ArmA2 Crashtastic Extravaganza

[JuiceMouse 10]

UPDATE: I disabled SLI again today and tested it out. Flew around, shot people, was shot, etc. No crashes. Not sure why this didnt work before (drivers perhaps), but that seems to be my solution at the moment... fps is still trashy at best (25), however... but no crashes at least.

Issue: Slightly inconsistent crashes, very consistent crappy fps.

Video Settings:

Visibility: 3600

Texture Detail: Normal

Video Memory: High

Antistropic Filtering: High

Antialiasing: High

Terrain Detail: Normal

Object Detail: High

Shadow Detail: High

Post Process Effects: High

Interface: Small

Ratio: 16:10

Resolution: 1920x1200 (100%)

Interface Res: 1920x1200

Relevant system specs:

CPU: Intel Core I7 975

GPU: 2x EVGA Coop Nvidia GTX 295

RAM: 6GB DDR3

HDD: Seagate 1.5TB 7200rpm HHD / Intel X25M 80GB SSD

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

Nvidia Drivers: 197.25, 197.15

Irrelevant(?) system specs:

EVGA Mobo

TrackIR 4 (Running TrackIR 5.0 software)

Soundblaster X-FI

Saitek Eclipse Keyboard

Logitech G9

Cooler Master HAF 932

Things I have tried:

• Nvidia Control Panel
  
  1. Disable / Enable PhysX: Doesnt seem to be any affect either way, on either fps or crash frequency
     
  2. Force VSynch On/Off: Seems to increase fps in the opening carrier scene to 60-100ish (although my refresh rate is 60hz...).. but otherwise no affect
     
  3. Force Threading On/Off: No confirmed affect
     
  4. Multi-Display setting to Single: No confirmed affect
     
  5. Anti-Aliasing Low/High/On/Off: No confirmed affect
     
  6. Triple Buffering forced on/off: No confirmed affect
     
  7. Overclocking GPU (have NOT tried underclocking): No affect
     
  8. SLI on/off: Disabling SLI seems to work now..
     

  [*]SSD/HHD: No affect on crashes either way, small improvement in performance on the SSD.

  [*]Antivirus on/off, AVG/Antivir: No confirmed affect

  [*]TrackIR on/off: No confirmed affect (Although if I cant use TrackIR, playing would be pointless for me)

  [*]Drivers: Other than screwing up Battlefield2 a bit MORE, no affect.

  [*]Mods: ACE2/Vanilla.. doesnt seem to matter

  [*]Windows compatibility: -winxp, -cpucount=4, compatibility mode for xp, vista, run as admin etc: No confirmed affect

Further reading:

Been testing on Domi for the most part. On the airfield I get about 25fps at best, which would be acceptable, if not for drops to 10-15 if I turn my head, and crashes that seem to happen just whenever. I originally thought they were time-based.. but sometimes it crashes on the Domi zoom-in. I thought it was based on flying somehow, and that does seem to exacerbate the problem but eventually performance suffers and textures start tearing and artifacting. Based on that I thought it might be heat-based, but monitoring my GPU temps reveals they operate at about the same levels as when im playing any other game. Other GPU-intensive applications (BFBC2 on super-max settings, Left4Dead2 maxed, 3 clients of Eve Online maxed, Borderlands maxed, Dragon Age maxed...) have little or no issues at all.

At any rate, I loved the original OpFP, but it was buggy and crashy.. liked ArmA, but it was buggy and crashy, LOVE ArmA2... but Its BUGGY AND CRASHY. I guess the timing of my systems over the years has put me too far infront or too far behind these fantastic, tragic, games.. If anyone can help me out, has any ideas or suggestions, or has something that has worked for them with similar specs (even if I have tried it), please let me know...

Edited April 3, 2010 by JuiceMouse

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

GPU: 2x EVGA Coop Nvidia GTX 295

Meaning 2 cards, quad?

Anyhow, I personally gave up with SLI. I used 8800gtx, then gtx260 to gtx285. Now I just use 1 gtx285. While using SLI, (for other games) ArmA1 & 2 always gave me fits, such as yours.

I ended up disabling SLI in the Nvidia/ArmA2 profile, my fits were then gone.

Though, todays drivers may have cured the issues I was having.

[rowdied 44]

Have you tried different ingame settings? Lower view distance? Setting video memory on high? Only 1 gtx 295? Have you tried the shortcut -cpucount=4? Do you always use the same ingame settings or have you tried different set ups?

[cross 1]

It's because of Win7+SLI295.

Either switch to a single card or WinXP as OS.

I believe there are some posts in this section about it..search

[JuiceMouse 10]

Thanks for the replies guys.. and the input

I have tried it with SLI on/off in the Nvidia control panel only, but that didnt seem to have much affect at all on the crashes or the fps.

Ive tried cpucount=4, I even tried cpucount=8 (because technically an i7 acts as 8 cores..), but that didnt really work either. I also tried -winxp, running in compatibility mode for xp sp2 and 3, and running as admin. Physically pulling out one of my 295s to truly try the SLI theory is not something I'm really willing to do, as with the 200 series I finally see SLI making a noticeable difference.

Screwing around with the in-game settings does have an affect on my fps for sure, although if I reduce the settings enough to get a good frame rate (40ish), target ID at distance becomes pretty much impossible, and I may as well not be playing at all.

I will re-try the SLI stuff more in depth, and screw around with my in-game settings some more.

[Madus_Maximus 0]

I find SLI = trouble for most games, if not crashes and so on, performance at least. ArmA 2 will just be more noticable with it's performance loss due to it already being a pretty damn demanding game with it's huge scale. Looking on forums for other games you see people with multiple GPU's also having performance problems usually caused by the games not really being optimised for all that overhead. Technically you have 4 "cards" in SLI with 2 x 295's as a 295 is already set to SLI by default due to being 2 x 260 cores on a single board. Anything not really optimised for SLI is made worse by having two or more of those things as it just adds more overhead.

Try physically removing one, see what it's like, that'll be the only way you'll be sure if that's the problem. Another problem is sometimes the i7's. Most games aren't made for so many threads so again, overheard comes into it. Same goes for RAM as they're coded in 32bit rather than 64 (some have 64bit executables though, like Crysis, which allows it to unlock all that extra power).

Ironically the people who seem to get the best performance from this and other demanding PC games tend to have a good dual core CPU and a good single core GPU with 4 or so GB of RAM. It's down to the software not being optimised for that extra power, so it just gets clogged up trying to access it.

[Alex72 1]

I have the same settings but 1280x1024 and when its not too many AI battling my FPS is incredible. Im getting scared of my ordered i7 930 reading things like this... But hopefully the i7 isnt part of the problem though (crappy FPS).

[jw custom 56]

I have the same settings but 1280x1024 and when its not too many AI battling my FPS is incredible. Im getting scared of my ordered i7 930 reading things like this... But hopefully the i7 isnt part of the problem though (crappy FPS).

I have an core i7 920 and it's running ArmA 2 very well so dont worry ;)

[bushlurker 46]

Have you tried with Video Memory set to "Default" - just in case its a video memory problem... on the Default setting the game "should" attempt to detect your video ram and adjust itself accordingly... worth a try since I didn't see it in the list of things you mention you tried...

However - this option used to be buggy and actually caused problems... still, no harm in trying...

B

[jw custom 56]

However - this option used to be buggy and actually caused problems... still, no harm in trying...

Setting video memory to default will 100% lead to a CTD on my system, so yes it sure is bugged in some way!

[AnimalMother92 10]

Same here, I had been getting nasty, frequent CTDs recently. Then I noticed I had set my video memory to default when I was doing some other tweaking. Setting it back to High seems to have fixed my problems.