Nvidia and heavy stutter in latest beta's 59875 & 59928 - poss. fix

[Alex72 1]

I saw someone commenting on the latest beta being very heavy lagging/stuttering, and i came across that myself so...

My own problem with heavy lag and really weird stutters in the latest Beta's (59875 & 59928) was that i ran a too old driver (191.00). I installed the 191.07 and my game is now running superb. Hopefully that will take care of your lag issues as well. Test it if you havent. The rest of this post is about how you properly install new drivers. So if you know - stop read here.

For you that never done it the correct way before i strongly suggest you download these 2 programs and install your next drivers properly: driver sweeper and CCleaner. This is to ensure no old files are being mixed with the new. Old files and references can cause problems and not let the drivers operate as good as they should. It can lead to weirdness or "weaker" performance. However you should always install new drivers by cleaning the old out. As you understand now the drivers will not be totally cleaned out just by uninstalling them through the control panel.

Please take the time to read about the usage of them and then get the latest drivers installed. Dont worry its not hard at all. I wrote this to hopefully help someone experience the game as good as i do now. :) Post in here if there is anything confusing about the programs or the operation itself. Remember to be on the safe side with CCleaner and clean only out what is left in the registry that belongs to your videocard.

Alex

[maddogx 13]

I experienced major stuttering in the latest beta (59928) while experimenting with the "max frames ahead" option in the Arma2.cfg file. If I set it to "1", the game became pretty much unplayable because of the stuttering. Personally I recommend setting it to "8".

This is with driver 191.07 and a GTX285.

[fabrizio_t 58]

I experienced major stuttering in the latest beta (59928) while experimenting with the "max frames ahead" option in the Arma2.cfg file. If I set it to "1", the game became pretty much unplayable because of the stuttering. Personally I recommend setting it to "8".

This is with driver 191.07 and a GTX285.

Same performance problems here with 59875 & 59928.

Tried 191.07 and 186.21 Nvidia drivers.

I've set with "max frames ahead" to 1 or 3, no luck. I'll try with 8.

[maddogx 13]

Same performance problems here with 59875 & 59928.

Tried 191.07 and 186.21 Nvidia drivers.

I've set with "max frames ahead" to 1 or 3, no luck. I'll try with 8.

Just to be clear: the stuttering problem I experienced only occurred when I tried setting max frames ahead to 1. When set to 3 the game performed fine. 8 seems to be best, though you should be aware that you'll need to set it to 8 in the NVidia control panel aswell.

The max frames ahead setting in Arma2.cfg merely provides an upper limit. If the value is set to 3 in your NVidia control panel, it will still only be 3 in-game.

[Alex72 1]

Just to let everyone know. Me myself run those set to "0". When i set them to "1" i feel more "lag/creamier" gameplay. So to me personally zero is the best. Dont know why though.

[jumpinghubert 49]

my settings in config are:

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=3;

No lag.

[mrcash2009 0]

I normally uninstall the graphics driver as normal, then go into safe mode, then run driver sweeper, then reboot, then install the latest driver as normal, then 1 final reboot .. then test away.

Cant speak for lag havent had time to test latest betas much with performance but they seemed ok to me.

[kklownboy 43]

my settings in config are:

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=3;

No lag.

thats not right. You have to use "x".

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead="1";

GPU_MaxFramesAhead="1";

So its not working yet for you.

What you are getting is what you have in your 3D settings CP under the arma2 profile.. maybe 3 (i believe 3 is nvda's default)

[maddogx 13]

If max is 1000 and GPU_DetectedFramesAhead is 3, that means he has 3 in the NVidia control panel. If he sets 1 in the NVidia control panel, GPU_DetectedFramesAhead will change to 1 the next time he starts the game. You don't really have to use anything. If you leave GPU_MaxFramesAhead at 1000, the game will just use whatever you've set in the NVidia control panel.

[Grizzle 0]

Not all Nvidia owners are experiencing lag/stutter with the latest beta. I'm not. It's all running smoothly for me. GTX260 191.07 and as of last night 195.39 (beta).

[jumpinghubert 49]

@kklownboy

These configsettings are automatically generated when I delete the arma2 config.

@maddogx

that makes sense for me. In my nvidia controlpanel the related value is preset to 3.

[maddogx 13]

Not all Nvidia owners are experiencing lag/stutter with the latest beta. I'm not. It's all running smoothly for me. GTX260 191.07 and as of last night 195.39 (beta).

I guess mostly people who've set the render-ahead value wrong will experience stutter. The solution is to reset everything to default (3 in control panel, 1000 in Arma2.cfg) and see if that fixes it. No need to reinstall drivers.

[Yoma 0]

Over here it's running better then ever 191.07 , max frames ahead default in driver, vsync off, single display mode, Physix off, on GTX285

[Alex72 1]

Not all Nvidia owners are experiencing lag/stutter with the latest beta. I'm not. It's all running smoothly for me. GTX260 191.07 and as of last night 195.39 (beta).

Good you report that. However i posted this as me myself and others ive seen encountered really weird stutter - more weird than normal slow downs due to low end HW. It made no sense the lag i had, and after i switched to the latest drivers it all went away and superb performance came as a result.

GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000;

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=3;

Thats how i had it in the beginning. Changing those both to "0" makes all the difference on my machine. Test it. My Nvidia CPL is set to the same. "1" can be good as well. However 1000 is a value that lets the game choose its own -you wont enforce it with that value.

[maddogx 13]

Over here it's running better then ever 191.07 , max frames ahead default in driver, vsync off, single display mode, Physix off, on GTX285

Ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto and ditto. ;)

What CPU and RAM do you have, and what kind of framerates are you seeing inside Chernogorsk?

[Grizzle 0]

Good you report that. However i posted this as me myself and others ive seen encountered really weird stutter - more weird than normal slow downs due to low end HW. It made no sense the lag i had, and after i switched to the latest drivers it all went away and superb performance came as a result.

Good to hear. I wasn't trying to deny claims of an issue, just wanted to let others know that it's not affecting every Nvidia user.

[SASrecon 0]

for me and my GTX 260 the best imo is max 'detected frames=3'

It's my card's default setting and i've never had any problems with it, when i tried 1 or 0 i had lots of stutter.

[Alex72 1]

Everyones is set to 3 originally, but the different values everyone "need" shows its important and smart to at least test different values. It might give you better gameplay. ;)

[kklownboy 43]

Everyones is set to 3 originally, but the different values everyone "need" shows its important and smart to at least test different values. It might give you better gameplay. ;)

Three is for Nvida only. ATi is 0

[giorgygr 61]

Guyz..i seriously think that this thing of "max frames" etc..is

exclusive for ATi owners.

I know from personal experience that Catalyst control panel doesn't have

the option of "Frames ahead rendering" etc...but Nvidia's panel always have that

option under adv.setting.

So...why that matter bothers Nvidia GPU's owners??(!!?)

(*I own a GTX-280 with 5-6 frames ahead rend.btw)

[Alex72 1]

It sure matters to me. I notice rather big changes when i mess around with it.

[kroky 1]

I experienced major stuttering in the latest beta (59928) while experimenting with the "max frames ahead" option in the Arma2.cfg file. If I set it to "1", the game became pretty much unplayable because of the stuttering. Personally I recommend setting it to "8".

This is with driver 191.07 and a GTX285.

Thank you for pointing to this. It solved my stuttering.

[giorgygr 61]

Thank you for pointing to this. It solved my stuttering.

Ok..so Kroky you already tried (before beta) to set from your

Nvidia control panel max rendered frames 8 ..and didn't help

in addition of ArmA's option for max rendered frames??(!?)

:confused:

[kklownboy 43]

Guyz..i seriously think that this thing of "max frames" etc..is

exclusive for ATi owners.

I know from personal experience that Catalyst control panel doesn't have

the option of "Frames ahead rendering" etc...but Nvidia's panel always have that

option under adv.setting.

So...why that matter bothers Nvidia GPU's owners??(!!?)

(*I own a GTX-280 with 5-6 frames ahead rend.btw)

No its a for all Vidcards. ATi and Nvidia call it different things. Nvda has many more options than Ati, and they have Nhancer. But they both have about the same amount of registry keys to do about the same thing. Nvda has a A2 profile you can use to set game only options.

But do to some under handed ways nvda does stuff, MS had to expose the render ahead in the dx api so Devs could set the option in game, which nvda THEN exposed in there CP but Ati is a "tool" for MS and only lets the Devs give you the option to exploit. Which Bis has done since the 59210 beta. Also you have to use the quotes "x".The 1000 is just a placecard value.

you set it to this:

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead="";

then you will see what your card is doing.Then you set this:

GPU_MaxFramesAhead="x";

x= your value, which can be 0,1,2,3,4,8. 5,6,7are kinda lame,but your mileage may very, and Ati only uses 0,1,2,3,4, with 1 being best for ME.

Use the Editor to set up a test case. What it does is take the stutter out of your input ala while moving. It wont help LODs loading.

[Potatomasher 0]

I'm having heavy stutter too now with 60000 beta. I've tried 191.07 & 195.39. Same results. It doesn't stutter very often though. And it disappear as fast as the stutter came and fps get back to normal. But when it does stutter my fps drops to 0. It halts completely the frames to second or two.

But otherwise performance is great with new patch. Also i haven't had slowly loading textures ever with couple of recent patches.

Here's my arma.cfg

language="German";

adapter=-1;

3D_Performance=31915;

Resolution_Bpp=32;

Resolution_W=1280;

Resolution_H=1024;

refresh=60;

Render_W=1280;

Render_H=1024;

FSAA=2;

postFX=2;

GPU_MaxFramesAhead="1000";

GPU_DetectedFramesAhead="3";

HDRPrecision=16;

lastDeviceId="";

localVRAM=519634944;

nonlocalVRAM=1878814720;

Edited November 10, 2009 by Potatomasher