Important: Read if you encounter stuttering after 1.03

[Guest]

Hey fellas,

I know we have the 1.03 performance thread, but i feel if i add a post there not many people will see it, seen as there are so many pages.

Anyway, alot of people seem to be complaining about stuttering after updating 1.03. I'm hearing things such as,

"The fps seems better, but now there is stuttering" etc...

Now this isn't a guranteed fix, but its helped everyone who i have spoken too so far. It also applies after updating any patch for arma 2.

Simply run a disk defrag. If you have tried this already, please excuse this post. But for anyone who hasn't, it will almost certainly fix stuttering. Make sure you let it run until its complete, the difference is enourmous.

Due to the size of arma 2 files, and the crappy way in which windows stores files, every time you update arma 2 it is getting fragmented to oblivion. This simple disk defrag has completely solved stuttering for me, and almost everyone else too :)

Any questions just ask,

Regards,

Rich.

[Shinobi575 10]

yea i thinking that my self, i was running defrag as u made this post :D; on a side note is it possible to Defrag too much? in other words can you destroy your hard drive if u defrag too many times?

[datter 0]

on a side note is it possible to Defrag too much? in other words can you destroy your hard drive if u defrag too many times?

No, you really should have it scheduled to be done nightly. The original post is sound advice.

[Shinobi575 10]

i ususally do it my self every other night b4 i log off, helps performance out in my opinion, my friend seems to think if you defrag too much it can destroy your hard drive... What ever, I defragged about 2 nights ago, now this is what it looked like b4 and after ARMA 2 1.03 patch install, rediculous lol

[froggyluv 2136]

Defragged last night and have major stuttering today. I still think it's tied to the VD somehow.

[-RIP- Luhgnut 10]

I'm defragged, but I don't get "Stuttering" I get........... a ...... ... pause....... every so often and it's.......starting........to bug...........me....alot.

[Alex72 1]

Windows defragger isnt good though. If i run that and then O&O wich i use - it shows the disk is still f*cked. Get a better one.

[InFireBaptize 0]

i get a pause when i play bear rising, my settings are disabled/low/normal except very high video memory.

[Guest]

Hey fellas,

Try auslogics disk defrag, its definitely the best free defragger out there.

Just google auslogics, then go on their site and download the defragger. Its much, much faster than windows, and much better too.

[EDcase 87]

Yep, defraging is very important for ArmA2 as its streaming lots of data constantly.

Its also advised to install to its own partition (closest letter to C: as possible to keep it on fast outer part of disk)

I had Auslogics and actually think "Ultimate defrag" is better:

http://download.cnet.com/UltimateDefrag-Freeware-Edition/3000-2094_4-10582157.html

Bit more complicated to use but thats what makes it more powerful. Just read help file.

Edited August 6, 2009 by EDcase

[ICE-Raver 10]

Stuttering like crazy on my rig now. On 1.02 it ran flawlessly.

[p75 10]

A No for me, defrag didn't help.

[Grizzle 0]

If you are defragging with MS built in defragger you are wasting your time. Get a good third party defrag like O&O that offers many more options on how the files are organized on your HD.

[kremator 1065]

Well ....

After defragging my hard drive immediately that I got 1.03 and suffering stutters I was sceptical but I used Ultimate Defrag and Win7 defrag and I'm not getting any major stuttering now !

Emminently playable again ! Now to see all the good things about the patch and not dwell any more on the negatives !

[froggyluv 2136]

People with the Pause problem, check and see if your using the CBA addon as after I took it out my stuttering problems seems to be gone.

Look here

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=78622&page=9

[ICE-Raver 10]

I'm defragging now with diskeeper 2009.

When I analyzed it said health critical..................very heavy fragmentation problems noted.

Funny thing is I am on a brand new 2 week old build and I ran MS defrag after the system was running and everything installed.

Anyway, hopefully this helps me.

[mrcash2009 0]

People with the Pause problem, check and see if your using the CBA addon as after I took it out my stuttering problems seems to be gone.

Look here

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=78622&page=9

Yes second to defrag and the usual things with stream loading stutter ..

1. Try setting texture detail to "normal"

2. Dependent on Vram try setting video memory to "Very High" (or at atleast the highest option you have).

3 ... as the quote suggest, check your mods, if you have CBA loaded right now this with 1.03 is adding a cyclic 1-2 second pause every couple of minutes (or less) which maybe confused by some with general stutter (that settings can remove and defrag) and the patch.

(1 & 2 were what I found to get a happy medium of removing stutter caused my texture streaming in large industrial areas etc).

Also one of the BIS staff (I think Maruk) posted on the old BIS thread a nice little tool for de-fragging JUST the Arma folder (so no long waiting to defrag whole drive)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897428.aspx

Download the exe and paste it into the root of your Arma folder IE:

c:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive

Then right click and create a shortcut to desktop.

Goto "properties" of the created shortcut and in the "Target" window section add the following tags at the end:

-s *.* -v

IE:

"c:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\Contig.exe" -s *.* -v

Then simply double click and run, this will then defrag the game folder from the root down = saves waiting to defrag entire drives when all you need is the game folder to be tidy. Once its done the dos window will close and all sorted. Obviously you can set this up on any folder/area of a drive etc.

Edited August 7, 2009 by mrcash2009

[KorJax 10]

In the steam version, you can right click your steam shortcut, go to "properties", "Local Files", and then click "Defragment Local Files"

No idea if it will help or not but it's worth a try.

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

I have W7 defrag set to run weekly, yet Auslogics found 93 fragmented files on a fairly new install. ArmA 2\Addons was loaded with fragmentation.......and I'm stock files with patch 1.03.

[galzohar 31]

Defragging is generally a good thing. I wouldn't worry about defragging too much, though, since for obvious reasons it doesn't really do any good to defrag too often. Defargging basically merges files that are split over different parts of the hard drive, so that they are faster to read. If you just defragged your hard drive a few days ago, there will be very few fragmented files and thus defragging won't really do anything.

Steam will also tell you how much the game files are fragmented. For me, I installed it on a new hard drive on my new computer and thus it is already 0% fragmented without defragmenting, obviously.

Windows is supposed to only fragment files when it can't put them somewhere in 1 piece.

[CrazyAce 0]

Doest do a damn bit of good for me... Just wasted my time. I defragged according to MRCashs defrag advice first and then defragged with Windows Vista (boo) and auslogics last... Nothing seems to work yet.

[Thunderbird 0]

I'm tired like hell trying to tweak my system to make the game run properly with the latest patch...

Got ride of it and got back to 1.02 by reinstalling everything, I will live with the 1.02 until the 1.04 pops up.

Regards,

TB