The -maxmem command

[tophe 69]

I know this have been discussed off and on in numerous threads, but people are saying so many different things.

As I understand it the -maxmem command may sort out problems where you get freeze-ups, CTD's and Graphics problems.

Especially if you have a videocard with a bit more memory on it.

But some people connect this command to your amount of system RAM.

So... how is this command used?

For example...

I have 2gb ram and a GeForce 8800 with 320mb DDR.

I'm getting alot of stability problems with ArmA since I got my 8800 (as most people, it seems...)

What should I set the -maxmem command to?

-maxmem=512?

or maybe -maxmem=320, for the graphics card memory...

Help me out here.

Could someone please explain exactly what this command do and what system specs that decides what amount to set it to.

Thank you.

[Smitty71 0]

I also have 2gigs and use a 8800gts 640mb and if I add the -maxmem command I can be guaranteed that I CTD within 15 minutes.  The -maxmem command doenst work for everyone it seems. Ive tried -maxmem 258, 512, all the way to 1500 and it all makes me CTD within 15 minutes.

Another thing that deffinately makes me CTD is if I ALT/TAB out of the game for a second.  If I alt/tab, and then return to game, I will crash about 5 minutes later everytime!

If i don't alt/tab, or add the -maxmem command, I can play for hours stable!

I run a stable 28-70fps playing evolution at 1920X1200 with all on settings on very high (except for object detail set to low for a 5+fps boost and post processing to low) and a 2000m view

[tophe 69]

Is there anyone that knows?

[MoZo 0]

Well i use -maxmem=512 because its the only line that works for me..

ive tryed everything else from -maxmem=256 to -maxmem=2048 and crashes all the time.

So i dont know what it does but it works. (-maxmem=512)

[sailindawg 0]

One can use to a max value of 768 for that tweak. I'm running a 7950 GX2 and I use a value of 768. What vid drivers are you running. I'm currently running the beta 160.03 drivers from Guru3d. They seem to run ARMA pretty well.

[Sevan 0]

I also have 2gb of RAM and a 320DDR 8800. I use maxmem 512mb, based on recommendations from people. So, far it has really helped with stability.

(although I can't attribute the stability I have been getting soley to this, since I did about 3 other things, including using Nvidia 163. beta drivers.)

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=66483

[kklownboy 43]

Its for your system RAM, and you should never set it to all your ram. Say 2gigs=2048 you would set it to 2047...ect. The card you have makes a differance , The NVDA cards seem to use more of the system RAM ( may be way off here) that needs to use the parameter. Spank me if i am wrong here.

[troop 0]

Its for your system RAM, and you should never set it to all your ram. Say 2gigs=2048 you would set it to 2047...ect.

You got that one slightly wrong. Regardless, of how many RAM you've

got in your PC, ArmA will only use ~500-900(?)MB *without*

the maxmem= parameter set.

Please read this other thread;..slighly offtopic, but MAXMEM=

explained in more detail.

http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=66655

During own tests (XP SP2; Vista is another story) my max stable

amount was 768MB set, trying 1023MB became unstable real quick

on my machine with 2GB RAM.

Values working ok, seam to be[rough guidance]:

256MB (Vista)

256, 512 (Vista, XP )

768 (XP)

1023 (XP)

Try to avoid values above 1024. While for some it may work,

its pointless, because ArmA never consumes that much.

[kklownboy 43]

Ok thanx but as to the amount used 500-650mb, i have near 800mb, and 1.6+gig virtual. this is with out the maxmen, on a Evo with max settings, and huge view distance.

[troop 0]

Ok thanx but as to the amount used 500-650mb, i have near 800mb, and 1.6+gig virtual. this is with out the maxmen, on a Evo with max settings, and huge view distance.

You are of course correct! (I will edit my posts)

Just after I wrote that values, I tested maximum settings with

max viewrange flying;..until crashing.

ArmA usage like you've said was then close to 800MB RAM + 800 virtual memory usage.

Video Memory usage 640MB (0 free) ; crash after 5 minutes.

Since I never use max settings, I barely see 650MB RAM usage,

thats why I wrote that in the first place. Sorry.

-

With correct settings, I never crash; dont need maxmem= here.

[kklownboy 43]

Maxmem 512 : 1.26g Vram , 534MB RAM

768 : 1.65g , 800+

1024 : 1.9+ ,1050

2048 : 1.7 , 880

My Page/Vram is 2048/2048

My Memory is 2gigs, and my vidcards add 512mb x2 in CF.

[sailindawg 0]

@trooper

I have also found what you described. I'm using 2 GB sys RAM also. I set the maxmem to a max of 768. Any higher resulted in instabilities. Seems that either 512 or 768 works for most people.

[binkster 0]

I believe the crashing is caused by the video ram filling to its capacity. I think it was said before by maruk that its an issue with 88ss and having more than 512 of vram.

I use no maxmem

Few things I learned.

1. I crash when using any texture detail except normal.

2. The first sign of problems, blinking textures, or lod issues you need to manually Flush your vram. If you manually flush it will get rid of textures except from what you are using.

I use rivatuner which allows you to display vram durring game plus FPS.

Ive noticed the vram just slowly gets higher and higher and once it reaches your capacity it crashes.

FLUSH by holding down left SHIFT and minus key on numpad at same time. Then type FLUSH. You will see activated on top left of screen once you flush.

3. 88ss run hot. The default fan speed is 59% and you need ntune to change it to 100% which at 59% my gpu would go over 80C and with 100% it would get in 60C's.

4. I learned xp crashed less and had way better performance than Vista So I ended up making a dual boot using vistabootpro. I can choose which OS durring boot up.

After doing all of this I can enjoy hours of mp play.

[DUTCH-BUDDHA 0]

dos enyone no wat this means tanks for help

after plying a bit il get this cannot creat system memory surface DXT1,2048x2048(size2796224 B) Error code 8007000e

[binkster 0]

dos enyone no wat this means tanks for help

after plying a bit il get this cannot creat system memory surface DXT1,2048x2048(size2796224 B) Error code 8007000e

Read my above post, this is from the bug with 88ss graphics cards and or having more than 512mb of Video RAM.

Hopefully this will be fixed but you have to flush your video ram.

What happens is your video ram fills up with 3d textures even though your not looking at these textures your ram just keeps filling up untill it cant fit anymore in. Then it cannot create anymore 3d textures,,,CRASH.

By FLushing you can prevent this, but you have to flush every 10min or so. But maybe this is arma problems or maybe Nvidia problems I dont know.

[Nonpoint 0]

dutch-buddha, make sure you do not have textures set to Default in game.

And for everyone that posted here that has at least 2 gigs of memory, DISABLE YOUR PAGE FILE. Problem fixed! Just make sure you dont have a ton of other programs running. Forget maxmem=whatever, turn off your page file!

[BadBone 0]

nvm

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

dutch-buddha, make sure you do not have textures set to Default in game.

And for everyone that posted here that has at least 2 gigs of memory, DISABLE YOUR PAGE FILE.  Problem fixed!  Just make sure you dont have a ton of other programs running.  Forget maxmem=whatever, turn off your page file!

How do u do that?

[rowdied 44]

Right Click My Computer

Select Advanced tab

Select Performance Settings

Select Advanced tab

Select Virtual memory - Change

Click the radar button that says No Page File, ok, and reboot.

It could cause issues for other programs and windows could stop operating so be aware of that before you make changes especially if you are not that computer literate.

The best advice for the pagefile I heard was 1. Make the size min to max the same (stops it constantly chanign its size) 2. Have the paging file on a separate disk preferably the fastest one and different from your o/s.

Hope this helps

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I'm on XP with 2GB of RAM, with an older graphics card (because I've read about all these problems with 8800). So I need to play with quite reduced settings. Ok, so it doesn't look very nice, but it's still a very good game to me.

I had the memory crash very rarely, usually only when I upped the settings (I think especially texture quality) for snapshots, that I experienced these crashes. But frequent enough to be slightly annoying.

So I started using -maxmem:512, and now all of a sudden I get prolonged halts of 10-30 seconds, with some very odd memory allocation going on (as seen in task manager). This only happens in quite large selfmade missions with lots of additional sounds, ambience and such. I have to switch island (using the improved Sahrani in QG) in order to restore these problems.

My question, is this command as safe as I'm led to believe?

[NoRailgunner 0]

CarlGustaffa try to start ArmA without -maxmem stuff. On the other hand you can test RAM too.

[King-Six 0]

id like to know the answer too, i have 4 gigs of ram, windows xp, and an 8800 gtx with 768 meg.

i can run the game on maximum details and maximum view distance for about 10 minutes then it crashes from the now famous 8007000e error. but while it is running there is no chop and no slowdowns at all.

yes im running the current drivers for it too, the offical release, no beta drivers.

in the past i have tried maxmem 256 768 and even numbers as high as 2048 still crashes. i have determined that the maxmem command does nothing. at least not on my machine.

its so depressing playing this game on low details just to keep it running.

[M.Andersson(SWE) 4]

Ok. i applied what you recomended in the virtual mem

It says "Current: 0MB".

But when in ctrl+alt+del and check it states 1.2gb

[Ventura 0]

CarlGustaffa,

What "older" card are you using to play ARMA? seems that if this problem happens on older cards, no so frequently, maybe is because, to get performance out of older cards you do have to lower video settings. Making this problem should be associeted with high settings, not graphic card related.

Ventura.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I was going for a Geforce GX2 (dual gpu), but it couldn't be found anywhere, so I had to settle for a Geoforce 7950 GT, not "quite" on par with 8800GTS cards.

Yes, I have my settings rather low; normal on most things. Very high only on anisotropic. No antialiasing or blood, and naturally very low on terrain grid/no grass.