Ram limit hard-coded?

[choC 10]

I keep reading around the forums that Arma 2 has a ram limit hard coded at 2GB.

Is this true?

If so, may I kindly ask WHY?!

I've got 6GB of ram just sitting here and resource monitor shows Arma using well below half, despite getting ridiculous lag spikes with textures loading.

Is there a way to force it to recognise and use more ram?

[Bulldogs 10]

It's due to the engine being written to access a single 32 bit core, I'm not sure if it can be changed later on (it's likely possible) but can't much about it right now.

[kklownboy 43]

ANY 32bit program can ONLY access up to 2gbs of ram.... thats all there is to it.

Now i would like to see it use all 2gb... never see it get up to that...

[Stilla-Killa 10]

ANY 32bit program can ONLY access up to 2gbs of ram.... thats all there is to it.

Now i would like to see it use all 2gb... never see it get up to that...

I thought it was 3 gigs?

[kegetys 2]

I thought it was 3 gigs?

The limit is 2GB in normal applications (You can use 3GB of memory but a single application can only use 2GB), with the large address aware setting it can be increased to 3GB but I guess ArmA2 doesn't use that.

[NeMeSiS 11]

Now i would like to see it use all 2gb... never see it get up to that...

It uses whatever it needs to use, do you want ArmA2 to just load up random files to fill it up to 2gb? Why not make some quick-looping scripts that do nothing so we also use 100% of our CPU's all the time? :confused:

[-=seany=- 5]

It uses whatever it needs to use, do you want ArmA2 to just load up random files to fill it up to 2gb? Why not make some quick-looping scripts that do nothing so we also use 100% of our CPU's all the time? :confused:

15 minutes playing this game tells you it is crying out for more physical RAM. Look at your HD access light, it's flickering constantly because the game is streaming from the Harddisk and not ram, that's why we see LOD swapping, that's why buildings/objects don't load their textures quickly enough when spinning 360 during a heavy battle in a town. If ever there was a game that could make good use of the 4gb of RAM most of us have had for the past 2 years, this is it.

[SG_Smokintodd 0]

15 minutes playing this game tells you it is crying out for more physical RAM. Look at your HD access light, it's flickering constantly because the game is streaming from the Harddisk and not ram, that's why we see LOD swapping, that's why buildings/objects don't load their textures quickly enough when spinning 360 during a heavy battle in a town. If ever there was a game that could make good use of the 4gb of RAM most of us have had for the past 2 years, this is it.

QFT. The last time I monitored, my pagefile useage was up to 1.9GB and my HD was begging for some down-time.

[choC 10]

It uses whatever it needs to use, do you want ArmA2 to just load up random files to fill it up to 2gb? Why not make some quick-looping scripts that do nothing so we also use 100% of our CPU's all the time? :confused:

Read below.

15 minutes playing this game tells you it is crying out for more physical RAM. Look at your HD access light, it's flickering constantly because the game is streaming from the Harddisk and not ram, that's why we see LOD swapping, that's why buildings/objects don't load their textures quickly enough when spinning 360 during a heavy battle in a town. If ever there was a game that could make good use of the 4gb of RAM most of us have had for the past 2 years, this is it.

If it wasn't for the constant lag during texture loads and the missing/low quality textures while they load, then I wouldn't be complaining about the 2GB limit.

[maddogx 13]

I tried running Arma2 in window mode with the Windows task manager open, so I could watch RAM usage.

Flying around over Chernarus with 10km view distance, object detail and terrain detail as high as possible and with a huge battle going on, my RAM usage never went higher than 1.2GB tops. Even though there was still about 1.5GB free.

Has anyone been able to coax it into using more?

[nuggetz 0]

A2 is only going to use RAM in the manner in which it was programmed to use RAM. In this case, it seems shoddy when people see things popping in and out with plenty of RAM left to spare even with a 2GB limit. Something wrong and it's not your PC. I wouldn't expect much from BIS tho so maybe it's really time to just screw with the demo and wait for Operation Flashpoint 2.

[Ekre 10]

ANY 32bit program can ONLY access up to 2gbs of ram.... thats all there is to it.

Now i would like to see it use all 2gb... never see it get up to that...

not true, it can be bypassed. and the limitation is not about your physical ram, its about the virtual address space.

and tbh it can be bypassed easily at the complie, or at your home (you have to modify the exe file, but i wont write it how you can do it at home, because i already have a warning about the exe modifications)

read this and this (and google for "32-bit 2gb virtual address space"), and for a home made exe fix, google for cff "explorer 2gb address space" (it will fix out of memory, virtual memory block and cannot commit crashes). already posted a bugreport about that (about a month ago....) but no ones care, i just got a warning. actually its a non official fix for lot of games which has out of memory etc ctd's (flight simulator x (an MS FSX dev suggested to modify our exe file), gothic 3, etc).

---------- Post added at 08:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:54 AM ----------

I tried running Arma2 in window mode with the Windows task manager open, so I could watch RAM usage.

Flying around over Chernarus with 10km view distance, object detail and terrain detail as high as possible and with a huge battle going on, my RAM usage never went higher than 1.2GB tops. Even though there was still about 1.5GB free.

Has anyone been able to coax it into using more?

its not about the applications physical ram usage, its about virtual address space. all of your 32 bit applications use the same 2gb space (or 3gb, depend on your windows version and your own settings), if its "full" (reaches 2gb), then applications without the right complier options will crash.

[thr0tt 12]

Ekre, surely if you midifiy the exe then FADE kicks in... but if it was this simple then maybe BI left it out for a reason ?

[Ekre 10]

Ekre, surely if you midifiy the exe then FADE kicks in... but if it was this simple then maybe BI left it out for a reason ?

thanks, but i know this. i already said that (but you are right, not in that post, sorry!) but few guys reported in my clan that they dont have fade active after they modified the exe in that way.

dunno why, a lot of games comes without this option enabled. but guess what, an MS FSX developer on his blog suggested to modify our MS FSX exe file to fix (because no more fixes from MS....) those memory related crashes (MS FSX SP1 comes without this too, if you just leave it as it came, then on very high settings it will crash within a few minutes, with out of memory error). guess what, its working, and its working for lot of games as well.

you are right, maybe there is a reason why BI doesnt used this option at the compile, but that would be nice to know, why? and yes, an official fix would be so cool for those annoying crashes (mostly thats why i put it on the shelf (and the lack of a linux server binary. geez, time to wake up BI!))

[choC 10]

Nice posts there Ekre, I wonder how many "My game keeps crashing" posts would have been avoided if BIS attempted the fix themselves...

[InFireBaptize 0]

read this and this (and google for "32-bit 2gb virtual address space"), and for a home made exe fix, google for cff "explorer 2gb address space" (it will fix out of memory, virtual memory block and cannot commit crashes). already posted a bugreport about that (about a month ago....) but no ones care, i just got a warning. actually its a non official fix for lot of games which has out of memory etc ctd's (flight simulator x (an MS FSX dev suggested to modify our exe file), gothic 3, etc).

i downloaded explorersuite and i'm going to give it a try, would the above solution increase game performance?

[tonedog12 2]

maybe u guys could clear somethin up for me, heres my spec. ive just upgraded the video and sound card, the old card was a XFX GeForce 8800GTS 320MB

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (OC'd to 3.2ghz)

BFG GeForce GTX 260² (GTX 260-2) OC MAXCORE 896MB

Crucial 2GB (2x1GB KIT) 667mhz

Gigabyte S775 Intel P35 GA P35C DS3R rev 2.0

Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Xtreme Audio 24BIT S/Card 7.1 OEM

Viewsonic 24IN LCD WIDE VA2413WM 1920X1080

550W PSU

windows xp 32 bit

i was really hopin to see a big increase in performance in most of my games this one included but not so which im a bit gutted about.

i was thinkin of upgradin my ram to Crucial Ballistix Tracer 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C6 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit.

but when i run some of the missions the most ram ive seen this game use in task manager is 500mb! so i have to ask, is there any point in me buyin this ram?

[Bulldogs 10]

Arma 2 uses a maximum of 2gb of ram, but if you only have 2gb of Ram you have to remember that Windows and background programs are using up most of that RAM and leaving Arma 2 with only a little. 4gb of Ram is a sweet spot (honestly, you don't need more than that, especially for 32bit)

As for the Graphics card. I hear that the major difference between the 260 and the 8800gts comes in at higher resolutions (as with most new cards) but haven't testing it myself.

[tonedog12 2]

that doesnt make sense according to the numbers im seein on task manager. right now i have 1.5gb of available memory which means windows is usin 500mb of mem right now. when i load up a mission the most it says was used was 500mb for the game.

id be happy for anyone to tell me how ive got this wrong though!

[echo1 0]

EDIT: Ignore.

Edited August 25, 2009 by echo1

[tonedog12 2]

so am i right then ch, is 2gb more than enough to run A2?

[InFireBaptize 0]

In my day, people used to complain when games used too much RAM...

Seriously people, there isn't a linear correlation between the amount of RAM you have, and the performance of a video game. If the game doesn't need use a gazillion gigabytes of RAM, it obviously means that BIS managed to optimize at least one aspect of system usage correctly. I'm sure BIS has more important things to worry about fixing (mouse lag, stuttering on even the most high end machines etc etc ad infinitum) without a bunch of people who don't really know what they're talking about wanting the game to waste resources unnecessarily...

hmm, how would you explain the page file then? why page file size keeps increasing while playing the game?

[echo1 0]

I take back what I said - I missed some of the earlier posts where people actually pointed out that there was an overuse of the page file, and consequently misread this thread as a lot of people saying - "The game runs slow, it doesnt use much RAM so therefore the two are linked!". I must point out that I personally haven't seen this issue (currently running 64bit W7 with 4GB of RAM) so I'm not sure if this is a universal problem. I'd still like to think that BIS can fix it without making the game use a shitload of RAM. Although that isnt such a problem considering how cheap a set of 4GB RAM is these days...

[Bulldogs 10]

I may be wrong as I don't know exactly how the WIndows architecture works under XP, but under server/vista it reserves memory for Windows and only allocates a small amount to each running programs.

Closing all non-essential background programs should help, also make sure that your memory is set to program optimization (not background services). Look under control panel->System->Advanced->Performance->settings->advanced.

There is a way to tweak it using 3rd party programs to force Windows to allocate more memory but you're best googling that, and keep in mind that it can cause crashes and instability if Windows attempts to access memory that you've manually allocated elsewhere.

---------- Post added at 12:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:38 PM ----------

In the end, Arma 2 is capable of utilizing 2gb of Ram, but if you only have 2gb of ram then Windows won't let Arma 2 use much. You can tweak it but the safest and best option is to have more than 2GB of Ram.

[tonedog12 2]

ok put it this way, what evidence do u guys have that show that A2 uses 2gb of ram?

ive went ahead and bought 4gb of ram in the hope that it will increase performance but im still sceptical of how much ram A2 actually uses.