hbien

The military simulation Falcon 4 had this same issue (and it was developed back in the 1990s I think). They solved it by a combination of strategic/tactical engagements using a technique they called a "bubble". In the large context there are many military units engaging each other but at the level of strategy board games, e.g. dice-rolling, with units combined (aggregated) such that you have a group of tanks engaging another group of tanks. The actual battle simulation does not go down to the level of detail of physics/bullets/etc but is merely a probability assessment of outcome. Meanwhile, around the player in a "bubble" the units are "de-aggregated" into individual fighting units and then the simulation does address individual bullets/missiles/units/etc. Until we have gobs of CPU available (and not used for rendering/etc), this is probably the closest you'll get to simulation of a large-scale battle. I encourage you to look at Falcon 4.0:Allied Force (if its still available, or the newer free Open Falcon 5.0?) if you are interested in large scale simulations of which you play a small but important role.

I can confirm this behavior is due to PDVDSrv.exe process - there is an older thread hiding somewhere on this forum where I described the exact situation you had and also the solution. Alas, I recently changed computers and ran into the same problem, but now forgot the solution. A quick search here finally got me the answer. Funny, the problem didn't arise immediately - PowerDVD DX was automatically installed on the Dell machine but I've been running ArmA2 and ArmA2:OA without problems until recently, so it's some weird interaction with some software update and PowerDVD that seems to cause this issue. Whatever - I'm happy, too, that ArmA is playable once I kill PDVDSrv

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear - I was too excited to play ArmA after solving the issue, lol. Anyway, first a couple of notes. I also didn't install PowerDVD DX - it came pre-installed and I believe it is the standard on Dell systems. So if you have a Dell computer, you have PowerDVD DX installed. Second, to identify this culprit took me quite some time but here's how I got around to it. Since my problem was extremely reproducible, i.e. the map/menu always took 3-5 seconds to appear and disappear, I decided to first remove all running background processes via Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) that did not appear essential. This meant any kind of profiling programs like my G15 keyboard monitor, LCD display programs, and simple things like CTDVDDet (Creative DVD-Audio detector). I also went ahead and "stopped" as many services as I dared. I then started ArmA and the delay was gone! The problem now was finding which one of the many programs/processes/services that interfered. Again, because the problem is readily reproducible without any delay, I was able to start ArmA, load a mission, and try a map (this after a reboot so the problem appeared again). I then Alt-Tab'd out to Task Manager and started to kill processes one by one. After each time, I would return to ArmA (via Alt-TAB and try the map load again). This took forever as you can imagine, but in the end I found that killing PDVDDXSrv.EXE immediately caused the problem to disappear. To confirm, I rebooted again (because by this time many other programs had also been stopped as I marched my way down to PDVDDXSrv) and the problem appeared as expected. I killed PDVDDXSrv.EXE and voila - problem gone! In the meantime, I can give you a quick list of the processes that I found did not appear to affect on my system: 1) CTDVDDET.exe (Creative's DVD-Audio detector) 2) CTHelper.exe (Creative's helper application) 3) daemon.exe (D-tools, v4.12.3) 4) KHALMNPR.exe (Logitech KHAL Main process, used for G15 keyboards I believe) 5) LCDClock.exe (Logitech G-series LCD clock display program) 6) LCDMon.exe (Logitech G-series LCD performance monitor) 7) LGDCore.exe (Logitech G-series keyboard profiler) 8) MSASCui.exe (Windows defender user interface: note that enabling/disabling Windows Defender did not appear to change anything including frame rates - this includes 'real time scans' 9) ONENOTEM.exe (Microsoft Office 2007 OneNote Quick launch) 10) pidgin.exe (Pidgin instant messenging client, v2.4.1 and above) 11) RtHDVCpl.exe (Realteak HD Audio control panel) 12) SetPoint.exe (Logitech's SetPoint driver for mice) 13) wmpnscfg.exe (Windows Media Player Sharing Service Configuration: this despite the fact I have Media Sharing disabled, $%#$ MS) I hope this helps because ArmA while playable before so long as I didn't go into map or menu is now MUCH more enjoyable!

There is a conflict between a resident service of PowerDVD DX (and possibly other versions, I have not tried them) that will cause 3-5 seconds where ArmA will "freeze" when switching between menus (of any kind, including gear) or the full screen map (also a menu of sorts). The resident program appears to hook into DirectX input/keyboard, possibly, not sure. In any case, if you are having problems getting the menu/map screens up, try uninstalling PowerDVD (permanent fix) or ending the "PDVDDXSrv.EXE" process (temporary fix - will run again at next reboot). The problem may be specific to nVidia and PowerDVD - I'm not sure.

Problem solved! After painfully going through each program and service and disabling and then trying, I've found the problem. There is a resident program called "PDVDDXSrv.Exe" from CyberLink from the program "PowerDVD DX" supplied by Dell. This program, if it runs in the background, will consistently cause a 3-5 second delay in loading menus, gear menus, maps, etc. as well as returning from the menus/maps. Ending this process completely solved the problem for me, and I have reproduced the problem by rebooting and running ArmA again, then disabling the PDVDDXSrv.exe and seeing the problem disappear! Will post a separate post w/clear title so people can see the solution.

I have the same problem here. There is a distinct 5-8 second delay between loading up the map or the ESC menu as well as returning from either menu or map to the 3D world. The delay is bad enough at times the ESC menu will simply go away by itself (as if it were waiting for something and simply timed out) and I will have to repeatedly hit ESC. I've noticed that during the delay the sound system finishes its sound sample and then freezes, no rendering is done (the display is "frozen"), and while I have a Logitech G15 keyboard which displays CPU load on a LCD screen, the display updates on the LCD screen freeze (the time stops, the CPU load display doesn't change) so I suspect some weird dead-locking issue. This happens in either single player or multi-player so it's not network related. Otherwise, the game itself runs smoothly so long as i don't try to access the map or the menu (including gear menu, forgot to mention). This problem occurred first with a nVidia 7900GS w/256MB VRAM and remained persistent on an upgrade to nVidia 8800GT w/512MB VRAM. The video drivers have been upgraded from latest official through betas through the newest released official 175.16 driver with no difference in behavior. Other FPS games including Rainbow Six Las Vegas 2, Company of Heroes, etc. have no such issues. I have no anti-virus programs running in the background. I do have the following background programs/processes: Pidgin 2.4.1, Daemon tools v4.123, Logitech SetPoint v4.40.88(for USB mouse button mapping, uberOptions XML modification applied), GB-PVR v1.2.9 (used as streaming cilent, no TV recording hardware installed), ActiveSync for Vista, Microsoft OneNote 2007, and Logitech Game Panel manager (for G15 keyboard). I have applied the Vista x32 SP1 patch, updated my DirectX 10 drivers manually, and updated my OpenAL drivers with no change in behavior. All other drivers are latest published from manufacturer/OEM. I have also tried a hacked version of Creative Sound Blaster drivers with no results. The system specification is: PC: Dell Inspiron Desktop 530 CPU: Intel Q6600 Quad-core, 2.4Ghz oc'd to 3.0Ghz Mem: 4GB RAM OS: Windows Vista Home Basic, SP1 Video card: XFX 8800GT w/512MB; nVidia official 175.16 drivers Sound card: On-board Realtek chipset and Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Arma: v.108 (US, Atari) patched to v1.12 beta Keyboard: Logitech G15 gaming USB keyboard Mouse: Logitech MX-1000 laser, USB with uberOptions hack Anyone have a suggestion? Thanks.

Not sure if this'll help, but sometimes I've had soundcards and other devices conflicting via IRQs. Worst was soundcard and video card. Check and see if they are sharing IRQs via Windows Control Panel. Unfortunately, with today's "super-smart" BIOS/PnP/Windows, you don't have a choice in assignment. I've found I've had to re-arrange cards here and there to alleviate this problem (of course, with PCIe video cards there's nowhere to move that, but you can often move the sound card around). Do you have any other devices that might either use up PCI bandwidth, say, a RAID/IDE controller that's in use while running the game, or any other devices? Good luck.

How do you get the additional details of memory usage in the RPT file? All I see are a series of errors and initialization comments - never any information on memory usage. Is there an additional command-line argument we need to get the program to report the memory usage? I would love to help out the developers by giving feedback, but so far I cannot tell whether any one option is better than the other. I have 4GB physical RAM, but with XP32 it only can use up to 3.25GB. I've tried -maxmem=512,1024,2048 but values larger than 512 often result in CTD. Meanwhile, setting to 512 does not appear to change anything that I can tell. In posting this poll, perhaps it would help if the developers can give us specific items to examine/check in order to best respond.

Am I missing something here? Why does the official website, www.armedassault.com/us list no updates for US v1.06->1.08, and the European download version says it's "Coming soon". Are these v1.06->1.08 patches legit? I've seen reference to them in the BIS Wiki and the sizes are about right, but are these, perhaps, "pre-releases"? Thanks.

On a related note, I think it would be very useful to have a "Assign lead" command, i.e. one can say "All, follow <n>". This would enable us to forcibly over-ride any bugs and also permit us to "give up" our leader spot at times if needed (or transfer to other online MP players).

Just a possibility, but I think these issues can also be caused by the graphics card running out of VRAM. Have you tried turning all settings to "Low/None" and seeing if it still appears? If so, then I suspect the problem is that your graphics card is getting overloaded and corrupted textures. I think I read somewhere that the system that ArmA used, due to porting from console, is streaming data into the graphics card with the possibility of overrunning the buffer. If true, then I can see how turning VSync "on" would help as well since it throttles FPS (if refresh is 60Hz, then refresh must be multiples of 60 or integral fractions, e.g. 30fps). I would think just about anything that can reduce the load on the graphics card (lower settings, VSync on, etc.) might help. Good luck.

Not sure what your exact issue/setup is, but I've had no problems assigning the various hat movements to "Look left/right/up/down". I'm using a Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS (USB connection) running ArmA v1.06 (works as well in 1.07betas), and I simply select the desired action, e.g. "Look left" and then move the hat in the desired direction. It should show up as an assigned button press. The thing I haven't figured out yet is which button to use to reset the view to center, e.g. when driving... Hope this helps.