Arma performance help

[sakura_chan 9]

I've got a problem. Arma used to run great on my computer, but lately it has become really sluggish. A constant general jerkiness or hesitation is always there. I have determined that it has nothing to do with my video card because changing the video settings has no effect on performance. I also overclocked it without any gains. My harddrive might be the culprit, it only has a 150 mbps transfer speed. Flying through the air results in super nintendo quality terrain textures. I ran Arma from my external usb2.0 harddrive with a transfer speed of 480 mbps, with no improvement. Its texture loading that is the real problem. If I'm standing on a building using a scope, and then exit out of the scope view, it takes almost a second for the building's texture to load up to the correct resolution. If I'm standing anywhere in Arma, even on Rhamadi, as soon as I turn around my fps is in the toilet and I have to watch all the textures load up. I've only got 1gb of ram, is it possible that it has degraded or is simply not enough for Arma? Its not an old system, but the ram I chose probably wasn't the fastest available either. Would removing my old ram, shooting it, and installing 2gb of new, faster ram be of benefit to me? Would it also help my terrible shut down time after playing a big mission on Saharani? I clocked it once, I could turn off my computer and restart faster than simply closing Arma after playing an Evo mp map. I've run the demo and early versions well at 1650x1050, so I know that my system can do better. My specs:

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Win XP sp2

3.4 ghz intel Pentium 4

1gb of "soon to be SKS target" ram

Maxtor 120gb 7200rpm hard drive <-full defrag

acomdata 320gb usb2.0 external hard drive

ati radeon x1950pro <-tuned for Arma, updated drivers

Arma

-----------

terrain ->low

objects ->low

textures ->normal

shaders ->high

pp ->low

aa ->off

shadows -> high

res 1280x1024 or 1650x1050

keep in mind that no matter what I change these settings too, Arma never really changes more than 5-10 fps. I'm sure its not a graphic issue because it jerks and stutters even when I'm just looking at the ground. I've done a lot of searching on here and I have seen all the 'no page file' stuff and memory upgrade threads. I'm just wondering if its something else that I'm missing or if someone has any expirience with this.

[wipman 1]

Hi, i can't really help, but that thing with the dissapearing textures

for buildings, units, the terrain, the vehicles, switching LODs thing

happens to me too; i know why it happens here (more or less...)

is for my 1.768Mb of old DDR RAM, it's just not enough. But as Nvidia

user i never felt any graphic card related problem on my P-IV 3.2.

More RAM will help for sure; but i don't know if it will solve all the

issues as i don't really what causes all that.

Takes me like +-8mins to exit from a 40mins EVO coop; somehow

the ArmA is at the memory of the computer what the alzheimer is

at the human memory, in long term... deadly.

Lower the resolution, from that 1600whatever to 1280 should help,

if you lower it to 1024x768 it "should" rise the FPS in +15 or +20

FPS, but 1024x768 in the year 2007 is just dissapointing and

makes me wonder what the ArmA2 requirements will be. Let's C ya

[sakura_chan 9]

actually at 1650x1050 I get 10 fps more than at 1024x768. any non-widescreen format doesn't run as well because the video card has to stretch it to fill in the missing pixels and it looks crappy on a

22" monitor lolz. Actually I can set my res to 640x480 without a performance gain over 1650x1050.

[Dwarden 1125]

on 1680x1050 monitor (16:10 aspect ratio set in ArmA)

you can easily run 1:1 1400x1050 (4:3 ratio set in ArmA)

but make sure either monitor or drivers preserve the ratio

also You can even try smaller resolutions (then it depends on if monitor allows zoom with preserve ratio or just zoom)

if it's only zoom You can try e.g. 1440x900 or 1280x800 as 16:10

may i ask what version of x1950 pro ? AGP or PCIe? 256 or 512MB variant ? manufacturer ? what PSU ?

i use Catalyst 7.11 hotfixed drivers (7.11 WHQL are worse in my experience as i get arma blackscreen lockups on alt+tab)

tried use -maxmem=256 or 512 ?

[steele6 0]

Quote[/b] ]tried use -maxmem=256 or 512 ?

Sorry but how does that work or where do i use it? how do i get that running?

[Dwarden 1125]

put it as parameter into commandline properties of arma shortcut

e.g.

F:\ArmA\arma.exe -maxmem=256

[kklownboy 43]

...i use Catalyst 7.11 hotfixed drivers (7.11 WHQL are worse in my experience as i get arma blackscreen lockups on alt+tab)...

I agree and its better to install the 7.11hotfix/crysis driver OVER the 7.10.

As to the OP: jerkyness, maybe your AV is set to high?

[SpaceReverend 0]

I have almost similar problems as you do and i still havent quite figure them out but here is something: I got about 10fps more by installing Lowplants addon

http://www.kegetys.net/arma/ download it from here if u want

and more ram would help for sure.

Hope you'll get it fixed.

[topas 1]

Replace your Ram should give you a proper boost !

yesterday i have switched from 2x512 to 2x1024 and the difference is noticable (to say the least). I thought I'd never be able to run ArmA smoothly on my 7300gs and a 1,86gHz processor; but hey; now I'm enjoying 10000m view distance and details maxed out (AA and posteffects excluded)

with 1280x1024 it does not get above 10fps but if I were not using fraps I'd never knew it

[sakura_chan 9]

I fixed my problem and then some. I got some Crucial Ballistix ram, 4x512mb. The jerkiness in Arma is gone, texture loading is instantaneous even during flight and refresh has increased by 20-30 fps!!! It's like a new computer. I could only play the CoD 4 demo on the lowest settings at about 10-15fps, now I can play at full settings with 25-40fps. I am really impressed with my results, worth every penny however, I can now see that my fps is cut considerably by the grass in Arma. On Rahmadi, I get about 40 fps, but when I turn the grass off it goes up to 60 fps, (1680x1050). My next project is to apply some kind of serious cooling for my 3.4ghz CPU, it runs pretty hot compared to other processors, and I would like to do some overclocking. I can overclock it to 4.4ghz just using the bios, but I wouldn't try it with a fan-based cooling system. My mobo has built-in overclocking profiles, I've tried up to 10% overclock, and the presets let you go up to 30%. Should be fun

[-Puma- 2]

u should allso try this out: http://www.flashpoint1985.com/cgi-bin....t=69537

its kegetys lowplants wich will give u some nice FPS boost.

[mattxr 9]

I've got a problem. Arma used to run great on my computer, but lately it has become really sluggish. A constant general jerkiness or hesitation is always there.

I HAVE THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM!!!!!

One day i was playing the next day this happens and its been like this since, i just dont no whats wrong. I tided my harddrive/ new gfx drivers/sound drivers/OpenAL drivers/DX Drivers/ Ive tried everything and its still laggs every 5-10 seconds.. only laggs for like a second or too but thats too much to be unplayable.. and with mission making its impossible to tell if a script is lagging or not.. I need help too.

My system though

Windows XP SP2

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Duel Core Proc 4200+ 2.21GHz

3GB Of Ram DDR2 [2x1024, 1x1024]

765 Geforce 8800 GTX

Sound Blaster XFI Music

Like i say it just happend about a week ago and i didnt install/remove anything from my system :S or Arma..

Why Why Why Oh God Why!!!

[Dwarden 1125]

DMsmoke or Madmatts effects ? i got lot of lag with e.g. DMSmoke effects (more than 5 smokes in view field)

Maddmats can cause perf issues with like 15+

[-Puma- 2]

I've got a problem. Arma used to run great on my computer, but lately it has become really sluggish. A constant general jerkiness or hesitation is always there.

I HAVE THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM!!!!!

One day i was playing the next day this happens and its been like this since, i just dont no whats wrong. I tided my harddrive/ new gfx drivers/sound drivers/OpenAL drivers/DX Drivers/ Ive tried everything and its still laggs every 5-10 seconds.. only laggs for like a second or too but thats too much to be unplayable.. and with mission making its impossible to tell if a script is lagging or not.. I need help too.

My system though

Windows XP SP2

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Duel Core Proc 4200+ 2.21GHz

3GB Of Ram DDR2 [2x1024, 1x1024]

765 Geforce 8800 GTX

Sound Blaster XFI Music

Like i say it just happend about a week ago and i didnt install/remove anything from my system :S or Arma..

Why Why Why Oh God Why!!!

turn windows paging file off. that usually helps with stuttering and HD swapping.

alllso u should invest on another matching 1gig RAM stick to run those sticks in dual channel.

[lee_h._oswald 0]

its still laggs every 5-10 seconds.. only laggs for like a second or too but thats too much to be unplayable..

Same here.

First noticed it when flying with A10/Harrier.

I will try a few things when I feel better..

MfG Lee

[mattxr 9]

Im sure it happened when i plugged in my Surround Sound Headphones too. Could it be a sound problem.. sometimes i get sound static too or is that just with the lagg?

Ive tried going back to my old headphones and updating drivers.. Ive diabled Hardware Acceleration too.