MavericK96

Well, I don't have enough RAM to try for more than about a 2.5 GB RAMdisk, but I have some results: With no RAMdrive, Build 70100 Beta, 1920x1200, PP low, Vid Memory Default, All else Very High: ArmAMark: 1st run = 4577.32, 2nd run = 4788.84 With 2.45 GB RAMdrive, same settings, using the files Vipera posted above, plus chernarus.pbo and chernarus_Data_Layers.pbo: ArmAMark: 1st run = 4580 something, 2nd run = 4885.15 Subjectively, the stuttering actually seemed about the same, maybe slightly less with the RAMdrive but not a lot, barely noticeable. However, objectively the framerate shows a fairly significant improvement, but really only in the second test run. This leads me to believe that more of the files that are needed but not in the RAMdrive are being loaded into RAM the first run, and once they are already pre-loaded for the second run, the game runs a lot better. Conclusion, I guess I need more RAM to load all, or almost all of the stock .pbos into. :(

Yeah, 70100 is definitely the best one out so far for me, subjectively (stutter) and objectively (FPS/crashing). Still has some issues but is by far an improvement over 1.05 and 70184.

Fill rate, meaning 3D Resolution. It's right below the primary resolution setting. Also, your desktop specs are a lot better than that laptop. :p Totally and completely wrong. ArmA2 definitely supports SLI and it utilizes all 4 of my cores.

I can't comment on 70184, because I got crashes with it so I reverted back to 70100, but I just did some ArmAMark with 1.05 and 70100, and the results are pretty significant: 1920x1200, All settings at Very High, except Post Processing at Low and Video Memory at Default First runs only: [u][b]1.05 Vanilla:[/b][/u] 57.6 [u][b]Build 70100:[/b][/u] 56.4 36.8 37.9 33.3 35.9 47.9 53.2 13.6 45.5 [b][u]Score:[/u] 3783.46 4577.32[/b] Obviously, 70100 is doing something right over 1.05. Especially in Test 5, where I'm guessing the new feature that eliminates grass at high altitudes is at work here. It's also interesting to note that I ran ArmAMark in 1.05 before I got my SSD, and my results were 2728.19, and that wasn't even with everything on Very High.

Does it on my rig, with everything at Very High (Video Memory at Default), VD at ~3500. If it's just me, I get 30-40 FPS fairly stable in Chernogorsk. With more AI and stuff, obviously a bit less but I don't think I ever drop below 20.

His specs seem to be a lot better than that M11x (quad vs. low-speed dual core, SLI vs. single GPU, etc.) so hopefully he should be getting significantly better performance. That said, I don't think it's realistic to expect even his laptop to get good framerates with everything at Very High @ 1920x1200.

For whatever reason, setting AA to Very High for me is very little performance hit versus Low or Normal, but setting AA to Disabled and cranking the 3D Resolution kills my framerate, even at 133%, especially 150% and above. It's unplayable at 200%, but it's completely smooth and playable with AA at Very High.

Well, I just ran the last 6 betas today for my benchmarking all in a row, only deleting the beta folder and then installing each concurrent beta, not changing the beta shortcut on my desktop at all. So whatever you're getting, it's not solely the fault of ArmA2 or even nVidia. That said, I agree with you about this new beta. The performance is worse and I got an Out of Memory crash fairly quickly with it. So far the best beta for me is still 70100.

Yeah, there is a lot going on AI-wise in the campaign missions, so that's not all that unsual. And yes, regarding GPU usage, ArmA2 seems to only use about 50%-ish of my GPUs when playing. It's mostly a fast CPU that helps a lot in this game, due to all the AI scripting going on. Though even then my CPU cores never hit above 75-80% utilization, but it's definitely a lot more CPU-intensive than GPU.

My guess (and this has no basis in anything the devs have said) is that it will come out around when Operation Arrowhead is released, possibly (hopefully) sooner.

Theses are just for users who want to test the betas before a final patch is released. I'm certain they will eventually release a 1.06 final patch, but for right now if you want to try the betas, you might get some of the benefits early rather than waiting for the final release.

Okay, just did some testing with the last 6 betas and 1.05, Benchmark 1 only. Semi-interesting results: Settings: All settings at Very High unless otherwise noted. -Post Processing at Low (I never saw a performance hit from turning it up, but I like the way it looks better on Low) -Video Memory at Default -View Distance at 3566 1.05: 49 FPS Build 63826: 48 FPS Build 69645: 48 FPS Build 69782: 48 FPS Build 70054: 46 FPS Build 70100: 48 FPS Build 70184: 45 FPS Notes: -While 1.05 seems to give the "best" performance, the stuttering is definitely a LOT worse than in some of the other beta builds. Since Benchmark 1 only measures average FPS, the stuttering doesn't really show up in the results. But believe me, it's a lot better in some of the other builds, specifically 70100. -The latest beta (70184) definitely messed something up performance-wise since the last beta (70100), since it is a full 3 FPS less and the stuttering seemed noticeably worse. -Overall, the best beta for me so far is 70100. I've gotten no v-buffer creation error crashes, and the performance stuttering-wise is much improved. I did still get a CTD after playing for a couple hours in MP, but it's still an improvement over the other builds, where I'd be lucky to play an hour without some sort of crash/slowdown/failure in the renderer.

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, considering I'm using nVidia as well and I don't get the shader error. What I meant by the shortcut is (example): Target: "C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\beta\arma2.exe" -mod=beta -nosplash -world=empty Start In: "C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\" Make sure it is like that and the "start in" is not in \ArmA2\beta

Maybe make sure that your shortcut "starts" in the ArmA2 folder, not the ArmA2/beta folder? That's all I can think of.

Well, whatever they did in this new beta actually (objectively) made the game worse for me. After flying past Chernogorsk only a few times, I got a complete CTD with an "Out of Memory" error (never really gotten that before). I also noticed a lot more texture flashing at a distance, and even sometimes the textures in my cockpit (A-10) would flash white for a brief moment. Here's the relevant portion of the .RPT: ErrorMessage: Out of memory (requested 3 KB). footprint 582916896 KB. pages 16384 KB. Link to 8a06571b (Obj-202,80:1819) not released Link to 8d0709d8 (Obj-225,104:472) not released Link to 8d27233a (Obj-228,105:826) not released Link to 8d471f05 (Obj-227,106:1797) not released Link to 8d471f06 (Obj-227,106:1798) not released Link to 8d471efe (Obj-227,106:1790) not released Link to 8d471702 (Obj-226,106:1794) not released Link to 8f4816fc (Obj-258,122:1788) not released Link to 8f4816fd (Obj-258,122:1789) not released That top message was actually displayed to me in a window after the game crashed to desktop.

One way to determine if anything has been done is to look at the patch filesizes. Build 69782: 20,627,181 Bytes Build 70054: 20,631,368 Bytes Build 70100: 20,631,946 Bytes Build 70184: 20,505,860 Bytes Interesting that each new beta up until now was larger than the last, and now this one is smaller. I haven't compared the actual arma2.exe filesizes, someone else can do that. And there's no real guarantee that the difference in size equates to actual useful changes. But it is interesting, nonetheless. :cool:

Just to be clear, I don't think changing graphics cards is going to fix the z-fighting, at all.

This is your problem right here. Even on my rig I can get some drops into the 20s if there's a huge battle going on around a large city. I think your resolution is killing you more than anything on that laptop. Try using a lower one (1680x1050 maybe?) and see if that helps. You have to realize that those GTX 280Ms are not equivalent to the desktop GTX 280s. They're actually a lot closer to a desktop GTX 250/9800 GTX+.

Same here. It definitely does work, and I don't have to rename any .exes or what have you.

I'm almost inclined to agree with this. :P But whatever, going from 1.05 to 7xxxx has definitely improved my performance and gameplay experience (i.e. much less crashing) so I'm sure there's some fixes in there somewhere.

Didn't realize there were new betas out for nVidia. Can you comment on whether or not they make a difference over 197.45?

The stuttering I'm referring to is not really very "micro", though. I do get some "micro" stutter when flying around, but it's hardly noticeable and doesn't bother me. I'm talking pretty considerable framerate drop stutter when turning quickly with Video Memory set to anything other than Default.

I was playing the beta on my favorite ACE server, and everything was going great (better performance than 1.05, no v-buffer crashes, etc.) until I was playing for 1.5-2 hours or so, and then suddenly the game locked up, no sound, nothing. I was able to ctrl-alt-del and it said the game was not responding, so I had to close it manually through the task manager. The error in the .RPT looks like this: Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 4952 KB, error 8 Virtual free 26939392 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 3192299520 B Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 4956 KB, error 8 Virtual free 26939392 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 3191926784 B Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 4960 KB, error 8 Virtual free 26939392 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 3191926784 B Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 4964 KB, error 8 Virtual free 26939392 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 3191926784 B ... Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 5160 KB, error 8 Virtual free 26939392 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 3188940800 B File read error: @ACEX\addons\acex_t_wep_mg.pbo,ERROR_NOACCESS Error 3e6 reading file '@ACEX\addons\acex_t_wep_mg.pbo' ErrorMessage: There’s a problem with the disc you’re using. It may be dirty or damaged. I think I posted about this issue before. Not sure what is causing it. EDIT: I've gotten the error before not using ACE, as well, so it's not that.

Good to hear! I still get the crashes fairly often in 1.05 even with Threaded Optimization off, but having it off does delay the crashes at least. I'm just hoping a final patch comes out soon with the beta fixes so I can play longer on my favorite server. :D

They're putting out beta patches at an alarming (read: awesome) rate, so I'm guessing a final patch is not too far off. @AnimalMother92 By the way, since I know you were having the "v-buffer creation" error...did the betas fix that for you? I still have Threaded Optimization turned off, but in the latest beta I haven't gotten a single crash due to that error.