STEAM troubleshooting

[Dwarden 1124]

Hi Dwarden

Im hoping you can help me, I am currently downloading the game off steam, but the demo off steam is giving me the problem.

I get the "Error Creating DriectX3D 9 Graphical Engine" error upon start up.

I have uninstalled Nvidia drivers in safe mode, and use a driver sweaper to make sure. Re-installed and ran the directX from the game folder provided.

Now after reinstalling the GPU drivers my Matrox was not fully set up on all three screens and the game ran after all this at a resolution of 3360 by 1050 (2x 1680 by 1050). I was shocked, so i exited, set up the Matrox to use all three screens, opened the game which worked once more with only two screens, and then proceeded to change the resolution only to my normal 5040 by 1050 (3x 1680 by 1050, the natual resolution of the monitors). This then utilised all three and its very pretty. But upon quiting the game and then instantly opening it up again i got the same error as before.

My System Specs are as follows

GTX295 186.18

Matrox TrippleHead2Go 6.52 drivers and 2.3.40 Firmware and 2.4.0.11 GXM software

Windows XPP 32bit Service Pack 3 (almost clean build one week old only)

ArmA 2 Demo Cfg is as follows

language="English";

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=100000;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

Resolution_W=5040;

Resolution_H=1050;

refresh=57;

Render_W=1440;

Render_H=900;

FSAA=1;

postFX=3;

HDRPrecision=8;

lastDeviceId="";

localVRAM=911523840;

nonlocalVRAM=353370111;

this sounds like solution to your problem

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10489600&postcount=4

please post if it does or not

---------- Post added at 15:35 ---------- Previous post was at 15:32 ----------

Ok maybe it's me but I'm having some problems with the mod folders...

When in Arma 1 you just opened the launcher.. or created a short cut using the @MOD folder in the location...

So for STEAM how do I open a mod folder?? In the (MyGames) tab I can't add a new short cut there can I? Or can I just make another short cut on my desk top???

Also, I have seen on armaholic that you can download a launcher for Arma 2 can I still use that to launch it in Steam...

I couldn't wait till the Hard Copy release on the 7th... :)

for example you have somemod.pbo

so you take that mod and place into STEAM\STEAMAPPS\COMMON\ARMA 2\@somemod\addons

then add to STEAM ARMA 2 start paramater (or better windows shortctur) -mod=@somemod

it will result into commandline arma2.exe -mod=@somemod

---------- Post added at 15:35 ---------- Previous post was at 15:35 ----------

OK i Fix it need to update Vista Home Premium SP1 to SP2 then log into Steam right clic ArmA 2 in MY GAMES, property then Verify integrity of game cache, then it does a little download and ur away. WOOT

i said that quite often that update to SP2 is must for Vista users

---------- Post added at 15:37 ---------- Previous post was at 15:35 ----------

Hi Dwarden

Me again, I just finally compleated downloading the full game off steam, and tryed to open it after settting it up in a way that i know works for the demo. Atleast in a temporary way.

I just got the error below on start up

Addon 'CA_Modules_ARTY' requires addon 'CATracked2_us_m270mlrs'

The game then continued to actually start after i clicked ok on the error message. At the menu screen though it reported another error which follows.

Cannot load texture

ca\uifonts\data\fonts\etelkanarrowmediumpro25-02.paa.

EDIT (UPDATE) I went into other parts of the game and received other Cannot load texture message, and after trying a few things even copying files from the Demo across to the game and still no luck. So i on a last ditch effort attempted to Verify Integrity of game cache before backing up the files. But the verifycation restarted the download, and now i have another 12 hour download to cope with and i am running out of my monthly download as this will be the second time i am downloading the massive 8 gig of game files... Not Impressed at all.

you don't need to download WHOLE game, just do validate game cache (STEAM game list > select ARMA 2 > right mouse button > propters > local files > verify integrity of game cache and let it processs and redownload whats needed)

if it fails or succeed post here please

[Pl4t0 10]

I've actually found a fairly odd bug:

At first, the game worked perfectly fine, only a random crash here and there (which is entirely acceptable). A few hours in, right after trying out some multiplayer, I restarted the game and it wouldn't stop scrolling through the options in every menu option on the screen.

Any idea what that means? I'm going to update my drivers/launch straight from the ArmA 2 folder rather than Steam.

[ericodapinco 10]

My system specs are as follows:

Q6600 @ 2.7 ghz

6gb DDR2 800

Nvidia GTX 295

MSI P6n Diamond 680i SLI

and am getting horrible performance in this game, checked this site for tweks, and it was suggested that i rename arma2.exe to crysis64.exe (steamapps>common>arma 2>rename arma2exe to crysis64.exe)

the problem is that when i rename, or right click>properties and rename, the game is unable to launch from anywhere. Have to rename back to arma2.exe to get it to run. Any suggestions from steam users who managed to tweak this?

Same here, I can't change arma2 to crysis64.exe. No SLI for me:confused:

Arma2 in the Steam/steamapps/common/arma 2 is not an .exe file... it's a secured map containing the .exe file... no access to the Arma2.exe file.

Game is playable for me now with a little twiddling... not done yet bud I feel better about this game then yesterday.

min 30 FPS

max over 100 FPS (look in to the sky)

Make a 380 degree turn when FPS drops to 30 FPS, this stabilizes the FPS around 42 FPS (depending on the amount of AI) edit: To many buildings drop my FPS below 20 FPS again:(

Native resolution 1920 x 1200

Play now at resolution 1280 x 800 (also adjusted this resolution in de NVIDIA control panel... this made a real improvement for me) (ingame 3d resolution also 1280 x 800)

More NVIDIA controll panel settings:

Maximum Pre-Rendered Frames: standard 3 ( 8 made it worse for me but works for some people)

Vertical Sync: Force off

The rest of the settings are the standard 3D settings... changing them made the FPS drop for me.

In game video settings:

Texture detail: Normal

Video memory: Normal

Anisotropic Filtering: Disabled

Antialiasing: Disabled

Terrain detail: Normal

Objectives detail: Normal

Shadow detail: Disabled (better zero shadow then bad looking shadow... made the FPS go up again:))

Postprocess effects: Low

Next thing I'm going to try is to set some of this settings to high... bud first I'm going to play for a while... I've been twiddling since yesterday.

System spec's:

Sager 9262

Quad CPU Q9650 2,8 Ghz

RAM: 4 GB 800 Mhz

GPU's: 2 x NVIDIA 9800m GT SLI (NVIDIA 186.03 latest notebook driver)

Vista x64

edit: Windowed mode made the FPS drop for me but works for some with Vista x64.

186.18 drivers are not an option for my SLI problem cause my system is a notebook and there aren't any vista x64 186.18 drivers with a modded .inf @ laptopvideo2go.com ...yet.

Edited July 2, 2009 by ericodapinco

[y2khippy 10]

Hi Dwarden

I am getting the first problem sorted, have to register to get my hands on the EVGA enhancer, so that hasnt been looked into yet.

On the second problem however, i did validate the cache and it was a tatal download again. Well this time it was 11 and a half hour download instead of a 12 hour one. The problem is still there though. Even after the validation. Thats now 15 or 16 gig i have downloaded and still have the error when loading.

Cannot load texture

ca\unifonts\data\fonts\etelkanarrowmediumpro34-00.paa.

And atleas one other in game...Is there anyway i can get the indervidual .paa files that i might be missing, because with two downloads already i cannot afford the download of a thrid... that would put me into the mid 20 gigs in only a couple of days and i dont have that to waste in a month. Please i am getting desperate here.

Edit, Actually i just got an email saying i have gone over my acount limits, so if i am to downlod the game a third time that will take 18 days on my shapped connection...

Edited July 1, 2009 by y2khippy

[Damack 10]

Ahhh thank you very much... I was missing the space lol... thanks again..

[y2khippy 10]

Hay Dwarden

Thank you so much for your patience and assistancee.. No seriously.

I have located the files elsewhere, and had to replace 20 meg worth of data to get the game running.

I dont know if i am out of danger though, as it seems my hard drive has been ripped to shreads by steam and i am currently working on moving all the data else where and all my steam games also.

So if i uninstall and re-install steam to another hard drive, all i have to do is unpack the Backup's of my games and i should be happy again.. well thats the plan.. but its a slow process movine over 800 gig of data, especially when some of it is corrupted.

MASSIVE GROUP HUGS GO OUT FOR DWARDEN for taking care of us in our time of need and frustration.

[dicklewicz 10]

Here is a fun problem that I am lucky to have.

Start Steam, start voice chat w/friend, go into game, click multiplayer, disconnects voice chat. So I tried 2 other games in steam (left4dead and TF2) and stayed connected in chat the whole time (1 hour each game). My friend has steam and no problems getting into servers in ARMA2. My game seems to not like any low ping servers?!? I can get into a few servers, but they have to be over 100 ping, this is of course if I am not freezing up completely at the Multiplayer server screen. My friend was able to connect to a server I created and that played fine. Seems I can host fine, just can't join anything I want to. Game runs terrific on my LAN. I have absolutely no issues there, joining or hosting. Just seems my computer and that Multiplayer screen don't agree on anything? Any help would be terrific!

I have updated windows Vista with all updates and just installed the newest Nvidia driver. I defragmented and did the cache thing. Pretty much tried everything.

[Ish 11]

I just got a quick question.. I've bought the boxed version, and when i try too add it to steam it says im playing a "non steam game" in my friends list. Any chance to make it say arma 2? Also, the friends overlay don't work.. Will try with latest patch (the hotfix) but i doubt it will be any different.

[Pl4t0 10]

a fairly minor and not-so-aggravating bug (or else I'm doing something horribly wrong) but when I die, and I've set my teammates to be playable in the editor, and I click "Team Switch" I'm not given any options whatsoever.

[y2khippy 10]

:smiley-grimmace:Well Im Back and getting VERY ****** OFF

I backed up my copy of ArmA 2, I uninstalled steam and bought a new hard drive as the old one is now corrupted... I Reinstall steam, and have to painstakingly update it with 5k download, i then reinstall the ArmA 2 from my back up. This said it would take 10 mins initially, and then it paused, and then a again and again, the restoration of the back up took 2 hours and 48 mins... And i try and start the game and i wants to now download the game again.

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO FIX THIS?

I HAVE ALREADY SPENT 16 or so GIG downloading a game i paid for. I HAVE NO DOWNLOAD CAPABILITYS ANYMORE AND I AM OUT MONEY WITH NOTHING BUT 30 mins GAME PLAY TO SHOW FOR IT!

I know Dwarden you are hear to help, but this is getting seriously frustrating, and im at the point of requesting my money back for this game, and purchaceing off your companys competitors. I dont mean buying in a store, i mean buying Operation Flash Point instead.

[Dwarden 1124]

next time instead of using STEAM backup feature , just copy the content of STEAM folders into e.g. USB drive then on system install the STEAM and copy old steam over it, then do verify cache on all titles ...

internal STEAM backup is worth mainly for VALVE titles in GCF file 'archive'

for ARMA 2 it will be enough you just backed up content of STEAM\STEAMAPPS\COMMON\ARMA 2

so you only need to backup/transfer like 9GB

but make sure you do verify game cache afterward on new location/install afterward

also it would be nice if you take deep breath and explain Your problem in readable calm english instead of angry english :)

[archie44 10]

Bought ARMA 2 today from Steam but I can't begin install because "Steam servers are too busy." I ran through the troubleshooting procedures given by Steam's knowledge base (all anti-virus/firewall off + relogging in), but I still can't download it! Any idea?

I can download other patches and demos from Steam.

[dicklewicz 10]

So do you have to freak out in this forum to get an answer?

I think I explained my problem calmly and I am patiently awaiting ANY response.

[Dwarden 1124]

dickle some of connectivity bugs are being fixed so if all goes well next patch may resolve such problems ...

[dicklewicz 10]

All ya had to say. Thank You. At least I know now to go play something else for awhile.

[djdeco 10]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ 3.01 GHZ

4GB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512

THIS IS MY SYSTEM guyz i really want to play it what shall i do i mean which setting shall i choose for every video req like

Object Detail:very high(examples)

Shadow:very high

Anit alaising:very low

please tell what to do and what to use please guyz thanks

[Kwebulicious 10]

Ok so please try and help me the best you can... ive figured out how to deal with my frame rate but even since i played the game all sun affects and any form of dust, sprayed water from the front of the aircraft carrier at the homescreen, and any direct view into the sun will dramatically discolor everything like bushes and even turn distant trees white... It can get bad enough that i will have complete red outs except for the weapon in my hand... My computer was fairly top end when i got it 4 years ago and i dont have any reason to say the components are the problem... although i may be wrong =]

p.s. the discoloring is DRAMATIC the plants are like rainbows they arent anywhere close to what they should be

Edited July 5, 2009 by Kwebulicious
forgot to add

[vostov 10]

I assume this is a Steam problem? Apologies if this isn't.

-maxmem=2047

Where does this go? (yeah, I'm a noob)

Also.. I can't install SP2.. because.. my.. internet connection is horrid. I'm on a 56k dial up.. I borrowed a friend's connection to get this game.

I just get Out of Memory messages occasionally.. and I have 155gb free.. I assume it didn't need THAT much?

Out of memory (requested 3933 KB)

Reserved 294912KB

Total Free 15497KB

Free blocks 980, Max free size 3462KB

My specs:

3.2ghz intel i7 cpu quad core

6gigz o' ram

64bit OS

155gigs of memory left (maybe I need a terabyte?) <= EDITED HERE

x2 280gtx graphics cards SLI (with the sticky recommended driver.. I still get flickering long distance graphics..)

Help? :confused:

My post:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=78557

and a related post I found same issue.. older post.. still unresolved according to the contents of the conversation within:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=73668

Also, do I need to up my virtual memory? Its at 6434 mb... and I could go higher...?

Edited July 6, 2009 by Vostov

[Damack 10]

Hey I'm not sure if this has been asked yet.. But is STEAM going to auto update Arma 2 if a new update comes out??

[Halochief89 0]

This has already been asked but I have to ask. I got ArmA 2 for steam it worked I accidentally installed the better 1.02 patch dunno with steam if it corrupts it or not. But now with some mods when I try to start arma 2 the securom thing pops up and tells me I need the CD/DVD.

[Kwebulicious 10]

Is there anyway to get all my effects right? the only stuff getting screwed with is any airborn dust kicked up by helicopters or smoke from a gun.. and the second problem is if there is any direct lighting, backgrounds start getting messed with... My problem is that everything will discolor to solid pinks and reds in the scream like there is paint on my monitor

[IronCadian7 10]

I downloaded the demo from steam, then tried to run it and it just crashes, nothing else happens. Wondering if there is a specific fix? Sorry didnt want to dig through all the pages of replies.

My rig:

Vista x64

Nvidia 9500GT 512mb DDR3 RAM

HDD 650 gb I hinestly dont know the make and model

5 gb RAM

AMD Phenom X4 CPU

Edited July 7, 2009 by IronCadian7

[Dwarden 1124]

I assume this is a Steam problem? Apologies if this isn't.

-maxmem=2047

Where does this go? (yeah, I'm a noob)

Also.. I can't install SP2.. because.. my.. internet connection is horrid. I'm on a 56k dial up.. I borrowed a friend's connection to get this game.

I just get Out of Memory messages occasionally.. and I have 155gb free.. I assume it didn't need THAT much?

Out of memory (requested 3933 KB)

Reserved 294912KB

Total Free 15497KB

Free blocks 980, Max free size 3462KB

My specs:

3.2ghz intel i7 cpu quad core

6gigz o' ram

64bit OS

155gigs of memory left (maybe I need a terabyte?) <= EDITED HERE

x2 280gtx graphics cards SLI (with the sticky recommended driver.. I still get flickering long distance graphics..)

Help? :confused:

My post:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=78557

and a related post I found same issue.. older post.. still unresolved according to the contents of the conversation within:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=73668

Also, do I need to up my virtual memory? Its at 6434 mb... and I could go higher...?

if you want edit your windows shortcut for arma then just add it at end

OR left click to select ARMA 2 in STEAM games list then right mouse button > properties > set launch options

be aware this method force this option to be used for ALL windows shortcuts

---------- Post added at 19:06 ---------- Previous post was at 19:05 ----------

Hey I'm not sure if this has been asked yet.. But is STEAM going to auto update Arma 2 if a new update comes out??

yes if you have set it to autoupdate (if it fails or want use manual trigger just validate the game files cache)

---------- Post added at 19:07 ---------- Previous post was at 19:06 ----------

I downloaded the demo from steam, then tried to run it and it just crashes, nothing else happens. Wondering if there is a specific fix? Sorry didnt want to dig through all the pages of replies.

My rig:

Vista x64

Nvidia 9500GT 512mb DDR3 RAM

HDD 650 gb I hinestly dont know the make and model

5 gb RAM

AMD Phenom X4 CPU

please make sure You have Service Pack 2 for Vista 64bit

then installed latest DX9 march redist as admin

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=77880

[IronCadian7 10]

Alright got service pack 2 and then I download the DX9 Redist that was the link? I guess I will try that

[Dwarden 1124]

This has already been asked but I have to ask. I got ArmA 2 for steam it worked I accidentally installed the better 1.02 patch dunno with steam if it corrupts it or not. But now with some mods when I try to start arma 2 the securom thing pops up and tells me I need the CD/DVD.

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4950-EKAM-2644