i7 + GTX295, what's the deal?

[mikebart 1]

Im running xp64, an i7 920 (HT on), with a gtx275 and 3g ddr3 1066 of ram, i get about 25-40 fps on mostly high with 2500 VD, thats in warfare too, im used to playing arma on that sort of fps, but would be great to get it a bit faster, just thought i'd drop in to say that, as im running a similar system to some of you.

btw, would 3g more ram help me?

[xmongx 0]

o.k

im gone.

(what ampeage does your psu supply on the 12v rail/s? if you cannot tell im troubleshooting in a sarcastic manner)

---------- Post added at 03:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:30 AM ----------

Im running xp64, an i7 920 (HT on), with a gtx275 and 3g ddr3 1066 of ram, i get about 25-40 fps on mostly high with 2500 VD, thats in warfare too, im used to playing arma on that sort of fps, but would be great to get it a bit faster, just thought i'd drop in to say that, as im running a similar system to some of you.

btw, would 3g more ram help me?

more ram would not help as arma2 uses 2gb ram max but 25-40 fps is good.

Edited June 21, 2009 by xmongx
for comedy value

[no use for a name 0]

wow phil, people have been trying to help and almost every reply from you is a smart-ass comment. personally, I don't care if you get it sorted out.

and yes, this is a troll and doesn't help you fix your game...oh well

[FraG_AU 10]

I think people are completely getting this thread wrong.

There are serious difference between performance for users. As Philll said people with midrange cards sometimes perform better then top teir pc's.

While I expect high FPS in games, simply saying the scope of ARMA2 makes it so slow is BS. SOME people have the game running well with similar HW so its a defunct argument. Heck I had the game running at avg 58FPs for about 2 hours before it all went to shit and couldnt get over 40 again (all in the same campaign mission).

Now clearly as its not happening to all people, there is something that we can probably fix and being "computer" minded people we are trying everything we can think of.

[Philll 10]

Somehow, through sheer determination I played the slideshow that was campaign mission 3, and now I'm on 4, which is very open ended and graphic intense, but. I can now put most of my options to the max and run around shooting / talking / flying without ANY fps drop.

So does this mean it really has nothing to do with the GPU, or the CPU, but really the game and the scripting / engine itself? Here is some stuff I've noticed.

1. I can play the 1st and second scenarios fine. They are relatively small but still, there is no lag whatsoever.

2. The third scenario is set in a town and involves a lot of little units scattered about and a lot of objectives for both sides. Lags like hell.

3. Campaign mission 3 is similar, around a lot of buildings with units scattered everywhere. Lags like HELL.

4. I can make 40 or so planes crash, land on groups of soldiers, have tanks come in, helicopters full of troops (basically a crazy crazy battle) contructed in the editor and it all goes together fine. No lag (apart from when the 40 planes first crash, then it dies down). But also, no buildings or towns. Works well.

So what on earth is causing it? Obviously not the sheer amount of units. Walking around in the city / towns during a fight really puts the strain on.

Furthermore my GPU usually pushes 80 degrees celcius with everything on normal, but if I turn some options down the GPU hangs at around 65 - 70, it's doing less work. Shouldn't it be pushing to make the experience even better at lower details, and working just as hard as it was?

It's doing my head in. :icon_neutral:

[wazandy 10]

Hello Phill,

I see you're making friends on this thread too. :)

In all honesty, I am actually rather concerned about all this. I bought an almost identical system to yours with this game as one of the main reasons.

And I've yet to play Armed Assault AT ALL as it simply doesn't work on Vista64. Tried everything, blah, blah.

So, with my copy of AA2 turning up on Monday I am actually crapping myself that my beast PC will run it like crap.

And yes, if you're going from 6fps everything maxed to slideshows then it does seem to be a pretty fundamental optimisation problem.

Hopefully a moderator or someone from BIS can respond?

Edited June 21, 2009 by wazandy

[shadowze 1]

As regards the HT On or OFF thing

I switched off HT because

1. I dont use many multi threaded apps that would benefit from it

2. It adds + 10 deg C to my cpu temps

In 3d mark 06 HT ON adds about another 300 points to the score.

I did some tests this morning with the single player map seize the village 04 single player

The MAX CPU utilisation was about 70% it didnt go any higher

on average it was 60 - 70 % most of the time

With fraps the average fps for a 5 min run at it was 50

Above Tests done under xp sp3 all tests done under settings normal except post processing which was low , res @ 1920 x 1200

Arma2 mark data:

xp sp3 nvidia driver 186.18 = 5259

win 7 nvidia driver 186.18 = 5197

Not much in it really

Edited June 21, 2009 by shadowze

[shadow 6]

I see my specs are similar to several others here, yet I'm not seeing this degraded performance (as long as I run the game as arma.exe).

Specs:

i7 920 (HT on), Asus P6T WS PRO, 6GB RAM, GTX295 (v186.18 WHQL), Vista x64.

Settings:

Resolution and fillrate opt.: 1680x1050

Texture det.: high

Video mem.: very high

AF.: very high

AA.: disabled

Terrain det.: normal

Objects det.: very high

Shadow det.: normal

Post effects.: high

Visibility: 3400

FPS on the intro (carrier): 80-115 (some times down to 65). General framerate during "Into the storm": 30-45.

I'd say this is very playable. Have you checked that all drivers (video-drivers in particular) are updated? In Vista, have you disabled the sidepanel?

[Philll 10]

The PC is bare. The only things installed are the newest drivers, I always remove all that side panel garbage and remove everything from startup via msconfig. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the configuration of the system.

You say you run it as arma.exe, how come? Did ARMA support SLI? Also, why run it at 1680x1050? Surely the VRAM on a GTX295 will more than make up for 1920x1200? Out of all things I am willing to sacrifice, resolution is not one of them and hardly makes a difference anyway, the slow downs still happen on lower res so I've ruled that out.

The game is just totally inconsistent. If you could explain why the slow downs only happen in the scenarios mentioned above it would help.

[wazandy 10]

I see my specs are similar to several others here, yet I'm not seeing this degraded performance (as long as I run the game as arma.exe).

Specs:

i7 920 (HT on), Asus P6T WS PRO, 6GB RAM, GTX295 (v186.18 WHQL), Vista x64.

Settings:

Resolution and fillrate opt.: 1680x1050

Texture det.: high

Video mem.: very high

AF.: very high

AA.: disabled

Terrain det.: normal

Objects det.: very high

Shadow det.: normal

Post effects.: high

Visibility: 3400

FPS on the intro (carrier): 80-115 (some times down to 65). General framerate during "Into the storm": 30-45.

I'd say this is very playable. Have you checked that all drivers (video-drivers in particular) are updated? In Vista, have you disabled the sidepanel?

My specs are pretty well identical to yours too.

What's the deal with running the game as Arma.exe?

Do you just rename the executable file? Why? What does that do?

Any help would be gratefully received!

[Philll 10]

My specs are pretty well identical to yours too.

What's the deal with running the game as Arma.exe?

Do you just rename the executable file? Why? What does that do?

Any help would be gratefully received!

If you have an nVidia card, it will pick up on the profile. Most game have profiles, and if you call it arma.exe it will load the settings that would work best for that game. Hence why I use crysis64.exe, because it enables SLI.

[wazandy 10]

Ok, I have Crysis running on Vista 64, so I just rename the AA2 executable file to crysis64.exe?

---------- Post added at 10:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:25 PM ----------

Are you GTX295 boys running the new 186.18 drivers too?

[Philll 10]

Yeh, but you don't need crysis installed for it to work, it loads the nVidia profile that comes with nVidia drivers.

[mikebart 1]

If you have an nVidia card, it will pick up on the profile. Most game have profiles, and if you call it arma.exe it will load the settings that would work best for that game. Hence why I use crysis64.exe, because it enables SLI.

did using crysis.exe make any difference in performance for you philll?

[Ponotheriddler 10]

similar set up and performance is rubbish, even on low settings, med setting, defragged ect

i have not tried disabling HT, will do when home

[wazandy 10]

How do you disable HT - and how does it help?

Cheers.....!

[echo1 0]

I don't think turning off HT is going to do much (Unless there's some specific problem with these cards and HT), but you can turn it off in the BIOS (check your motherboards manual)

[bangtail 0]

I don't think turning off HT is going to do much (Unless there's some specific problem with these cards and HT), but you can turn it off in the BIOS (check your motherboards manual)

There is a weird chop/lag that goes away when HT is off. It's very strange.

I've been experimenting with drivers and 182.52 (Quadro drivers) are better than any of the others I've tried. They are not perfect but I'd suggest giving them a try if you are having problems. The 185/186 drivers do not work for A2 in my case. The VRAM/local RAM is not being detected properly and I am now convinced that this is the core problem.

In XP, the Card memory and non local memory are reported properly and the game runs well. In Win 7/Vista, the memory is not reported properly and the game runs badly.

Eth

PS : I just noticed that 182.52 does report the RAM properly.

Edited June 21, 2009 by BangTail

[FraG_AU 10]

My Vram is reported as 1792x ram.. Which is double of what the gtx295 has logically. I can't test my game at the moment but wanted to hardcode memory to 896mb (whetver that is in bits..), I thought that by detecting more memory then infact the GTX295 has can cause some of this massive performance "droop".

Like I said, on a fresh install of VIsta x64 and 186.08 driver I had the game running perfect 58-60fps in say Razor Two SP mission, whears after playing game for a while I couldnt get over 40 again. So something fu&*ked up is happening somewhere. (Obviously I tried machine, mission restart).

All i can say is ARGH.. hopefully i get my key unbanned tomorrow and I can get this tested yet again and take some movies of it in FRAPS so i have some proof for the devs.

[ubermachtig 0]

There is a weird chop/lag that goes away when HT is off. It's very strange.

I've been experimenting with drivers and 182.52 (Quadro drivers) are better than any of the others I've tried. They are not perfect but I'd suggest giving them a try if you are having problems. The 185/186 drivers do not work for A2 in my case. The VRAM/local RAM is not being detected properly and I am now convinced that this is the core problem.

In XP, the Card memory and non local memory are reported properly and the game runs well. In Won 7/Vista, the memory is not reported properly and the game runs badly.

Eth

PS : I just noticed that 182.52 does report the RAM properly.

Hey there,

I've just found out that Guru3d made the 190.15 drivers available, they're originally designed for quaddro cards, however, with a easy modification, it's now capable of handling all other GeForce cards. (Guru3d already applied the fix) You can find it here:

Vista/7 64 bit:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/GeForce-ForceWare-190.15-Win-7-|-Vista-(64-bit)-download-2309.html

Vista/7 32 bit:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/GeForce-ForceWare-190.15-Win-7-|-Vista-(32-bit)-download-2308.html

XP 32 Bit:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/GeForce-ForceWare-190.15-XP-(32-bit)-download-2307.html

I couldn't find the 64 bit version for XP.

It's might worth a try, so I thought I'd mention it here:D

I've heard that FSAA function (Or something like that) Requires new DirectX updates, This web installer will automatically scan for new DirectX updates, It's really useful:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2DA43D38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en

(It doesn't say it does, but it also updates DirectX 10:))

About the bashing a couple of posts ago, It was absolutely unnecessary. Will I ever buy a 2000 Dollar pc? No. But if that is what other people want to do with their money, just let them do that...

Also, with such systems as these guys have, running games on high should NOT be a problem.

I think Bohemia Interactive has to admit something is terribly wrong with ArmA 2, this kind of performance on such computers don't have any other explanation then a bad-functioning game.

Edited June 21, 2009 by ubermachtig

[bangtail 0]

Hey there,

I've just found out that Guru3d made the 190.15 drivers available, they're originally designed for quaddro cards, however, with a easy modification, it's now capable of handling all other GeForce cards. (Guru3d already applied the fix) You can find it here:

Vista/7 64 bit:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/GeForce-ForceWare-190.15-Win-7-|-Vista-(64-bit)-download-2309.html

Vista/7 32 bit:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/GeForce-ForceWare-190.15-Win-7-|-Vista-(32-bit)-download-2308.html

XP 32 Bit:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/GeForce-ForceWare-190.15-XP-(32-bit)-download-2307.html

I couldn't find the 64 bit version for XP.

It's might worth a try, so I thought I'd mention it here:D

I've heard that FSAA function (Or something like that) Requires new DirectX updates, This web installer will automatically scan for new DirectX updates, It's really useful:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2DA43D38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en

(It doesn't say it does, but it also updates DirectX 10:))

About the bashing a couple of posts ago, It was absolutely unnecessary. Will I ever buy a 2000 Dollar pc? No. But if that is what other people want to do with their money, just let them do that...

Also, with such systems as these guys have, running games on high should NOT be a problem.

I think Bohemia Interactive has to admit something is terribly wrong with ArmA 2, this kind of performance on such computers don't have any other explanation then a bad-functioning game.

190.15 are good drivers but they still cause the misreporting of memory (for me at least) and they also broke AA in 2 of my other games :(

Eth

[kklownboy 43]

The PC is bare. The only things installed are the newest drivers, ...

You say you run it as arma.exe, how come? Did ARMA support SLI?

Yes but it needed a rename with different drivers.

Also, why run it at 1680x1050? Surely the VRAM on a GTX295 will more than make up for 1920x1200?

It may, but i think not.

Out of all things I am willing to sacrifice, resolution is not one of them and hardly makes a difference anyway, the slow downs still happen on lower res so I've ruled that out.

Hard to beleive, but then that sounds like your not running in SLI? strange...

The game is just totally inconsistent. If you could explain why the slow downs only happen in the scenarios mentioned above it would help.

user error, system issues, bug in game.

Tho your 295 is a pair of 260s in sli and if your sli falls out or isnt activated, you would be running your game with just a 260_850mb? at 19/12 with your settings, . Also the i7 MBs need to have a newer than dec 09 bios for mutigpus.. That depends on the MB brand ect. i have seen the speedstep stuff keep a i7 at half speed too! good to have it locked in to some good OC for games.

The big drops... have tried only one GPU (setting in CP)? see if it is a mutigpu issue?

Edited June 21, 2009 by kklownboy

[galzohar 31]

The #1 reason to run 1680X1050 is if that's what your monitor is capable of :)

Any conclusive results whether HT on or off is best?

[bangtail 0]

The #1 reason to run 1680X1050 is if that's what your monitor is capable of :)

Any conclusive results whether HT on or off is best?

It definitely makes a difference for me (under Vista/Win 7) but tbh, XP is still far better in terms of performance no matter what drivers/tweaks etc I apply to Win7/Vista.

Eth

[Alienfreak 0]

Im running some tests with HT atm...