Arma 2 vs. 64bit & /LAA

[Geobryn 10]

Am i violating any kind of agreement/eula etc. by flaging arma2.exe with /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag ?

Does BI gonna implement /LAA flag in next patch ? so i wont need to "re-flag" arma2.exe every patch ?

[maddogx 13]

From what I understand, this should allow Arma2 to use up to 3GB of memory instead of just 2GB. Does this actually work? I mean, have you actually checked Arma2's memory usage to see if it uses more than 2GB?

[Geobryn 10]

From what I understand, this should allow Arma2 to use up to 3GB of memory instead of just 2GB. Does this actually work? I mean, have you actually checked Arma2's memory usage to see if it uses more than 2GB?

nope, but after some time playing(around 5 hours or so) i was getting heavy swaps, but everytime i restared the game everything was ok, after flaging the exe with /laa i have no problems anymore, only got swaps once since then and that was after patching to 1.2 because the patch bringed new exe so i had to flag it again

it definately helping me and thats all i need to know :P

[woppa 0]

can you explain what flagging is and how to do it so i can try it out myself please ?

Many thanks

WOPPA

[Andi 10]

It might trigger FADE because you modify the EXE :confused:

But I might be completely wrong :D

[Ekre 10]

Am i violating any kind of agreement/eula etc. by flaging arma2.exe with /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag ?

Does BI gonna implement /LAA flag in next patch ? so i wont need to "re-flag" arma2.exe every patch ?

you mean, you want to modify the exe's header with the large_address_aware flag, right? (for example with PE/CFF Explorer)

modifying the executable is against the eula, and it WILL trigger fade!

you may right, if its not enabled (and its not, i just checked it too) it may generate out of memory crashes (well, i had a few).

that was the fix for MS's FSX to get rid of Out of Memory crashes.

Edited June 25, 2009 by Ekre

[Andi 10]

Yeah, same for Gothic3, but that didn't have FADE :D

[Geobryn 10]

...and it WILL trigger fade!.

whats the fade is suposed to be ? a bird from arma1 ? im playing basicly only online and never experienced anyhting like that

[Ekre 10]

whats the fade is suposed to be ? a bird from arma1 ? im playing basicly only online and never experienced anyhting like that

, but it has many many nerve-racking stuffs (cant list them, i didnt touch the original exe file)

trust me, if you touch it, it will activate.

so we must ask them to activate that flag, and then the out of memory may be fixed (/fixme if im completely wrong, but out of memory crashes means that the app cant write to the page file (because it has just 2gb address space, and cant access more) and its just crash)

Edited June 25, 2009 by Ekre

[_Cappa 10]

I tried flagging it and I didn't notice any fade effects (I've heard they are progressive though?)

- of course I didn't go online either.

Max ram ArmA2 has taken up for me is about 980mb (ram) I haven't noted swap-file though and that was purposely pushing it at 100000 view distance and loads of units.

I thought I noticed smoother gameplay in some situations but that could just be a placebo.

I used this program LaaTiDo, (you can use editbin too) - I wondered if this was against EULA or TOS?

Edited June 25, 2009 by _Cappa

[Batstat 10]

The /LARGEADDRESSAWARE flag don't rise the the amount of physical memory your app can use, but the amount of virtual adress space the app can use. In a 32 bit win OS the app can use 2GB of virtual address space and 2GB is reserved for the kernel. Rising the amount the app can use in a 32bit win os, will lower the amount the kernel can use, and this can lead to lower performance (more swapping) and crash.

In a 64bit win os, the flag can raise your amount of virtual memory up to 4GB.

The problem: 5 of 6 or what ever I don't know is running 32bit os, and most ppl has less than 4GB installed in the computer. BIS need to ensure that the game are runing fine for all of the varoius computers (and they need to foucus on the computers the most of us are buying).

But as I understand it they can enable the flag under the folowing conditions.

1. Don't assume that the high-bit is never set in a 32-bit pointer

2. Thirty-two-bit applications that are large-address-aware can determine at run time how much total virtual address space is available to them with the current OS configuration by calling GlobalMemoryStatusEx. The ullTotalVirtual result will range from 2147352576 bytes (2 GB) to 4294836224 bytes (4 GB). Values that are larger than 3221094400 (3 GB) can only be obtained on 64-bit versions of Windows. For example, if IncreaseUserVa has a value of 2560, the result is ullTotalVirtual with a value of 2684223488 bytes.

Reference: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb147385(VS.85).aspx

---------- Post added at 01:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:24 AM ----------

Forgot to say, you need windows 7 or tools form Process Explorer from Sysinternals to monitor how much virtual adress space you are using. Could be perfmon under XP and vista also could do the jobb, not sure (can't check because i'm conneced with my 32 bit win 7 laptop)

Edit: As stated in the link, the devs can specify large-address-aware when building 32-bit applications, by using the linker flag /LARGEADDRESSAWARE, even if the application is not intended for a 64-bit platform, because of the advantages that are gained at no cost. So they of us that do spend money to buy more memory, going for windows 7 64 bit can utilize some of our computer resoureces.

Edited August 16, 2009 by Batstat

[Batstat 10]

Did some testing yesterday, not done yet.

My server

os win7 64 bit

cpu Q9550

ram 8GB

1.03 patch Steam

Testing

Hosting Warfare Proton Mods at the dedicated server http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=80346 This map will normally kill your server, also when you are idle and only let the AI fight.

Using machin nr 2 as client, only log in, choose a slot, start #monitor 60 and waiting

Using process explorer fromhttp://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx to monitor the server memory usage

1. run was with no parameters to the dedicated server

Min - RAM -Virtual Size

010 - 544MB - 863MB Virtual Size (VS)

020 - 540MB - 863MB

060 - 554MB - 928MB

I was not there to observ it, but atfer one hour the server had stopped to respond. The AI under controll of the server did not die etc.

Did not check the rpt file, no error message on the console.

2. run This time I hade applied the /LAA switch to the server exe.

More or less the same result as run 1. Use of the /LAA switch did not improve anything, but this time the error msg Out of memory (request 1KB). Reserved 292912KB. Total free 1KB, Free blocks, Max free size 1 KB did come on the server.

3. Run with /LAA switch on server and -maxmem=2047 on the server

First thing I noticed was that the Virtual size after mission startup was close to 1GB or 1019MB.

This is strange, why didn't the server use maxmem 2047 as default when there is 8GB to use?

After one hour the game was still running

060 - 587MB - 1084MB VS

I was not able to test more, Need to rerun test 3 and observ when the server goes down. Then rerun test 3, but then without /LAA

Biggest impact in this test was to enforce -maxmem=2047 at the server, in my opninion this is strange.

[Batstat 10]

Rerun 3

The server newer went down, but it become partly unresponsive after approx 6 - 7 hours. Server FPS was between 14 - 17, and some Ai controlled units was stuck others was not. The total amount of memory the server at this moment did use was close to 1,8GB, VS was 1176 736K.

Seems as the /LAA switch don't make a difference. The amount of max memory the server can use seems to be hardcoded. BIS has newer said anything else, but I like to see that forcoming rev of the server do utlize the /LAA switch.

The test also showed that it's hard to pinpoint the exact moment when you run in to server problemes. Better missions garbage routines could help as a solutions until BIS do make use of the /LAA switch.

I do not belive making the test without /LAA switch will prove anything new, but for the sake of testing I will do it, next weekend.

BIS could you please start using the /LAA switch? :bounce3:

[Defunkt 431]

If you wan't to capitalise on having more installed memory start by disabling your swap file.

[Batstat 10]

If you wan't to capitalise on having more installed memory start by disabling your swap file.

I have 8GB ram, how do disabling the swap file tribute to Arma 2 ability to use more memory?

[Defunkt 431]

It doesn't because there is no way to do that, best thing you can achieve with your extra RAM is to force Windows never to swap to disc (by disabling the pagefile).

[otrebla_snake_ita 2]

How does this flag work? I mean: what shuold I write in the "target field" of the exe?

Edited September 1, 2009 by otreblA_SNAKE_[ITA]

[InFireBaptize 0]

i tried it, it didn't help i don't know what else he did on top of telling the OS that this application can handle > 2 GB or RAM. I haven't seen a post from him on what he did to accomplish it!

[-TwK-Danny 0]

BIS should really flag their exe or give us a 64bit version of ArmA2.

This game uses about ~600mb swapfile and i have 4GB of RAM installed. Note that no other game (including Crysis Warhead) have ever used this much of the swapfile on my PC. This could be the cause of stuttering and slow texture-loading that i get.

[connos 10]

Danny;1426962']BIS should really flag their exe or give us a 64bit version of ArmA2.

I second that as Arma 2 will benefit a lot. I tried to flag the exe with Large Address Aware with cff explorer and it didn't make any difference.

[InFireBaptize 0]

BIS give the game LAA support, please :inlove:

[otrebla_snake_ita 2]

how do I flag the exe, guys? =)

[InFireBaptize 0]

;1427125']how do I flag the exe' date=' guys? =)[/quote']

see post#18, it won't work.

---------- Post added at 03:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:43 PM ----------

;1427125']how do I flag the exe' date=' guys? =)[/quote']

see post#12 on this thread: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=1420745#post1420745

[PogMoThoin 10]

You can use a program called ramdisk to create a virtual partion on Your ram for Your pagefile

[InFireBaptize 0]

You can use a program called ramdisk to create a virtual partion on Your ram for Your pagefile

cons: I have 2 partitions on the same physical drive. The licensing code generates 2 different keys, so I assume that I would have to pay twice to use this on the same physical machine. And I cannot uninstall it using Add/Remove Programs. I removed the ram disk then rebooted, then tried Add/Remove Programs. When I clicked Change/Remove it just came right back. I even manually deleted the drivers and virtual bus, rebooted, and tried again. Could not uninstall. Had to restore my partition from a Ghost backup. Bad news!.

from: http://download.cnet.com/RamDisk-Plus/3000-2094_4-10515039.html#rateit

scary!! and too expensive.