NVIDIA video card(s) owners read here!

[SASrecon 0]

Everyone that's on 196.75, revert to 196.21 to avoid your card getting fried!

This is not bs, but an official NVIDIA statement!

Do it.

Hmmm the patch seemed to be a good one for me; i'll revert just to stay safe but performance etc. seemed slightly better than the previous patch; recording and playing was slightly more stutter/lag-free.

[Horus 83]

@Alex

First uninstall and make system "clean" from previous version of nV drivers. Use this quide for that...then try 191.87 quadro driver. This is best driver for Arma which I try :)

[DokiDoki 10]

196.75 gives me less good performance in ArmA 2 than the older drivers. Im now getting slowdowns over time, maybe heat related? Only for Aliens vs. Predator they work like a charm to fix some nonsense.

I checked the GPU temps + fan speeds and it showed up as 87°C after running ArmA 2 for some while. The fan speed stayed at 40% - 45% allover.

[Herbal Influence 10]

You didn't ignore Yomas warning?

It's true that the newest driver has a serious heat problem and NVIDIA recommends not to use it.

Just check it on the internet.

[DokiDoki 10]

I just posted it as info, I know of the issue and have reverted :). Im not gonna fry my card.

[Gen_Protection 10]

Ok my underspec machine is

Windows xp sp3

AMD athlon 64fx

My graphics cards

2 nvidia 7600 GT now working in SLI mode (these are below min spec for ARMA2)

After a ridiculous number of hours trying to get Arma2 playable on an under spec machine finally I have it acceptable! Not perfect but playable. Maybe this gets game playable for someone else too, so here is info!

With a heck of a lot of experimenting I now get 20-56 fps and at long last this game is playable. No promise but try this if everything else has failed and you have 2 sli cards.

Get these 2 free apps, they work well in my experience and all you have to put up with is a nag screen to upgrade to paid version. (probably worth paying but I don't have the money currently.

http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html

Install this free app then run the smart ram section before starting arma2 to free ram. There are some other handy utils in the app but they aren't needed for Arma2 stuff.

http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

This free app just temporarily unloads any non essential background apps with little user intervention. Works pretty well, pretty much one button click and its done. ( one more click after playing the game restarts all the stopped services etc)

Ok into Nvidia control panel now

Its up to you if you change these as global settings or as specific to arma2 prog settings, use which ever tab, your choice.

Nvidia Control Panel Global settings

Anisotropic filtering 16x

Antialiasing setting none

Antialiasing transparency off

Extension limit On

Max pre-rendered frames 8

multi-disp/mixed GPU accel Single display

Sli performance Nvidia recommended

Texture filtering anisotropic mip filter opt On

Texture filtering anisotropic sample opt On

Texture filtering Negative LOD bias Clamp

Texture filtering Quality High Performance

Texture filtering Trilinear opt On

Thread optimization Auto

Triple Buffering On

Vertical sync Force OFF

NB I have set all Nvidia Program settings of Arma2 to read from global tab... your choice

----------------

In arma2 config file (found in your windows user docs folder).

(In my case

C:\Documents and Settings\name of user\My Documents\ArmA 2\arma2.cfg)

reduce all resolution sizes by about 10 to 20 pixels. Ie it will effecively be running windowed but very near full screen.

NB for some odd reason this single action almost Doubles frame rate!!??

Important note

With experiment I found that it is important to reduce BOTH width and Height or the game renders are "fuzzy" due to scaling. Get out the old windows calculator and divide normal screen res (in my case 1280*1024) by the same amount in my case I divide by 1.03 and with little screen size loss have MAJOR (like nearly double??) FPS improvement)

view distance to 1200 (experiment after altering the other settings)

all normal except

shadows OFF

anisotropic OFF (nvidia app already controlling from your prev settings)

Post effects OFF

End result fps 20-56 with 2 under min spec cards in SLI single screen mode

Hope this helps someone out there.

GEN

Edited March 6, 2010 by Gen_Protection

[Alex72 1]

The fan speed stayed at 40% - 45% allover.

I always run my fan at 100% (manually) when playing. Never trusted the auto and with good reasons.

[mr.peanut 1]

Still using 186.18 on Vista 64-bit. Has anyone had any luck/improvements with more recent drivers on Vista 64-bit?

[sig 10]

I was using Nvidia driver 190.38 on XP32 with a 9800GT with 3G of ram and I had no problems. I pushed everything on high with no over-clocking. I've now gone to 195.62 but I don't have Arma 2 installed at the moment.

But what I have read on early threads is that you should turn off physics, which I have never done before.

So what I would like to know from an expert on here is: Do you leave or turn off the physics options when you play Arma 2?

[-=seany=- 5]

Don't worry about it Sig, it's a placebo that does nothing, just leave Physx on and forget about it. Arma does not use it, but you don't need to disable it.

[Alex72 1]

The physx thingy was about the GTX280-295 if my memory serves me right. The other cards was not affected. Why or who or what - dont ask. I have no clue if it did any good or not. :)

[jpinard 10]

Can anyone help me? I've upgraded my system and he game is running smooth, but now I'm really frustrated with the LOD detail swapping. Particularly the game is switching to low detail models way before it should. I have all my graphics settings maxed out with Post Processing Off.

[SASrecon 0]

New Nvidia drivers www.nvidia.co.uk/drivers :D

GeForce (WHQL 197.13) - Windows Vista

GeForce (BETA 197.25) - Windows Vista

PhysX System Software (9.10.0129) - Windows Vista

Hopefully this time they don't fry your card

[jpinard 10]

New Nvidia drivers www.nvidia.co.uk/drivers :D

GeForce (WHQL 197.13) - Windows Vista

GeForce (BETA 197.25) - Windows Vista

PhysX System Software (9.10.0129) - Windows Vista

Hopefully this time they don't fry your card

As reported in another thread this driver version causes vram crash errors in ArmA2. Don't use them.

[Alex72 1]

So far 197.13 has worked perfect for me. But well see after more extensive runs tonight.

[jw custom 56]

The physx thingy was about the GTX280-295 if my memory serves me right. The other cards was not affected. Why or who or what - dont ask. I have no clue if it did any good or not. :)

I have a GTX285 and having PhysX enabled/disabled didn't make any difference what-so-ever :)

[metalcraze 290]

I seem to have weird problems with running ArmA2 with gtx260 - I've got the card only yesterday.

First I've installed 197.13 and had these problems (probably related to that vram bug thingie) as lots of people here (sky texture flashing, unexplained FPS drops to single-digit levels (not just in AA2, but in Mirror's Edge as well), "Receiving..." screen every 2 minutes and one time when flying a plane the game just halted with HDD loading something - then Nvidia driver crashed forcing the system to stop working - and after a forced reboot 2 unlocked cores on my Phenom got locked (but I unlocked them back) for some reason. Mind you none of this happened a single time when I still had 4850 with 512MBs RAM (which is less than GTX260 has, let alone bus width).

So I've read some recommendations and installed 196.21, cleaning out 197.13 via both uninstaller and driver cleaner (right now Nvidia CP and RivaTuner show that all files are of 196.21 version). FPS drops seem to be gone, however some other problems didn't. Like flying on a plane still causes "receiving" screens (and the last time I've tested the game halted after 3 of them each happening 3m after the previous one after I ejected from the plane), unexplained halts with HDD loading something (but less often) and then I got these weird artefacts after an hour of ArmA2 test run:

http://i42.tinypic.com/33uy4xx.jpg

The moment they appeared I shut down AA2 and looked at what everest shows.

It showed 71 degrees for GPU, 62 for videocard memory and 58 for "GPU surroundings".

Mind you I ran Crysis Warhead for an hour previously with temperatures being 82/65/62 respectively and had no visual bugs or slowdowns.

Note that I use the same graphics settings as I used with less powerful 4850 (and everything worked fine since I've made a full PC upgrade almost a month ago)

Any suggestions about what it may be?

(the rest of my system is in my sig, and I'm running WinXP SP2)

Edited March 27, 2010 by metalcraze

[jpinard 10]

metalcraze - that is pretty bizarre. My guess would be a file corruption. Does it happen when you run the game wihtout any mods?

Also - what F16 mod is that you're using?

[Leon86 13]

maybe it's a driver issue, you could try an older driver.

[SeaVee 10]

I just discovered an inexplicable but welcome increase in FPS when changing NVIDIA's "threaded optimization" option in the NVIDIA control panel for the Arma2-specific settings.

When I set it to AUTO, I got 14 FPS in Benchmark 2. When set to either ON or OFF as opposed to AUTO, my FPS was 16 with the same benchmark... Tried it back and forth several times and the FPS gain/loss is repeatable each time. Going from 14 to 16 FPS is a 15% improvement.

I have an I-7 920 overclocked to 3.8GHZ so for users without multi-core CPUs this may not apply or be an option. I am running NVIDIA's 197.13 drivers and also twin GTX260 cards with SLI and Physx enabled. Also running XP32.

I've read that Arma2 is NOT multi-threaded so I have no idea why this option would have an effect on FPS. Maybe the NVIDIA setting is something specific to the GPUs rather than the game .exe

The FPS results above were run with ALOT of Arma2 add-on mods which are certainly more demanding on the system than plain vanilla Arma2, specifically:

"C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\arma2.exe" -mod=@CBA;@sthud;@ACE;@ACEX;@sakusun;@HiFi_ACE;@HiFi_Air;@HiFi_SFX;@HiFi_Vehicle_Weapons;@HiFi_Weapons_Long;@WarFX_Particles_Beta_1.41;@GL4 -nosplash -world=empty

The mods make a big difference in FPS in an intensive, system straining benchmark like this. In regular gameplay where there is rarely, if ever so much going on the FPS hit is not nearly as bad. And for me the improvements are more than worth it. If I run the same graphic settins but no mods on a bone-stock plain vanilla Arma2 my FPS rises to 23 in Benchmark 2 - thats nearly a 40% difference from 16FPS. Dropping GL4 alone from the mods above makes a 4 FPS difference for me for example in that benchmark 2. Ace2 is about a 2-3 FPS hit.

My in-game video options settings:

Also in NVIDIA control panel I have:

Vsync & Triple buffering = forced ON

In "regular" singleplayer gameplay versus Benchmark 2 I am getting a low of around 42FPS and the majority of the time 55-60 (with Vsync on I am maxed at 60FPS as that is my monitor's refresh rate).

Edited March 28, 2010 by SeaVee

[metalcraze 290]

metalcraze - that is pretty bizarre. My guess would be a file corruption. Does it happen when you run the game wihtout any mods?

I doubt it's because of mods, because between using 4850 and GTX260 I haven't changed a thing in the game's folder or settings. Can't be a file corruption either.

Also - what F16 mod is that you're using?

I've installed it some time ago so I don't remember the exact name but in the mod folder it goes like

glt_f16.pbo

maybe it's a driver issue, you could try an older driver.

Rolled back to 191.07 - but haven't tested much yet apart from setting 10km view distance on Chernarus and doing a 5 km run with 4x time compression (so textures would be forced to load very fast). Seemed fine but needs more testing.

[=wfl= sgt bilko 10]

Running 197.13 on 9600GT, no problems so far.

[metalcraze 290]

Guys I don't know what to do.

I've tried 197.13, 196.21 and 191.07 drivers and still continue to get those "receiving" screens with the game halting shortly after with HDD loading something when flying a plane.

Anyone else had these problems? Any ideas?

[=wfl= sgt bilko 10]

Running 197.13 on 9600GT, no problems so far.

I might add that I don't fly much in this game. So my statement is for infantry games.

[jpinard 10]

metalcraze - I really think you need to try a fresh install of Arma2. Copy your folders and your config files, then do a full unistall. Then do a re-install and install the patch & beta patch. Then boot it up (with no mods) to see if flying plane works properly again. ArmA2 can have conflicted files when swapping hardware as it may keep settings from the old card that aren't compatible with the new card. After you've confirmed everything works OK, then start adding mods back on.

---------- Post added at 05:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:40 PM ----------

I just discovered an inexplicable but welcome increase in FPS when changing NVIDIA's "threaded optimization" option in the NVIDIA control panel for the Arma2-specific settings.

When I set it to AUTO, I got 14 FPS in Benchmark 2. When set to either ON or OFF as opposed to AUTO, my FPS was 16 with the same benchmark... Tried it back and forth several times and the FPS gain/loss is repeatable each time. Going from 14 to 16 FPS is a 15% improvement.

I have an I-7 920 overclocked to 3.8GHZ so for users without multi-core CPUs this may not apply or be an option. I am running NVIDIA's 197.13 drivers and also twin GTX260 cards with SLI and Physx enabled. Also running XP32.

I've read that Arma2 is NOT multi-threaded so I have no idea why this option would have an effect on FPS. Maybe the NVIDIA setting is something specific to the GPUs rather than the game .exe

The FPS results above were run with ALOT of Arma2 add-on mods which are certainly more demanding on the system than plain vanilla Arma2, specifically:

"C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\arma2.exe" -mod=@CBA;@sthud;@ACE;@ACEX;@sakusun;@HiFi_ACE;@HiFi_Air;@HiFi_SFX;@HiFi_Vehicle_Weapons;@HiFi_Weapons_Long;@WarFX_Particles_Beta_1.41;@GL4 -nosplash -world=empty

The mods make a big difference in FPS in an intensive, system straining benchmark like this. In regular gameplay where there is rarely, if ever so much going on the FPS hit is not nearly as bad. And for me the improvements are more than worth it. If I run the same graphic settins but no mods on a bone-stock plain vanilla Arma2 my FPS rises to 23 in Benchmark 2 - thats nearly a 40% difference from 16FPS. Dropping GL4 alone from the mods above makes a 4 FPS difference for me for example in that benchmark 2. Ace2 is about a 2-3 FPS hit.

My in-game video options settings:

Also in NVIDIA control panel I have:

Vsync & Triple buffering = forced ON

In "regular" singleplayer gameplay versus Benchmark 2 I am getting a low of around 42FPS and the majority of the time 55-60 (with Vsync on I am maxed at 60FPS as that is my monitor's refresh rate).

I'm going to give this a try. Any particualr reason why you have vysnc on? I hear the game was supposed to run faster with it off?

Edited March 29, 2010 by jpinard