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King Haggis

GeForce GTX280

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Well, just what the title says I'm afraid... I kept having these weird scaling, stuttering issues with my new GX2 card and figured SLI and double GPU cards aren't my thing so I traded my new card with a new GTX280 single GPU card. Because I wasn't too sure about my old mainboard (because of the stutters, maybe it wasn't just the GX2), I replaced it with a Asus Striker II Formula (just to make sure everything would be perfect) and did a fresh Windows Vista install. My mainboard arrived before my GTX280 card so I had to keep playing my GX2 for a while. Armed Assault played better than with my old mainboard but the stuttering was still present so I guess it must have been a GX2 thingy... with my old 8800 Ultra (sold 4 weeks ago) Armed Assault never gave me any problems.

Enter the GTX280 -> I removed the Nvidia Drivers, Removed the GX2 card, installed the new GTX along with the latest 177.35 drivers. Now all of a sudden Armed Assault won't run. I've removed the game and reinstalled it, patched it up to 1.14 and tried again. I can see those little loading screen checkmarks appear, but when they go away they just leave me staring at my desktop wallpaper. No BIS splashscreen, no ArmA menu, nothing huh.gif

I'm using the latest 177.35 graphics drivers. Does this mean Armed Assault doesn't work with the GTX280?? Anyone else have this card? Wish I #$%* hadn't sold my 8800 Ultra.

banghead.gif  

Anyway, these are my specs:

Antec P182SE with Antec NeoPower 650W PSU

Asus Striker II Formula sock. 775 mainboard PCI-E 2.0

4GB OCZ Reaper (2x2GB) 1066Mhz. RAM (stock speed @ 800)

Asus ENGTX280 1GB PCI-E 2.0 videocard (stock speed)

Intel Q9300 CPU @ 2.5GHz. (stock speed @ 2.5 GHz.)

Zalman Cooler, dunno which type exactly but it cools very well

Creative X-Fi Extreme Audio (the cheapest of the X-Fi bunch)

3x Samsung 500GB SATA II

Samsung DVD Burner

TrackIr 4 Pro

Saitek X-52 Pro

MS Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit SP1 (original ofcourse)

Mainboard has the latest BIOS

Please help!! I hope someone is familiar with this problem!

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The worst thing is that you might have to wait for a driver update. It takes a month or two for the drivers for a graphics card to properly mature. Hopefully someone around here may have more experience that I do.

EDIT: How does it work with other games?

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You also may want to double check your power supply. I read that card takes up to 300watts.

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Also, once ArmA doesn't load, you most likely will have to kill the arma.exe with task manager to attempt a 2nd try. I ran into that during last years drivers. WHQL's seem to always work best for me.

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Thanks for your replies! I really appreciate it.

You'd say a 650W PSU should be enough to handle a single GTX280? At the very worst, ArmA should crash after playing a while but at least it should start up I.M.O.; other games do...

Nevertheless... if all else fails, I guess I could grab a heftier Power Supply from my store (owning a computer hardware shop sometimes comes in handy).

I've tried the taskmanager trick a few times already but it doesn't work. Arma.exe *32 shows up in the taskmanager list of processes but it just doesn't start. If I leave that task open en start up Arma again, a second Arma.exe *32 appears in the taskmanager so it doesn't really help sad_o.gif

As for those beta drivers! That's not a bad idea, I'm downloading them now. I'll let you guys know if it works. I MUST get ArmA running. The best game ever! Others, apart from Flashpoint, don't even come close! It's part of my life, how ridiculous it may sound rofl.gif

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Try out this PSU calculator. (although it may not have the new GTX280 just yet, if so, sub in a 9800GX2 which uses more power to be sure) That said, a good 650W should handle it. You'd only need higher if you were using SLI or something.

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I've had a 9800 GX2 for a few weeks. This morning, I still had it in my PC and it ran ArmA. The PSU wasn't an issue then...

My guess is it's the new GTX280. The drivers apparantly weren't written for Armed Assault. Buyers beware! Until this problem is fixed (and I'll let you know when) steer clear of the GTX280 if you want to keep on playing ArmA. Maybe it's got something to do with the rest of my hardware but then again, maybe not.

The beta drivers I downloaded failed. Yeah, they work, but not with ArmA, it still doesn't run. I'm getting a bit tired of how my system has been running lately. It's giving me headaches. I'll guess I'd better be going to bed now and hope this nightmare will be over soon. confused_o.gif

I hope a member of the BIS team will look into this or maybe somebody else has a good idea.

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Well my story are pretty much the same as yours - only it ends better. I had 8800gtx - arma no prob.

Bought 9800gx2 + new mobo (Asus formula striker II) and Arma stuttering and close to unplayble unless i set the 9800gx2 in single gpu mode.

Now bought the gtx280 (drivers 177.35) and all runs so perfect, so no incompability betwn 177.35 and arma.

I suggest like others that u check ur psu as i also had problems first time i fired a game up with the gtx280, Windows was fine but when starting a game i got black screen. As the cover was still off my case i noticed a little red led on the gtx280 - changing around the power cables to the 280 fixed things.

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You could always download the latest OpenAL and try to install it.

Usually thats for if you get a specific error but who knows, it might make a difference.

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So you have a GTX280 and it DOES work. Hmm... that has me worried. I'll put my GX2 in today and see if the game will run then. Maybe there's something wrong with my GTX280. If it doesn't run with the GX2 either, than my Windows has become corrupted cause the game ran yesterday with the GX2.

I am curious, did you use Vista 64-bit when running ArmA with your GTX280? If not, the problem might still be with the drivers.

I have the latest OpenAl, tried that yesterday, didn't work. sad_o.gif

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BTW, when Arma.exe is running in the list of processes, it does take up 25% of CPU resources. You'd swear it's running but it's not.

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[*] Try moving away My Documents\ArmA and ArmA Other Profiles folder to some distant backup location, and try running arma again

[*] Just to test, try running the game with -dsound to the shortcut. Like some said, might be somehow related to the openAL.

My XFX GTX 280 XXX-Edition arrives in a few hours... I'll let you know my results.

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Quote[/b] ]I am curious, did you use Vista 64-bit when running ArmA with your GTX280?

No i am running xp sp3.

How about other 3d games do they run ?

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Thanks for the replies. I'm currently at work now so I can't test it.

It might have something to do with OpenAl because yesterday I was running with the onboard soundcard of the Asus Striker II Formula mainboard and I got weird OpenAl messages when running Armed Assault. The game did start, though. I installed the latest OpenAl drivers but that didn't help. When I put my Creative Card back in yesterday with the latest drivers, ArmA ran fine without any OpenAl messages. So I figured that problem to be solved. Only when removing the GX2 and installing the GTX280, another problem came: ArmA not running.

But maybe it still has something to do with the OpenAl thingy. When I get back home, I'll try the tips you gave me. If it doesn't work, I'll put my GX2 back in. It should run then. If not, I'll do a reinstall of Vista, this time with the Creative Card inserted from the start and with the onboard card disabled.

The only game I've tried, apart from ArmA is Hellgate London and it worked. Also, 3dMark 2006 gave me no problems except it wouldn't run with the GX2 card and with my onboard sound also because of that OpenAl thing. With the Creative Card inserted yesterday, 3dMark 2006 ran with both the GX2 and the new GTX280.

Meanwhile, thanks for the tips and yeah, let me know if it works on your new XFX GTX280.

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Just received mine and installed it. For me it works flawless on Vista x64 SP1. I'm using the drivers: 177.40  from www.guru3d.com (177.41 available now too!wink_o.gif

(make sure you fully uninstall your old drivers)

Updates

System:

[*] Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 8mb, overclocked at 3.33ghz

[*] Intel X38 Chipset, FSB overclocked 1666mhz

[*] 8GB DDR2-1000 5-5-5-15

[*] XFX GTX 280 XXX-Edition, 1GB. Driver: 177.40 (Switching to 177.41 Soon)

[*] PC Power & Cool 750watt powersupply

[*] Soundblaster X-Fi, 5.1 speakermode

[*] Windows Vista x64 SP1

ArmA Settings:

[*] 1920x1080@60hz

[*] Viewdistance: 3500m

[*] All settings Very high (Testing with AA: Off, Normal and Very High)

[*] Triple Buffering Enabled

[*] Vsync seems to be on, at least the 60 barrier is usually maintained

Findings:

[*] My Documents\ArmA\Arma.cfg  got updated after first run with the new card. However, only the memory amount was updated, not the 3d performance. After renaming it to arma.bak, and starting the game again, my 3d performance was 1761 higher (from 12000 to 13761). I don't know with certainty if this has any effect, but I would think the LOD switching might be based on this..

[*] AA seems to have less impact than on the 8800GTX

[*] The temperature compared to the 8800GTX is about 10-15 degrees lower during ArmA gameplay.

[*] The core arma was running on, didn't reach 100%, 80% of the time.

Performance findings until now, SP, Sahrani:

AA Very High:

[*] Forest: ~25-35

[*] Cities: ~35-40

[*] Desert: ~60

AA Normal:

[*] Forest: ~25-35

[*] Cities: ~45

[*] Desert: ~60

AA Off:

[*] Forest: ~30-35

[*] Cities: ~45-55

[*] Desert: ~60

Not too bad, however, also not amazingly faster than 8800GTX, altough I compare my results of GTX 280 in SP,  with 8800GTX in MP.

I will continue to report results as I find them, hopefully newer drivers, and possible arma patches, might improve further smile_o.gif

Now it's "Alone in the Dark" thyme, I guess another go at Crysis 1.2 is an idea aswell ;-D

Other Games:

[*] Crysis 1.2 x64, dx10, 1920x1080@60hz everything very high, 16x antialiasing: Not measuring FPS atm, but it runs smooth as silk! smile_o.gif

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Sickboy,

Purely out of curiousity; why would you move from the 9800GX2 to the GTX280 so quickly? I mean, you must have spent €400-500 on the GX2 in the first place, and then the same much again about two-three months later to get something that is barely any faster.

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Sickboy,

Purely out of curiousity; why would you move from the 9800GX2 to the GTX280 so quickly? I mean, you must have spent €400-500 on the GX2 in the first place, and then the same much again about two-three months later to get something that is barely any faster.

From my 1.5 year old 8800GTX to GTX 280 mate wink_o.gif

I could however think of 1 reason why someone could switch from 9800GX2 to GTX 280:

GX2 is SLI, and requires SLI support in drivers and games, which is lacking or giving lower results than expected, in many cases (at least what i've heard, esp concerning ArmA smile_o.gif).

Besides, selling a GX2 privately, should still get a fair price atm, so IMO, the idea would not be that bad at all.

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I thought for some reason that you had a GX2 (You were posting about it in the other thread in great detail) so my bad. And I hadn't really considered the selling price. I know about the issues with SLI and power, I was just commenting that if you want to spend that much money on a single part, you really should be prepared to stick with it for a good long time! Then again, that's just my philosophy on it. If you have the money to constantly upgrade your PC thats cool, but I'm happy with my old AGP 6800GT smile_o.gif

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I thought for some reason that you had a GX2 (You were posting about it in the other thread in great detail) so my bad. And I hadn't really considered the selling price. I know about the issues with SLI and power, I was just commenting that if you want to spend that much money on a single part, you really should be prepared to stick with it for a good long time! Then again, that's just my philosophy on it. If you have the money to constantly upgrade your PC thats cool, but I'm happy with my old AGP 6800GT smile_o.gif

No worries, I thought as much :-)

Too each his own smile_o.gif I personally find upgrading the card each 1.5 years more than reasonable smile_o.gif

Besides, i'm playing on a 52" 1920x1080 screen, as im an enjoyer of large and high definition gaming and television.

To play most modern games on that resolution, with high definition settings, I tend to keep upgrading each year some major components;

Keeps you up2date and since the previous components aren't so old; you actually still get a fair price in return, and thus upgrading in total, isn't all that expensive smile_o.gif

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Yay! I couldn't resist trying the tips you've given me to get ArmA to work, so I closed the door of my shop, raced home, picked up my PC and raced back to work only to find 2 customers there waiting for me. Yeah I know, it's a bad thing to do but these PC problems are really driving me crazy so I talked to the customer and gave 'em a little discount on inkcartridges.

I put the -dsound in the shortcut and ArmA works again!

IT WOOOORKS!!!

And how it works! No weird GX2 SLI-like stuttering and stuff. I'm happy again.

Now I think I have to remove everything that has to do with my Creative card and reinstall it. But with the -dsound setting it works good too, so maybe I won't even bother.

Thank you 100x ! If I ever meet you on the virtual battlefield, I might take a virtual bullet for you guys.

biggrin_o.gif

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Oh and I don't want to come across as some rich a$$hole who gets the latest top of the line videocards every month or something. This GTX280 was just a replacement for my GX2 which I only had a few weeks but sold because of the bad stuttering. Before that, I used to have a 8800Ultra which I've had for more than a year.

Even that may sound a bit short, but I always try to resell my cards while they still have some value so I can pick up a better one.

Working in a computer hardwarestore, I'm lucky enough to be in a position that I can buy cheap and get enough chances to sell my 2nd hand stuff. Apart from that, I'm poor but healthy

smile_o.gif

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Sickboy im using the gtx280 with a yorkfield at 4.5ghz (Vapochill Lightspeed), everything is maxed, except for the AA witch i have at "Normal", and it never goes below 50 fps, even in the north forest. Finally to be honest.

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Well, I'm afraid I have a new problem. ArmA played very good at work, but now that I'm home, I've upped the resolution to 1680x1050 and I can only play the game for 2 minutes and then a black screen comes up. PC fans are still spinning, but a red light comes out of the videocard. Other games do the same thing after intense play.

Guess I need that new PSU after all... I've got a 650W NeoPower Antec now. Nvidia claims you need a 550W for this card. My GX2 didn't have problems with the PSU. Seems the GTX280 uses more power than a GX2 but I thought it was the other way round.

Have to get another PSU.

Still no ArmA for me confused_o.gif

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Boy, I'll tell you that PSU's can be a major pain in the ass, especially to trouble shoot because it seems like the least likely thing to cause an issue. You figure if the PC turns on then the PSU is probably good. Here's my little story.

I had a computer that started overheating the cpu (crashing and other problems popped up and caused me to realize the pc cpu was getting hot as hell real fast - over 60 C). I thought the heat sink or fan must have come loose, so I reseated... and reseatted, like 10 times. Then I started to underclock and undervolt... still nada.... damn thing kept overheating and powering off. I updated the bios, put a giant fan directly blowing on the cpu with the case open.. still. And this was with a computer that was working for over a year. The issue just sort of started and got progressively worse. I thought the cpu or MB was bad so I went as far as to buy new one's, only to have it not start at all when I swapped those out.

It was at that point, I switched PSU's. Tried the original CPU and MB and ... no issue. It was back to being stable. Isn't that weird as hell? Its almost like the PSU was overvolting the MB and cpu... crazy stuff and I never thought that would be caused by a PSU..

Also, if I'm not mistaken, I think the PSU was an Antec 550.

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