BIS - Please fix the game!

[jasono 0]

From what people have saying, it seems like audio hardware not video hardware thats causing the problem?

[Kubicide 0]

Update:

Okay, the Xfi audio h/w setting is not it. CTD returned after ~1 hour.

After exhausting many options I now definately believe this is something only BIS can fix. Wish they would jump in this thread and comment. The game used to work fine up until 1.05.

[NetWalker 0]

Update:

Okay, the Xfi audio h/w setting is not it. CTD returned after ~1 hour.

After exhausting many options I now definately believe this is something only BIS can fix. Wish they would jump in this thread and comment. The game used to work fine up until 1.05.

Hi Kubicide,

I dropped a PM to Maruk asking some support from developers on this. I didn't have time to test the SB X-Fi audio h/w accel thing, but since your CTDs still remains, I guess we should have any more clarification from the devs themselves. Hope they come here to help us.

Regards

[sickboy 13]

The problem will be "worked around" if you add -maxmem=512 and in some extreme cases -maxmem=256.

The earlier mentioned 2048/1024 will only create a bigger problem (It's a bit a pitty that noone brought this point forward, as to my knowing, this is quite a well known fact within the Community)

AFAIK the problem arises since v1.08 because they changed the default memory allocation limit from 512 to 768 on systems that have more than 1GB ram or so (though im not entirely sure on this one).

4GB in a 32-bit Windows Machine will only allow 3GB to be actually addressed. If you want to use it all, 64-bit OS will be recommended, though ArmA is not supported on the OS, however I heard it runs fine on it.

A comment on the "Don't fill all ur RAM slots because this is a well known fact in the hardware world" is imho invalid.

Earlier Athlon 64's (and his brothers) had weak memory controllers that could not handle 4 sticks on low latency, high speed. Also some older P4/Core(1/2) chipsets had the same issues. However, current Chipsets and AMD CPU's, at least to my knowledge, do not have these issues, as such it is no problem in "maxing" ur memory by using all 4 slots. Single Side/Dual Side Memory also had different effects on this problem. Motherboard manual might shed some light on this.

Also, which slots you need to populate to enable dualchannel, simply depends on your motherboard.

Some need to be next to eachother: ||-- and some need to be spread: |-|-.

Again, the motherboard manual might shed some light on this.

[mattxr 9]

1.07 worked flawlessly here, now i have to use -max=256 which just makes my game only playable on low setting without lagging out and i have Awesome Proccesor, Leet 8800 and 6gig ram

[sickboy 13]

1.07 worked flawlessly here, now i have to use -max=256 which just makes my game only playable on low setting without lagging out and i have Awesome Proccesor, Leet 8800 and 6gig ram

Works just perfect on -maxmem=512 for me mate.

Altough under Vista I aswell must turn it down to 400 or maybe even 256.

6GB RAM, So ur running a 64-bit OS I assume? Anyway, if it's Vista then you know ur problem (Not aiming at Vista itself, but simply the ArmA-Vista combi)

X-Fi too, not relevant imho though.

[mattxr 9]

I have an X-fi and dont get crashes unless i remove Max-256 then i get crashes which i didnt get in 1.07

[Kubicide 0]

Thanks for the replies.

Theory with the Xfi was whether something was being affected over the PCI bus or in memory ranges. I did have crashes when enabling both EAX and h/w settings with the demo back in January so thought I would try this out as yet another possibility.

Maxmem of 512 or 1024 didn't work but I'll try 256 later tonight.

What's puzzling is that the game was fine before the latest patches. There's a lot of net traffic on 8800 issues with texturing and Nvidia working to solve the issue. Not sure if they are related...

[Kubicide 0]

UPDATE:

Confirmed this is definately an 8800 + ArmA 1.08 issue. Installed a 7950 today (512meg) using same Nvidia drivers and have had ZERO crashes in 3+ hours of straight gameplay. Performed numerous ALT/TAB's and the game remains absolutely stable. No slow down with the scope / zoomed sights either.

Interesting to note the 7950GT has a really different 'look' than the 8800GTX. Obviously the lack of the fog bug makes everything much clearer. But towns and objects take on a more 3D look. And vines look more realistic with the lighting reflections. This was unexpected. I definately prefer the look of the 7950!

I can run everything on very high (except post) with little to no change in performance loss whereas with the 8800 you could see the affect on FPS when changing most settings.

The 8800 definately handled my 3840x1024 Triplehead resolution much better. The 7950 struggles as in has a lower overall constant rate. But at 1280x1024 @ 75hz there is little difference.

(FYI for those curious. Now the question is do I ditch the 8800 or not. Really do wish BIS would comment to confirm this issue and whether they can or plan to fix it...)

[BraTTy 0]

I wouldn't ditch it. New video drivers will be along any time and all should be fine.

edit: please lock this topic.

Its improperly labeled and offensive to Bis

[Kubicide 0]

How is this offensive? ArmA worked fine with the 8800 prior to patch 1.08, and I am asking for input or help from BIS and others. Isn't this the purpose of this board and forum? Geez...

It would be great to have a reply from the developer since there are many of us ArmA + 8800 owners that are struggling with this problem.

If BIS said it was an 8800 thing and won't be fixed then great, I'll move forward with selling the 8800 and getting something that is compatible since I enjoy the game! If BIS said it's definately going to be corrected by new drivers then I'll wait. Right now I can only point the fault to the game since IT WORKED BEFORE 1.08 just as many others have stated.

(Please only reply if you have something constructive to add - thanks.)

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

I can not blame BI at this point...since Nvidia can not give us proper drivers as of yet.

I'm refering to Vista 64.

Atleast I can play (several days), using -maxmem=512, and disabling sli in the ArmA profile (nvidia cp).

[BraTTy 0]

The title of topic is labeled...

BIS- Please fix the game!

Exactly labeled that your ordering Bis to fix the game with an exclamation at that. Can't get much ruder than that when its new hardware causing the problem. You weren't asking , you were ordering.

From the 1.08 changelog its probably something along the lines of:

"New texture detail "Default" that autodetects the amount of VRAM. Recommended Texture Detail setting for users of cards with more than 512 VRAM"

But who knows... new hardware,new video drivers come out, new OS and your asking(ordering) Bis to develop a already released game around stuff that's coming in the future

Just because you are polite now, you started the topic out of anger and the topic should be "Nvidia - please fix the game" or something along those lines

Nevertheless they are working on it, your answer maybe in next changelog and thank you for your work involved in that

[Kubicide 0]

Another Update:

The 7950 ended up CTD'd after a second day of use. Seems as though it would run longer before the first crash but still ended up unstable. Have reinstalled updated drivers once again with the 8800 and will continue to research. Tried an extension setting in the Nvidia CP but it's too early to say whether this has any effect.

Reinstalled ArmA and stopped at 1.05. Interesting to note the video memory usage was much lower initially than with 1.08 (which I updated to again later). Memory would only climb to ~150 megs and stop by the time the game menu appeared. With 1.08 memory climbs >200 megs more to 350 or 450 megs! Also interesting to note that both the 7950 and 8800 were crashing when the reported (virtual?) video memory was about the same at ~700 megs.

BTW patch 1.05 was stable with no CTD's; zooming the optics was also quick. Unfortunately, only 2 or 3 servers are actually running this version these days!