ArmA 2 I/O analysis results

[Alex72 1]

Saw that eventually. :) Strange i have to give my modline the full path.

[old_painless 182]

Hm, strange indeed. Still in process of setting up, so can't say if I will need the fully spec'ed path as well ...

[cjph 0]

I've always used just the "-mod=R:\@RAMDISK" path without the fiull pathnames for ramdisk access. I have moved the original files to other directories in some cases and it seems to work without adding "\Addons" in the pathname.

[Alex72 1]

When it comes to ARMA's own addon files i have them in RAMDRIVE like this X:\AddOns. But community addons i do the full path or the game complains.

Easy to setup though and great difference especially when turning fast or moving fast close or inside towns. lot less "chops" that comes from HDD not coping with the speed of the rest of the system.

[qwertz 10]

Just wanted to chime in (and Qwertz will be happy ;) ). I recently bought some OCZ Agility 2 200GB SSDs and put them in RAID0. I've noticed a difference between them and any of the numerous SSDs I've owned previously. The Sandforce controller definitely seems to provide some real world advantages over other drives.

Having said that, we are talking about $1400.00 worth of SSDs for what amounts to a negligible difference, nevertheless, I can definitely see a performance advantage so in the interests of being objective, there you have it.

Hi BangTail, I've heard that are some awesome drives, congrats. :bounce3: !

cheers, qwertz

[bangtail 0]

Hi BangTail, I've heard that are some awesome drives, congrats. :bounce3: !

cheers, qwertz

They certainly are, I'm very happy with them :D

[anguis 4]

Hi, folks,

Saw this yesterday and thought it might be useful for your testing (I hope so, anyways):

Windows Sysinternals' RAMMap

Quote from the description:

"Have you ever wondered exactly how Windows is assigning physical memory, how much file data is cached in RAM, or how much RAM is used by the kernel and device drivers? RAMMap makes answering those questions easy. RAMMap is an advanced physical memory usage analysis utility for Windows Vista and higher.

Use RAMMap to gain understanding of the way Windows manages memory, to analyze application memory usage, or to answer specific questions about how RAM is being allocated."

It's free - hope this helps!

[jpinard 10]

Hi, folks,

Saw this yesterday and thought it might be useful for your testing (I hope so, anyways):

Windows Sysinternals' RAMMap

Quote from the description:

"Have you ever wondered exactly how Windows is assigning physical memory, how much file data is cached in RAM, or how much RAM is used by the kernel and device drivers? RAMMap makes answering those questions easy. RAMMap is an advanced physical memory usage analysis utility for Windows Vista and higher.

Use RAMMap to gain understanding of the way Windows manages memory, to analyze application memory usage, or to answer specific questions about how RAM is being allocated."

It's free - hope this helps!

Thanks, that looks excellent.

[Wolfstriked 11]

So lost here.I see it started with Ramdisks and then SSD drives with Ramdisks coming out on top.But I keep seeing people getting great results from a USB stick.Saying no stutters at all and whatnot and then some of them seem to have moved on to ramdisks also.So does a USB stick really work?My new SSD drive doesnt sadly even though I gathered from here it would be amazing.Its great for system performance but benefits little to A2.My FPS go from 60 to 20 when I turn and then back up to 60.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1547384&postcount=298

This post is one that really sticks out about usb sticks.He went further then putting some of the PBO's on a usb stick instead he put the whole game.If the results are really good than I would think this be the preferred way to run Arma2.I would even suggest to BIS to recommend this to their customers as cheap upgrade to fix the LOD/stutter issues Arma2 has.

[Leon86 13]

An usb stick isnt going to help if you already have a good ssd. If you have a really crappy ssd it might. maybe.

Going from 60 to 20 and back to 60 isn't really stutter, it's just low fps. Stuttering is when everything stops for a fraction of a second and it runs fluently in between the stutter.

[Wolfstriked 11]

Are you sure about that?My graphics card can push out 60fps with a scene but if I change my viewpoint it drops to 20 and back up to 60.The card itself is capable of rendering this scene at 60 so why does it slow?I think its textures loading into ram but I could be wrong as you said above.Please be wrong.LOL

As for the SSD,even a great one,if all the info is coming from it then the pipeline would get clogged??I was thinking that maybe say two or three USB drives with A2 spread over them would make for even faster access.

---------- Post added at 08:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:44 PM ----------

Ahh I had no page file and that was the cause.I put a 1.5gig page file on SSD and its way improved.It still stutters and fps drops in tune with it but its better.

Ok its definitely memory issues.Utes island is a constant 60 fps.Low of 59 and that is rare.I was thinking its the way game is coded that bldgs just wack outthe memory but its super smooth on Utes.Chenarus size is what is causing it.

Edited June 10, 2010 by Wolfstriked

[kklownboy 43]

Are you sure about that?My graphics card can push out 60fps with a scene but if I change my viewpoint it drops to 20 and back up to 60.

that is not stutter.that is low frames.

As for the SSD,even a great one,if all the info is coming from it then the pipeline would get clogged??

The pipeline of your SSD or HDD(sata2) is much faster than any USB2 interface

I was thinking that maybe say two or three USB drives with A2 spread over them would make for even faster access. The latency from the many USB sticks(and slow USB2 interface)would not make it faster but slower,relative to a SSD.and i would bet a good HDD would be faster than USB sticks.

---------- Post added at 08:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:44 PM ----------

Ahh I had no page file and that was the cause.I put a 1.5gig page file on SSD and its way improved.It still stutters and fps drops in tune with it but its better.

Ok its definitely memory issues.Utes island is a constant 60 fps.Low of 59 and that is rare.I was thinking its the way game is coded that bldgs just wack outthe memory but its super smooth on Utes.Chenarus size is what is causing it.

I would never put a PageFile on my SSD that has my game on it...I use SSD for game driver and fast HDD for OS and another faster HDD for a Pagefile. When i run a Ramdisk i put in all the islands and objects on it.

[Wolfstriked 11]

It is stutter though.The stutter is visible when FPS drops down.And I get building textures missing and then popping into view.

Yes SSD is faster yet some people are reporting amazing results for USB.And I wonder if 3 usb is better than.They sell 3 pack USB sticks.Spread Arma2 across it maybe?Or I may buy another SSD drive and keep game seperate from OS.I don not wanna bother with the Ramdisk as that seems complicated.

[Punisher5555 0]

It is stutter though.The stutter is visible when FPS drops down.And I get building textures missing and then popping into view.

Yes SSD is faster yet some people are reporting amazing results for USB.And I wonder if 3 usb is better than.They sell 3 pack USB sticks.Spread Arma2 across it maybe?Or I may buy another SSD drive and keep game seperate from OS.I don not wanna bother with the Ramdisk as that seems complicated.

Ramdisk is the easiest method. Click,click, start playing and there is nothing faster than RAM. No SSD, no USB can ever compare.

It takes me literally takes me 2 minutes to get my Ramdisk with the ArmA2 files up and running.

If you are not using the new Superspeed ramdisk program ($99) that lets you save/use your ramdisk like a vhd just make yourself a "copy" directory. The copy directory is a copy of the ArmA2 files that you will copy over to the ramdisk.

Process:

1. Create ramdisk using your favorite ramdisk program. Takes me 1 minute.

2. Follow the instructions in this thread to copy over as much of the addons directory as you can to the ramdisk.

3. Make a directory on your hard drive to copy back the contents of your ramdisk. Mine is called ArmA2 files for RamDisk.

4. Create a shortcut with the appropriate -mod line. My ramdisk is always R: so I have a -mod of -mod=beta;R:\AddOns

4. Now when you want to play ArmA2 with your ramdisk you just have to copy the contents of that directory and not keep drilling down into the ArmA2 directories.

Simple.

If you have the RAM don't waste any more of your money on SSD's/USB's. Save it for a better video card!!!

[Wolfstriked 11]

Thanks Punisher.It does look super simple.I always would link ramdisk as a super hard process and never gave up that thought.LOL more money for a video card.I just purchased a GTX480.LOL again.In very dense forests it drops to constant 25fps.This is with no CPU(just standard overclock so far) or GPU overclocking yet so I can easily get another 10fps making the most dense part 35fps.

EDIT<<<wow I just found out my problem.Its all about view distance.I had view distance at 3000 and dropped down to 2000.Now in towns it drops down but not stuttering and after a few view changes its back up to steady 60fps. 1600/1200 everything on very high.

BIS should put a warning about view distance.There is no way to tell that its the cause.You look at a scene and see 60fps and so while you think that view distance is alright for your video card its not alright for your ram.To test that I can now spin my ass off inside buildings and 60fps pegged where before every turn inside was a stutter and massive fps drop.There is no outside scenery but the engine has all the mountain textures stored away stealing the valuable ram resources.Being in a building where you don't see them kinda sucks but I guess that's the price you pay for large world maps.

Edited June 10, 2010 by Wolfstriked

[Punisher5555 0]

Other than the ramdisk, the biggest thing to help is the Proper vegetation mod. I highly recommend this mod. It kills those damn red/orange trees. Those trees are the #1 killer of FPS.

[Wolfstriked 11]

Proper Veg and buildings also makes the game look better with less LOD changes.I still get the orange trees slowdown though.Best way is to remove them but then you just have pine trees and that sucks.

[rekrul 7]

Has anyone done any similar work for OA so lazy me can just get an updated file-list of what files to put in my RAM-disk? :)

Or have they actually compiled a x64 version of the game? (I'm still waiting for play.com to ship mine.)

[ranger1979 10]

Sample video of RAMDisk usage on ArmA 2.

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0Vju2OXZEU&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0Vju2OXZEU&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

[Placebo 28]

That's very impressive :)

[MavericK96 0]

Cool video, but looking at your specs versus your settings, you could probably be running it at a lot higher settings than you are. It's kind of no wonder it runs as well as it does. :P

[ranger1979 10]

I agree, had to lower a few things to record FRAPS at full screen, very taxing on your system.

[wingtip 11]

after reading through both threads that this all started from im confused as ever... and the anaylis tool wouldnt work for me, some error about fonts and it cancelled...

here are the errors i got in the order i got them when trying to run your program...

vista 64 bit enterprise

gforce gtx280/1 gig vram

4 gigs system ram

windows os on 1 drive

arma on a 2nd drive

would doing this page file/ ram disk thingmajig be worth trying with this setup? and in which thread /post are the instructions on doing this...correctly.

thanks

also while doin some ssd research thru google i found this.. pretty amazing but cant imagine what it cost to build

Edited July 6, 2010 by wingtip

[ranger1979 10]

ALL SETTINGS MAXED, 10000 view distance, FRAPS on full record, entire game on RAMDisk. OS, game, pagefile on same RAID 0 SSD. Enjoy, best to watch in HD. I wish AO was as tweaked as ArmA 2 is, hopefully with time it will improve.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah6D3DTAJ7g&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah6D3DTAJ7g&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

[grillob3 11]

Hey Rekrul!

I tried with oa and could not get it to work Says it can't find some files!Maybe i'm doing something wrong! But just arma 2 works fine! I have Combined operations! And i need help too! If you get it to work let me know!

Tx.

Edited July 21, 2010 by Grillob3