graphics bugs with ATI 4800 series (4850/4870/4890)

[thr0tt 12]

All this helpful leakers have some contacts with ATI or nVidia :bounce3: so if some1 wants medal go to Olympics :D

I am hoping to get tickets for the Olympics, I will ask if I can get a medal in advance, can I quote you, maybe you could leak me one in advance ? ;)

[Horus 83]

:292:

[AMiRAl 10]

I dont know if it has been said already in this thread, but it seems the problem does occur when the VRAM gets FULL.

An user from german forums found it out.

[MG]http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/8859/arma2graphatt.png[/img]

When the VRAM gets FULL, the graphic errors come. Bohemia are you guys doing something about it?

By the way, another video on youtube posted by someone showing this problem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imN3xa0sZxU

+1

i hadn't seen you post yet, but that is exactly what i noticed with ati tray tools last night (screenshots available if needed) too.

huge artifacts come *always* and *only* when the Free Video RAM reaches 0 on this graph.

even on low settings, it takes a little more time to fill but it still happens !

on 'normal' or mixed 'normal/high' settings, it takes only 1 or 2 minutes of wandering (and shooting) in the first mission of harvest red, and it gets totally unplayable : artifacts explosion !

"alt-tab" to desktop, see the graph and the Free VRam instantly reset to 512Mo, go back in the game ... okay for the next one or two minutes, repeat. :/

that's not about temperature (highest video card sensors don't even reach 70°C with arma 2 and fans set to 40%)

i got plenty of crashes to desktop with Catalysts 9.6 + CCC (AI Off) or huge slow downs ... and artifacts,

so i'm running the Catalyst 9.5 without CCC (but Crossfire activated and options controlled by Ati Tray Tools)

C2D @ 2.8Ghz

ASUS Mobo

2Go DDR2 Corsair DC non-o/c

Sapphire HD 4850 X2 1 Go stock (= only 512Mo per each GPU, Video Memory = Normal in Arma2)

XP(32bits) SP3

+ Windows Pagefile on a SSD Drive (with SDRAM as cache) for the textures

System and Game on a Raid

i try to play at least 1440*900, or 1600*1050 (22"). all other games are really great at this resolution with this graphic card ... now i'm very very disapointed with Arma2 performances. i can't play it yet !

so loading, paging and temp problems have been dealt with,

now it doesn't crash, doesn't dramatically slows down, it can be (very) beautiful, and playable (25-50 fps) ... for some time, but quickly, always, it gets out of VRAM !?

only a manual Alt-Tab to the desktop can free it, so how can it work by others ppl with 'only' 512Mo Video Card too !?

(seeing my graphs i guess i'll still get the artifacts (ok, later) even with the 2Gb version (2*1024) of my 4850 X2, since step by step VRam consumption gets bigger and bigger, no matter the options)

:(

Edited July 9, 2009 by Placebo

[thr0tt 12]

Why does this only happen to some of us... ?

[Basil Brush 10]

+1

+ Windows Pagefile on a SSD Drive (with SDRAM as cache) for the textures

Interesting, does this make any difference?, I have Arma 2 on my SSD drive but the Windows pagefile is on SATA I think.

I know the response time on SSD is much faster and it gives me about twice the transfer rate.

[AMiRAl 10]

Generally (with Windows OS) it is optimal to have its Pagefile.sys, near the beginning (= the center in case of a classic hard DISK drive, because all transfers are quicker there) of a distinct physical disk than the OS and program (/ game) files.

and so the computer can access and "busrt read" the ressource files on the OS&program physical disk, while loading ("burst write") and work with this data in pagefile.sys on the second disk (quicker is better, for example a 'vRaptor' 10000tpm).

if it's well balanced (roughly, a disk or raid or ssd reads at least twice faster that it can write) it's optimal for loading and working in pagefile by limitating impact of concurrent access to 'dead' data, etc ... while working in pagefile, which is an slow but big extension of your 'alive' RAM.

it seems that arma 2's engine doesn't use the fast System RAM on the Mobo to keep textures data, for the graphic card to work with ...

but it loads them in the pagefile, on a hard drive which may be much slower in access, read, write !?

i think that a small fast 10000tpm disk for pagefile.sys would do quite well too.

but as i have already a raid of two 7200tpm hard disk with xp and arma2 installed on, i wanted to try a SSD fast enough (tiny capacity but with RAM cache).

i've read, but i can't remember where, a post of a BiS dev who gave these advice to a player with a high-end system wanting to play on awesome resolution and quality : use a SSD.

Indeed it must be better that the system loads texture ressource as quickly as possible in pagefile, and then that the graphic card picks (/ and works?) the texture data in a fast access, fast read, fast transfer disk ... a SSD :o

frankly it "feels" better with SSD than with my pagefile on the same Raid as Windows and Arma 2 files ... quick loadings, relative stability in framerate (no more sudden <10fps incidents), no blank textures.

but sorry i have no measurement to show, since i'm still struggling with artifacts for now, a few hours each week (... caused by the poor management of VRAM, on the Graphic Card, that fills up to no good :( )

@Basil Brush, you should try to completely move your pagefile.sys to the ssd too (reboot needed). in my opinion that's this file who needs critically the more disk performance, once the game is launched and loaded ;)

i may try to reinstall Arma 2 on mine too, next to my pagefile, to grab a little more loadings secs, but only if its 'internal' transfer rates are better than transfer from my raid to the ssd (all sata II, sata (I) is really slow in comparison).

anyway, pay caution when resizing, relocating or defragmenting your windows pagefile ...

Edited July 9, 2009 by AMiRAl
correction - answer

[AMiRAl 10]

Why does this only happen to some of us... ?

(sorry for double-posting, but my precedent is less in the subject of ATI 48xx issues)

Thr0tt is right, what leads to this bug on our systems ?

do we need to force a parameter somewhere in the game config files about quantity of memories ? or in the CCC ?

at the beginning i was wondering if the game 'believes' that i have 1 'true' Gb of video ram available, that's why he would keep on filling it, above the 512Mb max (that are really available for the first GPU ... X2 inside :butbut:), and never start recycling it !

(Crossfire : on, 512Mb detected on each 2in1 card in ATI Tools)

as shown on the graph above, after a -flush or a Alt-Tab to desktop, it's ok again, almost instantly, the engine could do this automatically and a smarter way as soon as vram ressource gets low, just before the artifacts attack !

do our systems have unbalanced video ram, system ram, extended ram (pagefile) than common ?

or is it purely a game or CCC parameter ?

or video driver or BIOS problem (video memory management, fragmentation, recycling ?)

i'm sick and tired with this game and driver testing and tuning, i expected it for months, pre-ordered it, promoted it around to my game and even airsoft pals lol, prepared my good (in other games) old rig, but still can't play it ... :mad::mad: X2

Edited July 9, 2009 by AMiRAl

[householddog 10]

Anyone tried lowering the Non local Vram setting to 0 and keeping the VRam setting at max?

That would test if its an issue with using non local vram or the vram filling up.

PS I thought I was the one who found out about the VRAM filling up. Damn, all that work and no credit ;)

I think thats because very high is around 640mb-680mb.

The problem seems to be, when it references the Non local vram

Edited July 10, 2009 by householddog

[randir14 10]

Does anyone using a 4800 series card get weird flickering on certain buildings? For example load Utes in the editor and start out on the airport, a couple of the buildings have flickering textures and sunlight on the windows also flickers. This doesn't happen with every building, only some.

[thr0tt 12]

Anyone tried lowering the Non local Vram setting to 0 and keeping the VRam setting at max?

That would test if its an issue with using non local vram or the vram filling up.

PS I thought I was the one who found out about the VRAM filling up. Damn, all that work and no credit ;)

Yes. Tried virtually all settings to increase / reduce any memory variable in all the config available to us. Its on one of the pages in this thread.

btw, you may have pointed out the VRAM filling up issue but did you post pretty graphs ? no ! lol :D hehe.

If only there was a command to stop this happenning much like in GTA4 with commandline.txt where you can stop the amount of gfx ram is used (fixes a major issue with GTA4 for many).

[ginger mcale 11]

Bohemia when you guys will fix this artifacts bug? Come on, dont let hang us. Seems a bigger number of people is affected by it. ATI graphic card owners, with 512 MB video RAM and with Windows XP.

People want start play this game on higher settings then low.

@Moderator team: The thread title is wrong. The graphics bug (artifacts) does also occur on ATI 3xxx series and maybe already on x1xxx and 2xxx series. A thread title like "Graphic bugs with ATI cards" would make more sense and people with other ATI cards then ATI 48xx series would look into this thread.

@ALL: Please vote this issue up in the bug tracker: http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/2500

I dont know if they look in the bug tracker and order by votes, maybe.

[householddog 10]

btw, you may have pointed out the VRAM filling up issue but did you post pretty graphs ? no ! lol :D hehe.

I am a damn fool. I should have known that the internet can't read... :lol:

+1 for the voting. Create an account and click on vote guys.

Anyway we really haven't narrowed the problem down fully yet.

The question is : Is this caused by the Local VRaM filling up or is it due to the usage of non local VRAM?

This time I will post a pretty picture too :P

Also can we have a sticky for the work around that I posted? A lot of posters are not seeing it in the 27 pages of this thread.

Edited July 10, 2009 by householddog

[Dwarden 1124]

with leaked Catalyst 9.7 WHQL it seems that ARMA 2 crossfire works in Vista DX9Ex

tho i would like hear some comments about stability from XP users with these 9.7

btw. placing ARMA 2 on SSD is quite wise due to extremely fast seek

[Kerikus 10]

With Catalist 9.7 is the same issue on Win Xp-32 bit. Nothing solve for me. I have ati 4870 512Vram and problem with massive artifacts standing.

[thr0tt 12]

Indeed Cat 9.7 latest leak do not fix ArmA 2's graphical artifact issues in XP. If BIS need any testers with pre-patch releases and would like me to enter into a NDA I am happy to assist. PM me if you wish to progress.

[BLKSmoke 10]

The leaked cat 9.7 driver has made absolutely no difference to my game performance - I still cannot get crossfire to work. I have tried Windows7 64bit and have now re-installed Vista 32bit... no improvement, both still give identical FPS, regardless of whether I have crossfire turned on or not. I guess I will try WinXP next. :rolleyes:

How many months do we have to wait before we can fully utilise our graphics cards? This is now beginning to piss me off! :mad:

[Kobalt 10]

I'm also experiencing massive artifacts.

I'm currently running cat 9.7 with Ati tray tools ; i've tried all possible settings with cat 9.4 to 9.7 without any improvement.

With memory and textures set on low it appears later but cities like Tchernogosk and Elektrozavodsk cannot been overflown by a chopper without problems. And as stated above with low settings, this game is horrible.

Please BI, we need you to fix this problem asap or at least give us some information on the work in progress.

I've bought this game 3 weeks ago and still not able to enjoy it. This is not an acceptable situation. :mad:

As Thrott and i think as many others, i will be happy to assist you if you need some beta testing.

Looking forward for 1.03, thank you in advance.

[Conkermon 10]

It's pretty hilarious that when you look on the troubleshooting forum it's gonna be;

ATI card users with major graphical errors: look here!!

NVIDIA users with major performance issues: look here!!

Says it all about the software doesn't it?

Unfortunately still no word on a fix.

[ubascouser 0]

i remember with arma it was all the 8800,s geting the dreaded lod problems thats why i switched to ati 4870 1gb and so far no problems.My old 6000+ x2 was my problem now it runs great just need a better hdd.

[soldier1969 10]

Just installed this off steam and was looking forward to playing this tonight. The demo worked fine although glitchy, Now the graphics are blocky and nothing looks right to be able to see whats going on. What a terrible way to spend my hard earned $50 tonight, im pissed!

Specs:

X4 955 B3 overclocked to 3.8 ghz

8 Gb DDR3 Ram

ATI 4870 1Gb/9.6 driver installed

MSI 790Fx Mb

2 x 150 gb raptors in raid 0/1 Velociraptor 300gb

XFI sound

Gateway 24" 1920 x 1200 DVI

Vista 64 bit sp2

[Dogtags 0]

Please BI, we need you to fix this problem asap or at least give us some information on the work in progress.

I've bought this game 3 weeks ago and still not able to enjoy it. This is not an acceptable situation. :mad:

As Thrott and i think as many others, i will be happy to assist you if you need some beta testing.

Looking forward for 1.03, thank you in advance.

Yes it is getting way beyond a joke. I cannot play the game any longer, I feel sick at the thought of even bother trying. I have spent hours trying to get this game going long enough to play through a mission SP or MP. No matter what I do it is just hopeless. All I do now everyday is read the forums, don't even load it up.

I do believe BIS are concerned and hunting these types of graphical leaks can be right in the core of the code, very hard to fix quickly and not break anything else. I am sure they are doing their best.

[StefX 0]

For info I played for 4 hours las night online on a coop mission: the longest days

No crash and no graphique bugs!

I have an ATI 4890 1GB and a Intel Q9550 @ 3.4Ghz

4 GB of RAM

MB: ASUS P5B Deluxe

SC: CREATIVE X-Fi

Vista SP2 64bit

1920*1200

Driver:9.6

Main I feel lucky!

[Dogtags 0]

For info I played for 4 hours las night online on a coop mission: the longest days

No crash and no graphique bugs!

I have an ATI 4890 1GB and a Intel Q9550 @ 3.4Ghz

4 GB of RAM

MB: ASUS P5B Deluxe

SC: CREATIVE X-Fi

Vista SP2 64bit

1920*1200

Driver:9.6

Main I feel lucky!

Congratulations and that helps the rest of us in pain how?

[Bush 0]

i remember with arma it was all the 8800,s geting the dreaded lod problems thats why i switched to ati 4870 1gb and so far no problems.My old 6000+ x2 was my problem now it runs great just need a better hdd.

Even if you don't have any problems with your system, you should really have gone with the 6GB kit instead of a 4GB because the i7 1336 uses triple-channel for the memory.

Just installed this off steam and was looking forward to playing this tonight. The demo worked fine although glitchy, Now the graphics are blocky and nothing looks right to be able to see whats going on. What a terrible way to spend my hard earned $50 tonight, im pissed!

Specs:

X4 955 B3 overclocked to 3.8 ghz

8 Gb DDR3 Ram

ATI 4870 1Gb/9.6 driver installed

MSI 790Fx Mb

2 x 150 gb raptors in raid 0/1 Velociraptor 300gb

XFI sound

Gateway 24" 1920 x 1200 DVI

Vista 64 bit sp2

I think the problem is that you have 8GB of ram, try to search for that in this forum and you will find help. Or check out this thread: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=73232

Edited July 11, 2009 by Bush

[soldier1969 10]

Are you serious how can more ram hurt a game?