ArmA 2 I/O analysis results

[hamis 0]

Arma/Addons:

Air.pbo

air3.pbo

a10.pbo

animals.pbo

anims.pbo

buildings.pbo

ca.pbo

characters.pbo

cutsceneanims.pbo

dbe1.pbo

desert.pbo

desert2.pbo

hotfix.pbo

hotfix_dbe1.pbo

introanims.pbo

language.pbo

misc.pbo

missions.pbo

plants.pbo

rocks.pbo

roads.pbo

sara.pbo

saralite.pbo

signs.pbo

sounds.pbo

tracked.pbo

ui.pbo

uifonts.pbo

usmcd.pbo

warfare.pbo

water.pbo

weapons3.pbo

weapons.pbo

wheeled3.pbo

wheeled.pbo

voice.pbo

Dbe1(Qg)/Addons:

Hotfix_qg.pbo

models_dbe1.pbo

sara_dbe1.pbo

Dta:

Bin.pbo

Core.pbo

[EDcase 87]

Hi guys,

I got a 30Gb OCZ Vertex because I can't put more than 4Gb ram in my machine.

ARMA2 runs quite a bit better with less stuttering but ramdisk will be better if you can get enough ram.

Its great to put all of ARMA on the SSD so loading missions, editor etc is all faster.

EDIT: I just did a test playing around Chernogorsk and had very little stuttering compared to my HD (Maxtor|7200rpm|16mb cache)

Anyone know the best setting for "File Allocation Size" when formatting an SSD?

Machine:

Q6600 @ 2.4 (can't overclock DELL) :(

3Gb Ram

GTX285

XP Home

Generally ARMA runs quite well with avg 30fps but I obviously get more slowdown when there are lots of units on the map because of CPU.

Edited November 10, 2009 by EDcase

[TimRiceSE 10]

Hi guys,

I got a 30Gb OCZ Vertex because I can't put more than 4Gb ram in my machine.

ARMA2 runs a bit better with less stuttering but not great. More ram is definitely the way to go if you can.

Anyone know the best setting for "File Allocation Size" when formatting an SSD?

Machine:

Q6600 @ 2.4 (can't overclock DELL) :(

3Gb Ram

GTX285

XP Home

Generally ARMA runs quite well with avg 35fps but I obviously get more slowdown when there are lots of units on the map because of CPU.

Are you running beta patch or no?

[EDcase 87]

I'm on version 1.04

[TimRiceSE 10]

Try the beta patch. The improvements to streaming from that should make a noticeable difference too.

[EDcase 87]

Thanks Tim,

Yes, the betas are a bit better for performance.

The buildings are still the main fps killers.

Edited December 7, 2009 by EDcase

[.kju 3244]

Did someone measure the CPU load created by a RAM drive while playing a2?

[Vipera 10]

Did someone measure the CPU load created by a RAM drive while playing a2?

I don't think that I/O operations take much CPU resources. I'm very happy of using Ramdisk. I'm able to fly or run around big cities with the same FPS as in the forest.

[.kju 3244]

FPS wise I did not measure a different now.

Yet when testing the speed of the RAM drive, every test app says 25% CPU use.

This is 1 of 4 cores maxed.

[jigawatt 10]

Thanks for this post and all the great replies. I just happened to upgrade to 6gigs from 4 on my system. Going to try the beta patch first and see how that runs. If I don't see any gains I will attempt to setup a Ramdrive.

Thanks again for everyone's great work on this thread! It should be stickied!

[woodyB 10]

hey guys, I have read through this entire post with great interest, and thank you for this information. I have decided to set up a 4gb ram drive tomorrow. One question-whats the procedure for setting up the ramdisk for use with mods? Do the mod pbos go into separate folders on the ramdisk, or do we put all the .pbos all into one addons folder, mods and all? If that is so, how will loading priorities be set? Has anyone been able to work this out?

Edited November 12, 2009 by maj_woody

[.kju 3244]

If you play MP, better separate them to two MF on the ram drive.

Most servers in MP do not allow community made addons (for several reasons).

[Vipera 10]

One question-whats the procedure for setting up the ramdisk for use with mods?

I think that this is not really necessary to place mods to ramdisk. You'd better move environment files to ramdisk. If you want to move mods to ramdisk you could make the same as if you create in ARMA2 folder. For example, you have B: as ramdisk than you create folders on B:

B:\

└─@Name1

| â”” Addons

└─@Name2

__â”” Addons

Than add -mod=b:\@Name1;b:\@Name2

Edited November 12, 2009 by Vipera

[woodyB 10]

I think that this is not really necessary to place mods to ramdisk. You'd better move environment files to ramdisk. If you want to move mods to ramdisk you could make the same as if you create in ARMA2 folder. For example, you have B: as ramdisk than you create folders on B:

OK, from what I have been reading, it sounds like the most important files to go into the ramdisk are the .pbos that qwerz and liquidpinky have listed, as these are read most often, as based on their analysis. I wasn't sure with regard to mods, since some mods are affecting the enviornment. Also I m not sure how often mod .pbos are accessed and whether that changes depending on the mod? Its very interesting stuff and like many of you guys, I like the fact that I end up understanding my computer better as well as the inner workings of the game engine.

[sailindawg 0]

Also I m not sure how often mod .pbos are accessed and whether that changes depending on the mod? Its very interesting stuff and like many of you guys, I like the fact that I end up understanding my computer better as well as the inner workings of the game engine.

I'm using a RAMDisk with ARMA. ARMA has never ran smoother. There is one SP mission that I really enjoyed, Dynawar. Dynawar runs a lot of scripts by way of Mapfact. The mission always really lagged at the start of the mission, then smoothed out a bit as the mission progressed.

I put the Mapfact file into the RAMDisk mod folder along with the environment .pbo's and the mission runs very smooth. No more lag. In fact, I'm using the Warmod that was just released and put all of the mod files for that into my RAMDisk mod folder. ARMA runs butter smooth. No more hitching or lagging or texture flashing. Settings are on high / very high @1680x1050 resolution. View distance is set to 2000 / 7000 via Warmod. 2000 m = min, 7000 m = max. With Warmod, view distance changes as you go up in elevation / altitude. In regard to resolution, I can run at 1920x1200, but I like the larger target area provided by 1680.

It's great to be finally able to play ARMA as the developers designed it. I'll get ARMA II eventually, but I'll be using a RAMDisk with it. The demo plays much better with environment files in the RAMDisk.

[cjph 0]

Hi Sailindawg

Can you post your settings/system specs, and which RAMDisk variant you are using which op sys pls ? More for others' general use as I already run a small 4Gb RAMDisk.

Thanks.

cjph

[hamis 0]

Originally Posted by hamis

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?

Well,any news?

[sailindawg 0]

Hi Sailindawg

Can you post your settings/system specs, and which RAMDisk variant you are using which op sys pls ? More for others' general use as I already run a small 4Gb RAMDisk.

Thanks.

cjph

NP.

Sys spec:

Q6600 @ 3.8 (9x420)

8 G Mushkin RAM

2xGTX260 SLI

ARMA run on 150G Raptor Drive; I have a separate D:\ partition for apps/games on the Raptor; page file on separate HDD

Win 7 64 RC Build 7100 (to be replaced soon with W7 Pro 64 bit)

RAM Disk

I'm using Qsoft Enterprise (x64) software to run the RAMDisk. It was pretty straightforward to install following directions. I'm using it for free, but will buy it when the free period ends. The software is pretty good and you can really configure the RAMDisk. This software has been referred to in previous posts.

I can run ARMA I butter smooth utilizing the RAMDisk. I only have ARMA II Demo, but that ran very smooth utilizing the RAMDisk. One day I'll get ARMA II.

[-RIP- Luhgnut 10]

After seeing the symbolic link information, (good find btw) I went out and got a 4 Gig Thumbdrive for like $25 bucks. Since I run Arma2 on an XP machine, I didn't have much RAM room left. Instead of a ram drive, I moved the .pbo's to the thumbdrive, then did the symbolic link to the thumb drive.

It's less volatile this way and it's really fast. maybe not as fast as ram drive but I don't get any stutters at all.

works like a champ.

[Tankbuster 1744]

I've got XP32 with 6 GB of ram. I'm running the game from a USB drive and could probably spare 3 GB of RAM for a ramdrive which I want to use for pagefile. Have we come to any conclusion as to which free ramdrive software is best?

Edited December 30, 2009 by Tankbuster

[qwertz 10]

I've got XP32 with 6 GB of ram. I'm running the game from a USB drive and could probably spare 3 GB of RAM for a ramdrive which I want to use for pagefile. Have we come to any conclusion as to which free ramdrive software is best?

DataRam Ramdisk by all means.

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk

[Tankbuster 1744]

DataRam Ramdisk by all means.

http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk

Excellent. Many thanks.

[1LT.Wolf.F 10]

I, OH... Breaking all barriers, or skirting the issues

Great thread guys, very informative, and b/c of it I've gotten rid of my stutters; however, I did not use RAM drive or SSD hard drive, both of WHICH are ALWAYS better options than what comes below, but read on for some shocks and keep in mind I am no expert. Also I am not aiming to increase the FPS or combat the AI load on the CPU, I will do my best to stick to I/O operations from the SouthBridge I own (Intel p45).

My initial Goal was to eliminate the HDDs problem all-together, but this post's goal is to help those who don't understand the low performance of their otherwise shiny-new computer, and to provide more info to people trying a non-ramdrive approach. Since I am currently jobless, a SSD or more RAM is out of the question, being jobless also provides me lots more time to test and drink... (I am sorry for my verboseness now, you have been warned...)

My system's always ran good (20-40FPS), but had the typical random drops in frame rates (<15FPS) at intense times (i.e. lots of AI, and/or heavy scripts running, or in pre 1.05 Chernagorsk) and the annoying low-quality to high-quality loads that appear so clearly on screen for all to see, which was another focus for my tweaking. My default or normal system is very nice, but starting to age,

-Win7 64bit Powered by a q9550, on a Asus P5Q -with 4 x 2GB RAM 800Mhz PC-6400 (Dual Mem. Controller),

-HD-4670 (<--the aging feeling above starts here), X-Fi Fatality

-SATA-II 250GB HDD 16MB cache (windows and Pagefile),

-2x SATA-II RAID-0 250GB HDD 8MB cache (500GB) (ArmA 1.05)

*16GB Kingston DataTraveler 120 USB2.0

*3x512MB Lexar POS USB2.0 sticks

Then Problem's bound to surface (physical layer HDD)

The battle, as far as I understand it, is getting information from HDD to the RAM for use in the CPU, then getting that information swapped out somewhere when out of RAM... The problem for us is as ARMA isn't particularly good at (or built for) 64bit memory addressing, and cannot use all available memory without manual ramdrive.

Some starting assumptions by me:

1. ArmA is a 32bit app and, as such, absolutely cannot address greater than 4GB of system memory (32bit=2^32=4 billion) without external help i.e. ramdrives (~36bit technically with PAE, I can't remember exactly, ArmA2's still 32 itself)

2. ArmA is 9.33GB in size (as of ArmA 1.05.62017 with ACE 0.2.218)

(not all 9.33GB needs to be loaded in all instances of ArmA2)

3. So, ArmA will swap loaded files from memory somewhere or reload from the HDD.

Typically when running low on available RAM, programs will put excess memory into the pagefile (swapfile/virtual memory) on the assigned HDD. This (please help if I am wrong) is what happens in ArmA as well. That is basically: the data of ArmA is loaded from a HDD, and cached into RAM insofar as possible, then all not currently needed data will swap into the pagefile on a HDD, then back and forth as required by ArmA2.

Here arises our first Problem: Simply that when ArmA2 can not find the Data it requires in RAM, it looks to a) the pagefile, or b) to load it fresh from the install files directly (perhaps the DVD-ROM too, if not installed properly, j/k ).

A following problem is that we store ArmA2 and the PageFile on Spinning Magnetic Drives. Most systems today are generally loaded with 7200 RPM HDDs (5400 for laptops / 10,000+ for some really snappy drives). Because of the rotational period 120 rotations/sec and the added time to move the mechanical read/write heads across the tracks, ALL initial data request to the HDD wait 9-15-27ms just to position the heads and wait for the data to come 'round, unless of course, the Head is already there (extremely unlikely and indeed if this likely happened, this discussion would not be happening).

All of this is likely pedantic and very well known to most people in this forum and even stated before (I am sorry if I annoy). My reasoning for its inclusion is that I see a lot of people who simply (b/c of life's I/O systems) can not invest time to learn the intricacies of the PC sub-systems, and how it handles ArmA2's extreme complexities, and are frustrated with better than optimal PCs which feel slow.

So trying to stay focused and remain as clear as I can,

1) If you have only one physical HDD: all of the I/O overhead happens inside that drive, a separate partition will NOT help. (all partitions are inside waiting for the same heads)

2) If you have two physical HDDs: Separating ArmA2 and the pagefile Will Help out in I/O overhead, simply by having the option of reading from two separate HDDs. Each HDDs head seeks it own data, the load moves to the HDD controller.

3) Take number 2) one step further: A lot of mobos come with two SATA controllers or in my case SATA and RAID. Each of these controllers can handle many of their own HDDs. and each hard drive on each controller seeks its own as in step two...

*I believe An explanation of RAID is beyond the scope here, but know I have my RAID drive to combat the seek times, see data below it does help a little, but still the very fist chunk of data had the normal waiting period.

Ok now that ends my really cheap-ass attempt, which I hoped would be enough, it was not... Though much better, I still get the occasional stutter mainly from texture loads from buildings/trees/some vehicles. Personally, I'm not too confident that the SATA-II I/O system is over-tasked at all as my ICH10 alone has 6 ports and I believe no 3 (magnetic-conventional) HDDs could overpower it or force a wait-state (looking for the right phrase)... I'm not sure, so I'm looking for a refutation here please... (I'm only considering SATA 3Gb/s with my burst rate data as constants: see below)

Intermission:

...I warned you about verboseness right?

The Hard Fact:

So back to what I can not replace my HDDs. This is a physical boundary that cannot be passed, only avoided. Permanent storage is painfully slow (see:Rosetta stone) but thankfully lasts; in a perfect world I would love enough RAM to load my 70GB and growing Xplane9, but that world would also require constant and stable electricity. I suppose ArmA2 in the CPU's static cache RAM is the next answer but if you have that money, I'm looking for a patron or a job PM me :). ...ok back on topic...

Having stated before, I'm avoiding SSD-SDRAM, SSD-Flash and software RAM drives as they are all better options:

Some Data:

Windows HDD: Seagate ST3250410AS 16MB Cache

TxFR rate: Min: 67MB/s Avg: 87.3 Max: 97.4 (burst 172.4MB/s)

Access: Min 8.5ms Avg. 15.4ms Max 27ms

RAID HDDs using DriveXpert in Speed or RAID-0

Seagate ST3250310AS 8MB Cache (2 identical drives)

TxFR rate:Min:111MB/s Avg:115.2 Max: 119 (burst 117.2)

Access: Min: 5ms Avg: 9.1ms Max: 15ms

USB2.0 16GB Kingston DataTraveler120

TxFR rate:Min:19.5 Avg: 20.9 Max:21.7 (burst 21.7)

Access: Min:0.6ms Avg: 0.6ms Max: 0.6ms

USB2.0 512MB Lexar JD FireFly* (I have a 3 pack of these babies)

TxFR rate:Min: 16 MB/s Avg: 16.1 Max: 16.1 (burst 16.7)

Access: Min: 0.4ms Avg: 0.4ms Max: 0.4ms

*these results are calculated averages from 3 test to each of my 3 Lexar USBs

Everything was as expected, the HDD's trump the USB sticks, but after running some practical tests in ArmA2, I noticed some results which flabbergasted me...

BTW the practical tests:

1) ArmA2Mark (run twice) + 2 BIS benchmarks (run twice) to test FPS and passive watching of texture loads.

2) 1-2 hours playing both Warfare BE 2.053a and DomiA2 1.30 AI hosted on my PC to try and stress the AI threads in the CPU an feel the games which I know)

Turning back to the data notice the relative speed of the access times between the HDD and USB sticks...

Skipping Stones: new rule sticks my not hurt you

Normal Test

I ran ArmA2 normally from my RAID drive to get a feel of normal.

-ArmA2 started on avg. 35-45 seconds from double click to main menu after.

-Navigating menus took the better part of a second

-Loading missions and benchmarks were too random to include for effective data but I could hope for faster

Then I fully copied ArmA2 straight to my 16GB stick and made a proper shortcut, powered off, booted and ran ArmA2 from the USB stick...

*Note throughout the following test my avg. FPS never changed much more than 1-2 and I kept all video setting where I normally play at, and I Power-off-rebooted my pc after running each test twice.

**PS. I wanted to include the time it took for me to encode a rock with a byte, but err being drunk I hurt myself, and gave up...

Practical Test #1 Finally No more HDD (save the friggin. pagefile)

-Running All ArmA2 and ACE from USB (exFAT)

ArmA2 started in 18 seconds and all menu screens snap forward and back and missions had minor hiccups when loading, but noticeably faster than the norm. Finally the annoying texture load was unnoticeable or gone, microstutters are still around, but only at times when either the AI CPU load was INTENSE, or my Radeon4670's shaders are likely Very loaded (I lean toward high settings with 32bit HDR). With the unique way in which ArmA handles the GPU and AI threads in the CPU, I can not prove which subsystem is at hand with the now infrequent microstutters. I played for 3 days online before I went further, and there was no noticeable hit from switching from my normal setup to this exclusive USB stick, even with their time-and-time-again proven lack of sustained transfer rate. I recommend you at least try this if you can, and especially if you need a cheap quick fix to enjoy ArmA2... and who doesn't? If you are here... You do*

Believe it or not this offered the best response from ArmA2 regarding load times, of ArmA2, its mission, and its menus; and completely eliminated the in game texture loads (gotta remember the term/phrase for that soon)

Practical Test # 2 Continuing to Beat that dead horse (superfetch used)

(gotta figure out your tool Qwertz ASAP)

-Run ArmA2 normally (from RAID)

-16GB USB (exFAT) as ReadyBoost

From somewhere on Microsoft: ReadyBoost is a Disk Caching service which (using superfetch) monitors frequently used files and caches them on available USB2.0 Flash Sticks. ReadyBoost required a sustainable transfer rate of 2.5MB/s and access times >1ms; however, it also says Minimum of 1GB free on the stick

I tripped over this nightmare turned good for me and I hope you too: ReadyBoost (Vista = nightmare, Win7 = SWEET). I've just begun to test this out but I have to include it here. Starting with my normal setup, only this time my 16GB USB formatted with exFAT and setup as a ReadyBoost drive (exFAT required to use >4GB).

This Option granted some bonus to the standard RAID setup but not enough to really make a splash. Not enough to be viable, but I imagine some USB stick will work better than others. And people have reported no caching in ArmA, I saw some activity, arguably it could be anything, I'll try to I/O tool once I get some sleep.

(Suggestion for those almost ready to give up on ArmA2: Put the USB stick on a USB hub with ReadyBoost by your keyboard, and watch it superfetch, it's great when you've been drinking, and at least distracts you when loading screens are on... like an electric stress ball... and the headaches are less painful than pre 1.02 ArmA2)

Having already solved my problem and chancing my dying readership's loyalty, I brought this up because I found a long-shot which worked best for me.

Practical Test #2 Ammendment

-Page File and Win7 on single HDD (C:)

-ArmA2 on RAID drive (D:)

-ACE (all mods) on 16GB USB stick (0.6-0.7 ms)

-3 x 512 ReadyBoost USB sticks (0.4ms)

Note: I am directly breaking the 1GB requirement of ReadyBoost as I have tested with 1, 2, and 3 512MB sticks individually and simultaneously with no error or problems - in fact only good reports (and they are 50-100% faster with random access time).

This amendment has been the best option for my system and preferences, by far the most solid results and little work needed by me, here is a summary :) Load time are only 2 seconds (20sec) away from my best time (18sec from USB exclusive install) and ReadyBoost really helps at least in other areas around the system, for once I am not disabling a MS service, and that kind of scares me.

My GUESS is that if superfetch IS doing something, and if it is true ArmA does not use disk cache, during ArmA's load my room lights up blue (USB LEDs) until the menu screen. Perhaps superfetch is still helping the pagefile or an external substem which arma uses? AGAIN I just learned about ReadyBoost.

Conclusion

To each ArmA2 user our collective interest (until 64bit code) is getting all of ARMA across the northbridge in to the 6.4GB/s transfer rates of memory by all means available. In this forum post now essay, I tried to explain that the true limitation for us non SSD or RAMdrive users is strictly the physical layout of the HDD. For those of us who have 8GB RAM or less we need to help ArmA2 into the RAM, and the HDDs are insufficient alone and with RAID. One mean is via USB2.0 sticks for their strength is in small random access, and their weakness is sequential data (opposite of HDDs). I found it strange that the USB stick alone ran ArmA2 fine, and that's what started this quest. My friend using ArmA2 on a USB on his laptop, noticed no difference, which again raises a flag- for it was assumed by me and many to be far slower. Which leaves me with questions I hope some of your expertise will help with. Now are the questions more verbose than the answers I've come to above? and is anyone left to hear this?

Thanks Qwertz and everyone else, your efforts woke me up,

Consequent Questions:

Though ArmA2 is abundant with large files such as dubbing.pbo and structures.pbo, these .pbo files are archives consisting of many, perhaps compressed, smaller files Correct? If so, are the operations beyond RAM capacity that are asked of the I/O system from the ArmA2 application all or for the most part very small? Say less than 64KB? or 1MB? (I don't really know how to pose this question)

(If so then we have a cheap answer for all. Try the USB2.0 stick! Because, when dealing with ArmA2, great sequential data transfer does not offer the same performance gains as do the quick and small random accesses)

The only answer I can see is, Yes it must use for the most part be small file/mem/command calls, or I am missing something, and I'll need the community to smack me right, because I am out of resources to test and out of grey matter.

If you think I am breaking wind instead of barriers, that may be true, as I do too, but I wish more than anything to continue and advance this dialogue for all the tweakers and the frustrated a like.

Thank you for your time, and drop a hello to FedaykinWolf if you catch me online… I'm not as verbose there I promise...

**Note: And though the USB is faster by itself, I have decided to use every available subsystem insofar as possible (2nd test amendment setup) My HDD (pagefile) and RAID (ArmA2) handle what they can, the fast ReadyBoost drive (Lexar) does great caching, and my hope is it caches pagefiles too, the Slowest USB (16GB) stick is still removable and it contains only the mod folders of ArmA2. I am anxiously awating the AddOn folder file splitting and have been playing around with it...

**Note: (this is not conclusive!!! nut a pattern noticed) A lot of the advertised "faster" USB sticks SEEM to get faster by giving up the random access time, this is not good if you want Quick Random Accessible Memory to combat limitationd of Permanent storage HDDs; however, Some other Ratio of "Access time : transfer rate" may yield better or worse results.

**Everything I did here I used from parts I found laying about which I intended to use as space saving floppies... I am ecstatic at the results I have gained, and hope something here helps you, if not at least it is likely time for bed, and you probably want to drink to forget this message at 4 pages .... 6 pages.

**more RAW data (HD Tune 4.0) see the "extra tests" tab

My USB stick can only and ALWAYS will out perform my HDD at access and transfers when Data is 64KB or less. The HDD in my system comes to 15ms on average, doing some 65 ops/sec whereas my slowest USB stick sending a digital pulse can access these tiny files in 0.7ms doing 1426 ops/sec Grants 22 times performance across the board. By 64 KB file this advantage drops to 11 times faster on A USB2.0 than the HDDs. Somewhere around 1MB file calls the HDD and USB are the same and the only thing which can help here is if you can call to each device separately via separate HDD/ USB controllers at the same moment. Any sequential read above 8MB and the HDD will take some 60MB/s and triple the USB sticks and after that the HDD is king (defrags are a GOOD thing!!!). With this in mind, if all data is on your HDD in the right sector right as it is needed without any possible programming error, the HDD will dominate ArmA's requirement, but ArmA2, Win7, and the world's too complex for that.

**Verbose - 1) to type until 7:25 AM about the sympathy one has for the people who are pulling their hair out over the great promise that that "shinny new system" and ArmA2 can and will eventually provide :)

I am offically shutting up now, see you online!!!

FedaykinWolf

[AceTomato 10]

Thanks FedaykinWolf for taking the time to explain this is such detail. I have recently purchased a Patriot XT 16GB USB flash key and now I can put it to good use.

[Rakov 0]

Is there a definitive list of the most used streaming files to place on the RamDisk? I used the "RamDisk for Dummies" list earlier on in this thread, but recently I got some stutter and I'm wondering if there is some file missing...