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fjaekel

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

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No I there are terrible artifacts and I have to start in low resolution because most objects turn into black sqaures. Terribly frustrating. Oh yes I am running a 64bit OS.

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This game is unplayable on my brand new rig. So upset! Patch soon please.

phenom x4 II 955

8gig ddr2

HD 4870 1GB

another 8gb issue? try using less ram for now

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If i have to lower my ram in order to play Arma II that means i won't buy a copy of it. Not going to put 200 euro's aside to play a game. My system above all games. Everything should be build to work on a computer not building a computer to work on a game.

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If i have to lower my ram in order to play Arma II that means i won't buy a copy of it. Not going to put 200 euro's aside to play a game. My system above all games. Everything should be build to work on a computer not building a computer to work on a game.
err, there always issues with some H/W and windows and games.
Everything should be build to work on a CONSOLE, Build a computer to game.
i thinks thats more like it.

There has been a 8gb issue going around since anybody and there mom can buy 8gb of ddr2 6400 for 60$. Sometimes its a Bios flash or voltage adjustment ,even RMA till the RAM works..., then the ATI issues(fixed in 9.4) ,ARMA1(fixed in 1.16b), and now ARMA2(seems to effect any set?). Its a know issue and is being worked on.

Maybe in 1.03.

You can work around it by booting with less, using msconfig. The game is worth putting 200$ aside to play when you play...

Edited by kklownboy

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I just added a 4850x2 card to my core i7 rig, i can throw pretty much anything at it and it keeps on going. I'm mostly hovering around 60fps due to the vsync and it dips to 50 when it gets really complex. That's with all settings on high, except for AA that is disabled.

When i enable AA i get a huge frame drop, like 20 fps lower, and the game becomes pretty sluggish or unsmooth. Altough the fps is then still around 30 minimal in tough areas like groups of many bushes and undergrowth it feels like its "choking" and feels like it stalls for a brief moment.

Any ideas how to enable AA and still have a smooth ride?

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Ok guys, more info to throw at the devs(though you will see towards the end that I think ATI is at "fault").

I too was experiencing the 512 4850 artifacts. I would open the editor, drop a chopper in a char-whatever the big city is called at the south of the map, fly through the city, and almost instantly get artifacts. Flush does "work" but again, you would have to be doing it constantly. My girlfriends pc had a 1 gig nvidia card in it*. Had is the keyword. I pulled that out to test. No artifacts. This got me curious. Purchased another 4850, again 512 wasn't on the shelf, so picked up the gig; deleted arma.cfg, and booted. No artifacts. I flew through the city 10 times, and even tried flying NE towards the mountains, and then back to the city a couple times to force the memory to over consume, if you would. Settings all on normal(aa on too, though will drop that later for fps), and memory automatically set to very high. Everything seems to be running great. Dropped in softth, updated reso to match, and played 4 hours multiplayer without a crash and/or artifact(still get "blinky" buildings if flying and lod isn't quick enough).

Summary, I think alot of 4850 512's that came from ati were/are bad. I had my 512 for quite some time, and I think the fact that the drivers never really had the fan come on automatically has caused the cards to die. Again, just a theory as I have no real evidence.

I'll post my sn later if people think a range of serial numbers would help?

*I know my experiment isn't perfect, as it's a 512 vs a gig, but thought this info would/might help.

Edited by Daniel M
dropped=>dropped in softth

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I managed to get this problem by dropping the video memory usage in the option menu to default, putting it up to high made it go away again. Other settings where on high or very high. This is with a 4890 with 9.6 drivers. Interestingly no rebooting or restarting was needed, I could make it come and go at will. Would seem to support the theory that when video memory gets full things get funky.

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So Daniel you are saying that out of every graphically engine pushing game that has been release to date ArmA 2 is the only one that somehow pushes your card beyond its means by overheating it ? GTA4 for example doesn't exhibit the issue, no other game I know of has this issue ? I think it is very hard to just say that errr some of your cards are bust as I just bought a new one and all is fine. You do state that your findings are not scientific and I agree but would also see if you have tried your 'faulty' card in another system with ArmA 2 ? If you want me to test it then send it to me ;)

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Ok guys, more info to throw at the devs(though you will see towards the end that I think ATI is at "fault").

I too was experiencing the 512 4850 artifacts. I would open the editor, drop a chopper in a char-whatever the big city is called at the south of the map, fly through the city, and almost instantly get artifacts. Flush does "work" but again, you would have to be doing it constantly. My girlfriends pc had a 1 gig nvidia card in it*. Had is the keyword. I pulled that out to test. No artifacts. This got me curious. Purchased another 4850, again 512 wasn't on the shelf, so picked up the gig; deleted arma.cfg, and booted. No artifacts. I flew through the city 10 times, and even tried flying NE towards the mountains, and then back to the city a couple times to force the memory to over consume, if you would. Settings all on normal(aa on too, though will drop that later for fps), and memory automatically set to very high. Everything seems to be running great. Dropped in softth, updated reso to match, and played 4 hours multiplayer without a crash and/or artifact(still get "blinky" buildings if flying and lod isn't quick enough).

Summary, I think alot of 4850 512's that came from ati were/are bad. I had my 512 for quite some time, and I think the fact that the drivers never really had the fan come on automatically has caused the cards to die. Again, just a theory as I have no real evidence.

I'll post my sn later if people think a range of serial numbers would help?

*I know my experiment isn't perfect, as it's a 512 vs a gig, but thought this info would/might help.

Who is the manufacturer of the old and new card?

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Throat,

I will test arma 2, sims 3 and gta4 on my gfriends pc with the faulty card. I don't agree that gta4 pushes the card as hard as arma 2 though. I'm open to other suggestions for testing though, as I would like to give some facts rather then my gut(any tool recommendations for monitoring??). I don't think arma 2 overheated the card (only checked by ati's temp monitor). Not sure how to phrase this; Before the new drivers for ati came out i could never load arma 2 past the carrier "fly by" on start up. It would black screen, and i'd have to reboot. With the new drivers, if I manually have the fan on, I can play(with artifacts of course). ATI render monkey also did the same thing, but only if i choose some of the "advanced" examples. I'll get a list of which "advanced" options cause the blacksod. Though I have not been able to reproduce the artifacts in rendermonkey(yet). I feel like it was long term "medium" heat that killed it, if that makes any sense... I realize i contradict myself abit... Your perspective was much appreciated(as I have many holes in my current theory-the other perspective is maybe arma 2 isn't using all of my new gig's memory, which is why i don't see artifacts yet...).

You can have the card if you come to my house:yay:.

Infire,

I forget, but will post tonight when i get home(as well as my pc specs).

Edited by Daniel M
Add more comments about rendermonkey

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I bought ArmaII yesterday and got fustrated. When searching this thread I found that Im not the only one with exact same flikkering texture problem. I got a 512 MB ATI 4870. Running RivaTuner, which controls the fan speed much better than the ati drivers. Anyway - its not a temperature issue.

Looking for a solution...

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Just to let you guys know, graphical artifacts with ATI cards are still there with 1.03

But iam still happy we got the patch. See ya on the servers online (with lowest texture settings of course):bounce3:

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Thanks for report, but i not happy. So is it problem with Ati drivers or i don´t know.

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Daniel, you are describing a hardware type fault yes. If you look back on this thread then you will see we are not having the same issue you have, our problem occurs when running the game for a few minutes when the cards memory gets filled, it will stay happily on the menu screen, it will not black screen and we will not need to reboot. Exiting the game or type flush fixes the issue until the memory i filled again.

---------- Post added at 08:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:41 PM ----------

Just to let you guys know, graphical artifacts with ATI cards are still there with 1.03

But iam still happy we got the patch. See ya on the servers online (with lowest texture settings of course):bounce3:

Fantastic, glad BI ignored us then with no explanation.

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im not so sure. i have a 4870 and a 4850, both suffered the graphical bug problem with texture memory, and its *fixed for me in 1.03*.

better, crossfire now works for me too :) (yay!)

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I had high hopes for the 1.03 patch.

But the artifact problems still are there with my 4870 cards.

Crossfire makes the light flickering going crazy.

All by all... No damn fix ! Still the same problem.

Im getting a little tired...

Im not even going to try tweaking this damn game anymore.

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Thrott,

I do beleive I am on the same page with everyone/you:

The blacksod i get is a little different then the op, but I was also getting the artifacts as well(only after i was able to manually turn the fan on to get past the start up...). I.e. I beleive Ginger was the op, and stated the steps to reproduce - create chopper, fly through "char" city at bottom of map. At which time you get random "lines", and "triangles" filling the screen so you can't see anything. Shift + (num -)+ flush clears them*. The artifacts are what i am trying to debug as I beleive blacksod is usually an overheat issue, aka the card shuts down as to not totally fry. This is also semi-confirmed, atleast in my case, considering that now I can manually control the fan, my 512 4850 does not blacksod(I DO get artifacts though). I'll post screens tonight(eastern standard time) of my tests, as well as double confirm I am testing the same issue as everyone else

Was it this thread that had a pic of a german(I beleive) user posting a "memory" dump graph of his/her card? Any idea what software that was?

*Implying that select 512 4xxx's either do not clear their memory correctly, get corruption when near capacity, or have become corrupted via auto fan not working.<--Or so goes my theory.

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Sirex are you 100% sure? Set almost all settings to high and get yourself into a chopper at Cherno and fly around. I get the artifacts with this way within 30 seconds. Tested it out again right now, here we go:

arma2200908052224521.th.jpg arma2200908052225301.th.jpg

ATI 4850 with 512 MB, Windows XP, ATI Driver 9.7, Arma 2 v1.03

*edit*

@Daniel, yep, the software for that was rivatuner, it has good diagnostics features (that graphs).

http://downloads.guru3d.com/RivaTuner-v2.09-download-163.html

In my case, i know 100% its not an overheating issue, but yes if the graphic cards overheats you get exact the same graphic artifacts, but then in all games.

Edited by Ginger McAle

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The issues are still there, this is how it looks like after i placed a hummv in the editor near Chernogorsk and began driving, screenshot taken after about 10-20secs:

sx3a298h.jpg

No further comment needed I guess ;P

-----------

Another different problem:

Parallax mapping fixed in 1.03? NOT!

In the german release version and 1.01, I had nice ground textures that really looked cool. But in 1.02 they were somehow bugged (I had posted that video already, but obviously it went unnoticed):

http://members.hfd.de/brainbug/arma2/videos/texture.avi

(taken on a hill on Utes)

As you see, the grass looks like it floats in the air, and the stone surfaces is somehow flat and warps in a weird way.

No with 1.03, this is (contrary to the patch notes) NOT fixed, instead also rocks are now flat and look poor:

http://members.hfd.de/brainbug/arma2/videos/texture2.avi

(taken on a beach near Chernogorsk)

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Sirex are you 100% sure? Set almost all settings to high and get yourself into a chopper at Cherno and fly around. I get the artifacts with this way within 30 seconds. Tested it out again right now, here we go:

ATI 4850 with 512 MB, Windows XP, ATI Driver 9.7, Arma 2 v1.03

*edit*

@Daniel, yep, the software for that was rivatuner, it has good diagnostics features (that graphs).

http://downloads.guru3d.com/RivaTuner-v2.09-download-163.html

In my case, i know 100% its not an overheating issue, but yes if the graphic cards overheats you get exact the same graphic artifacts, but then in all games.

Hmmm quite strange. I've got a XFX 4850 with 1GB and I've not come across the artifacts while flying. I'm using the latest drivers to.

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Maybe not strange, maybe logical. You have 1024 MB ram inside your graphic cards. Maybe this is enough for the game. As someone has detected, the graphic artifacts do come when the VRAM (the ram inside the graphic cards) gets full. Maybe the game just needs more then 512 MB but less then 1024 MB. Thanks for the info Manzilla. Could be of course something else. And you are on Windows XP right? It seems with Windows 7 you do not get this graphic artifacts problems.

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Manzilla,

This is the same card that I picked up. The issue only (seems) to occur on 512 cards

@Ginger, thanks will download and poll in about an hour.

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But there are also some guys with 1GB cards that are struck by this glitch. It's probably more complicated. More memory on the card probably just lets it pop up less frequently.

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But there are also some guys with 1GB cards that are struck by this glitch. It's probably more complicated. More memory on the card probably just lets it pop up less frequently.

Really I don't remember seeing that??

Not saying you're wrong :)

Edited by Daniel M
your != you're

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