reinstall my soundcard drivers (with the same driver version) to cure a speaker selection issue.

I'm using an SB Audigy.

I've tried running the game without EAX and Hardware Acceleration but it makes little difference - at my preffered resolution, 1280x1024, the game is literally running at 2fps.

I am getting a really rather odd repeating glitch sound over and over again as well - this goes away when I disable hardware acceleration but this makes no impact on the performance issues.

Interestingly, when I first load the game and it does that flypast of the Island in the background it's running fine - 80-90fps.

[walker 0]

Hi [TW]Fox

I think it may be the mobo/on-board AC97 issue bug. Remember you can have a mobo/on-board sound card as well as a seperate plug in sound card, most people are not even aware it is running. I had the same sound glitches with my first use of ArmA.

In order to help you we need a few more details.

I know you think you have told us all this but you have not told us enough details. Do not miss anything out even though you think it is not the cause experience tells me that is what it will be.

You do need to fill in ALL these details so we can help you, we especially need driver versions; so we can exclude or include them as the cause.

CPU

Graphics card (make, model, driver version, on-board ram)

Sound card  (make, model and driver version)

RAM (how much you have)

ArmA version (which language, which patch)

DirectX version (all should be using 9.0c anyway)

Mother board (make, model, driver version, on-board sound card)

Kind Regards walker

[Mr_Tea 0]

[TW]Fox

What Windows version do you use, Win2K, WinXP in 32bit or 64bit or any version of Vista?

[-TW-Fox 0]

Certainly. I'll list the details at the end of this post, but first a quick timeline for you all.

6th April: Play Arma at 1280x1024. Looks great, works fine, 80-100fps.

8th April: 1) Get fed up of my speaker selection not showing properly in my SB Audigy control panel. Uninstall then reinstall drivers from CD.

2) A few hours later, decide to play ArmA. ArmA will not run - 'ArmA has generated Errors and will be closed by Windows'.

3) Reinstall ArmA

4) ArmA now runs up as normal, but gives apalling performance

5) Post this thread

6) Uninstall SB Audigy drivers/software again to see if it makes a difference

7) Attempt to run ArmA without sound drivers installed

8) Back to original problem - now, ArmA wont run at all. The process 'generates errors and will be closed by Windows'

This is the stage I'm at now - it certainly SEEMS soundcard related by virtue of the fact that every time I do something with the soundcard drivers, ArmA's installation gets screwed.

Now the information..

I am running Windows XP Pro SP2.

GFX: NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 320Mb, 97.92 drivers

Sound: Creative SB Audigy (Original one) - driver version unknown but it's properly old - the version off the original CD. Creative do not appear to offer revised drivers for download

Ram: 2048Mb OCZ PC6400

CPU: Intel Core2Duo E6700

ArmA: UK version, problem occurs with both 1.04 and the 1.05 patch

Motherboard: Gigabyte DS3, latest drivers.

It DOES have Onboard sound but this is disabled in the BIOS and has been since I built the system so as far as Windows is concerned, no onboard sound.

[Mr_Tea 0]

Do you have the same problem with the 1.05+ beta patch?

[walker 0]

Hi [TW]Fox

You say your using the drivers from your CD.

Those are probably not up to date, and may have been updated by windows update without your knowledge.

Go to your sound card manufacturers site and download the latest drivers.

Save them to your hard disk if you can.

Next remove your old drivers

There are several way to do this.

Here are a couple of ways you could do it.

Way 1

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar05/articles/pcmusician.htm

Way 2

Follow these steps to view and remove these unnecessary device drivers:

1) Press [Windows]+[break] to bring up the System Properties dialog box.

2) Select the Advanced tab and click the Environment Variables button.

3) Click the New button below the System Variables panel.

4) In the New System Variable dialog box, type devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices in the Variable Name text box and 1 in the Variable Value text box.

5) Click OK to return to the System Properties dialog box and then click OK again.

6) Bring up the System Properties dialog box again and select the Hardware tab and click the Device Manager button.

7) In Device Manager, go to View | Show Hidden Devices.

8) Expand the various branches in the device tree and look for the washed out icons, which indicate unused device drivers.

9) To remove an unused device driver, right-click the icon and select Uninstall.

Time to install updated drivers

Next install the updated drivers.

Kind Regards walker

[dirtylarrygb 0]

Hi [TW]Fox

You say your using the drivers from your CD.

Those are probably not up to date, and may have been updated by windows update without your knowledge.

Go to your sound card manufacturers site and download the latest drivers.

Save them to your hard disk if you can.

Next remove your old drivers

There are several way to do this.

Here are a couple of ways you could do it.

Way 1

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar05/articles/pcmusician.htm

Way 2

Follow these steps to view and remove these unnecessary device drivers:

1) Press [Windows]+[break] to bring up the System Properties dialog box.

2) Select the Advanced tab and click the Environment Variables button.

3) Click the New button below the System Variables panel.

4) In the New System Variable dialog box, type devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices in the Variable Name text box and 1 in the Variable Value text box.

5) Click OK to return to the System Properties dialog box and then click OK again.

6) Bring up the System Properties dialog box again and select the Hardware tab and click the Device Manager button.

7) In Device Manager, go to View | Show Hidden Devices.

8) Expand the various branches in the device tree and look for the washed out icons, which indicate unused device drivers.

9) To remove an unused device driver, right-click the icon and select Uninstall.

Time to install updated drivers

Next install the updated drivers.

Kind Regards walker

also goto the creative site and do the auto update. and also reinstall the openal drivers once done.

[jackass888 0]

that should be the drivers for audigy winxp

http://uk.europe.creative.com/support....21&y=17

[sbsmac 0]

I very much doubt the video drivers have anything to do with your problem but I would still recommend that once you get the current issue sorted out you try out the unofficial 101.02 8800 drivers from http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1609 I've found performance to be _much_ better with these than the official 97.92 .

[-TW-Fox 0]

Got the latest Audigy drivers now - still no joy

[dirtylarrygb 0]

Fox @ April 09 2007,15:17)]Got the latest Audigy drivers now - still no joy

search for open AL threads with link to latest open al driver here.

Quite a few audigy users have had issues with ARMA. The Xifi seems less hassle (for once!.

I really recommend the Xifi series they are cheap now start from about 30 pounds OEM. Since i dropped my audigy for a Xifi 16 months ago I have not had sound issues with any game. For me the audigy was a bit hit and miss. I suspect that creative arn't making drivers for the audigy much anymore and its all Xifi based.

Seems a bit crap to upgrade a soundcard, audigy should be fine. but may be worth a try instead of rebuilding your machine.

May be worth also moving PCI slot of the card. make sure its in game mode, disable CMSS 3d EAX etc.

Turn down hardware etc.

Check dxdiag etc.

[-TW-Fox 0]

This is getting beyond a joke now. I spent today formatting my hard drive and reinstalling Windows in an effort to try and fix this problem.

My first 30 minutes of play was acceptable. Not great, but playable. After that, back to the same old problem again. Performance so crushingly slow that it even distorts voices on Teamspeak - it's as if getting the game to run even poorly is using up all my CPU resources to the detriment of background procesess like Teamspeak.

I then DISABLED my SB Audigy and moved to using Onboard sound. Same issue. I am using the latest drivers for everything.

I'm beginning to get very annoyed now - I just want to play ArmA each evening with my mates, but I can't. The game runs how you'd expect it to run on a P3 1Ghz with a GeForce3, NOT an E6700 with 2Gb of Ram, a fresh Windows installation and a GeForce 8800!!!

I just dont get it, I really dont. I thought reformatting would fix this once and for all, but it didnt.

[dirtylarrygb 0]

Fox @ April 11 2007,23:53)]This is getting beyond a joke now. I spent today formatting my hard drive and reinstalling Windows in an effort to try and fix this problem.

My first 30 minutes of play was acceptable. Not great, but playable. After that, back to the same old problem again. Performance so crushingly slow that it even distorts voices on Teamspeak - it's as if getting the game to run even poorly is using up all my CPU resources to the detriment of background procesess like Teamspeak.

I then DISABLED my SB Audigy and moved to using Onboard sound. Same issue. I am using the latest drivers for everything.

I'm beginning to get very annoyed now - I just want to play ArmA each evening with my mates, but I can't. The game runs how you'd expect it to run on a P3 1Ghz with a GeForce3, NOT an E6700 with 2Gb of Ram, a fresh Windows installation and a GeForce 8800!!!

I just dont get it, I really dont. I thought reformatting would fix this once and for all, but it didnt.

Ok this is weird, a reformat should have sorted this IF a hardware issue.

Something has happened to the hardware.

It was fine now it isn't.

I'm on same hardware as you and it play like a dream for me.

I don't run TS at same time as ARMA, try without TS just in case?

Your on Xp right? I would look at bios settings, see if a newer bios is out for your mobo, or set them to default.

30 mins slow down could also be either the PSu playing up with power to the 8800 or the GPU going wrong as well.

Make sure you dont max settings in ARMA, try running everything at low see if then a problem happens.

I'm sorry your having problems, are all others games ok?

Are you playing a pc with just ARMA and win xp sp2? did you reinstall any other software as well?

[-TW-Fox 0]

Currently yes, the only thing installed is ArmA.

As for hardware issues - at least before the reformat and AFTER the problem started, all other games (C&C3, HL2, BF2, Eve Online) ran absolutely flawlessly, as you would expect with a system of my specification

[dirtylarrygb 0]

Fox @ April 12 2007,01:43)]Currently yes, the only thing installed is ArmA.

As for hardware issues - at least before the reformat and AFTER the problem started, all other games (C&C3, HL2, BF2, Eve Online) ran absolutely flawlessly, as you would expect with a system of my specification

have you fxied it fox?

[-TW-Fox 0]

Afraid not. Got some more info though.

Basically, some of the time, the game runs fine. Nice and smooth. Then, all of a sudden, everything goes wrong. FPS dives to less than 10, everything stutters, even voices on Teamspeak stutter and the Menu's are jerky.

If I change the screen resolution, the problem is fixed for another 3-7 minutes. Note, it fixes it irrespective of what resolution I change it to. So, If I am playing at 1024x768 and I change it to 1280x1024, it will fix the problem and go from 10fps to 40fps for another 5 minutes or so before I need to change resolution AGAIN. It's VERY strange.

So, I can actually play ArmA at smooth framerates provided I am prepared to swap screen resolutions every few minutes

[Jack-UK 0]

(forgive me if im repetitive i havent read the whole of the thread)

Hmm that is strange... maybe you have a faulty graphics card? or faulty memory?

Because it looks like your PC is becoming 'clogged up' somehow and when you change the resolution i think it clears the 'cache' or flushes the memory or something like that. You should be able to get the same effect from an Alt-Tab...

Im sorry im not very smart on the technical side of things as you can see, but i think something is happening along the lines which i have described... If you havent yet, try testing your memory? Use google im sure theres a memory testing program out there somewhere...

Hope you can get it working soon!

[-TW-Fox 0]

See that was my first thought but.. Eve Online, STALKER, etc etc all perform faultlessly for hours on end. I spent all of last evening playing Eve Online at a consistent 150-200fps.

[Jack-UK 0]

ArmA seems to test even the best systems out there though it will also root out problems a lot of other games may leave unnoticed... i'd suggest testing your memory or something like that, or maybe ask a friend if you can test ur 8800 in their rig or something?

Unless someone else has solution instead of me philosophising about possible issues lol

[dirtylarrygb 0]

ArmA seems to test even the best systems out there though it will also root out problems a lot of other games may leave unnoticed... i'd suggest testing your memory or something like that, or maybe ask a friend if you can test ur 8800 in their rig or something?

Unless someone else has solution instead of me philosophising about possible issues lol

IS your machine OC'?

people with Oc'ed GPU and CPU have had either no issue or really odd ones.

If your running ntune get rid of it, rivatuner etc turn things back to defaul and see if thats ok.