XP -> W7; Stable -> Random Freezing

[jamesf1 0]

Right, so, I finally got around to upgrading from XP (32-bit) to 7 (64-bit) the other day - and all is going well, except for A2.

After between 20 minutes and an hour of playing in A2 (whether A2 is minimised/windowed, or full-screen), A2 begins 'Not Responding'. Shortly thereafter, explorer itself stops responding, and I can't really do anything within Windows. If I, at the time, have another application in focus (e.g. web browser), rather than A2, I can continue to use that application to an extent (but things like copy-paste, and network connectivity still fail). A short while afterwards, that application will also stop responding.

At this point, I can move my mouse cursor and use the keyboard; and any background music, etc. will finish playing (but not start, say, another track in my media player). From here, all I can do is reset the computer... nothing else responds.

This problem only occurs when A2 is running, and I have no other problems with other applications (fullscreen 3D, or otherwise). The RPT shows no problems, and neither do the Windows system logs. No bidmp or mdmp files are created (as A2 freezes, rather than crashes).

All the drivers for my hardware are 64-bit compatible (according to the various manufacturers' websites), and the OS is only difference between my XP installation and this one. I've tried running A2 in compatibility mode, disabling various system features (e.g. Aero), but all to no avail. Nothing is overheating, there are no driver conflicts that I've come across... but just this one, isolated problem.

The pertinent aspects of my system spec. are:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3GHz 1333FSB 6MB L2
  
• ASUS P5K iP35 Socket 775 Motherboard
  
• ATi Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 PCI-E (with Zalman cooler added)
  
• 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 RAM
  
• Asus Xonar D2 Sound-card
  

The command line I'm running with at present is:

-winxp -maxmem=2047 -cpucount=2

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm out of ideas!

[Bulldogs 10]

I'm not sure if I can help you with it, but it sounds like a memory leak. Basically Arma2.exe, or possibly something else (most likely Arma 2), is draining the memory. It gets to 2gb of memory then crashes because it can't access any more, but the process keeps running and draining memory until your computer fails from lack of memory.

The only things I could suggest are :

Reinstall Arma 2

Load it in compatibility mode (Windows XP SP3)

Run it as administrator

Disable/Remove any mods you are using (often the cause of memory leaks)

Make sure your page file is set to Windows Managed

Make sure you have more than 7gb of free space on your hard drive

If those fail, try under clocking your CPU (or at least set it to stock and disable any BIOS overclocking related stability changes/load BIOS defaults)

[jamesf1 0]

Thanks for the response! Here's the breakdown:

Reinstall Arma 2

Fresh install, same problem :(

Load it in compatibility mode (Windows XP SP3)

Run it as administrator

Disable/Remove any mods you are using (often the cause of memory leaks)

None of those made any difference :(

Make sure your page file is set to Windows Managed

Make sure you have more than 7gb of free space on your hard drive

Check, and check.

If those fail, try under clocking your CPU (or at least set it to stock and disable any BIOS overclocking related stability changes/load BIOS defaults)

Already tried that :(

[mrbinkels 10]

Are you O/C ing your video card?

[jamesf1 0]

Nope, video card is stock clocks, and running at a nice 45ºC under moderate load (no higher than 55ºC at any point).

[Gera_CCT 12]

I don´t have this problems and i have same gpu, check for latest Ati drivers (9.12) and latesnt chipset driver too, also run a reg cleaner like ccleaner and do a full defrag of your system.

[jamesf1 0]

Thanks - I am already using the 9.12 drivers, and all my other drivers are up-to-date with the latest 64-bit compatible versions from the various manufacturers' websites. The problem began occurring on a clean install of Windows 7 (with A2 being pretty much the first thing installed), thus ruling out fragmentation or registry clutter as major issues.

[jamesf1 0]

Well, I've tried everything under the sun that I can think of - the only thing left to try is to roll back to Patch 1.04 and see if it happens there (might just use one of the 1.04 betas to test it out)... *sigh*

Edit: Any suggestions still gratefully received...

Edited January 1, 2010 by JamesF1

[Bulldogs 10]

It's possible that the patch never installed properly, you could try running the patch a second time on the installation (if it missed anything it should finish it off, ignore the xdelta errors, they're just stating that the files have already been patched)

[[aps]gnat 28]

I run Win7 64bit with 4GB memory, on an i7 and an ATI card, no issues except rarely when I close ArmAII it crashes ..... no big deal.

Installed DVD 1.01 version then applied the 1.05 patch. Nothing more.

And I DONT run anything in the command line ........

[jamesf1 0]

It's possible that the patch never installed properly, you could try running the patch a second time on the installation (if it missed anything it should finish it off, ignore the xdelta errors, they're just stating that the files have already been patched)

Well, it's worth a try :D I'm willing to try most things at this stage. I've re-patched it, and we'll see how it performs later! Got two errors, which I 'Ignore'd and then it said patch was applied. We'll see if it's made a difference!

Thanks :)

Gnat;1531330']I run Win7 64bit with 4GB memory' date=' on an i7 and an ATI card, no issues except rarely when I close ArmAII it crashes ..... no big deal.

Installed DVD 1.01 version then applied the 1.05 patch. Nothing more.

And I DONT run anything in the command line ........[/quote']

That's what is frustrating. It can't be the OS itself, as no-one else is having an issue... but equally, it can't be the hardware/configuration as nothing but the OS has changed since it worked seamlessly :confused:

[idiosis 10]

This seems to be a recurring topic as of late, isn't there supposed to be a 30% increase in performance with XP over Win7?

Personally I've only started playing Arma II recently on a new PC with Win7 installed and it runs pretty smooth, albeit with the odd dip to a just about tolerable framerate every so often - is the rigamarole of dual booting or downgrading the OS worth it just for one game?

[Yapab 10]

Recently went from XP to Win7.... I can confirm that XP runs the game faster, but not 30% faster.... say 15% max... still noticeable in a game where average fps is below 30.

[jamesf1 0]

Yeah, I've noticed a significant performance increase with Windows 7 - but it's just this one occurrence of freezing (then again, there are lots of people without this problem) :(

[343rdBadger 0]

I have the EXACT same problem as you do...random freezing ,knocks out the internet connection upon rebooting.Win 7 32 bit.I gotta wonder if its not a sound issue maybe?It sems to happen to me when switching to optics ,or hearing an engine start.I'm really guessing here as its sooo random.But anyways,your not alone on this.:(.We just need to compare notes as too when it happens and what the circumstances were.

[jamesf1 0]

What are your system specs? When I'm messing around in the editor, the freezes seem almost random, but playing in MP, the freezes almost always occur (like you) when switching from/to optics. I don't know if that's co-incidental, but it seems unlikely.

[343rdBadger 0]

AMD 2 dual core ,ATI 4870 3 gig ram,win 7 32 bit on a msi mother board with realtek sound card.Today I froze spawning to the ammo box in domination after gettin killed in a helo...totally different from other incidents.But thats because we usually do the same things over and over in a mission.IE loadouts,man slots etc.I do think however its some*thing related to weapons(but its a guess at best)...I'll tell ya one thing...Its gettin to be a goddamn pain in the ass for sure!:mad:

[jamesf1 0]

Right... so absolutely no hardware in common. Windows 7 in common, but yours is 32-bit, and mine is 64-bit. This isn't helping us much :p :(

[killakaze 10]

i used to alway crash on 1.4 patch then acouple beta patches into it i stopped crashing now i got 1.5 crash with a fresh instal im crashing the same as i used to, i think its a memory leak too and when im on foot it takes alot longer to use up the ram but when i fly i crash real quick anyway im going to try some beta patches see if that helps gives me the shits cant just play the frigen thing, ill let you know how i do

[-bsm--sniper 10]

Arma 2 with Windows 7 64 suck!

Windows XP is the perfect OS for ARMA 2 Engine, all others are slow....

See my benchmark for the difference:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=74716&page=8

[jamesf1 0]

Thanks for that "constructive" comment.

I've had, with the same hardware, a ~10 FPS average increase with Windows 7 64-bit over XP (both fresh installs), so I'm quite happy to stick with it. Another guy in my squad has, equally, had several FPS increase with W7 64-bit. It really does depend on your hardware configuration.

[draeath 10]

-sniper;1534283']

Arma 2 with Windows 7 64 suck!

Windows XP is the perfect OS for ARMA 2 Engine' date=' all others are slow....

See my benchmark for the difference:

[url']http://forums.bistudio.com/showthrea...t=74716&page=8[/url]

My framerate would disagree with you.

Going from XP to Win7 64-bit I saw a nearly 200% FPS increase on average, with the same settings.

As far as James's issue goes... not sure. Very weird.

Edited January 4, 2010 by draeath

[-bsm--sniper 10]

Thanks for that "constructive" comment.

I've had, with the same hardware, a ~10 FPS average increase with Windows 7 64-bit over XP (both fresh installs), so I'm quite happy to stick with it. Another guy in my squad has, equally, had several FPS increase with W7 64-bit. It really does depend on your hardware configuration.

Hi James,

this was a strange problem, finally someone answer at my questions (but i will prefer that you can post some arma 2 benchmark between different os) and this can be a "constructive" comment if we want.

If i'm the only person who has arma 2 goign slow with arma 2 (and only with arma 2, other games works well) on W7 64 that was surely related to my pc config.

At this point, the only thing that can make this big difference from XP to W7 64 maybe the "nvidia sli" which works bad with Arma 2, but i have the same drivers in both OS and the arma 2 sli profile is correctly present.

Now, who is guilty? Microsoft, Nvidia or BIS?

Firingsquad have seen the same strange behavior, see this (but they used 190.38 drivers):

http://www.firingsquad.com/print_article.asp?current_section=Home&fs_article_id=2456

Edited January 4, 2010 by [bsm]-sniper

[jamesf1 0]

I'm not using an nVidia card... ;)

Okay, so, problem still occurs using a 1.04 beta patch (on a 1.05 install). Going to try now on another fresh install, and check at each stage to see if the problem exists/persists.

[jamesf1 0]

Right, did a DVD install and then patched 1.01->1.02->1.03->1.04->1.05, just in case that made any difference at all. Nothing, still got freezing. Then just fiddled around a bit, re-setting graphics settings, etc. and dropping my Video Memory down to High (I was just hoping for something).

I've played for nearly 2 hours solid tonight, without it freezing... I'm not going to go ahead and say it's fixed, but it's certainly a longer spell than I've managed since this problem began.

Edit: Scratch that... 3 hours in, same freeze. :(

Edited January 5, 2010 by JamesF1