Here's how I got ARMA2 to perform smoothly using RAMDISK

[jasonnoguchi 11]

Once again, SSD made the diff. Arma is truly one game that requires a fast Hard disk.

[Tankbuster 1733]

Once again, SSD made the diff. Arma is truly one game that requires a fast Hard disk.

Indeed. Until now I was running the entire game install from a USB stick and that was a big improvement, but nothing on this SSD. I was lucky, my 16GB Corsair USB Voyager was putting out 30 MB/s, which isn't fast in the grand scheme of things, but the seek times are so damn quick, it was WAY better than my HDD.

But this SSD install has taken it to a whole new level.

[Leon86 13]

maybe I should get me one of these:

Intel X25-V prices (in the netherlands)

It's only 40 GB, just enough for windows and ARMA2 and writes with max 40 MB/s but it reads with 170 MB/s and with really good performance with small packets (thats what arma needs),reading compares to x25-M.

I think this disk is the same as the Kingston SSDNow V-Series (that one is eol now that intel puts their own brand name on them)

[Tankbuster 1733]

I think this disk is the same as the Kingston SSDNow V-Series (that one is eol now that intel puts their own brand name on them)

I think that too.

[Muscular Beaver 0]

I've just finished what I euphamistically call my system midlife upgrade. The game absolutely flies along. In some areas, framerate has doubled, in practically all other areas, I'm seeing increases of at least a quarter. I've yet to see a texture pop yet and screen changes are instant - presss M, the map is there, bosh. Press it again, instantly back to viewpoint. There's no slowdown either. I played for a couple of hours last night, the game was still as frisky when I left as when I joined.

Old system = XPP, Q9550 @ 3.3, 6GGB RAM (only 3 seen), 500GB Spinpoint and 8800 GTX.

New System = Win7 64 Ulti 6GB RAM, Q9550 @ 3.3, Intel X25M 80GB (OS, games and pagefile), 500 GB Spinpoint (data and non crit apps) and 8800GTX.

Note the motherboard, CPU and RAM are unchanged, only the main drive and OS are new.

I made exactly the same changes as you and havent noticed a huge improvement. Sure, stutters are quite a bit less (but are still very noticeable) and overall frames feel a lot faster, but there are still low res textures and models popping up and the switch from map to screen is nowhere near instant. Still takes up to 2 secs for me, and I even have 2 GB of pbo files on a RAMdisk. I also have a i5-750 and a GTX 260.

But maybe youre running only low to moderate graphics settings.

EDIT: Just tested it since i dont play singleplayer. Youre prolly playing singleplayer at low to medium settings. I dont have any issues with high settings at only a 3000m viewing distance in singleplayer. If I up the viewing distance to 4k however, the stuttering is far worse and also the low res and low detail models start to pop in.

Go play a game of Domination. Even with only 3k viewing distance and disabled grass you will get those issues even with a SSD.

I think only lots of of RAM and a ramdisk with the whole game on it will get rid of it completely.

I already noticed how things that are on my ramdisk stopped to pop in as low res and low detail objects and the stuttering got a bit less again. Now if I could put everything on there it would stop completely.

To get this straight: Im not saying that SSDs wont help with issues in this game, Im just saying they will NOT stop them completely (well, maybe if you have one of those SSD PCI-E cards with 1.5 GB transfer rate) nor make the game completely smooth.

However, if you have slow system, a slow OS and HDD (I had a Caviar Black before), I am sure the change will be much more noticeable than it has been for me.

Edited January 25, 2010 by Muscular Beaver

[cjph 0]

I'm glad you posted - I have an SSD which holds the balance of the BIS addons (around 4Gb on RAMDisk plus the balance on a 40Gb Kingston SSD along with ACE2, namalsk etc). Performance on the below system (a weak cpu by comparison) is pretty decent imho with VD set to 2,500 and all set to high (no AF, low AA). Res is 1680x1050. But one thing I notice in SP is that at the start of a custom mission with approx 20 tanks and 50 infantry battling in Chernogorsk, if I stand as a civilian on one of the harbour cranes, the textures on the large white office block can take up to 10 seconds to fully load, which seems a long time since the buildings pbos are on a RAMDisk. Maybe we are just getting to the limit the cpu/gpu can display. I have an Intel 40Gb on order but might look to upgrade it to the 80Gb version, if that could help.

I should also say the game now is simply miles ahead of where it was running from an older HDD.

cjph

[Tankbuster 1733]

EDIT: Just tested it since i dont play singleplayer. Youre prolly playing singleplayer at low to medium settings. I dont have any issues with high settings at only a 3000m viewing distance in singleplayer. If I up the viewing distance to 4k however, the stuttering is far worse and also the low res and low detail models start to pop in.

Go play a game of Domination. Even with only 3k viewing distance and disabled grass you will get those issues even with a SSD.

I do play Domination, in fact I play nothing else. Default VD on my server is 3K and I usually push mine a little more. AA and AD are off, but all other details are at least high. I usually see 30 FPS, with 40 if not much is happening. It will drop to 15 if WarFX and Fire&Smoke are working hard, but that's tolerable provided I'm not transonic in an F35 at treetop height. :)

[Muscular Beaver 0]

As I said, I dont really have issues with low FPS. Its the stutters and LOD thrashing thats stressing my nerves. My Intel X25-M G2 80 GB helped in decreasing them, but they are still there, and especially the flashing LOD textures and models are still very well noticeable.

I am running low AA and maximum AF at 1680x1050 with everything on highest except postprocessing on lowest setting. Im running 5-6k VD in Domination. Could even run 10k, but the higher the VD, the worse the stutters, LOD thrashing and performance degration over time.

Maybe if I have too much money in the next few months Ill try to add more RAM for the RAMdisk.

[Tankbuster 1733]

Flashing textures is Z fighting, you won't get rid of that by changing hardware. Also, I don't get the performance degradation any more.

It seems our experiences are much more different than they ought to be.

[Flash Thunder 10]

Can you please post videos Tankbuster the differences from HDD, USB to SSD?

Im interested in buying a high performance USB card to put Arma 2 on, unless SSD's are cheaper now. :eek:

[maturin 12]

Can you use a RAMdisk with a 32 bit OS and 4GB?

[kklownboy 43]

Can you use a RAMdisk with a 32 bit OS and 4GB?

yes tho it will be small.

[Muscular Beaver 0]

Flashing textures is Z fighting, you won't get rid of that by changing hardware. Also, I don't get the performance degradation any more.

It seems our experiences are much more different than they ought to be.

Im not talking about "Z fighting". I am takling about very low res textures and low detail models of vehicles, trees, buildings, etc popping up for at least a split second when you switch from scope view to normal view or turn around very fast.

Our experiences differ quite a bit, but since Ive seen it on other SSD rigs already, I know that its perfectly normal. Ive also talked to those people who had those rigs and some of them told me what you said, even though the problems were still there. So its highly subjective I guess.

Its as the OP of this thead posted: You will only get this game 100% smooth if you put the whole game on a RAMdisk. SSDs help, but not jawdropping much.

Edited January 25, 2010 by Muscular Beaver

[Leon86 13]

Can you use a RAMdisk with a 32 bit OS and 4GB?

Yes, some products even let you acces the now unused 700mb

[Tankbuster 1733]

Can you please post videos Tankbuster the differences from HDD, USB to SSD?

Im interested in buying a high performance USB card to put Arma 2 on, unless SSD's are cheaper now. :eek:

I might have a couple of vids from my hdd install days, but they may not show anything of note. I certainly don't have any from the USB or SSD install because xfire doesn't work with either.

It's also complicated by the fact that I changed OS (XPP to W764Ulti) when I moved from USB to SSD.

I might be able to make a few vids using fraps on the current install, will do that in the coming days.

---------- Post added at 01:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:21 PM ----------

: You will only get this game 100% smooth if you put the whole game on a RAMdisk. SSDs help, but not jawdropping much.

You can say that, but it's just not my experience. W764Ulti and the SSD have transformed the game.

[bangtail 0]

You can say that, but it's just not my experience. W764Ulti and the SSD have transformed the game.

I can't agree with you there at all. It still happens using SSD's and I'm running 4 different brands in and out of RAID.

SSD's speed up the loading time of A2 but very little else. It irks me that people suggest them as a "be all, end all" solution to A2 problems when they quite simply are not.

Set your details on Vhigh (Res 1680 x 1050 or higher), 3K+ view and High AA and it won't matter if you are in RAID with 4 x Intel X-25 (G2) 160GB, you'll still get lag.

I'm not going to say they don't help a little, but they certainly don't get rid of it.

RAMdisk is the ONLY way to totally eliminate it.

Edited January 26, 2010 by BangTail

[kklownboy 43]

i have found putting all the islands, and just about anything world like that gets Rendered on RAMdisk, and all the rest on a SSD( .exe guns, men, ect) no popups ever, or stutter. Thats at 3800+VD, 4XAA+ @1920/1440. A SSD will be (IMO) as good~ as a RAMdisk if you have a dedicated(real with cpu on card) raid Controller card with two SSDs in Raid 0. But yeah a SSD is much better than a HDD for the game. But RAM is cheaper than a Controller+ 2XSSD. right now my Ramdisk is 5GBs.

[bangtail 0]

i have found putting all the islands, and just about anything world like that gets Rendered on RAMdisk, and all the rest on a SSD( .exe guns, men, ect) no popups ever, or stutter. Thats at 3800+VD, 4XAA+ @1920/1440. A SSD will be (IMO) as good~ as a RAMdisk if you have a dedicated(real with cpu on card) raid Controller card with two SSDs in Raid 0. But yeah a SSD is much better than a HDD for the game. But RAM is cheaper than a Controller+ 2XSSD. right now my Ramdisk is 5GBs.

An SSD as fast as a RAMdisk? - I don't think so (providing you aren't using Dong Chen bargain RAM)

SSDs are definitely slightly better than HDDs when it comes to gaming but that's it (and they certainly are not on par with RAM, controller or not). SSDs are not really essential for gaming unless you are hyper concerned about load times.

I didn't buy any of my SSDs with gaming in mind. They are a fairly unnecessary outlay where gaming is concerned especially given the price/performance ratio (Although that won't stop anyone :) ). The only games I have on my SSDs are A2 and FSX and I don't notice a huge difference from WD 2TB in RAID0 except when it comes to loading levels etc. Now when it comes to other applications, that's a different story altogether.

Even the OCZ Z Drive is a total letdown performance wise. Hopefully, Intel's G3 drives will be really good :)

Edited January 26, 2010 by BangTail

[Tankbuster 1733]

Can you please post videos Tankbuster the differences from HDD, USB to SSD?

Here's some footage from a Domination game earlier. Fraps was capturing at about 20 FPS though before it started saving, I was getting 35 FPS.

BOzKbeXfFd4

The trees are fully textured up throughout the flight and the map switch is so fast, I'm confident enough to have a quick look at it in flight.

Then a bit of running around, bit of zooming with the modified binoculars.

As you can see, no texture lag and no stutters. There's a LOD pop at the end when I zoom back out and the front hull furniture on the LAV pops in. The stutters you are seeing in the vid are all video/compression artifacts. I have the originals here and they are smooth.

---------- Post added at 11:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:39 PM ----------

Set your details on Vhigh (Res 1680 x 1050 or higher), 3K+ view and High AA and it won't matter if you are in RAID with 4 x Intel X-25 (G2) 160GB, you'll still get lag.

.

AA is off in this vid, I rarely use it, but other than that, it's 1680 x 1050, 4k VD, high everything, AF off and PP off.

Edited January 27, 2010 by Tankbuster

[bangtail 0]

It's all subjective anyway mate, as long as you are happy, who cares what anyone else thinks :)

Edited January 28, 2010 by BangTail

[maturin 12]

Yes, some products even let you acces the now unused 700mb

I know nothing about RAMdisks, for starters. But if I follow the instructions in the OP, am I likely to see any improvement with my 4GB of RAM? I have major problems with building textures disappearing in cities behind my back, and with foliage remaining low LOD at relatively short distances. However, my dual core 2.53 processor and mid range GPU are bottlenecks.

[Leon86 13]

the textures will still disappear, but if you put the buildings pbo on the ramdisk they'll reload so fast you'll barely notice. But maybe that problem can also be cured by putting the textures on a lower quality.

[maturin 12]

the textures will still disappear, but if you put the buildings pbo on the ramdisk they'll reload so fast you'll barely notice. But maybe that problem can also be cured by putting the textures on a lower quality.

The OP put his entire Arma folder into the RAMdisk. How would you set it up if you only put some of the PBOs in it?

[Leon86 13]

just create a folder named ADDONS on your ramdisk, copy some of the .pbo's out of the arma2 addons folder to your new folder.

then add -mod=R:\ to the target line in the shortcut (rmb, properties) you use to start the game, provided R:\ is your ramdisk

[kklownboy 43]

The OP put his entire Arma folder into the RAMdisk. How would you set it up if you only put some of the PBOs in it?

He didnt put the whole folder,that is to big for his amount(and just about anybodys).

What he did was log his pbo usage than picked the most used i/o, and fit that into a RAMdisk.