Not all Video RAM Being Used.

[householddog 10]

Hi I have a 4790 1GB graphics card.

I noticed that the game was only utilising around 680MB (from memory) of my graphics memory. This was causing a fair amount of chug on the system.

It was a pretty simple fix. In all my mucking around I had set the Video Memory setting to Very High. Apparently this is not high enough.

I set it to "Preunites" and problem solved. It went to the Arma2.cfg value after that (1gb)

Not sure if it was mentioned before, I couldn't find it in search.

Hope it helps somebody else.

Cheers

[SnR 1]

Problem solved as a major increase in fps or less chug ?

A code copy of your config would be great as i have a 4870 1GB

[moosenoodles 0]

Hi I have a 4790 1GB graphics card.

I noticed that the game was only utilising around 680MB (from memory) of my graphics memory. This was causing a fair amount of chug on the system.

It was a pretty simple fix. In all my mucking around I had set the Video Memory setting to Very High. Apparently this is not high enough.

I set it to "Preunites" and problem solved. It went to the Arma2.cfg value after that (1gb)

Not sure if it was mentioned before, I couldn't find it in search.

Hope it helps somebody else.

Cheers

No results found for Preunites:

Did you mean Panties?

Thesaurus suggestions:

Panties

Printer

Prejudice

Pretense

Print

Parent

Pants

Parental

Pronto

Grounds

? lol

[householddog 10]

Here it is. Couldn't be bothered benchmarking. Chug fps, pretty well the same thing. I checked the available memory using atitraytools. It is stuck on, available, around 340MB (available). I have a 4890 1GB

You can try it yourself and see how it goes though. More vram, I would think, would give better performance.

I did lower the local VRAM setting to 940. I am getting graphical corruption, that I think was caused by radeon 9.6. Might load them back to see if it improves the situation.

Bottom line BACKUP YOUR EXISTING CFG FILE. ;) It might have been the config that mucked it up. I kind of did both at the same time.

language="English";

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=100000;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

Resolution_W=1280;

Resolution_H=1024;

Render_W=1280;

Render_H=1024;

FSAA=0;

postFX=0;

HDRPrecision=8;

lastDeviceId="";

localVRAM=940;

nonlocalVRAM=1400;

---------- Post added at 02:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:01 PM ----------

No results found for Preunites:

Did you mean Panties?

I'm a guy I ALWAYS mean panties

[moosenoodles 0]

Here it is. Couldn't be bothered benchmarking. Chug fps, pretty well the same thing. I checked the available memory using atitraytools. It is stuck on, available, around 340MB (available). I have the same card as you.

You can try it yourself and see how it goes though. More vram, I would think, would give better performance.

I did lower the local VRAM setting to 940. I am getting graphical corruption, that I think was caused by radeon 9.6. Might load them back to see if it improves the situation.

Bottom line BACKUP YOUR EXISTING CFG FILE. ;) It might have been the config that mucked it up. I kind of did both at the same time.

language="English";

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=100000;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

Resolution_W=1280;

Resolution_H=1024;

Render_W=1280;

Render_H=1024;

FSAA=0;

postFX=0;

HDRPrecision=8;

lastDeviceId="";

localVRAM=940;

nonlocalVRAM=1400;

---------- Post added at 02:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:01 PM ----------

I'm a guy I ALWAYS mean panties

Said this in many posts now, arma is corrupting files or not reading them correctly when altering settings via ingame control panel. your cfg all looks good yes :) until maybe you start fiddling again and then wonder why it still looks fine but doesnt run the same as it did before hand hehe.

ive not locked my cfgs no more and have not trimmed the vRam and nonLocal settings down in numbers to look tidy like yours mine both still read.

language="German";

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=100000;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

winX=14;

winY=31;

winW=1652;

winH=964;

winDefW=1920;

winDefH=1200;

Render_W=1920;

Render_H=1200;

FSAA=0;

postFX=0;

HDRPrecision=8;

lastDeviceId="";

localVRAM=1067663360;

nonlocalVRAM=1878257664;

all running fine like that.

Regarding panties HHD lol thanks for the laugh damn needed that this afternoon hehe.. panties ftw!

[householddog 10]

Said this in many posts now, arma is corrupting files or not reading them correctly when altering settings via ingame control panel. your cfg all looks good yes :) until maybe you start fiddling again and then wonder why it still looks fine but doesnt run the same as it did before hand hehe.

Sorry must have missed those posts. Hard to find, under the thousands of other problems.

I read somewhere that, even after changing the settings the program might degrade your graphics to get a higher FPS.

Either way it really sucks.

ive not locked my cfgs no more and have not trimmed the vRam and nonLocal settings down in numbers to look tidy like yours mine both still read.

...

all running fine like that.

I might give that a go. In fact I might just do a clean install. You might want to download ATI Tray Tools. You can check your GPU and VRAM usage with that program, in game.

You aren't having issues with graphics corruption with 9.6 drivers, are you?

Regarding panties HHD lol thanks for the laugh damn needed that this afternoon hehe.. panties ftw!

You're welcome. ;) Its a bit weird, my girlfriend have a way of saying elephant. We pronounce it "elefanti" Filipino friends of ours say that means, "no panties" in tagalog.

Edited June 17, 2009 by householddog

[moosenoodles 0]

No corruption at this time with 9.6 officials, I did have ATI tools installed to mess with forcing vsync off but eventually found that in win7 I have feeling the app is not playing ball with the CCC from ati. (runnin ccc in taskmanger or not)

So I uninstalled it, fresh driver install with a safemode clean of ati files. Let arma rebuild the configs after I manually deleted them and my profile. On initial hardware check arma gave the 3d_performance=-484532234 or something rediculous. negative ftw! always like negative its great to have an opposite feeling on my card yay!

No seriously it gave that return on what it self tested and so i just amended that to 100000 for my 4870 1gb and all was well after that. Mind you I have as you see set up the game in window mode and I am running dual screen, sometimes I wonder if a disabling the 2nd dvi input and using one screen test might be good to do as well.

Cheers.

[householddog 10]

Giving that a try now.

Yes somewhere along this adventure my vsync kicked in, and I couldn't turn it off.

Might get rid

Dunno about the DVI. Any normal game wouldn't give a damn about it. But then this

is not a normal game, when it comes to problems. Can't harm to try I suppose.

Its like they didn't program it with standards in mind. I suppose, if it comes from VBS, its unlikely to be programmed, with a high variety of hardware in mind.

[moosenoodles 0]

Vsync is a bitch (excuse my language) but it just is with ati it seems right now. I mean I turn it off in the CCC for OFF regardless of app setting etc or otherwise (disabled) and it does bugger all it stays on. (cheers arma engine).

Having to use other means to force vsync off on ur bios of gfx card is not really fair. Although after plenty of testing it really does not now matter as the game generally wont overly give you more than the odd flicker of 70 or 80 fps in open spaces anyhow with it forced off. Its more stable always around the 55 fps mark and that then does not need vsync off really.

I just like choice for the card and AA and Vsync is a big issue when I want to use some option and the game says no sorry locking you out of that.

Heck ill go so far now though to say im getting used to no AA and 133% fillrates even like the headbob now lol, I dunno but if they can stablize the game generally then the rest wont be that much of a concern anymore.

Do post back with any more findings and your alteration attempts.

[householddog 10]

Yes I just wanted it off for benching, at first. I kind of like to keep it on, to give my card, a bit of a breather.

OK reloaded the driver. Driver only this rime no tray tools.

Same problem.

What do you have your in game video memory set at BTW?

Might try dropping it to very high again. I think that was another setting I messed with.

[PuFu 4600]

I did lower the local VRAM setting to 940. I am getting graphical corruption, that I think was caused by radeon 9.6. Might load them back to see if it improves the situation.

localVRAM=940;

nonlocalVRAM=1400;

I am pretty sure that the localVRAM and nonlocalVRAM values are in bites.

so if you have a 1gb 4870, you should have there 1073741824. same transformation should be done for your nonlocalVRAM, if, by default, the games doesn't find the proper values all by itself.

use this to convert your values

http://egret.net/kb__mb.htm

[householddog 10]

Thanks pufu. I will give it a shot. Both seem to work, but I really should use the preferred format. I was looking for a converter, cheers. :)

I am getting corruption, when I set the localvram higher than very high though. Set through the "panties" option ("Preunites") in the, in game, settings.

I have set the ingame memory option to Very high and the problem, largely disappears.

I will try a lower value of VRAM in bits and see how that goes.

If this fails it could be an ATI driver issue. I am going to revert back

Other people seem to be getting the same issue too.

[Peacekeep3r 10]

what is "nonlocalvram"???

[moosenoodles 0]

What is this obsession with panties dog lol ? is this something it says in german or what? lol panties panties panties.. we all like panties lol

[householddog 10]

Yes thats what it says in german? Do you have a link to a better language patch? Mine seems pretty incomplete.

I think it might me default or detected. Its the one that doesn't say hi low medium etc.

I think non local vram is the swap file it uses.

My theory is it runs out of localvram and the swap file corrupts. Bang - glitches.

Maybe the driver saves textures in a different way, it did mention something about solving memory fragmentation? So the way it uses memory has changed. Maybe we need to delete the swap file?

Only thing is - what is the swap file called

I need testers though guys.

Just change that one setting and try to soak up some graphics.

[moosenoodles 0]

If you mean by texture cache for the game im not sure it does that, but you can try looking in the appdata hidden folder for arma 2 and reset all that in there. Ive done it once so maybe thats why I have more success with no gfx issues than others.

Ill edit this with a link to my eng patch in a min so you can test it, also make sure you run it as a mod of course..

Edit: removed incase of infractions from my pet mod placebo :D

Edited June 17, 2009 by moosenoodles

[householddog 10]

I can confirm that it is probably a problem with running it above the vhigh video memory setting. IE you can't run more than about 680MB Vram, at least until I do more settings.

When I get the corruption, I changed back to very high and its gone.

Where is this hidden folder you speak of? I have my show hidden files on in XP but can't see it in the mydocs or program files. Is it in documents and settings?

You need to take it off default and put it on very high.

Edited June 17, 2009 by householddog

[Diomedes 10]

I also have a 4870 with 1GB of video memory. Does this look right?

localVRAM=1067663360;

nonlocalVRAM=1878257664;

Like Pufu said, 1GB = 1073741824. So are my numbers close enough? Leave as is?

Thanks for your help!

[PuFu 4600]

I also have a 4870 with 1GB of video memory. Does this look right?

localVRAM=1067663360;

nonlocalVRAM=1878257664;

Like Pufu said, 1GB = 1073741824. So are my numbers close enough? Leave as is?

Thanks for your help!

yes, it does. All the self-detected values are a bit smaller for some reason, but it's all fine

[Lee82UK 10]

I have 2x 4890 1GB cards in crossfire, and by default arma.cfg has localvram=2147483648 which is technically correct, but I've found this setting causes lots of CTDs. Setting it to exactly half (1073741824) works fine. I still get the occasional CTD, but nowhere near as many. Lots of other games are able to use 2GB of video memory without problem (crysis x64, Fear 2, Fallout 3 etc) but it seems Arma 2 does not like it :)

[toby23 10]

don't forget your graphic card needs some memory to display the images on your screens too...

there is a reason this figure is not the total RAM of your gfx card.

my localVRAM is 916741888 bytes (874mb) by default and I have an 896mb GTX260 card, which is 939524096 bytes.

What I would like to know is, does nonlocalVRAM refer to Virtual Memory?

If so, why is ArmA2 only using 503mb of my 4990mb available?

Edited June 17, 2009 by toby23

[Alex72 1]

Because it doesnt need more?

Dont know but maybe it limits it to not use it too much as its slower than the physical. No clue though. could be good with official answer on that.

Alex

[Lee82UK 10]

What I would like to know is, does nonlocalVRAM refer to Virtual Memory?

If so, why is ArmA2 only using 503mb of my 4990mb available?

Arma 2 is a 32-bit application, so I believe it is limited to addressing 2Gb of memory (in any form, system or video). Feel free to correct me though :)

[Maddmatt 1]

Arma 2 is a 32-bit application, so I believe it is limited to addressing 2Gb of memory (in any form, system or video). Feel free to correct me though :)

Correct.

Don't think it really needs more. As long as the memory is not too slow it's fine with 2GB.

Although ArmA 2 really seems to be pushing the limit for 32-bit. I wonder if it could benefit from 64-bit.

[Skeptic 10]

I have 2x 4890 1GB cards in crossfire, and by default arma.cfg has localvram=2147483648 which is technically correct, but I've found this setting causes lots of CTDs. Setting it to exactly half (1073741824) works fine.

CF or SLI duplicate frame buffer for each of GPUs. So you actually get only 1Gb of RAM. This is not Arma specific but all 3D apps work like this. We have been waiting long time for Dual/Quad GPU technology to advance and not duplicate frame buffer.

Your solution is technically sound.

Correct.

Although ArmA 2 really seems to be pushing the limit for 32-bit. I wonder if it could benefit from 64-bit.

The only benefit we would get is larger addressable RAM. 64bit precision is not required for game play - not astro-physics / particle simulation...

Regards.

Edited June 18, 2009 by Skeptic