ArmA 2 I/O analysis results

[liquidpinky 11]

I cannot get ramdisk to help. I am using superspeed ramdisk+ and then

launching with "C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\arma2.exe" -mod=R:\AddOns

but performance is no better???. I am sick of this game I have tried so many things and it still plays like a slug.

I couldn't get the addons method to work either, that is why I used the symlink method instead. Try the method in my sig out and see if that works for you.

[Tankbuster 1747]

Nah, I'll pass until there are SAS2-spec SSDs with hardware TRIM.

Given that this device is a rebadged intel unit, it's just a matter of time before TRIM is added by firmware update. Your SAS2 units are in a completely different price bracket - hardly a fair comparison.

[suma 8]

I cannot get ramdisk to help. I am using superspeed ramdisk+ and then

launching with "C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\arma2.exe" -mod=R:\AddOns

Small mistake here. You should use -mod=R: only. Addons etc. is searched automatically inside of the mod directory (see also this post which does it right).

Edited November 1, 2009 by Suma
Improved wording

[Basil Brush 10]

I couldn't get the addons method to work either, that is why I used the symlink method instead. Try the method in my sig out and see if that works for you.

I tried it your way and it now works, its not perfect but it makes the LOD switching, texture loading and flickering a lot better. I just wish I had more than 6gb and could put the whole game on ramdisk..maybe finally I will start playing this game now performance is not uncomfortable..

Edited November 1, 2009 by Basil Brush

[TimRiceSE 10]

have you tried the latest beta patch also? Seems to be a lot of very good optimisation with texture streaming.

[oktane 0]

Small mistake here. You should use -mod=R: only. Addons etc. is searched automatically inside of the mod directory (see also this post which does it right).

Ah, excellent information. Good to know we don't need to move original addons out, and that game will use -mod files as as highest priority if dupe exists.

[tcp 10]

What misleading information? We already know about the method you described using drive letters. The question was how to get past enforced mod lines (equalModRequired).

In his situation, he thought he needed to move the entire Addons folder because he couldn't add his own modfolders.

However, using a junction named after an allowed modfolder let's you do it easily and end up with a clean mod line that is also more friendly to launchers.

I don't mean to insult anybody, but there are lots of people who get suspicious when they see a custom mod line. They should just get rid of it in the next patch as it doesn't provide any useful information.

[Avoidable 10]

I set up a 9gb ramdisk on the weekend loading with my entire addons folder.

I'm not at home right now to check the command line on the arma shortcut but I used -mod=R:\@ram i believe. I'll edit this tonight if wrong.

Placing all the files from the original arma2\addons folder in R:\@RAM\Addons.

Ofcourse replace "R:\" with your respective ramdisk drive letter and "@RAM" with a folder name of your choosing.

Performance is great, much much less stuttering. I still have slight stutter on test 1 of armamark, I'd imagine it may be textures and what not being moved to the vram or something, but after this is over its great.

I'm running dual boot xp 32 (this os uses the ramdisk) and win 7. The ramdisk is only operational in xp, still giving me 12gb ran should I boot in win 7 which is great.

All files are copied from HDD to the ramdisk at start up and vice versa at shutdown, leading to long startup times should I boot to XP.

All in all, great expierience and thanks to Qwertz for his research.

i7 920 @3.8

12gb OCZ 1600 at 1530 ish

320gb 7200rpm hdd

Asus p6t deluxe

Gtx 285 x2 in sli

[liquidpinky 11]

I set up a 9gb ramdisk on the weekend loading with my entire addons folder.

I'm not at home right now to check the command line on the arma shortcut but I used -mod=R:\@ram i believe. I'll edit this tonight if wrong.

Placing all the files from the original arma2\addons folder in R:\@RAM\Addons.

Ofcourse replace "R:\" with your respective ramdisk drive letter and "@RAM" with a folder name of your choosing.

Performance is great, much much less stuttering. I still have slight stutter on test 1 of armamark, I'd imagine it may be textures and what not being moved to the vram or something, but after this is over its great.

I'm running dual boot xp 32 (this os uses the ramdisk) and win 7. The ramdisk is only operational in xp, still giving me 12gb ran should I boot in win 7 which is great.

All files are copied from HDD to the ramdisk at start up and vice versa at shutdown, leading to long startup times should I boot to XP.

All in all, great expierience and thanks to Qwertz for his research.

i7 920 @3.8

12gb OCZ 1600 at 1530 ish

320gb 7200rpm hdd

Asus p6t deluxe

Gtx 285 x2 in sli

You will find that it still has a little stutter on your first run through ArmAmark, just do two or three in a row for better results.

[hoak 0]

very interesting thread.

Has anyone tried using NTFS Compression on their RAM Drive? I put game servers on RAM drives years ago (Quake III Arena) -- when price/space/performance ratio seemed to be at even more of a premium...

As a lot of ArmA II Fan's systems seem to have CPU overhead to spare -- there's actually room in some instances, with some sytems for some performance gain with regard to total data read speed gain -- and that seems to be what everyone is looking for here, i.e. pumping as much data afap.

:butbut:

[frequence 1]

I had System reboots using RAMDrives. Have testet RAM for error with Memtest, windows memory diagnostic and some other tools...no errors....tried 4 different ramdrive softwares and still habe the reboots.

any ideas?

new beta patch tweaked streaming very nice...hope we will see the final 1.05 soon.

[Leon86 13]

very interesting thread.

Has anyone tried using NTFS Compression on their RAM Drive? I put game servers on RAM drives years ago (Quake III Arena) -- when price/space/performance ratio seemed to be at even more of a premium...

As a lot of ArmA II Fan's systems seem to have CPU overhead to spare -- there's actually room in some instances, with some sytems for some performance gain with regard to total data read speed gain -- and that seems to be what everyone is looking for here, i.e. pumping as much data afap.

:butbut:

I tried the ntfs compressing once, it only reduced space on disk by about 5% or so while massively increasing cpu load. Didn't try it again, performance reduces massively.

[liquidpinky 11]

I had System reboots using RAMDrives. Have testet RAM for error with Memtest, windows memory diagnostic and some other tools...no errors....tried 4 different ramdrive softwares and still habe the reboots.

any ideas?

new beta patch tweaked streaming very nice...hope we will see the final 1.05 soon.

You either don't have a pagefile at all, this will crash it, or maybe you haven't allowed enough RAM left over for your OS and other background applications.

[frequence 1]

You either don't have a pagefile at all, this will crash it, or maybe you haven't allowed enough RAM left over for your OS and other background applications.

- Pagefile present

- enough RAM left for System etc

reboots while idle or minor desktop work. only once crashed while playing another game.

it doesnt make any sence.

[Vipera 10]

I've bought 4Gb more of RAM and i'm so happy now because i don't have stuttering at all! Now I have 8 Gb of RAM and i'm able to spend 3Gb for RamDisk under Win7. I put these files to Ram Disk:

buildings.pbo.bi.bisign

buildings2.pbo.bi.bisign

buildings2_Ind_CementWorks.pbo.bi.bisign

plants2_Bush.pbo.bi.bisign

plants2_Clutter.pbo.bi.bisign

plants2_misc.pbo.bi.bisign

plants2_Plant.pbo.bi.bisign

plants2_Tree.pbo.bi.bisign

Roads2.pbo.bi.bisign

sounds.pbo.bi.bisign

structures.pbo.bi.bisign

buildings.pbo

buildings2.pbo

buildings2_Ind_CementWorks.pbo

plants2_Bush.pbo

plants2_Clutter.pbo

plants2_misc.pbo

plants2_Plant.pbo

plants2_Tree.pbo

Roads2.pbo

sounds.pbo

structures.pbo

I tried to use ramdisk files as mod (@Ramdisk) but later decided to use windows symlinks

Here is my .bat file to create symlinks for ramdisk (RamDisk is assigned to B: drive letter):

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\buildings.pbo.bi.bisign" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\buildings.pbo.bi.bisign

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\buildings2.pbo.bi.bisign" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\buildings2.pbo.bi.bisign

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\buildings2_Ind_CementWorks.pbo.bi.bisign" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\buildings2_Ind_CementWorks.pbo.bi.bisign

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\plants2_Bush.pbo.bi.bisign" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\plants2_Bush.pbo.bi.bisign

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\plants2_Clutter.pbo.bi.bisign" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\plants2_Clutter.pbo.bi.bisign

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\plants2_misc.pbo.bi.bisign" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\plants2_misc.pbo.bi.bisign

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\plants2_Plant.pbo.bi.bisign" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\plants2_Plant.pbo.bi.bisign

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\plants2_Tree.pbo.bi.bisign" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\plants2_Tree.pbo.bi.bisign

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\Roads2.pbo.bi.bisign" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\Roads2.pbo.bi.bisign

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\sounds.pbo.bi.bisign" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\sounds.pbo.bi.bisign

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\structures.pbo.bi.bisign" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\structures.pbo.bi.bisign

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\buildings.pbo" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\buildings.pbo

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\buildings2.pbo" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\buildings2.pbo

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\buildings2_Ind_CementWorks.pbo" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\buildings2_Ind_CementWorks.pbo

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\plants2_Bush.pbo" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\plants2_Bush.pbo

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\plants2_Clutter.pbo" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\plants2_Clutter.pbo

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\plants2_misc.pbo" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\plants2_misc.pbo

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\plants2_Plant.pbo" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\plants2_Plant.pbo

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\plants2_Tree.pbo" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\plants2_Tree.pbo

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\Roads2.pbo" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\Roads2.pbo

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\sounds.pbo" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\sounds.pbo

mklink "c:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2\Addons\structures.pbo" b:\@RamDisk\Addons\structures.pbo

There is no difference for game speed but second variant has better compatibility for MP on servers that don't allow additional mods. Here is just one question i'm curious. If Steam auto update makes some file changes how it will work with symlinked files. I'll check this when it happend.

Edited November 8, 2009 by Vipera

[Leon86 13]

There is no difference for game speed but second variant has better compatibility for MP on servers that don't allow additional mods.

I start it as a mod and when I join a server I always get a message of modified data, never been kicked because of it though.

[tcp 10]

On a anti-cheat server, missing signatures is usually a kick and modified data is usually a ban.

You get the modified data message even though you have the bisign files?

[liquidpinky 11]

Here is just one question i'm curious. If Steam auto update makes some file changes how it will work with symlinked files. I'll check this when it happend.

I have a lot of games and apps spread out over drives using symlink, they patch normally because as far as the installer is concerned they are still in the c: drive program folders.

I wouldn't patch to RamDrive though, it's goodbye files when you power off and the install would be shafted.

[hamis 0]

And is it possible that QWERTZ makes Arma 1 version of his i/o tool?

QWERTZ,could you make it please?

[TimRiceSE 10]

Just curious... are people trying the latest beta patch before shelling out $100+ on memory for this workaround?

[-GCA- Salah ad Din 10]

Ok, I am really sorry if this has already been asked and answered, but I just cannot read 27 pages of posts to find this.

How do SSD's compare to RAM disks? Would that be an easier alternative? (not necessarily cheaper, though).

[TimRiceSE 10]

SSDs arent quite as effective as a RAM disk, however they have other advantages like.. you can actually install windows onto it too and increase overall performance outside of arma, but still a hell of a lot better than a regular HDD... and theres no need to copy from HDD to RAM every time you boot, giving you a shit long load time.

But after trying the latest beta patch, the improvement made me drop my plans to buy a SSD just yet and im no longer playing around with a RAM drive...

[Leon86 13]

On a anti-cheat server, missing signatures is usually a kick and modified data is usually a ban.

You get the modified data message even though you have the bisign files?

yes, but I dont miss signature files. everything I load is on the server as well so I think the server sees it as an allowed mod or something.

edit: I get the message now even without mods. copy-ing an pasting around made one of the files corrupt I guess...

Edited November 8, 2009 by Leon86

[Vipera 10]

but SSDs still a hell of a lot better than a regular HDD... and theres no need to copy from HDD to RAM every time you boot, giving you a shit long load time.

I agree, that SSD can improove overall performance. But it's still expensive. And for ARMA2 ramdisk is better than SSD because SSD has bad random write/read speed. I decided to buy 4Gb RAM because 4Gb RAM that I had is not enough for Win7 which takes 2.5 Gb in idle. So additional memory will be good for other applications too.

Ramdisk that i use doesn't take much time to load 3Gb image file because copy speed is about 180 Mb/s. So, this is not critical for me. Everyone chooses what he wants.

[qwertz 10]

QWERTZ,could you make it please?

Happy to do it when I find some time. I would need you to post the file list/structure of Arma 1 though. Could you please post the content of the folder for the PBO files on a fresh Arma 1 install?