Bad performance? Read on

[LtCmdrBoon 0]

The last time I posted this, around 10 months ago, the majority of people using the advanced tip saw and reported back in a poll an increase of over 50% in frames.

This includes vista users.

Most people know to defragment their hard drive often (ie weekly), its not so hard to do, and comes with windows as default unless you use a specialised tool.

Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Defrag.

If you haven't done this for a while, be prepared to leave it running over several hours.

Advanced tip - improves frame rates if you've noticed a gradual decline:

Your paging file (virtual memory) becomes fragmented as well, even after a reboot. however, this file is locked when you are booted up, and hence can't be defragmented. Main noticeable symptoms can be choppy sound or reduced frame rates, not neccesarily longer loading times. To defragment this file:-

Go into control panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Settings under performance tab -> Advanced Tab -> Change (virtual memory) -> finally!

In here, set each drive (if you have more than 1) to No Paging File

ignore any warning about failing to record memory dump messages, it's not important for 1 boot.

You will need to reset your machine once you click on all the OK's

Next time you boot up, quit every and any non essential program, such as messenger, music players, download accelerators etc

Goto control panel -> folder options -> view (tab)

Make sure hidden files    &     hide protected operating system files is unchecked. A warning msg may pop up, ok it

Hit OK and go into My Computer

in your root of your primary hard drive is a file called pagefile.sys (so usually c:\pagefile.sys)

select it, hold down shift and press delete (this skips the recycle bin malarky of a multi gig file)

Now run defrag again like we did earlier on. Once that is compelete, if you need to hide your hidden files again,

Goto control panel -> folder options -> view (tab)

Make sure hidden files  &  hide protected operating system files is checked.

And finally putting your pagefile back on:

Go into control panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Settings under performance tab -> Advanced Tab -> Change (virtual memory)

If you have no idea what you need, set it to system managed size, but I strongly recommend a static file, this way it's file size isn't constantly being chopped and changed while you are trying to load and quit programs. Remember even if you have 16GB of RAM, windows WILL use all of it, it will "pre-fetch" application data (unless one night on crack you disabled it), which is important for speed of loading up applications and games.

For a static file, the general rule of thumb is your physical memory again, so if you have 2GB RAM, you would set it to 2048MB minimum and 2048MB maximum. If you only have 1GB RAM, I would ignore that rule and put at 2048MB, but have the minimum and maximum the SAME.

You should not need to reset upon creating the pagefile. You should now notice a big difference if you had problems before.

[mr.g-c 6]

Good tip, and for better performance put the pagefile at another harddisk than the one your system and your game resides. Of course this only works if you have two physical harddrives or more.

Regards, Christian

[Bunkers 0]

Good tips. Thx.

Is there any reason why Windows cant be started in a "game-mode"? A mode for maximum available resources. I find it strange this is not implemented in it.

[NoRailgunner 0]

Another fellow believer of defrag myth.... "If you don't use our Defrag-Professional-Tools daily or weekly your pc system will die from fragmentation cancer! If you use our Defrag-Professional-Tools you will gain benefit - 50% more performance!! You should feel and believe it - Now!"

[paragraphic l 2]

For ArmA defragging always have been a golden-tip for people with low performance and undefragged-disks.

It's no myth as ArmA uses your HDD pretty often... for defragging and ArmA there is even a BEST way to defrag and that is to set the ArmA folder to the center of the disk... this can be done with some less basic defragging tools

[Maddmatt 1]

A much easier way to defragment the page file is to use a simple program called PageDefrag which is available on the Microsoft site here.

[tomcat_ 0]

A much easier way to defragment the page file is to use a simple program called PageDefrag which is available on the Microsoft site here.

the only problem i have noticed with this problem is that if ur pagefile is set on a second non-OS hdd then it will not defrag it...

[LtCmdrBoon 0]

Another fellow believer of defrag myth.... "If you don't use our Defrag-Professional-Tools daily or weekly your pc system will die from fragmentation cancer! If you use our Defrag-Professional-Tools you will gain benefit - 50% more performance!! You should feel and believe it - Now!"  

defrag comes with windows as standard and is not a "our professonal tool" and if you don't ever defagment your pc, it won't die of cancer, it will just slow down more and more, and if you didnt know that and believe it's all a myth, why are you posting here?

As for defragmenting the pagefile (swap file, virtual memory whatever you call it) that is only achieveable by the ways i set out, unless you use specialist tool (like someone kindly added to this thread).

If your pagefile is fragmented, laying across god knows how many parts on your disk, and you believe this is all a myth sorting that out will increase frame rates system wide let alone ArmA, then just ignore 50 out of 100 people who's frame rate it did improve 30-50% for ArmA when i last mentioned this.

[NoRailgunner 0]

I only pointed out this advertising slogan because you said people get 50%+ more performance if they defrag weekly. Nothing against defrag monthly or quarterly.

Did you try to use XP and ArmA without pagefile?

[The-Architect 0]

I tried this and saw no visible difference.

[Yoma 0]

I'm planning on "integrating" contig (a tool by microsoft) in one of the next versions of my addon downloader tool.

This will allow users (after a slight manual installation of contig, as i don't think i'm allowed to pack it) to defrag the arma game folder (only that folder,instead of your entire disk).

Suma advised us on doing this early on if i remember correct.

[FritzDaKat 0]

IIr, another less refined method of defragging the page file was to simply disable, delete the old and then restore the new, fixed size pagefile (also requires disabling everything possible in MS config to minimize need for pagefile usage & reboots between the steps.) At least I remember doing this back in the days of Ghost Recon, early OFP. But, I'd look around for additional verification as my recollection can be fuzzy at times.

[boomboomer 0]

Another option, which I personally use, is to have a resident process continually defragging and which can also defrag the pagefile and MFT. This only uses spare system resources so while playing ArmA is dormant.

I won't mention any names as I'm not on a commission  

Yoma: I thought consolidating directories was only useful on FAT volumes? NTFS does the same thing during defrag.

[Yoma 0]

Another option, which I personally use, is to have a resident process continually defragging and which can also defrag the pagefile and MFT. This only uses spare system resources so while playing ArmA is dormant.

I won't mention any names as I'm not on a commission  

Yoma: I thought consolidating directories was only useful on FAT volumes? NTFS does the same thing during defrag.

The point is: you can have a disk that's half full and defragging that disk will take a long time.

With contig you can defrag a FOLDER, make sure that everything in that folder is continuous. This happens very quick compared to the entire disk. e.g I can have 50 gig of movies on the same partition, which takes a long time to defrag, with contig it doesn't take that long because it won't touch those movies.

So my movies can have crap performance, but my game runs better. That said, i never really had a problem with fragmented disk as i use diskkeeper and it does a great job.

[boomboomer 0]

Ah, sorry Yoma - I misread your original post, yes defragging just that folder is much faster then the whole disk.

I use diskeeper too, now you've mentioned it first. Have you tried the manual IFaast option for the ArmA .pbo files?

[Yoma 0]

Ah, sorry Yoma - I misread your original post, yes defragging just that folder is much faster then the whole disk.

I use diskeeper too, now you've mentioned it first. Have you tried the manual IFaast option for the ArmA .pbo files?

Haven't tried that.

Anyway, contig does a great job and it's availlable free.

So for everyone that does not want to spend cash on a decent defragger (or use illegal trojanned copies): just use contig.

For those that are not geeky or simply lazy: download my tool and download contig and follow installation instructions.