This is my most desperate hour. Help me, ArmA2 community; you're my only hope.

[Jonney Napalm 10]

Right, so I'm totally confused now.

I've been trawling through these forums since release day and I still haven't been able to stop my CTD's after 10-20 mins of play.

I can't even get through the Armamark test without a crash most of the time!

I know my system is 100% stable as I've hammered it with about every stability test and benchmark known to man, GPU, CPU, GPU memory and sytem ram, and it hasn't faltered.

My temps remain at acceptable levels throughout (short) play, infact I've seen higher GPU temps in other games.

I've re-installed 3 times now and I've patched to 1.02 and now to 1.03.

I've re-installed Vista 64 twice and now moved onto Windows 7 Build 7100.

I've tried -maxmem, -winxp etc, all setting to high, low and in between.

I've even got a new HDD.

I've managed to get a 'resonable' framerate but it's useless unless I can get the game to stop CTD'ing.

I'm getting crash reports full of 'Error during i-buffer/v-buffer creation' and the faulting module is always arma2.exe.

I'm personally convinced it's all caused by the way the game addesses memory or that my config/system settings aren't right and causing the CTD's.

If I leave the .CFG file to set itself I get this:-

language="English";

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=-4194304;<Don't ask, sometimes does this.

Resolution_Bpp=32;

Resolution_W=1920;

Resolution_H=1200;

refresh=60;

Render_W=1920;

Render_H=1200;

FSAA=2;

postFX=1;

HDRPrecision=8;

lastDeviceId="";

localVRAM=1948971008;

nonlocalVRAM=1948971008;

As you can see I get localVRAM detected as 1948971008 bytes (1858mb).

As I have a GTX 295, total memory 1792mb, which is 896mb per card, as I understand, this value should be set to 896mb (939524096 bytes)?

Can anyone confirm this?

Also nonlocalVRAM is detected the same. What should this be set to?

Is it page file, virtual video memory, system memory, what?

I've seen so many contradictions I just don't know what to think now.

Can anyone running a GTX295 and a stable copy of Arma2 tell me what they have in their config?

Also, if there is anyone running an i7 920/GTX295/6Gb DDR3/ Win 7 or Vista 64 and have a stable and non crashing Arma2 experience, please can you tell me all your .CFG settings and tweaks as I'm almost on the point of consigning Arma to a dusty shelf for the near future.

Sorry for the long post and thanks for reading it.

[Tintee 10]

If i were you i would delete your cfg file and let it re-detect your system.I did this after the 1.03 patch and it gave different values than before.I think the localvram is the pagefile and this could well be the culprit.

Also if you have your nvidia display set to multi display, change it to single display as i believe doing this helped some nv owners to stop crashes.

Also i know for a fact that using custom radio sounds in game can cause crashes.Maybe only to desktop but crashes non the less.

I believe the hyperthreading in i7 cpu needs to be disabled as it caused problems in general though i dont know about arma2.

good luck!

[rstratton 0]

try windows xp?

[Bad Pilot 0]

Things to check/confirm: -

RAM diagnostic.

Sufficient spare space on hdd for caching?

Some favourite software or peripheral driver not needed for the game but interfering nonetheless?

BIS want to hear about CTDs and there's a procedure for sending them crashdump files.

[Dogtags 0]

I sympathise with you. I had ALL of what you are saying and maybe more. I spent weeks/hours trying to fix it. I thought my system was stable except when I ran ARMA2.

I was so fed up and sick but as a last resport I bought a 1TB HDD (I needed more space anyway) and installed Win7 RC. Ever since I did that ARMA2 has never once crashed, I have no graphical problems and I am enjoying ARAM2 the way I should have enjoyed it from the start.

Now why this fixed things I have no idea, corrupt DLL's or some software I had installed who knows.

After 1 week of this not a single crash and it plays very smooth for me with most things on high, no joke.

---------- Post added at 01:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:17 AM ----------

I sympathise with you. I had ALL of what you are saying and maybe more. I spent weeks/hours trying to fix it. I thought my system was stable except when I ran ARMA2.

I was so fed up and sick but as a last resport I bought a 1TB HDD (I needed more space anyway) and installed Win7 RC. Ever since I did that ARMA2 has never once crashed, I have no graphical problems and I am enjoying ARAM2 the way I should have enjoyed it from the start.

Now why this fixed things I have no idea, corrupt DLL's or some software I had installed who knows.

After 1 week of this not a single crash and it plays very smooth for me with most things on high, no joke.

Oh I see you installed windows 7, was that a fresh install? Other thing I did or didn't do on purpose when I installed win 7 was not to install the ASUS mobo drivers, I just let Win 7 do its own thing. One thing I wont be doing in future is buying ASUS mobo's just based on my experiences.

[Magel282 10]

Oh I see you installed windows 7, was that a fresh install? Other thing I did or didn't do on purpose when I installed win 7 was not to install the ASUS mobo drivers, I just let Win 7 do its own thing. One thing I wont be doing in future is buying ASUS mobo's just based on my experiences.

I to installed Windows 7 RC the other day and got worse performance. A lot of stuttering and audio problems and the "cannot commit" error when saving games every time. I think luck has a lot with getting this game to run smoothly. Its up to Bohemia to sort it out from here on.

And I to will never by an Asus board again. Had so many problems with my Rampage II and Striker extreme before hand. Went EVGA this time round and not one issue.

[MJK-Ranger 0]

My ArmA2 are running stable on my system.

Look at my Signature.

Here is my ArmA2.cfg:

language="English";
adapter=-1;
3D_Performance=-4194304;
Resolution_Bpp=32;
Resolution_W=1680;
Resolution_H=1050;
refresh=60;
Render_W=1680;
Render_H=1050;
FSAA=2;
postFX=0;
HDRPrecision=8;
lastDeviceId="";
localVRAM=2128281600;
nonlocalVRAM=1878282240;

My paging file(Virtual Memory) are set to "Automatically manage paging file size for all drivers" Only my system disk is set to do that all other partitions and drivers are off.

Minimum allowed: 16 MB

Recommended: 6139 MB

Currently allocated: 4393 MB

Cheers

Edited August 12, 2009 by MJK-Ranger

[MotoPsycho 10]

Jonney,

It seems I've solved my GTX 295 issue by running in full XP SP2 compatability mode on the executable, as well as disabling visual themes ( and of course running as admin )

Also - try manually setting your 3D_Performance to 100000, I renamed my arma2.cfg again and again just to collect a few config samples at different settings, and this one by far is the best!

http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1402157&postcount=7

[edit] And I am also running the -winxp command line switch. With no mem switch ( I also use the -splash switch but that shouldn't be relevant)

Edited August 12, 2009 by MotoPsycho

[mlenser 10]

localVRAM=1948971008;

nonlocalVRAM=1948971008;

As you can see I get localVRAM detected as 1948971008 bytes (1858mb).

As I have a GTX 295, total memory 1792mb, which is 896mb per card, as I understand, this value should be set to 896mb (939524096 bytes)?

Can anyone confirm this?

I remember reading somewhere that ppl with cards in SLi should use HALF the total memory so I think your correct that you need to lower the localVRAM figure. I have two GTX 260 896mb cards in SLi and my localVRAM=927121408 (884mb's ??)

Also nonlocalVRAM is detected the same. What should this be set to?

Is it page file, virtual video memory, system memory, what?

I've seen so many contradictions I just don't know what to think now.

I'm not sure what the nonlocalVRAM really means but the name does suggest its virtual video memory indeed. My nonlocalVRAM=349175807 which is about 333mb's but I'm not sure why that figure was auto detected either. I was reading elsewhere today that assigning too much video memory was causing some people problems so its definitely worth trying some smaller figures. If ArmA changes the config file on you make it read only after you've corrected the figures - and good luck :D

[OUT FOX EM 10]

Just for shits and giggles, see how long you can play in windowed mode and get back to me...

(-window -x=800 -y=600)