Severe ARMA2 crash issue

[PatrickB1992 10]

System specs:

Athlon x2 6000+ 3.1ghz

512mb 9800GT

3 Gigs of DDR2 800 ram

Windows XP or Windows 7 32 bit (tested with both OS)

Issue: Whenever Anti-Aliasing or Shadows are turned on, screen is filled with a green tint for 10 seconds, controls lock up, and all sounds of combat cease (ambient sounds continue). After 10 seconds my monitor no longer detects my video card. After another 10 seconds I either get a BSOD or cut power to my computer to restart it.

Another really peculiar thing is I had the same issue with ARMA2 demo, before I purchased the full game about 5 months ago. I figured that the full version would fix the problem.

I'd also like to add I am running at a smooth 60FPS when the crashes happen, there is no lag at all.

Things I've ruled out:

Driver issues

Patch issues

Hardware settings

Overheating

Things I've tried:

Playing on the lowest settings with shadows and anti-aliasing on low (crashed in 30 seconds)

Turning off shadows and anti-aliasing completely (did not crash at all in a 2 hour play session)

Turning all settings on very high (ran 30-50 FPS) crashed in a few minutes

Turning visibility down as low as it would go, then turned shadows and anti-aliasing on low - crashed in a few minutes.

I've tried many other things with the settings, none of them work, I'm hoping someone here can shed some light on my problem. I've tried all of the optimizations and everything, I've tried just about every solution or tweak I saw on the forums and none of them worked for me.

I really appreciate any assistance.

[PatrickB1992 10]

UPDATE:

After installing the new Nvidia drivers, my screen no longer fills with green, it just simply locks up and freezes, with ambient sound continuing in the background.

[Jelliz 10]

tried without AA or shadows after update? And try them seperately aswell. And what are you AA settings in the Nvidia control panel?

[EDcase 87]

Patrick: You say you checked but it sounds like a gcard overheat problem.

What were your temps while playing?

I use this simple temp monitor.

Over 80c is bad

Edited June 16, 2010 by EDcase

[PatrickB1992 10]

the anti-aliasing is set on application controlled

my GPU runs at 70C idle and 80C under load, I don't consider this to be overheating, I have good air flow and have cleaned everything recently.

I am not overclocking and have no problems playing other demanding games on ultra high settings (Crysis, Mass Effect 2, Empire / Napoleon Total War)

It doesn't matter if I'm playing on the lowest settings available, if I turn shadows on low with all the settings on low, I still crash.

[EDcase 87]

OK, What forceware version are you using?

Edited June 17, 2010 by EDcase

[Leon86 13]

This does sound like a stress-related issue, overheat might still be the problem but maybe it's the PSU. Could you do a stresstest with the program OCCT? It has a GPU test option with error check. If that doesn't do anything download prime95 and run 1 cpu stresstest thread and the OCCT gpu test with error check.

If that goes well for 2 hours straight you've ruled out overheating and the PSU. But I very much doubt it will run without problems.

My gpu runs at about 90 degrees, in arma 2 it rarely gets to that temp because I have vsync on, so the gpu renders up to 60 fps, every time I look at the sky there's very little to do for the gpu.

edit: I checked the 12V line of my psu, when the 8800gtx starts working with the occt test the voltage drops from 11.93 to 11.67 V, then 5 minutes later it drops again to 11.6, probably because the psu heats up and becomes less efficient. 11.6 is the ATX limit, go lower and bsod's are pretty much guarantied.

Edited June 17, 2010 by Leon86

[EDcase 87]

^ Good point Leon. What make and rating is your PSU Patrick?

Remember ARMA2 stresses the GPU AND CPU more than any other game so with both at full load may be too much for the PSU.

[KaiserSkullz 10]

I actually am having the almost exact problem, I'm also running a nvidia 9800gt , I have an intel quad core, and my OS is vista 64bit. How do I fix the Problem or test if it is an over heat issue with my Graphics card? According to my OS everything is operating properly when my screen goes Green and my OS fails, and reboots with an error report, it says its my Nvidia Graphics card, so how do I test it, and if it is how do I fix it. I WOULD REALLY APPRICIATE THE HELP!

[Leon86 13]

@KaiserSkullz

Download the program OCCT and run the gpu test with error check for an hour or so. If that goes well you don't have a heat related problem, OCCT is quite heavy on the gpu and where in games the load fluctuates in OCCT it's always 100% so your card will go to maximum temperature quite quickly.

If that doesn't give any problems you can run the cpu test, or download prime95, that's another cpu stress program. You can run the OCCT gpu test and the prime test at the same time, remember to make the prime test have 1 less thread as you have cores because occt also needs 1 core to keep the gpu stressed.

If you can run this test for a couple of hours without a problem you can pretty much rule out hardware as you're testing ram, cpu and gpu. Then you can see if other drivers or something fix the problem. You can run a harddisk check with HDtune just to be sure that's fine also.

If you're feeling brave you can also run the occt PSU test, it'll run a special program to stress the cpu up to 10 degrees hotter then normal full-load temp and run the gpu test at the same time. Occt gpu test is also beyond normal game-load, a bit like furmark. Better have an impressive psu when doing that.

[KaiserSkullz 10]

I downloaded CPUID the simple temp monitor, I ran Arma 2 at the highest graphics in windowed mode, so I could see the temps, and my core processors never got over 60c and all the other temps were never over 50c, where can I download or obtain the OCCT

After dismantling my GPU and checking it as well as cleaning, I noticed a 15c drop in temperature almost across the board as far as the max temperature everything got to.

Edited June 22, 2010 by KaiserSkullz