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

[kklownboy 43]

Did you read Qwertz I/O thread? You seem to have the ability to run his prog and figure out what you need to load in a RD. I have run 9GB RDs, with mostly Islands and objects.But it was never good enough compared to using a GOOD SSD. And RAM costs more than A SSD... . So I did use 9GB out of 12GB and it was much better than a HDD, but when i went to a Second and Third gen SSD, there wasnt much of a comparison. Speed is the same in with Flash and RAM more or less... BUT having the OS and the Page on the SSD was what really tips the performance to a SSD. You can keep a RD small by only playing one map. But try out the analyzer and see what you use most.

Having tested this game since A1 0.9, fastest kits run fastest. Or put another way you can bench, tweak, test for hours/days and still only get a few frames extra, or a few seconds faster loading. But buy the best kit and you will be playing... not tweaking.

[doveman 7]

Did you read Qwertz I/O thread? You seem to have the ability to run his prog and figure out what you need to load in a RD. I have run 9GB RDs, with mostly Islands and objects.But it was never good enough compared to using a GOOD SSD. And RAM costs more than A SSD... . So I did use 9GB out of 12GB and it was much better than a HDD, but when i went to a Second and Third gen SSD, there wasnt much of a comparison. Speed is the same in with Flash and RAM more or less... BUT having the OS and the Page on the SSD was what really tips the performance to a SSD. You can keep a RD small by only playing one map. But try out the analyzer and see what you use most.

Having tested this game since A1 0.9, fastest kits run fastest. Or put another way you can bench, tweak, test for hours/days and still only get a few frames extra, or a few seconds faster loading. But buy the best kit and you will be playing... not tweaking.

Yeah I did but it seemed rather complicated, I don't have MS Office so I wasn't sure the scripts would work properly in Libre Office and I thought someone might have already done it anyway.

You're probably right though that I should just put the £30 for another 8GB towards a SSD. I'm waiting for the prices to come down so that I can afford a 256GB one though as 120GB just won't be enough for me for Windows 7 (actually I run a triple-boot, so two W7 and one XP), the pagefile, A2CO+mods, DCS:BS and X-Plane.

[BasileyOne 10]

Yeah I did but it seemed rather complicated, I don't have MS Office so I wasn't sure the scripts would work properly in Libre Office and I thought someone might have already done it anyway.

You're probably right though that I should just put the £30 for another 8GB towards a SSD. I'm waiting for the prices to come down so that I can afford a 256GB one though as 120GB just won't be enough for me for Windows 7 (actually I run a triple-boot, so two W7 and one XP), the pagefile, A2CO+mods, DCS:BS and X-Plane.

basically its more reasonable to expect same boost[from investments/bang ration terms]from more optimised RAMDisk'in software, cuz majority of impact/boost was bootlenecked by software itself, cauze default settings of compiler[tuned for RAM bandwitch-related throttling], used by sofware developers, sadly.

so 32Gb and 64Gb RAM setup and RAMDisk'in over it remain more cost-efficient solution.

until non-flash SSD's arrive i suppose/hope. whose lack [almost]all flash-related drawbacks of SSD: horrible sustained performance, toyish real-world lifetime, horrifying energy consumption[on write in real-world-sized storage setups], refresh depenency and etc.

[doveman 7]

so 32Gb and 64Gb RAM setup and RAMDisk'in over it remain more cost-efficient solution.

until non-flash SSD's arrive i suppose/hope. whose lack [almost]all flash-related drawbacks of SSD: horrible sustained performance, toyish real-world lifetime, horrifying energy consumption[on write in real-world-sized storage setups], refresh depenency and etc.

You obviously don't like SSDs but plenty of people seem to find them quite great. Anyway, 32GB would have to be 4x8GB modules, which is £150+ at the moment (I can't even imagine how much 4*16GB to make 64GB would be!). If I had that money, I'd rather spend it on a 256GB SSD that I can put Windows and several games on.

[BasileyOne 10]

You obviously don't like SSDs but plenty of people seem to find them quite great. Anyway, 32GB would have to be 4x8GB modules, which is £150+ at the moment (I can't even imagine how much 4*16GB to make 64GB would be!). If I had that money, I'd rather spend it on a 256GB SSD that I can put Windows and several games on.

well, yes and not.

yes, i had reasonable objections against using of anything flash-based on any kind of serious installations/uses.

no, i warmly welcome any kind of SSD technology to replace them. go away, pesky Flash-"technology" !! you should b gone, 20 yrs ago !! *waves random light-saber here* come here, little, cute RRAM/MRAM/FRAM puppy and let daddy to cuddle with you :)

yes, my opinions was based on solid/wast experience. yes you can have and retain different[from mine] one.

generally flash-based SSD waste of time, money, crappy slow, disposable[after 1.5-3 months they usually worn beyond use, even SLC-based, sometimes].

of course, they are more fail-safe to install/deploy, use and more widely presented/shipped, than dense/high-capactiy memory modules.

Edited August 23, 2012 by BasileyOne

[grimwald 24]

Thanks for guide Liquidpinky & Qwertz for the core idea. I've tried the method where you drag & drop ARMA2 folder into RAMDisk Super Speed. I read Qwertz original post as the sym-link being optional but am wondering if it is actually mandatory? Sorry if I'm a bit slow on the uptake on this.

It runs well I'm just aiming for perfection here (7970 driver not withstanding, I'm sure it'll be updated soon :confused: ) and Windows is still hitting the original HDD location for a lot of the base ..\AddOns\*.pbo files. My RAMDisk is R and I can see it being used for my mod *.pbo files. Once I get it working entirely in RAMDisk I'll keep a RAMDisk image on my SSD. Throughput ought to fill the RAMDisk in 2minutes instead of 6minutes from my HDD.

To summarise:

Seems there's some config that holds the original install drive letter for the ARMA 2 base pbo files.

Is sym-linking the base ARMA 2 pbo files required when you copy an existing install into Ramdisk?

[doveman 7]

You're either going to need to symlink to the folder on the RAMdisk (i.e. delete the ARMA2 folder from the HDD and create a symlink to the folder on the RAMdisk) or perhaps easier is just to change the path in the registry to point to your RAMdisk, which is under HKey_LM_Software_Wow6432Node_Bohemia Interactive Studio (minus the Wow6432Node if you're running XP).

[grimwald 24]

Thanks for tip. I found a way to fix it without altering the registry not long after I posted when I saw the contents of:

C:\Users\<user>\Documents\ArmA 2\ArmA2OA.cfg

It has all the details for mod loading. I altered the source "registry" to source "game dir" and set path to the RAMDisk.

Worked a treat resource monitor showed that my HDD didn't get hit at all for the install.

Summary:

Copied ARMA 2 into RAMDISK

Edit ArmA2OA.cfg

Under: class ModLauncherList

Find and change any source "registry" entries to source "game dir", and edit path to the RAMDisk path.

eg.

class Mod2

{

dir="CA";

name="Arma 2";

origin="REGISTRY";

fullPath="E:\Program Files (x86)\ArmA 2";

};

Changes to:

class Mod2

{

dir="CA";

name="Arma 2";

origin="GAME DIR";

fullPath="R:\ArmA 2";

};

Hope it helps someone else.

[doveman 7]

Interesting but I think editing the registry is probably easier and I can't see any reason to not want to change the registry path as there's no reason to leave it pointing to the old HDD location if you no longer have the game installed there. It also uses the registry path when installing betas, so unless you change it they'll get installed to the old HDD location where they'll be ignored if you're running from RAMdisk.

[grimwald 24]

Very interesting the reg-entry. I will haven't found that in my other searches around this to date.

For now I'm keeping the E: install as a backup, since RamDisk is volatile and I'm still new to the setup so my confidence isn't 100% in it's robustness.

I'll likely make the change after a bit of history of reliability.

thanks for your help, doveman.

[doveman 7]

Glad to help mate. There's no problem keeping the HDD install as a backup (I'd do the same myself) and you can always change the path back to point there if you need to.

The easiest thing to do is create a couple of .reg files and then you can just double-click on them to import them into the registry to swap between locations, which saves messing around with regedit.

Just create a text file (I'd upload them but there's no facility for that on this forum) with the following in it and save it with a .reg extension so something like Arma2HDD.reg . Obviously the paths after MAIN should be changed to whatever your own HDD path is. Then make a copy of the file, rename it to Arma2RAM.reg and change it to point to your RAMdisk path. Make sure you keep the \\ between folders. This obviously sets the paths for Arma2, OA, BAF and PMC, so if you're not moving them all to the RAMdisk (which I doubt as that would require crazy amounts of RAM!), just delete the relevant sections.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Bohemia Interactive Studio\ArmA 2]
"MAIN"="D:\\Games\\ArmA 2"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Bohemia Interactive Studio\ArmA 2 OA]
"MAIN"="D:\\Games\\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Bohemia Interactive Studio\ArmA 2 PMC]
"MAIN"="D:\\Games\\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Bohemia Interactive Studio\ArmA 2 BAF]
"MAIN"="D:\\Games\\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead"

for XP you just leave out the Wow6432Node so it would be

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Bohemia Interactive Studio\ArmA 2]
"MAIN"="D:\\Games\\ArmA 2"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Bohemia Interactive Studio\ArmA 2 OA]
"MAIN"="D:\\Games\\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Bohemia Interactive Studio\ArmA 2 PMC]
"MAIN"="D:\\Games\\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Bohemia Interactive Studio\ArmA 2 BAF]
"MAIN"="D:\\Games\\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead"

I'd also recommend using a folder sync program like FreeFileSync http://sourceforge.net/projects/freefilesync/ which will allow you to keep the two folders in sync, so if you're using the RAMdisk, adding mods and installing betas to that, you'd use the program to update the HDD folder with the changes (or vice-versa). Makes it a lot easier than trying to remember what you've updated/added and copying them across yourself!

Edited August 24, 2012 by doveman

[grimwald 24]

... so if you're not moving them all to the RAMdisk (which I doubt as that would require crazy amounts of RAM!), just delete the relevant sections.

Well, I've got a lot of RAM, so yeah... it's all in the 20GB RamDisk.

I was thinking similar things about reg-keys: export current, then export changed, and can merge as required - possibly in batch file which includes the launch sequence of restoring RamDisk image, etc.

Personally I'm not a fan of beta anything and avoid it almost without exception, but I do love a lot of mods.

[BasileyOne 10]

just make cmd/bat file that will auto-move A2, launch it and back-up after launch.

[doveman 7]

Now I've got 16GB I want to experiment with a RAMdisk. I can spare 10-11GB. What I want to try first is just running OA from the RAMdisk as that's a lot smaller than A2. I know I recommended using symlinks before but I'm wondering if we can use -mod switches instead. The two main folders I intend to put on the RAMdisk are Common (3.67GB) and Expansion\Addons (4.09GB) and probably a few often used mods.

The question is, can I use D:\Games\Arma 2 OA\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe "-mod=R:\Games\ArmA 2 OA\Common;R:\Games\Arma 2 OA\Expansion\Addons;Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion" or will it always look for Common and Expansion\Addons in the folder the exe is running from (on D: in this case). The reason I don't want to run the exe from the RAMdisk (R:) is because then it's going to expect the Campaigns, Missions, MPMissions folders to be there as well, and those come to about 4.9GB so there isn't room for them on my RAMdisk.

Whilst it might seem to be easier to just use symlinks, it would require renaming Common and Expansion/Addons so that I could create symlinks for them pointing to the RAMdisk and if I want to switch back to testing from HDD, deleting the symlinks and un-renaming the original folders, so it would be easier to switch between RAMdisk and HDD if I could just use -mod switches.

[Leon86 13]

Now I've got 16GB I want to experiment with a RAMdisk. I can spare 10-11GB. What I want to try first is just running OA from the RAMdisk as that's a lot smaller than A2. I know I recommended using symlinks before but I'm wondering if we can use -mod switches instead. The two main folders I intend to put on the RAMdisk are Common (3.67GB) and Expansion\Addons (4.09GB) and probably a few often used mods.

The question is, can I use D:\Games\Arma 2 OA\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe "-mod=R:\Games\ArmA 2 OA\Common;R:\Games\Arma 2 OA\Expansion\Addons;Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion" or will it always look for Common and Expansion\Addons in the folder the exe is running from (on D: in this case). The reason I don't want to run the exe from the RAMdisk (R:) is because then it's going to expect the Campaigns, Missions, MPMissions folders to be there as well, and those come to about 4.9GB so there isn't room for them on my RAMdisk.

Whilst it might seem to be easier to just use symlinks, it would require renaming Common and Expansion/Addons so that I could create symlinks for them pointing to the RAMdisk and if I want to switch back to testing from HDD, deleting the symlinks and un-renaming the original folders, so it would be easier to switch between RAMdisk and HDD if I could just use -mod switches.

yes you can do this, you just have to create a folder on R you call AddOns. then start with -mod=R:\

the mod thingy looks for a folder called AddOns, then loads everything in it. You dont have to cut and paste arma 2, you can just copy and paste, the mod loads after the original content so it overrides it.

[doveman 7]

yes you can do this, you just have to create a folder on R you call AddOns. then start with -mod=R:\

the mod thingy looks for a folder called AddOns, then loads everything in it. You dont have to cut and paste arma 2, you can just copy and paste, the mod loads after the original content so it overrides it.

That's great then, thanks :)

[doveman 7]

I'd like to put the most used files from OA and ArmAII on the 10GB RAMDisk.

These are the recommended files from the ArmAII/Addons folder to be placed on the RAMDisk:

251,863,094 buildings.pbo
359,035,400 buildings2.pbo
62,030,732 buildings2_Ind_CementWorks.pbo
135,790,858 Ca.pbo
95,534,991 chernarus.pbo
55,060,120 chernarus_Data.pbo
219,076,450 chernarus_Data_Layers.pbo
219,614,137 misc.pbo
47,538,300 misc2.pbo
137,412,062 misc3.pbo
87,002,749 plants2_Bush.pbo
35,105,965 plants2_Clutter.pbo
20,588,709 plants2_misc.pbo
17,955,911 plants2_Plant.pbo
357,641,549 plants2_Tree.pbo
190,002,902 Roads2.pbo
35,495,941 rocks2.pbo
39,653,945 signs2.pbo
907,914,948 structures.pbo
51,981,055 utes.pbo
11,686,598 water.pbo
1102,639,823 water2.pbo

22 File(s)  3,440,626,239 bytes

which total about 3.2GB. I've currently put the entire OA Common and Addons/Expansion folders on the RAMDisk, which are 3.67GB and 4.2GB respectively, totalling 7.87GB, only leaving 2.13GB which is not enough for the ArmAII files.

So can anyone advise which files from the OA Common and Addons/Expansion folders need to be on the RAMDisk, so that I can delete the others and free up enough space for the ArmAII files?

Following the structure of the ArmAII list, there's about 1GB of files in OA/Common and 1.6GB in OA/Addons/Expansion (including the Takistan and Zargabad files) which only totals 2.6GB rather than 7.87GB, so that would free up plenty of space for the ArmAII files and some mods, but I wonder if there's some other ArmAII or OA files I should be adding before mods, such as the air, sound, anims, characters or weapons pbos?

Once I've got the folders on my RAMDisk, I'll have S:\ArmA2\Addons, S:\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead\Common\Addons (I have to move the files in Common into an Addons subfolder for ArmA II Launcher to recognise it) and S:\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead\Expansion\Addons so will this commandline work to launch CO from the HDD but then load the files that are on the RAMDisk from there rather than the HDD?

"D:\Games\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead\arma2oa.exe" "-mod=D:\Games\ArmA 2;Expansion;ca;s:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead\expansion;s:\games\arma2;s:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead\common"

or this to launch the beta

"D:\Games\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead\Expansion\beta 97771\arma2oa.exe" "-mod=D:\Games\ArmA 2;Expansion;ca;Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion;s:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead\expansion;s:\games\arma2;s:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead\common"

What's the ;ca part after the first Expansion do? That only gets added if I set A2 Launcher to run CO instead of OA.

[doveman 7]

Well I tried this and it won't let me put the files in OA/Common on the RAMDisk, whether I put some of them or all.

With just some of them (basically those matching the list I gave in my previous post) in common\addons (so that A2 Launcher recognises the folder):

-mod=D:\Games\ArmA 2;Expansion;ca;Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion;s:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead\expansion;s:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead\common" 

Warning Message: Addon 'CAMisc_fix_Str' requires addon 'CAStructuresHouse_A_Office01'

So I tried putting all the files from Common in s:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead\addons:

-mod=D:\Games\ArmA 2;Expansion;ca;Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion;s:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead\expansion;s:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead" 

Warning Message: Addon 'CAMisc_fix_Str' requires addon 'CAStructuresHouse_A_Office01'

and finally tried putting all the files from Common in s:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead\common\addons instead:

-mod=D:\Games\ArmA 2;Expansion;ca;Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion;s:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead\common;s:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead\expansion"

Warning Message: Addon 'Warfare2Vehicles' requires addon 'CAWheeled2_Kamaz'

If I take out s:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead\common from the modline I don't get any such errors but then of course it has to load all the files from Common (3.67GB) from the HDD.

EDIT: As I suggested before, if I run OA from the RAMDisk, with the entire Common folder and the selected files from Expansion/Addons and point to the remaining files in the Expansion/Addons on the HDD as below, it works fine but then it doesn't see the Campaign/Mission files on the HDD.

"S:\Games\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead\arma2oa.exe" "-mod=d:\games\arma 2 operation arrowhead\expansion"

EDIT 2: To get round this problem, I created Symbolic Links to the Missions, MPMissions and Campaigns folders on the HDD. The only downside is these only work on NTFS partitions, so I had to convert my RAMDisk to that, which runs a bit slower than FAT32 but it's not a big deal.

Edited October 14, 2012 by doveman

[Ryannn 1]

Guys, heres my problem with this solution. I ran Ramdisk with 4gb and placed some pbo files there, ao and dayz files. Problem is, when i try to connect to a server with Dayz commander launcher, it tells me this,

"D:\STEAM\SteamApps\common\arma 2 operation arrowhead\@DayZ\Addons\dayz - SymbolicLink (2)...

It lists all of the symbolic links i had created...

and then says,

"the files are not signed by a key accepted by this sever"

Wish i could solve this cause this game is not running well for me, and i really need this solution. Thanks in advance.

[froggyluv 2130]

Your sure you included or linked all of the BISIGN files? Also, make sure you have no duplicates.

[Ryannn 1]

Your sure you included or linked all of the BISIGN files? Also, make sure you have no duplicates.

Did the following.

First, i should say i also copied the bi.bisign and bi2.bisign files. Were those neccesary?

Steps,

Copied all Dayz Addons files into the RAMDISK. H:\Dayz

Copied some AO files into the RAMDISK. H:\OA

Did the symbolic link to their original folders.

For example, for buildings.pbo i have the following files in the Ramdisk H:\OA

buildings.pbo

buildings.pbo.bi.bisign

buildings.pbo.bi2.bisign

In the original folder it says,

buildings.pbo

buildings - SymbolicLink (2).pbo

buildings - SymbolicLink (3).pbo

buildings - SymbolicLink.pbo

buildings.pbo.bi - SymbolicLink (2).bisign

buildings.pbo.bi - SymbolicLink (3).bisign

buildings.pbo.bi - SymbolicLink.bisign

buildings.pbo.bi.bisign

buildings.pbo.bi2 - SymbolicLink (2).bisign

buildings.pbo.bi2 - SymbolicLink (3).bisign

buildings.pbo.bi2 - SymbolicLink.bisign

buildings.pbo.bi2.bisign

I guess ive got (2) and (3) files cause i did this more than once after it didnt work on the first time.

Thanks for your help :)

EDIT:

Well tried deleting the original files and leave only the symbolic links. Renamed them so that they have exactly the same name as the original files. Also tried it with and without the besign files; and still ive get that error with @dayz files not being signed.

Edited December 15, 2012 by Ryannn

[froggyluv 2130]

Well I can't say for sure as I haven't used RamDisk in a long time (too many load/save issues for me) but the one thing I do remember is that having multiple anything filewise would create problems. Also if your keeping the original Building.pbo as well as the symlinked file -I'm pretty sure it will just use the the one off the hard drive anyways. What I used to do was create another folder ie. OA Original and safekeep my original pbo's there and complelety delete them from the addons folder -so the symlink could do its magic.

Edit to your edit: Sorry man -thats beyond me. So you have all the BISign files in your Ramdisk only and are symlinking them?

[.kju 3239]

Wrong approach. You are to junction folders, not symlink files.

So copy the desired set of pbos into another HDD location, copy them from there via batch file to ram drive.

Use absolute path in modline (-mod=c:\arma2;expansion;x:\OA;x:\dayZ) or junction the folder(s), back to your OA dir.

[Ryannn 1]

Thank you, is there a tutorial for this? Im a little confused

[doveman 7]

You don't need to mess with the HDD files. If you have a RAMdisk folder H:\OA and put that in your modline path after the HDD folders it will use the RAMdisk files over the HDD ones.

So for example, I'd use "D:\Games\ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead\Expansion\beta\arma2oa.exe" "-mod=D:\Games\ARMA2;Expansion;ca;Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion;S:\OA"

where D: is my HDD and S:\OA is a RAMdisk folder containing some of the OA files.