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

[Killg0re 0]

Happens to me sometimes as well. One day the option is there while the next it ain't...

You can always do the modfolder thing as a backup as pointed out by kju

-mod=r:\@Ramdisk

With 'r' being the drive letter and '@ramdisk' your folder with the files.

Edit- Remember, as with any modfolder to place all the files into an 'addons' folder within '@ramdisk'

it is sooooo simple ;) u just need to think of it :D

Tried this, and this works aswell (y) thanx

[EricM 0]

I switched from vista to windows seven and a middle-class SSD and the game is so much smoother with the same old card (g8800GT) and CPU (q6600 2,4 ghz).

[Colt45_GTO 10]

where is this ramdisk available from?

nevermind just got one lol.

---------- Post added at 10:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:49 AM ----------

so basicaly this is useless for those of us with only 2gb of ram?

Edited November 30, 2009 by Colt45_GTO

[Tankbuster 1733]

where is this ramdisk available from?

nevermind just got one lol.

---------- Post added at 10:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:49 AM ----------

so basicaly this is useless for those of us with only 2gb of ram?

Yes..

[THEKATZ 0]

It may have been mentioned but a true fix is to not use the Hard Drive as a swap file (Virtual memory) simply due to the fact it is a moving part.

Instead, get yourself a fast Thumb drive 4 - 8 gigs and use it specifically for your virtual swap file, set it at 4096mb for both min and max. This will stop the stutter from the VM resizing as it makes room for more information.

This is what I have used for years and it has proven to work very well and a noticeable change can be seen.

Drop by 30tigers.com for more game play information.

tk

[InFireBaptize 0]

It may have been mentioned but a true fix is to not use the Hard Drive as a swap file (Virtual memory) simply due to the fact it is a moving part.

Instead, get yourself a fast Thumb drive 4 - 8 gigs and use it specifically for your virtual swap file, set it at 4096mb for both min and max. This will stop the stutter from the VM resizing as it makes room for more information.

This is what I have used for years and it has proven to work very well and a noticeable change can be seen.

Drop by 30tigers.com for more game play information.

tk

some people disabled page file all together which i haven't tried yet. I'm on a tight budget and can't afford any extra accessories, would a Memory Stick PRO Duo work?

[THEKATZ 0]

@ --> InFireBaptize,

Yes it will. If you are using 4 gig thumb drives you might only be able to use 3072mb for each Max and min settings. I use an 8 gig OSC Thumbrive. Has worked for several years now. It is set at 4096mb for both min/max. Setting them both to the same number in the minimum and maximum is important to stop the stuttering found when using the HD, which must start up first and search for the file.

Disabling the page file is not recommended IMHO. Virtual memory is used for many things and this game will use a swap file. Sure, if you have a huge memory but even then the game or program is scripted to use swap files. So shutting off the virtual memory will in fact piss you off in a lot of applications and updates if the swap file is not usable or turned off.

No matter how much physical memory you have on your machine, programs still need the swap file for new installations - setting up, temp writes and many other program related scripting that points to a swap file.

Just grab a nice fast thumb drive or memory card and use it for your swap file setting and nothing else - the difference in performance is notable.

Edited November 30, 2009 by thekatz

[Defunkt 431]

You do not need a swap file, it serves only one purpose; to serve more memory to applications. I have 4GB of RAM and no swap file and no application has ever failed to allocate the memory it needs.

[InFireBaptize 0]

my accountant (the wife) won't let me spend a cent on my gaming rig, so i will try without a pagefile if not i will try the memory card i already have.

[THEKATZ 0]

That is all well and true Defunkt and may work just fine for you but to tell others they don't need it is simply your own opinion and is noted.

Setting up a page file (Swap file, virtual memory) "to serve more memory to applications" is exactly true. With today's applications and new games and using a mere 4 gigs some will find issues running no virtual memory. Memory leaks, bad memory writes and shared graphics will make 4 gigs disappear fast causing the same thing stuttering and lower performance and even the infamous BSOD.

I only shared what works well for me and a lot of other gamers. I would not shut down the virtual memory and I would use a quality fast thumb drive to accommodate a large page file. IMHO

Infire, let us know how it works.

[Lamerinio 10]

Ive tried couple months ago removing page file. Well results were good and bad.

Good is that without pagefile I had better gameplay like no stuttering even in towns.

Bad is that once I reach town and spent there couple mins I get error on desctop saying I runout of memory, but I got 300-400 mb free once I looked at everest. Anyways, once I get that error I get to desktop automatically, but I can return into game and continue to play another 10-15 mins until same error comes up. The irretating part about it is that I might get kicked out onto desktop at a very interesting shooting part, or game can just crash after couple of out of memory messages, for these reasons I switched pagefile back and got stutters back but no OOM error or crashes.

However, as some might know that when Age of Conan cameout, they had an issue with memory leaks, and it worked just the same way as I am getting now with no page file while playing arma 2. Only difference was AoC crashed if you had page file on and if you didnt, it just gave that error after which you could still return into game and play normaly until next zone in.

So there might be an issue with Arma memory management. (thats what I think)

[InFireBaptize 0]

That is all well and true Defunkt and may work just fine for you but to tell others they don't need it is simply your own opinion and is noted.

Setting up a page file (Swap file, virtual memory) "to serve more memory to applications" is exactly true. With today's applications and new games and using a mere 4 gigs some will find issues running no virtual memory. Memory leaks, bad memory writes and shared graphics will make 4 gigs disappear fast causing the same thing stuttering and lower performance and even the infamous BSOD.

I only shared what works well for me and a lot of other gamers. I would not shut down the virtual memory and I would use a quality fast thumb drive to accommodate a large page file. IMHO

Infire, let us know how it works.

Win 7 won't let me disable pagefile, and since i have arma2 on RAID 0 and windows on a regular separate drive, i left the pagefile on the windows drive but increased the pagefile min/max to 10GB, haven't played the game yet but will try it out tonight and report back, thanks.

[THEKATZ 0]

That is a pretty large page file (10gig). 4096 mb should work well or at least twice the amount of your installed physical memory.

Imagine a large barrel and you need to grab a piece of information from it, you would have to reach way in there arm buried to the arm pit. Now imagine a large bucket, not so large as the big barrel, you can reach in grab way you need and be gone.

Okay, a little exaggerated but really, that is a large page file.

[Defunkt 431]

Sorry, aside from miniscule differences toward the start of the disk (placement of which is a matter of luck if not planned), any part of a random access disk (and therefore a swapfile which is always contiguous) is as quick to read from as any other part, there is no size related overhead. Same min/max is a good thing though.

[THEKATZ 0]

Okay, I guess my point about no moving parts is not making any since. Using the thumb drive as your page file is absurd! Who in their right mind.........

Now back to my point and it works flawlessly for me and a lot of pro gamers. Eliminating the use of the hard drive as a page file and using a good fast thumb drive for this purpose is simple to see, no moving parts, read times are faster, eliminate the HD from multi tasking and leaves you more space on that hard drive.

Now pick the schit out of that and tell me it makes no since.

It is hard for me to understand the nit picking flamers that just have to have something to say when a proven performance gain is noted. Basically, stop talking out the sides of your neck if you don't have something decent to add and stop worrying about your post count.

Edited December 4, 2009 by thekatz

[pj[cz] 2]

Hi, ive lurked this thread before, and i was going to buy a new flashdisk drive this week ( my old 512mb one is not cutting it anymore) and i remembered about this thread. So i decided to buy a reall fast one just to try if it gets any better adn WOW. I bought a 8gig patriot extreme usb2.0 lash drive. copied the addons folder and runned it as a mod and it actually got rid of stutter/mouselag. Cudos to he OP, now i need to buy myself a new flash drive as this one is now permanently atatched as an arma-booster. In case some1 cares my cofiguration before was - win7 on seperate drive and arma / pagefile on a different one (i actually got better results with the pagefile on the same drive as arma), the one with arma is samsungs spinpoint f1. But benchmarking all my drives the flashdisk is totally superior in case of random acces and seek time. The flash drive has only 30MB/s read and 10MB/s write (benched via total commander) but it did not really slow any loading...

[THEKATZ 0]

Ive tried couple months ago removing page file. Well results were good and bad.

Good is that without pagefile I had better gameplay like no stuttering even in towns.

Bad is that once I reach town and spent there couple mins I get error on desctop saying I runout of memory, but I got 300-400 mb free once I looked at everest. Anyways, once I get that error I get to desktop automatically, but I can return into game and continue to play another 10-15 mins until same error comes up. The irretating part about it is that I might get kicked out onto desktop at a very interesting shooting part, or game can just crash after couple of out of memory messages, for these reasons I switched pagefile back and got stutters back but no OOM error or crashes.

However, as some might know that when Age of Conan cameout, they had an issue with memory leaks, and it worked just the same way as I am getting now with no page file while playing arma 2. Only difference was AoC crashed if you had page file on and if you didnt, it just gave that error after which you could still return into game and play normaly until next zone in.

So there might be an issue with Arma memory management. (thats what I think)

Quite possibly and more than likely it is the game that does this when you enter towns. This is a huge game application, not your CoD or BF2. There is bound to be a memory leak or even worse, some of the memory is not letting go as it should and stays resident.

I have 8gigs of DDR2 as physical memory and use an 8gig OCS mem stick as my page file. it is set to 4096mb both max/min. I have yet to have that happen.

What does happen though is I get spikes in my #1 processor (using Core 2) and it change loads on the processor - meaning I witness one processor using the major portion of the application spike and then the other processor seems to take over. This was only noted when entering towns. Very brief but notable. hmmmmm

Have you tried a larger capacity thumb drive?

Edited December 4, 2009 by thekatz

[jasonnoguchi 11]

I found using ramdisk too bothersome as i have to manually load the folder into ramdisk every single time I start up, so i went for the cheap USB2.0 solution, placed the heavy pbos from the addon into the flash drive (because I only have a 4gb flash drive which i used to use as readyboost for my vista laptop), start it up as a mod and lo and behold, no more stutter, no more popping!!!! Cheap and workable solution! (remember to back up those files into a "Disabled" folder and not delete them)

Edited December 14, 2009 by jasonnoguchi

[Freebie 10]

I'm a bit of a newb with computers so have I got this right?....

I have a 16Gb Corsair flash voyager USB thumb drive. So if I cut/paste the Arma 2 addons folder to that and then modify the Arma2 desktop icon target line run the addons folder like a mod then that's it?

[-RIP- Luhgnut 10]

I'm a bit of a newb with computers so have I got this right?....

I have a 16Gb Corsair flash voyager USB thumb drive. So if I cut/paste the Arma 2 addons folder to that and then modify the Arma2 desktop icon target line run the addons folder like a mod then that's it?

yes, exactly. Make sure the bisign files stay with the pbo's and you're gold. Even though the flashdrives aren't able to xfer data as fast, for some reason, I get no stutters doing it this way at all. Maybe cause it's on a separate channel or something. but you have it right. Make sure you load the "core" bohemia pbo's first so they get top priority. then load your other goodies.

[Defunkt 431]

Okay, I guess my point about no moving parts is not making any since. Using the thumb drive as your page file is absurd! Who in their right mind.........

That's not what I was correcting (yet anyhow), I could care less if you like it or not, if you hand out wisdom like...

Imagine a large barrel and you need to grab a piece of information from it, you would have to reach way in there arm buried to the arm pit. Now imagine a large bucket, not so large as the big barrel, you can reach in grab way you need and be gone. Okay, a little exaggerated but really, that is a large page file.

...somebody is bound to pull you up on it because it's garbage.

And seeing as you invited more facts nitpicking, if you're talking about a USB thumb drive then yes, it is daft given USB2.0 has half the effective sustained transfer speed of SATA (20 vs 40 mb/s). It might match an old slow hard drive on read but not a modern 7,200rpm or better one and it won't come close to even the old drive when writing (vital component of paging). Worse yet the transfer rate that a USB port does achieve involves much more work on the part of your CPU when compared with SATA's hardware controller.

[maddogx 13]

if you hand out wisdom like...

Imagine a large barrel and you need to grab a piece of information from it, you would have to reach way in there arm buried to the arm pit. Now imagine a large bucket, not so large as the big barrel, you can reach in grab way you need and be gone. Okay, a little exaggerated but really, that is a large page file.

...somebody is bound to pull you up on it because it's garbage.

That's not the only thing. I really enjoyed this one:

This is a huge game application, not your CoD or BF2. There is bound to be a memory leak or even worse, some of the memory is not letting go as it should and stays resident.

...

There could be a memory leak - or even worse: a memory leak! :rolleyes:

Edited December 14, 2009 by MadDogX

[cjph 0]

I found using ramdisk too bothersome as i have to manually load the folder into ramdisk every single time I start up, so i went for the cheap USB2.0 solution, placed the heavy pbos from the addon into the flash drive (because I only have a 4gb flash drive which i used to use as readyboost for my vista laptop), start it up as a mod and lo and behold, no more stutter, no more popping!!!! Cheap and workable solution! (remember to back up those files into a "Disabled" folder and not delete them)

I used to find this was a pain, but both the RAMdisk variants I have tried recently (DataRAM and Superspeed, the plus version) both allow images of the files to be saved and automatically (save on shutdown and) loaded on started. I can't talk for the Qsoft one but this makes using it a breeze. I too have tried an 8Gb USB drive (until it broke - cheap competition prize, no wonder it was a prize) and found that helped with stuttering (though not entirely), and put it down to the fast access/small file size nature of a lot of the game accesses. I'm not technical, so it could just be wishful thinking as hoped a relatively low cost USB solution could help lots of players.

I am using a 6Gb RAMdisk now and load all of Qwertz original heavy load files plus CBA, ACE and ACX, and am very, very impressed with the performance (with 1.04). There is approx 1.6Gb on the disk still free so will look at other files to load up on the disk, but with most settings on high, AA on low, AF and PP off and a VD of 3,000 I am not seeing stutters.

cjph

[jasonnoguchi 11]

@cjph - Thanks for the tip! if they load up into ramdisk automatically on startup, it will definitely be the IDEAL solution! :) Anyways, I will put in another 4gb like you did before I try again. 1gb ramdisk really doesn't do much..mmmm... maybe just use ramdisk for ACEX since there soooo many new textures in that?

[Tankbuster 1733]

Opinion earlier in this thread seemed to be that a USB stick wouldn't be fast enough because the transfer speed is way to slow, but, it has practically no access time and it's random read time is way quicker than any rotational disk.I'm glad someone has actually done this and had it work.

Could Jasonnoguchi (like the name) and/or jjph post some before and after vids?

I've got one of these on order for xmas. :)

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/flash_drives/ocz_throttle_esata_flash_drive