Windows 7 + arma2

[demonlord89 10]

I got 64 vista. If i go 64 win7 do i have to reinstall anyway? What about mods? and other files?

[Sniperdoc 0]

I run it fine on Win7 64-bit, just had to use MSCONFIG to edit the memory so less than 8GB was being addressed as a whole.

[rory_pamphilon 16]

Best results can be achieved with windows 7 64bit but don't make the mistake of putting arma 2 on the same physical drive as your windows installation. Making a new partion won't do any good at all, your still relying on one physical disc doing two jobs (arma 2 & windows swapfile / background services) which will make it stutter slot as the hard disc heads jumps back n forth between two jobs. Best way is to hav two hard drives.. One for windows and one for games. This means once ur game is running the drive arma is installed on is doing nothing but streaming arma textures, the other disk takes care of windows requests.

Sorry for long winded reply but people commonly think partitioning can boost performance because it looks like in windows like two different drives. Best possible performance would be using an SSD for your games drive.

[Stugwi 0]

For UK W7 Upgrade buyers

http://www.myvouchercodes.co.uk/Additions-Direct--812.html#discounts

save £30 on first order over £60

Last time i checked upgrade was £80 from additions also there are many blogs on how to do a fresh install with w7 upgrade.

I am running w7 on a new build and Arma 2 runs great + i love this OS

[Scorpio9 10]

I have done extensive testing with Windows 7 64-bit RC 7100 and RTM on a i7 920, 6 gigs of ram, Nvidia GTX 280 GPU and it runs great on very high settings minus Post Processing, Stutter Free. You need to change a few settings. Such as kklownboy suggested turning off Hyper Threading.

i7 Suggested Tweaks

1.Turn off Hyper Treading in BIOS

2.Edit ArmA 2 Short Cut and insert -maxmem=2048

3.Beta Patch [59842] Reduced town/village stutter (fixed streaming of textures used by Super shader.) This was a much welcomed improvement it really optimized performance for me in Chernogorsk which caused terrible frame drops when I would zoom in or turn abruptly when I was on the highest point in the city looking down. Plus there are tons of other fixes that has really improved game play. I have found the patches to be stable and they work with retail and Steam versions plus works with multiplayer as well, kudos too BI. The current Beta patch link http://www.arma2.com/beta-patch.php Dont for get to use the -mod=beta switch in your short cut.

4.Possible problem with AVG Anti Virus version 9.0 (When AVG upgraded from version 8.5 to 9.0 i began to see heavy too constant HDD access as if the Anti Virus was still scanning however AVG did not show a scan currently in progress... I uninstalled it from Win XP Pro and Win 7 this solved the constant access. A few days later I reinstalled in on Win 7 and have had no problem since.

Hope this helps

www.armaman.com

CPU: Intel i7 920 (C0/C1) @ 3.82GHz (1.30v)

Motherboard: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2

PSU: Corsair 750W

Memory: 6GB Corsair DDR3 @ 1392MHz

GPU: EVGA GTX 280 1GB

Monitor: Acer 22" LCD (1680x1050)

HDD: 2x WD Black 500GB (OS + My Docs)

OS: XP 32bit + Win7 64bit

[demonlord89 10]

Scorpio....What fps do you get? Got vista 64...is it worth upgrading for this game. It runs rather well now anyway.

[cross 1]

My server browser does not list all the server info properly. It lists 16 pages of server but after page 6 only thing listed is red crosses and you have to go to that page, click on the empty line and wait until it fills in the server info.

Does anyone have this issue as well?

Running on Win7 64 bit on a 8mbit ADSL line.

I've opened a ticket re the issue..

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/5884

cheers

[Stugwi 0]

Now that you mention it i have the same crosses on my game browser .. never thought it being a W7 specific issue

[cross 1]

Please feel free to vote + on the issue tracker. Link above.

[Scorpio9 10]

demonlord I read that Windows preforms slightly better then Vista, however i dodged Vista like the plague do to its bugy and weak performance compared to Windows XP.

I have broken down my FPS from lowest to highest by area due to different mixes in train and city's.

Chernogorsk

35-48 FPS

Nadezhdino Heavy forested and small village

30-40

Stary Sobor open rolling fields and medium sized village

28-43

Main Air Base

42-60

Flying

46-60

www.armaman.com

CPU: Intel i7 920 (C0/C1) @ 3.82GHz (1.30v)

Motherboard: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2

PSU: Corsair 750W

Memory: 6GB Corsair DDR3 @ 1392MHz

GPU: EVGA GTX 280 1GB

Monitor: Acer 22" LCD (1680x1050)

HDD: 2x WD Black 500GB (OS + My Docs)

OS: XP 32bit + Win7 64bit

[demonlord89 10]

Are these with the settings you stated before? if so...great fps. Got similar specs, except for GPU, got an gtx 260. Approx how many FPS can you "save" compared to vista? What other tweaks have you done? Do i have to reinstall the game when upgrading from vista 64 to win 7 64?

[Scorpio9 10]

demonlord89

Are these with the settings you stated before?

My ArmA 2 settings.

Texture Detail: Very High

Video Memory: Very High

Anisotropic Filtering: Very High

Antialiasing: Normal

Terrain detail: Normal

Object detail: High

Shadow detail: Very High

Postprocess Effects: Disabled

3D resolution 1680X1050

demonlord89

Approx how many FPS can you "save" compared to vista?

I cant honestly answer that for you since I haven't bench marked Vista vs Windows 7. However in my benchmark of Windows XP Pro vs Windows 7 I saw a constant 9.62% decrease in performance. More then I expected however with a 20% increase in performance from my 3.82 Ghz Over Clock i was able to accept it a little better. But I do believe you will see a small increase in performance with Windows 7 based on what i have read probably along the lines of 2 – 4 % from what I have read.

demonlord89

What other tweaks have you done?

Other tweaks I have done and probably one of the most impotent, in Oct 5 2009 Nvidia released a new driver(191.07) that is optimized to ArmA 2 "Up to 12% performance increase in ARMA 2" my findings with my setup was more along the lines of 9% which is good so it puts me back to where i was at with XP Pro. Also I get about another 2-3 FPS by Over Clocking my Video Card from Core Clock @ 621Mhz, Shader Clock @ 1350 too Core Clock @ 666 Mhz Shader Clock 1447. Which I find to be a very stable OC and temps in the high 70's. Plus a 36% OC of my i7 920 from stock 2.66 Ghz too 3.82 Ghz which yielded a good 20% increase performance.

Do i have to reinstall the game when upgrading from vista 64 to win 7 64?

Microsoft states only Windows XP users will have to do a clean install to upgrade to Windows 7. Windows Vista users can do a simple upgrade that should keep all there installed software intact... In theory that is, LOL.... always prepare for the worst. Backup your ArmA 2 folder found in your My Documents folder. If you have the steam version it is simple to back up your game and reinstall it. But all in all i would say your upgrade path to windows 7 is pretty simple. If it were me I would do it ASAP if not for any other reason just to get a smoother operation OS. Windows 7 is way smoother and faster when you compare it to Vista.... But compared to XP it is a bit slower. But I do believe you will see a small increase in performance with Windows 7 probably along the lines of 2 – 4 % from what I have read.

One last note from my soap box

When I do my bench marks I uncap my Vertical Sync ArmA 2 default is 60 FPS, bench marking with ArmAmark I can reach as much as 108 FPS but when playing the game I cap my V Sync back to 60 FPS since my monitor will only do 60 HZ.... when you unlock your V Sync and are running more FPS then your monitors V sync then you will get really noticeable tearing and you are losing your video fidelity. Its like having a friend who has a really nice high end stero pumping out 200 watts and some crappy little 100 watt speakers, playing his music really loud over driving his speakers and the music sounds distorted and cracks and pops..... and the GUY looks at you and says WOW ain't that loud and your like YEAH AND SOUNDS LIKE SHIT TOO. The same with your monitor.... people think they have to have ball busting FPS and they think there getting more because they are seeing high numbers.... but sadly that just is not the case if you see tearing. I have seen some of the new LCD's have a 75 Hz refresh rate so that would allow you to cleanly run 75 FPS with that monitor. When you see tearing you are seeing your monitors inability to keep up. So for the guy who is running 200 FPS.... sure his video card is putting it out that fast but unless he has a supper dupper monitor he just is not seeing it the true output of his GPU and in turn is destroying his Video Fidelity.

www.armaman.com

CPU: Intel i7 920 (C0/C1) @ 3.82GHz (1.30v)

Motherboard: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2

PSU: Corsair 750W

Memory: 6GB Corsair DDR3 @ 1392MHz

GPU: EVGA GTX 280 1GB

Monitor: Acer 22" LCD (1680x1050)

HDD: 2x WD Black 500GB (OS + My Docs)

OS: XP 32bit + Win7 64bit

[NutzMcKracken 17]

You can only upgrade from Vista, and even that is a bad way of doing stuff, so you are looking at a W7 fresh reinstall.

You can "legally" buy upgrade version of Win 7 with full version of Win xp.

But you can only invoke "upgrade" method installation from Vista with an associated version, Home Prem. to Home Prem., Ultimate to Ultimate, etc. On the other hand say you want to install "Pro" (no Professional version of Vista) from Home Premium (or upgrading from different types in general) you have perform a "custom" installation Microsoft calls it (you guessed it, a backup data and format to reinstall). Also keep in mind of the same rules with 32bit to 32bit, 64bit to 64 bit; "custom" for 32bit to 64 bit migration.

@ anyone who has "Upgraded"

Ultimately its NEVER a good idea to perform an "upgrade" installation on Operating systems. You might as well either "Custom" install it or install to another partition and dual boot. You're install and fragmentation will be cleaner not to mention your registry! Don't get me started on driver inconsistencies as most have experienced.

Sooner then later you will have to re-format and reinstall anyhow, so might as well save the pain, do it the first time the correct way, then when everything is all setup, use the "Image" process in Backup and backup an image of your new Windows 7 machine! After all new to Win 7 is better backup and restore options, why not use ithem to make reinstalling easier if the need comes.

Just a little advice in that area.

Edited November 19, 2009 by NutzMcKracken
mistype

[-bsm--sniper 10]

Hi all,

after several test i can confirm that Windows XP 32b is absolutely more fast than Windows 7 64b with Arma2 (and seems to be only with arma 2!!).

Same hardware, same driver version but opposite performance.

I can't believe that i can set many video settings on high with windows xp while with windows 7 many of them must be set on normal or low (or deactivated).

In particular, i have the same in game perfomance experience with this settings:

Windows 7 64b, Arma 2 1.04 with latest beta, forceware 195.62

Texture Detail: Normal

Video Memory: Default

Anisotropic Filtering: High

Antialiasing: None (unplayble with low)

Terrain detail: Low

Object detail: Normal

Shadow detail: Very High

Postprocess Effects: Disabled

3D resolution 1680X1050

Windows XP, Arma 2 1.04 with latest beta, forceware 195.62:

Texture Detail: Normal

Video Memory: Default

Anisotropic Filtering: Very High

Antialiasing: Low (incredibly i can set antialias!)

Terrain detail: Normal

Object detail: High

Shadow detail: Very High

Postprocess Effects: Disabled

3D resolution 1680X1050

So, my advice is to use Windows XP over any other OS without any doubt.

For information, this is my rig:

XFX 790I P09

E8500 E0 @4,35Ghz 458x9,5 1,26v RS

2X2 GB OCZ Platinum EB PC12800 1833 mhz 8-8-8-24 1,90v

LC Power METATRON 700W ATX 2.2

2xSPARKLE 8800GTS 512MB 770/1900/2250@SLI (nvidia 195.63)

2xWD640GB BLACK EDITION RAID0

SAMSUNG 226BW

[Pranne 10]

Can someone tell me how i can switch of Hyperthread?

There is NO such option in my BIOS!

[metsapeikkoo 10]

Then you don't switch it off.

[shuko 59]

i7 Suggested Tweaks

1.Turn off Hyper Treading in BIOS

2.Edit ArmA 2 Short Cut and insert -maxmem=2048

1. Just do -cpucount 3, usually removes studdering caused by HT

2. That does nothing, it just limits the memory limit to 2gb, when in reality you can barely make arma use over 1gb anyway. So, the limit is never reached.

[Gumzster 10]

One last note from my soap box

When I do my bench marks I uncap my Vertical Sync ArmA 2 default is 60 FPS, bench marking with ArmAmark I can reach as much as 108 FPS but when playing the game I cap my V Sync back to 60 FPS since my monitor will only do 60 HZ....

O_o How on earth do you enable vsync for Arma 2? I have terrible microstutter and I know vsync would fix it...so I'm dying to know..pretty please.

[maddogx 13]

O_o How on earth do you enable vsync for Arma 2? I have terrible microstutter and I know vsync would fix it...so I'm dying to know..pretty please.

Vsync is always enabled in Arma2, unless you explicitly disable it in your driver settings.

[Gumzster 10]

Vsync is always enabled in Arma2, unless you explicitly disable it in your driver settings.

Really? So why do I get 100+ FPS if I "Use the 3D application setting" in my control panel? Shouldn't I be limited to 60 FPS (my monitor)?

[Krout 10]

my arma 2 worked great on 7RC and was terrible on 7 ultimate.

in some posts i read that arma 2 does not use page file. don't know, i increased mine to 2, than 4 than 6 gig - no difference. than i installed small 120g hdd and installed arma2 on it (tried to put page file on the c drive, on the drive where arma2 was installed - no difference). Than left arma2 on the small drive by itself, nothing else is on that drive and let windows take care of the page file. arma runs now with no problems, very smoooooth

[jackass888 0]

seems like win7 64bit made my arma run worse... mission harvest red was playable on xp64 and now it is not...10-20fps on a 3,4ghz quadcore. Disabling pagefile brought ~5fps. Will try installing xp again.

[gulag 10]

I have Win7 Ultimate x64 with Arma2 installed on drive D (OS is on C drive) and run with no problems so far, Q9550 3.1ghz, 4Gb RAM, HD 5850 1Gb. It seems that the solution to this problem is to install Arma2 on different drive than OS. Until a few weeks ago I had Win 7 32 bit and Arma2 was smooth too.