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

[maddogx 13]

And in case BIS read any of this, what's making it so hard to make a 64-bit version of Arma 2?

Here's your answer.

[wamingo 1]

I still see textures popping all the time.

So how much faster is loading textures from systemram to vram compared to hd to vram?

Suma says it'll make no difference going 64bit, but is he only right as long as textures isn't held in system memory?

I might not have a clue of what I'm speaking.

[vasmkd 12]

My most noticable way of getting this game to run smooth is to defrag after install of addons and patches with gamebooster.

Especially after installing a new patch.

It's so quick and easy to do too and works for me considering i don't have a super machine

And u only need to defrag the main game directory

Edited July 22, 2010 by vasmkd

[galzohar 31]

Here's your answer.

I've seen that post, however I do find it hard to believe, considering it have already been proven that all our problems lay within the fact that the game refuses to use the RAM it needs so that texture popping is eliminated.

He specifically said:

it is just removing the 4 GB barrier

"Just"?? It's not a "just", it's the main (and only?) reason I would get 64-bit for Arma 2, if only it was supported. Seeing all the testing people have done, I'm quite convinced that if the game would use more RAM rather than constantly go to the hard drive, all the problems of high-end computer owners would be solved.

If I misunderstand something I would be more than happy to see someone from BIS correcting me. But Suma's post simply goes against any testing result that have been posted in this thread, and does not explain why with a system that is way more than good enough to run the game on maximum settings I still get FPS drops due to texture loads (and only when textures are loading -When textures aren't loading I get 30 FPS minimum with everything on max).

It's quite silly to look at a guy right next to me, then look around for a bit, then when I look back at the guy he's in low LOD again for a second or 2 until he loads back up. If I could do something to make the game keep him in RAM (other than buying 12GB of RAM to make a ramdisk) I would be most grateful.

Right now even the "large adderss aware" doesn't seem to get used much, yet objects/textures keep popping (have a friend with win7, i7-965 overclocked a bit, a GTX295 and 6GB of RAM on win7 64-bit, even when trying to run -maxmem=4095 game still seems to not use anywhere near 4GB of RAM yet the textures just keep popping for him). Large address aware might have been enough, but the way it is now I'm not able to see how much it helps because the game simply seems to not be using that new ability.

Read here about Bil Gates and the 640KB RAM limit... :)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

Edited July 22, 2010 by galzohar

[rekrul 7]

It's quite silly to look at a guy right next to me, then look around for a bit, then when I look back at the guy he's in low LOD again for a second or 2 until he loads back up. If I could do something to make the game keep him in RAM (other than buying 12GB of RAM to make a ramdisk) I would be most grateful.

I think that's what Suma is indirectly saying. They're not keeping it in RAM so it wouldn't matter if they went x64.

However I do agree that now that many people have 8-12GB RAM as default that it should be done.

[galzohar 31]

Of course you'd have to actually program the game to make good use of that extra RAM, I didn't think that needed mentioning as that's pretty obvious? :P

You can already set the game to use different amounts of memory so I bet if you let it use less it trashes LODs more, so all is really needed is to also give it an option to trash LODs less for more memory... Correct me if I'm wrong please.

[ffur2007slx2_5 11]

Your computer is awesome, the method is useless to those whose computers are poor.

[galzohar 31]

Well of course, poor computers will run low settings and thus never need the extra RAM because a lot less needs to actually be loaded to RAM. This is about getting the game to run smoothly on high-end machines at max settings, since currently this is not possible without setting up a huge ramdisk.

[evilkim 10]

Phenom ii x6 1055t , 4 gig ddr2 1066 mhz and 1 x Evga gtx 260 896 mb. arma 2 oa runs smooth.

Benchmarks

fps all medium settings : 54

fps all high settings : 34

and ofc...

windows 7 ultimate x64

Edited August 27, 2010 by evilkim

[-)rStrangelove 0]

I bought a Kingston SSD (128 GB), installed ArmA2, OA and BAF and setup a Windows pagefile (4 GB) on it.

Playing ArmA2 was a sheer pleasure since then, i'd say 80% of my stuttering is gone.

[liquidpinky 11]

)rStrangelove;1750794']I bought a Kingston SSD (128 GB)' date=' installed ArmA2, OA and BAF and setup a Windows pagefile (4 GB) on it.

Playing ArmA2 was a sheer pleasure since then, i'd say 80% of my stuttering is gone.[/quote']

Hope you meant put the pagefile on a RAMdisk and not the SSD, cause if it is on the SSD you can expect to buying a replacement sooner than expected.

A 2Gb pagefile on RAMdisk only sorts AO right out BTW, my game is running smoother than a babies arse at the moment. No LOD switching at all any more.

[rekrul 7]

I believe that was only true for the 1st gen of SSDs. Granted it's alot of write cycles with pagefile but the latest gens can handle a lot more writes than before.

[DennisK4 10]

I am sorry if this has already been answered many times before but here goes:

1) Is it necessary to place the entire Arma 2 game on the RAM disk or only some folders? Or can the texture loading issues be resolved by putting only those into RAM?

I ask because my game folder is 15.9 GB and I don't have enough RAM to make a disk that large.

2) Do people see improvements when putting the Windows pagefile on the RAM disk?

[liquidpinky 11]

You only need to put certain files into RAM if you are limited by memory.

Pagefile on RAM seems smother but I have no data to back that up.

[stk2008 14]

Hey i made a ram disk to test and did not install any thing onto it yet.

I ran a hd test and wtf 3500mb/s when you think the fastest SSD is only 250mbs.

But I will say one thing the CPU usage was like 25% where as me drives are only 0.5%.

All I need now is 18gb of ram plus a little more for system resources ;)

Edited October 19, 2010 by stk2008

[Rayzor 10]

What about the new pci express hard drives, would they improve texture loading and fps?

[stk2008 14]

Holy crap you lot looky I am getting this and testing when money is available.

look at speeds and then ya have access time this pees all over me HDD.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/877/4/

[=wfl= sgt bilko 10]

Wow, I just went from 3900 to >5800 in ArmAIIMark test mission.

Only thing I changed ingame was screen resolution from 1280x1024 to 1920x1080.

[lo0se 10]

I am only able to created a 5gb RAM disk, but in the 1st post it was mentioned that I can create a symlink to the ramdisk. Was a soft link, or a hard link created? Also, I seem to have a problem creating the link. Heres one of the dozen variations ive tried.

mklink /d H:\ARMA C:\program_files_(x86)2\steam\steamapps\common\arma_2\arma2

After a lot of testing I am fairly sure it has to do with the program files (x86) folder. I know that since this is a dos type command that the link wont accept spaces. I also tried putting quotes around it so it looked like

mklink /d H:\ARMA "C:\program files (x86)2\steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\arma2"

but that didnt seem to work either, I also tried using the short file name for program files, but couldnt figure out the short name file for the arma 2\arma2 end.

Could you or someone else who knows the correct code post what they put?

[Leon86 13]

you can run the ramdisk thing just like you run mods, you have to put the files for the ramdisk in a folder called AddOns on your ramdisk. by adding -mod=D:\ to your shortcut the game looks for folders called AddOns on the location D:\ and loads them.

[stk2008 14]

H all I want to try this RAM disk thing but I want to just put ACE2 stuff in it for now as I am doing a few tests.

I have created a 2gb ram disk letter R so I have

R:\AddOns

In the addons folder is

@ACE @ACEX @CBA @ACE_SM

My EXE contains this

"E:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe" -noSplash -noFilePatching -showScriptErrors "-mod=beta;R:\AddOns

But when I run it it just starts up normal ARMA2 and when I get to the screen it says config UI error or some thing please help.

EDIT

tried this to no luck it starts arma2 but just the beta then I get errors?.

"E:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe" -mod=R: \AddOns;Beta

All so tried

"E:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe" -mod=R:\@Ram;Beta

God damn it it just wont load ACE from me Ram drive.

I get an error on main ARMA screen saying config UI ruck sack I dont know but why wont it load me god damn RAM mod :(.

Folder construction

R:\@Ram\AddOns

In addons is @ace etc

I run this command line

"E:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe" -nosplash -nointro -mod=beta;R:\@Ram;

have tried

"E:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe" -nosplash -nointro -mod=beta;R:\@Ram\AddOns

"E:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe" -mod=beta;R:\@Ram

and still no luck.

Still no luck

Edited October 22, 2010 by stk2008

[tawah 13]

If I were you (and that's how I do) I would use :

mod=R:\@ACE;R:\@ACEX;R:\@CBA and so on... and keeping the normal mod folder structure (@ACE\Addons\[pbo])

Or maybe mod=R:\@RAM with a folder RAM\Addons\[all the pbo you want to use] but it's a little bit heavy as you cannot use a specific mod but all at the same time.

[Bobby2 10]

Where is the data streamed to and from in Arma 2 by default? Ram and the pagefile. So where is the data streamed to and from if the pagefile is turned off? Ram I suspect, or you have out of memory errors.

If i'm right why not turn off pagefile when playing Arma 2 and turn it back on for the Apps that need it such as FarCry 2 which stuttered without pagefile.

Ram is as fast as Ramdrive since Ram=Ram. The option to turn off pagefile is there for your convenience.

I've tested both ways with ramdrive and folder links to different drives... and no pagefile works best for me. Buy more ram and force arma2 to use it.

[galzohar 31]

Why would anything get dumped into the pagefile by windows if you have a lot of free RAM though?

[Punisher5555 0]

Why would anything get dumped into the pagefile by windows if you have a lot of free RAM though?

You are correct. Turn it off if you have 6+ GB RAM. Only one or two programs require it. I think one is a old Photoshop or something like that from early XP days.

I wrote a huge post outlining how to setup RAM drive for Arma2/OA/BAF. Search for my posts or PM me.

Name of the game is:

1. Have RAM for OS/Steam/Teamspeak. (on my system it is 1.4GB)

2. Have 4GB RAM free for Arma2/OA/BAF. (otherwise you get out of memory messages due to the LAA).

3. All the rest set as RAM Drive.

My all Steam Arma2/OA/BAF with 2.5GB RAM DISK run superfast. I have never had issues. Don't know what people are talking about with the latest or any patch. Everything works great in SP and MP.

Played FarCry 2 too. With my RAM DISK turned on and never a pagefile. Works perfect. Stutter for people was probably crappy video driver or they overclock something.

Edited November 23, 2010 by Punisher5555