Quality rig - disastrous performance in ArmA

[icebreakr 3139]

Q6600 quad-core with 2gb, 8600gt, freshly installed PC with vista premium. Only manages low/normal settings on 1024x768!!!! what could be wrong? All drivers are latest ones...

[Tankbuster 1735]

with vista premium.

There's your answer.

[sickboy 13]

Well for starters; Vista & ArmA are like heaven & hell. (You really didn't notice all the commotion around Vista/ArmA on the forums?)

-maxmem parameter must be applied, at least for me.

Latest drivers, does that mean latest drivers from windows update, from the driver page of manufacturer, or from guru3d.com and alike sites?

If you did the first 2, better look at guru3d.com for the real latest drivers then.

8600GT is a mid-range card from the latest generation of Nvidia Cards, you should get at least medium/high graphics possible.

You got 32bit or 64bit? 64bit seems to give more problems around.

ArmA is unoptimized for multicore, dualcore only gives a marginal boost, hence you should not expect any magical performance 'cause you got a quad'

[-Puma- 2]

agree 8600 is just middlerange card, but with dual boot u will get a

good performance out of ur rig.

8800gts isnt that expensive anymore

[icebreakr 3139]

My friend has this PC, I'm getting the same results on my Athlon 3000+, 2gb ram, 6600 GT and that is sad. With XP Home...

[lee_h._oswald 0]

Vista = Gamer's hell.

Get yourself a winxp home edition and make a dual boot system.

Don't waste your time on vista and gaming.

MfG Lee

[Mr_Tea 0]

How much video ram did that 8600GT have?

I would not buy an card, with less than 512 MB video ram.

[icebreakr 3139]

It is Gainward with 512MB....

[Bergmania 0]

I to would say its the 8600gt that is to blame.. I wouldn't even call it mid-ranged.. more upper budget range.. They are slower than the old 7800gtx's even.. The only selling-point they have is that they are dx10 capable.. and since no sane gamer even touch Vista with a stick thats even kinda thin..

[echo1 0]

Vista = Gamer's hell.

Get yourself a winxp home edition and make a dual boot system.

Don't waste your time on vista and gaming.

MfG Lee

I think Vista = Everyone's hell. Im switching back to XP soon. If I want something pretty, Ill buy me a Mac :P

[sickboy 13]

I to would say its the 8600gt that is to blame.. I wouldn't even call it mid-ranged.. more upper budget range.. They are slower than the old 7800gtx's even.. The only selling-point they have is that they are dx10 capable.. and since no sane gamer even touch Vista with a stick thats even kinda thin..

Right on. Though im having fun with Lost Planet DX10 etc... And of course can't wait for the announced DX10 titles.

Since last drivers and simply using Vista 32, I did get near my XP game performance, but still 10-15fps less than under XP. As ArmA is still not that optimized and still doesn't does miracles on FPS, i guess it's clear that XP, at the very least for ArmA is the preffered OS

[kronzky 5]

For all of you stuck with Vista for whatever reason (probably because it came with a new machine), you might be interested in the downgrade rights you have (depending on your country, and the version you own).

It allows you to legally change from Vista to XP, retaining your full support functionality.

Check this official MS document, or this article, for example (there are more, just search for "Vista Downgrade Rights").

[Mr_Tea 0]

ArmA works for me with Vista Home Premium.

But as it works far better with Win2K Prof. i use Win2K for gaming.

I`ll test ArmA with Vista again once the SP1 is out, i hope it will help a little bit.

[Delirium 0]

I don't know where you taking this bullshit about Vista from.

Vista is much better system than XP and it works better, even with ARMA.

It just needs some post install work as any Microsoft system.

I get the impression, just going through the forums, that ARMA is good, everything else is bad.

Quick reminder:

-Vista

-8800

-ATI

-HDD

-P5B-E Intel P965 etc

Is there any other game or application that is so much hardware and software unfriendly?

[Gunney 0]

I just ordered new parts similiar to the OP's(except I got 64bit vista and 8800GTS 640), it is a bummer I will probably have terrible peformance in ArmA but it was made for future games so w/e

[Bergmania 0]

I don't know where you taking this bullshit about Vista from.

Vista is much better system than XP and it works better, even with ARMA.

It just needs some post install work as any Microsoft system.

I get the impression, just going through the forums, that ARMA is good, everything else is bad.

Is there any other game or application that is so much hardware and software unfriendly?

No Vista is a joke in its current condition, It is not just Armed Assault that have problems..

The company I work for have even postponed the rollout of it because of all incompatibility's (about 2000 machines on the site I work on maybe 40k machines world wide)

I love some features in Vista thought.. the ability to load drivers from usb during installation is killer.. aero looks nice.. but is kinda pointless.. and its a joke to call it a 3d desktop if you then compare it to what beryl does on X11/Linux. I truly dislike the DRM bits in it thought.. and I seen it trigger in legal DVD's (I have a friend that was unable to watch a DVD that he made himself as Vista DRM triggered)

Its not all Microsofts fault, most drivers is a sad state aswell and that really doesn't help the situation

So Im not a dedicated microsoft hater.. but Vista have been released atleast one year before it was ready..

[sickboy 13]

Quote[/b] ]I don't know where you taking this bullshit about Vista from.

I think ppl are mainly meaning to say that ArmA+Vista combo sux, not so much Vista itself in other aspects?

No Vista is a joke in its current condition, It is not just Armed Assault that have problems..

I don't think Vista is a joke in it's current state as I do not have much problems outside ArmA with it.

I like Vista very much, but ArmA doesn't like Vista so much.

Other games play like a charm for me, so in that light I dont think Vista is that crap. What it needs is the right drivers and proper hardware.

Running Vista since Beta's and RC's at my work, and at home for anything else than ArmA, and im a happy user.

Vista is simply new, a lot of methods are changed, most things are being virtualized under Vista. Nvidia for instance has massive problems getting their cards+drivers to run properly with the virtualization of graphics memory in Vista, hence the big problems for Nvidia. Drivers are already a lot better and the beta reliability etc pack seems to do wonders also.

About that DRM on DVD stuff, there might simply be a different method required when authoring dvd's burned under Vista. Maybe "Exclude DRM"? (hehe). I dunno but what I do know is that most ppl use their old habbits/methods on a brand new system, and that does not always go hand in hand

Anyway, Vista on the outside might just look like an eye-candied XP, but there are a lot of subsystems rewritten or changed, especially in the graphics subsystem and the earlier mentioned virtualizing of basicly about everything. Such changes will always cost headaches for parties involved (vendors and endusers), but in the end it should all work out to be a better system.

Quote[/b] ]The company I work for have even postponed the rollout  of it because of all incompatibility's (about 2000 machines on the site I work on maybe 40k machines world wide)

Any such large company would wait for SP1 or even 2 to come out before roling it out, it's a standard procedure for any big company, heck, most companies even run windows 2000 instead of xp, and only the past years more and more possibly switched due to proven reliability of XP.

About the "3d Desktop", I don't remember Microsoft advertising anywhere that it's a 3d desktop. However there are 3d elements, like windows-key + tab etc, next to the extra effects and transparancy options etc.

[FlyinBullets 0]

It's weird, I do not know how my PC can handle to run high settings, here are my system specs. (It's a 2004 Sony VAIO Desktop that has been upgraded)

Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.4 ghz

GeForce 7600 GS w/ 256 video ram

2gigs of DDR Ram (PC 2700)

I can run arma on max resolution and high settings.

[Key Dutch 0]

I don't know where you taking this bullshit about Vista from.

Vista is much better system than XP and it works better, even with ARMA.

It just needs some post install work as any Microsoft system.

I get the impression, just going through the forums, that ARMA is good, everything else is bad.

Quick reminder:

-Vista

-8800

-ATI

-HDD

-P5B-E Intel P965 etc

Is there any other game or application that is so much hardware and software unfriendly?

its not software unfriendly, its peeps hands grow from wrong place. or they fogot install drivers for them. (hands.sys)

i feel ok with my rig, manage run with max.details with 1600x1200 resolution , AA x2 (with Adaptive AA "ON"), AF x16 (with High Quality AF "ON")

[Key Dutch 0]

It's weird, I do not know how my PC can handle to run high settings, here are my system specs. (It's a 2004 Sony VAIO Desktop that has been upgraded)

Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.4 ghz

GeForce 7600 GS w/ 256 video ram

2gigs of DDR Ram (PC 2700)

I can run arma on max resolution and high settings.

i belive Arma, run better on single video card and single core CPU, than on any of  latest dual or quad core CPU and SLI/CrossFire cards, look like its do not support dual and quad core CPU. same with video cards, u have better prefeormance form single card then from SLI/CrossFire configuration.

there for solution,use single video card, and if u have dual/quad core CPU, for better preformance u can OC ur CPU.

from all what was sed is concluded, Arma was not build for:

1. Vista

2. SLI/CrossFire

3. Dual/Quad core CPU

[Bergmania 0]

i belive Arma, run better on single video card and single core CPU, than on any of latest dual or quad core CPU and SLI/CrossFire cards, look like its do not support dual and quad core CPU. same with video cards, u have better prefeormance form single card then from SLI/CrossFire configuration.

there for solution,use single video card, and if u have dual/quad core CPU, for better preformance u can OC ur CPU.

from all what was sed is concluded, Arma was not build for:

1. Vista

2. SLI/CrossFire

3. Dual/Quad core CPU

There isn't that many games around using multi cpu/core , I can like only think of Falcon4 (which had far worse compability problems bw..) Quake3/4 (and most of the ones based on it) and Unreal..

Even if the game itself isn't multi threaded it still will help it sum.. Nvidias drivers is smp aware for example.. and it can basically load 1 core/cpu 100% and not share it with the OS..

[butcher1 0]

Vista = Gamer's hell.

Get yourself a winxp home edition and make a dual boot system.

Don't waste your time on vista and gaming.

MfG Lee

your going to change your mind about vista when all games become DX10 compatable. your going to need vista so dont be a XP fan boy and later cry for the need for vista

[Gunney 0]

There isn't that many games around using multi cpu/core

That will change in a couple of months

[Barry the baldy 0]

Pure and simple, as has been said, the 8600 isn't even a mid range card. Now its a low end card. In all honesty you can't expect to run a high end game like armed assault on a $200 video card.

Move to Vista 32bit or head back to XP pro and update to an 8800 (at least the GTS 320MB) and your FPS will skyrocket.

I'm on a:

Core 2 Duo E6750

2GB RAM

XP Pro

8800GTS 320MB

And I run everything on high at 1440x900 and never drop below 30fps.

At the moment your 8600 is bottlenecking your system right out the door.

As for the whole VISTA argument, we're all going to need to upgrade to Vista at some point or another if we want anything to do with DX10 gaming but timing is everything. Its a great OS, we just need to wait until all the bugs have been worked out and it runs as well as XP does. In its current state you can still get everything running as well as XP when it comes to gaming but you're gonna have to fiddle around under the hood a little bit.

[Raz0rx 0]

Vista = Gamer's hell.

Get yourself a winxp home edition and make a dual boot system.

Don't waste your time on vista and gaming.

MfG Lee

your going to change your mind about vista when all games become DX10 compatable. your going to need vista so dont be a XP fan boy and later cry for the need for vista

www.fallingleafsystems.com

Eat that, Vista-lover!