HD being accessed during ArmA.

[pvt.pile 0]

I don't understand this is it never used to do be like this, when i am playing arma these days my HD is going mad sometime causing it to lag and splutter when playing. I don't know why because i have all the latest drivers the HD has been defragged there is no spyware or viruses on my PC. I am running the new beta patch my system spec below..

Windows XP

Intel Core 2 Duo 6700 OC ed to 3.1ghz

Geforce 7800 GTX

2 gig DDRII 5300

Realtek onboard SC

[Placebo 29]

What ingame settings are you using?

[pvt.pile 0]

I mostly play EVO online so i have to turn my settings down to the lowest (res 1024*768) other wise ArmA crashes all the time. It's weird because it only really happens when i use the zoom mode in town or scopes overlooking cities or wooded areas. I forgot to mention its a downloaded version of arma.

[ArmaVidz 0]

try turning off ur pagefile and playing for a couple hours...

Start>Run>Sysdm.cpl>Advanced>Performance "Settings" Button>"Advanced" Tab>"Change" button>Select "No Paging File">Click the "Set" button>"OK" button....

Reboot...

[Ryan_D 0]

Symptoms of a failing harddrive? Try turning off pagefile like he said.

[pvt.pile 0]

Don't say that dude ffs! I turned of pagefileing and it seems to have helped plus i spent a while defragging the HD again just to make sure. Thanx guyz.

[Mr_Tea 0]

Use the maxmem parameter to let ArmA use more system ram.

It must not, but can be helpful. Try -maxmem1024, that should help.

[spetznaz14 0]

Something to do with poor vram management?, this was an issue in older patches as I remember but I thought it only affected 8800 series.

[pvt.pile 0]

Ok guyz just thought i would update you on this problem that still plagues me, it did get a bit better when i added the memory line into the short cut and turning off page filing. But alas it had started to happen again in the last few days so i uninstalled ArmA and started with a fresh install.

Now it is worse it will crash my system after about 15 mins of playing time and it stutters more . Has anyone had any luck in fixing this and is it a beta patch bug?

Thank you Craig.

[pvt.pile 0]

Just done some testing and went back to 1.08 it seems like its a 1.09 beta problem, from what i can tell i played EVO for about 2 hours on different servers and didn't have the HD stutter problem. Oh well looks like i wont be playing the beta anymore and hopefully BI fix it for for final release.

[ArmaVidz 0]

Myself and others don't have the issue, so I would assume it's not a 1.09beta problem.

If you have 2GB's of RAM, the only real time your hard drive should be accessed (after the initial load) is 'now and again' throughout your time playing. Double check your pagefile size again to be sure the pagefile is turned off. I have seen instances where the pagefile is not actually turned off. You will see the value of the size of the pagefile in the same place where you turn off the pagefile. In rare cases, you may have to boot into safe mode, then delete the pagefile.sys manually.

As for the HDD accessing itself, I had this problem when using the -maxmem parameter and running with a pagefile. Together, the performance was horrid.

[BraTTy 0]

My last PC I formatted and reinstalled XP.

I was playing Arma and it was stuttering bad like yours.I even went and bought a new soundcard so I could enable hardware accel and help the load a little.It mostly skipped at startup is why I thought it was the sound.(but it was the loading and hd access)

I happen to notice that my main IDE HD was using PIO mode and that was the problem.I had to muck with chipset drivers till I got the right HD controller driver and it would run DMA mode

[ArmaVidz 0]

my main IDE HD was using PIO mode and that was the problem.

Hmm, that might be it as well. You can also set PIO and DMA mode in the BIOS for some motherboards.

[pvt.pile 0]

Quote[/b] ]Myself and others don't have the issue, so I would assume it's not a 1.09beta problem.

I know you don't believe me but ive just had about 4 hours of play without any HD lag or stuttering and its fantastic. Every time i play the beta it is near impossible to play without getting lag and having to leave due to this. But i will look into your suggestions as well.

Thanx.

[ArmaVidz 0]

I know you don't believe me but ive just had about 4 hours of play without any HD lag or stuttering and its fantastic.

Sorry. Didn't mean the replies to come across that way. I believe you, I just think it might be external factors because it seems most players don't have this issue.

[pvt.pile 0]

NP man your probably right anyway.

Quote[/b] ]Hmm, that might be it as well. You can also set PIO and DMA mode in the BIOS for some motherboards.

How do i set these options ive found them in my BIOS but i don't know what to set them to? For PIO settings there are numbers 0 to 6 and for the DMA theres are loads of different options to choose from. Both were on on Auto by default.

[BraTTy 0]

In Windows, right-click "my computer" or some way of bringing up "System Properties"

The "Hardware" tab and "Device Manager"

Then under whatever controller is controlling your HDD's.

(not the disk drive tab)

Channel 1 or 2 will state the capabilities along with what mode your drive is currently using

[pvt.pile 0]

Ok i changed the settings in the BIOS from auto to the correct settings. Ill let you know how i get on, TY Pile.

[BraTTy 0]

I don't recommend setting it yourself tho...auto would be fine.Just check see what mode it discovers and if its not the correct one, something wrong

edit: I'd like to add that often bios settings don't matter once it hits Windows, usually the driver used in Windows overrides bios settings

(I remember when large hdd's came out, your bios didn't necessarily have to support it, all was fine within windows)