Texture problems..

[nobrainer 0]

What kind of drivers are you guys using?

I got a tip to use 178.24 and that made a hole lot of difference to me.

But I haven't figured it out yet, how to get most out of my cards.

I also have that swapping, but my SLI HDR bug seems to be gone now.

[Rexxenexx 0]

What kind of drivers are you guys using?

182.08 for me.

[nobrainer 0]

Those and 182.06 where full of trouble for me. Maybe not in your case, but I had big problems with all drivers after 18x.xx

[Yoma 0]

Small update for my single 8800GTX.

I am (and was) using the latest NVidia drivers.

Changing textures to "default" seems to have resolved my problem. However i would try this only with cards that have more then 512MB.

[kridian 33]

That worked for me Yoma (I noted that in the other thread too). For the NV 8xx owners out there.

Texture Detail = Default

HDRPrecision = 8 (ArmA CFG)

And my View Distance is up past 3K. No probs!

Works great!

[Alex72 1]

This is going on my nerves now tbh. I need to know something official from BIS about this problem. Sometimes its fine and sometimes its all the time. Lowering FPS as it happnens. It happens more when there is a lot going on so MP is almost always affected sooner or later.

If i didnt meet the recommended specs or even minimal i can understand something weird could happen. But im above the recommended specs so...?

Ground textures will go blurry/low textured and when i zoom in the ground straight down it pops back to normal textures again. When looking up it goes bad again.

What is this BIS? Does ARMA2 use the same ways of handling textures so this will happen there as well? Kinda critical thing if you ask me as it takes away all joy when playing. Asking a lot on PUB servers to see if this happens to many and i get replies all the time by people having the same problem.

For me this problem is on all texture settings up to very high. Very high i cant use in MP. Especially when there is a lot happening. So its a pretty sad situation. All drivers updated and everything in order. Would be nice to hear what it can be that causing this. Pretty annoying to have to buy hardware for a lot of money and see no change in this. Would really appreciate some kind of answer.

Regards

Alex

[kklownboy 43]

@Alex[Dev]72; What is your resolution set to?, And does it happen more if you use the map allot? What are your in game settings?

[Rexxenexx 0]

Also try putting your view distance all the way left. My vd is set high enough where I see swapping but not high enough to slow down the game. If I have it at 2000 swapping is instant. I have another vid like the one before but with my new video card -GTX 285- and with the exact same settings as I posted it still swaps exactly the same. So view distance compounds the problem no matter what card we have. Set the vd to min and everything to Default or Normal (AA Disabled) and monitor res. and go from there.

EDIT: You have to think about every object being assigned with a picture (bitmap) their is a limit to how many can be stored in memory. The farther you see the more objects are holding position in your memory no matter how small they are. This is also why servers are blocking people with custom faces. It's just another bitmap to load on peoples card. Similar bitmaps like similar trees use instances so the load isn't a big deal. So once you get multiple different objects you'll also get multiple different bitmaps loaded. Like I said before, view distance compounds the problem. It's not really a problem, it's more like us having the option to see as far as our computer can handle. It's a big problem when the computer gets a brain fart then goes WTF? and slows to death.

[Alex72 1]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ @ 3.4ghz

2GB DDR2 80omhz

Nvidia 8800GTS 320mb @ 600/900/SC1400

I know the VRAM is on the low side but recommended specs from BIS is 256 and up. Minimal 128mb and up. So im above recommended specs and use 1000VD in MP and get this problem. minimal specs should mean the lowest BIS puts the VD in MP. And recommended should mean at least a bit more than stock MP VD BIS has set. In my world anyway.

Settings are NORMAL all over except AA=HIGH (makes no diff if i lower it, ive tested this for 2 years now performance wise), Blood=HIGH. In the editor with a bunch of units/AI scripts etc etc i can go high settings, very high VD with minimal stutter (no stutter at all most of the time) and this problem even doesnt happen.

And going "VD all the way to the left". There are no option for VD as you know when in MP. Domination and some other you can go to 900 and up. So im boned already at start if 500 is the only thing that saves me. Or are we not allowed in MP with recommended specs? Didnt see that info on the box or website. This problem was not as frequent or even present from the beginning, and back then i even had a lower system and played with higher VD usually. It got worse with better HW and some patches later. Very weird.

Anyway, im getting a new graphics card and then MAYBE this will go away. I dont know. But i feel for others that maybe cant buy upgrades and are above rec specs and still get a bad game experience at low settings and low VD. I can only hope the new GFX card will eliminate it. To be sure im getting 1GB VRAM and plug in my other 2GB RAM i got lying here. ArmA2 will maybe use bigger textures so gotta be prepared.

Alex

[kklownboy 43]

Yeah a set MP VD  can be a bummer, it should be allowed to go lower, some kinda dynamic user ability, would be good for mixed style missions; Field and CQB. Still would like to know your "resolution" in game?  And as for the "recommended" kit, i think that was for version 1.0... they should ( as all devs should) reset it when the game changes, that being said you do really need more VRAM for this game as it is now. Just by going on your AA testing shows how NVDA use its 320mb cards Frame buffer. I can get a big difference from normal to high, with my 4870x2s and my 9800x2...

[Rexxenexx 0]

Search for InstantViewDistance mod I think is what it's called. Some servers don't allow you on with it, but it allows you to set the view distance in-game.

If your resolution is high enough you don't need Anti-Aliasing. That just reduces performance and blurs the screen no matter how you look at it.

Make sure you're not using the "maxmem" switch.

Also, as someone else asked, what resolution are you running?

Your objective is to eliminate every little performance hit you can.

The upgrades will get rid of this for sure.

[kklownboy 43]

Search for InstantViewDistance mod I think is what it's called. Some servers don't allow you on with it, but it allows you to set the view distance in-game.

If your resolution is high enough you don't need Anti-Aliasing. That just reduces performance and blurs the screen no matter how you look at it.

Make sure you're not using the "maxmem" switch.

Also, as someone else asked, what resolution are you running?

Your objective is to eliminate every little performance hit you can.

The upgrades will get rid of this for sure.

well playing ACE is fine for adjusting view distance, the point is servers not allowing, i can see for longviews but it is nice to choke it down when it gets hairy. AA is always needed No matter the res, even 2048/1536 has jaggies and crawlies, and the blur is a nvda issue with some cards and settings, it is subjective on how much pain you can take, IQ or performance. A big issue is the native resolution of LCDs, with large ones 22,24in ect your at a high resolution and stuck there do to it blurring at lower in game res...

Have to fit the kit to the Display.

[Rexxenexx 0]

AA is needed if you are sensitive to jaggies. I'm not, especially since my res is so high. 2x AA is exactly the same on all cards. To me all AA is just a substitute for a good videocard and monitor combo. Put a unit very far away - in the Editor - to where you can barely see him with AA off. Now turn AA even to its min setting. He's gone. That's what I mean when I say blur. And that's why I can snipe people from very very far away.

[kklownboy 43]

... Put a unit very far away - in the Editor - to where you can barely see him with AA off. Now turn AA even to its min setting. He's gone. That's what I mean when I say blur. ...

I can not reproduce your results?

Its all relative to view distance, and at ANY VD is the same, well VD that requires a scope. In fact AA helps me to see far away objects do too the lack of jaggies, the AI does not get lost in them. I use ACE and or realism mods and even with the "hero" scopes (107,109, ect) the ability to be effective over 2000m is slim at any thing but fixed weapons, and 3000m is just not realistic.

Using 4870x2s(" a good videocard") and a 21in Sony F520 22dpi (a good...monitor) @1920/1440 75hz., 3600vd, all the highest bla bla except PP i have low and with all that i can still get the texture issue, but i can recover, which usually means i have to lower some settings, and then use the flush command, re up my settings  good to go. Or just alt_tab in and out too... this is with 2GB of vram.

[Rexxenexx 0]

This is what I mean:

We're making more of a deal about AA than it really is. Imagine him in front of a bush though. There's more contrast with AA disabled and you'd be able to pick him out.

The main point is it's another post-processing effect. Anything adds another layer to a cards queue. Latency is affected as a result.

I get what you're sayin'. Even with AA disabled for some reason your textures don't swap back to a higher res. sometimes. I gotcha. That's the main topic, so if you find out what helps fix it on your comp let us know.

I don't have the problem, but I'm trying to think of what would help a card not load up. I wish a dev could chime in and give better input on how the engine works regarding texture swaps. On my comp. I noticed the farther the viewdistance the less angle I have to look away from a building before it goes low res. The shorter then you pretty much have to be 180* before it goes low res. At @2000 it's not noticeable at all.

BTW you guys w/ the problem, are you using the maxmen switch?

[kridian 33]

Alex, did you say you were on Vista?

If so I would suggest getting a 4gb thumb drive and use it as a Readyboost. This may have been the thing that fixed it for me. No more texture flickering from blurry to sharp!

I also downloaded ServicePack 2 for Vista.

Turn Texture Detail to Default.

Hope this helps.

[kklownboy 43]

This is what I mean:

I dont have that issue, i cant not reproduce your results. I spent way too much time trying to get your results. What is your kit and settings?

 

 OT,  On "Default Textures" i get a very small frame loss, like 2 or 3fps from Veryhigh, I assume its getting better texture Quality, tho i can not see it...

[Yoma 0]

I solved the issue on my pc some weeks ago by putting textures on "Default".

However i don't know how this will function on your 320MB 8800GT.

Besides this i'm pretty sure that setting textures to "HIGH" or "Very HIGH" is a bad idea on a 320MB card.

[Binkowski 26]

I've been having the LOD loading problem since I upgraded to my 8800. Setting the texture quality to "Default" helped tremendously.

[Alex72 1]

I noticed something today.

I have a small mission with ca 20 units total (test mission). And when 1 of my men died and i walked close to him the ground textures change to low res. Like the injured texture or something triggered the problem. Tested again and again, and everytime a unit died and i was close to him the ground textures was lowered. As soon as i walked away a bit it got back to normal.

Dont know what it means, but just adding it here for BIS to read.

Alex

[Rexxenexx 0]

It sounds right. They were swapping each others texture which ever was in range. The addition of the dead soldier texture pushed it passed the limit. Try the same thing with a shorter viewdistance.