MavericK96

Yeah, I could do that, though it seems silly that I should have to revert back to a 10-year old OS with no 4+ GB RAM support in order to run a game that is supposed to be more or less current-gen. Most people these days are running Vista/7 so it should work fine with these. I do understand your point, though, and yes, a lot of games seem to run better on XP.

I just did some additional testing (same procedure as my post above) with the beta, and actually the texture streaming/stutter is GREATLY improved when flying over Chernogorsk. I still will eventually get the massive slowdown/slideshow, but interestingly in the beta, it is Core 1 (2nd core) that is maxed out while the others are doing nothing, unlike 1.05 where it's Core 3 (4th core). Very strange indeed. However, I was able to crank the view distance to 10k and, while not entirely "smooth" (probably due to having all my other settings cranked pretty high), the stutter was greatly improved while looking around. It was actually halfways playable while flying in the beta. So, good job devs on that front! There is still the issue with the random massive slowdowns, but so far I haven't gotten the beta to "crash", per se, but it will slow down to a point where I'll be getting about one frame every 3 seconds, and it's impossible to input commands because it's almost like the game is practically frozen. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with turning off Threaded Optimization in the video drivers to fix the "v-buffer error" crash, but it might suggest something like that because threaded optimization deals with multiple CPU utilization, whereas when the game starts utilizing only one core, the game slows to a crawl and becomes unplayable. Interesting stuff. Hopefully the devs can get this ironed out in the next patch.

Actually a few things: 1) I typically run the game at 3900 VD because that is the max that will still allow Very High terrain detail. I was just using 10k as an example because I have tried it, and it gave me unplayable slideshow stutter. 2) I've tried with SLI on and off, and SLI definitely boosts my framerate a LOT, so I think the scaling is working fine. 3) I have Hyperthreading turned off, and have pretty much ever since I got the i7 because I overclock and the temps were insane with it on. Plus, like you said, in games it can either hurt performance or simply not do anything at all, so I have it off. I seem to remember this game running a lot better back before Vista/7, but I could be wrong. I do have my settings at Very High but my framerate itself is totally fine, the problem is the stutter caused by streaming, and I can't seem to figure out how to alleviate it. ---------- Post added at 01:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:36 AM ---------- I just did a little bit of testing and found some interesting results. When I fly over Chernagorsk in an F35B (my standard stability test) I get fairly moderate stutter and lower framerate, as could be somewhat expected. However, during this time my primary CPU core (Core 0) is only hovering around 25% usage, whereas the other three cores (Cores 1, 2, 3) are around 50% or more. Then, when I get massive slideshow stuttering, which gets progressively worse and usually indicates a pending crash (and is 100% reproducable by simply flying low and fast over Chernagorsk and Elektro-(something)), The usage on Core 3 (the 4th one) skyrockets to like 75%+, and the others are doing practically nothing during this time. So it seems to me there is some sort of problem with the way the game utilizes multiple cores. Specifically, it is not only not using them to their full potential, but it also hits a point where it has an error and starts using only one or something (in this case, Core 3). I even tried downclocking my CPU (because I have it overclocked to 3.8 GHz normally, and has been 100% stable since I bought it over a year ago) and there's no difference in crashing/stutter. Hopefully this information is helpful to the devs. It's not directly related to only the beta, but 1.05 as well.

Well, even with an SSD I have the massive stuttering with high VD. Hell, even when I tried using the RAMdrive I didn't really see any improvement, so I'm wondering what's going on that I can't get decent non-stuttering performance in this game. My rig is just as good if not better than many who are claiming smooth performance. :(

I'm just wondering, what are you guys running where 10k VD is smooth for you? Like for me, the framerate after it loads everything is fine, but when it's loading stuff (when turning around or moving quickly forward, etc) I get MASSIVE stutter, to the point where it's a total slideshow, until I've turned all the way around and it loads everything. Then sometimes, zooming in and out causes the same massive stutter (like, 2-3 seconds per frame). I'm running a pretty fast rig and have the game on an SSD, but I still get this issue. Any ideas what could be causing it?

What are your specs/settings? I've been having the Default Video Memory crash issue for a long time now, and so have some others it seems.

UPDATE: Turns out, doing the same test in 1.05 over Chernogorsk with the F35B yields similar results, though a different error message: Error during v-buffer creation: error 8876017c Error during v-buffer creation: error 8876017c Error during v-buffer creation: error 8876017c Error during v-buffer creation: error 8876017c Vertex Buffer too small (17075<16384) Vertex Buffer too small (22059<16384) So it seems that turning off Threaded Optimization did not entirely fix the issue with Default Video Memory. :( Though the error is slightly different (now has that bit about the Vertex Buffer), it still gets the v-buffer creation error over and over. Turning off Threaded Optimization definitely improved it, since before when I was doing the same test with a Cobra instead of the F35B, I couldn't get it to crash. Presumably this is because the Cobra is slower and didn't put as much of a strain on texture streaming, but it was really easy to get it to crash before in the Cobra, while turning off Threaded Optimization made it much more difficult, so it did have some effect. Also, it's worth noting that doing the same fly-over test in the F35B, the beta actually did seem a lot smoother over the cities, until the slowdown started occurring due to whatever is causing the error messages.

Doing my standard routine of low, fast flybys over Chernagorsk with an F35B, I got massive slowdown after about 3 passes and had to close the game using CTRL-ALT-DEL. Looking in the .RPT file gave me a bunch of this stuff repeating: Error during v-buffer creation: error 8876017c Virtual memory total 2047 MB (2147352576 B) Virtual memory free 88 MB (92520448 B) Physical memory free 3128 MB (3280846848 B) Page file free 4095 MB (4294967295 B) Process working set 1288 MB (1351180288 B) Process page file used 1510 MB (1583894528 B) Runtime reserved 719 MB (753926144 B) Runtime committed 586 MB (614985728 B) Longest free VM region: 7536640 Small mapped regions: 8, size 32768 B Also, after that repeated several hundred times, there was some of this: Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 3980 KB, error 8 Virtual free 23416832 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 3275751424 B Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 3984 KB, error 8 Virtual free 23416832 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 3275751424 B Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 3988 KB, error 8 Virtual free 23416832 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 3275751424 B Etc, etc. And then, the very last thing in the file, oddly enough, is this: File read error: addons\plants2_tree.pbo,ERROR_NOACCESS Error 3e6 reading file 'addons\plants2_tree.pbo' ErrorMessage: There’s a problem with the disc you’re using. It may be dirty or damaged. Which makes no sense, because the disc was never in, since it's not required. Hopefully these error messages are helpful, though. Performance seemed about the same as 1.05, with slowdown over the cities, though that is probably due to the memory leak or whatever this is occurring, since the slowdown got worse each time I flew over.

Yeah, personally I would go for the GTX 480 over those, unless you play at a ridiculously high resolution or something.

(Cross-posting to this thread also because I meant to actually post it here) Just did some minor testing with Benchmark 2: Settings: AA = Low Video Memory = Default VD = 3905. All else, Very High Tests: ArmA2 1.05, no command line modifiers: 20 FPS ArmA2 BETA, no command modifiers: 21 FPS ArmA2 1.05, using -cpuCount=4: 21 FPS ArmA2 BETA, using -cpuCount=4: 20 FPS Conclusion: So, pretty inconclusive. Or rather, shows me that the beta didn't make any real framerate difference for me, nor does using the cpuCount attribute on my i7 920 seem to do anything for framerate. Notes: -My HT is turned OFF. This is because I'm overclocking and having it on raises temperatures considerably. I turned it off a long time ago because after reading benchmarks for gaming and normal use, almost nothing takes advantage of HT with 8 cores. -In the beta, the game ""seemed"" like it had more stutter. Of course this is subjective, as it's not a framerate issue, but it seemed to stutter a lot more than 1.05. -The beta also had a glitch where the mountains in the far distance would sort of disappear at the beginning of the benchmark and then reappear as you got closer. This did not occur at all in the 1.05 version. On the second run of the beta (with cpucount=4 enabled), it was less noticeable, but they still seemed to "warp" slightly. -I didn't get any sort of ground textures disappearing or white boxes at all in either beta run.

Just did some minor testing with Benchmark 2: Settings: AA = Low Video Memory = Default VD = 3905. All else, Very High Tests: ArmA2 1.05, no command line modifiers: 20 FPS ArmA2 BETA, no command modifiers: 21 FPS ArmA2 1.05, using -cpuCount=4: 21 FPS ArmA2 BETA, using -cpuCount=4: 20 FPS Conclusion: So, pretty inconclusive. Or rather, shows me that the beta didn't make any real framerate difference for me, nor does using the cpuCount attribute on my i7 920 seem to do anything for framerate. Notes: -My HT is turned OFF. This is because I'm overclocking and having it on raises temperatures considerably. I turned it off a long time ago because after reading benchmarks for gaming and normal use, almost nothing takes advantage of HT with 8 cores. -In the beta, the game ""seemed"" like it had more stutter. Of course this is subjective, as it's not a framerate issue, but it seemed to stutter a lot more than 1.05. -The beta also had a glitch where the mountains in the far distance would sort of disappear at the beginning of the benchmark and then reappear as you got closer. This did not occur at all in the 1.05 version. On the second run of the beta (with cpucount=4 enabled), it was less noticeable, but they still seemed to "warp" slightly. -I didn't get any sort of ground textures disappearing or white boxes at all in either beta run.

Just for the sake of clarity, what does the cpuCount=4 actually "fix" for the i7 920? I have the same CPU and I don't use the attribute, but I haven't really noticed any problems, per se. Does it just increase performance? I feel like I've adding the command before but not really seeing a difference in core usage or anything. I'm also running Win 7 64, same as you.

Is this referring to the "warping" terrain a ways in front of you when you look sort of at the ground? I remember noticing this problem from a long, long time ago.

I think it's referring to this part: GPU_MaxFramesAhead=1000; GPU_DetectedFramesAhead=4; Try changing those to 1? Also, your non-local VRAM seems low. Mine is set (automatically by Arma2.cfg) to about double my local VRAM. You could try manually setting it to double what it is now and see if that helps at all. Also, check your page file settings in Windows and make sure you have that set up correctly.

Thanks for the update! It helped me and hopefully it can help others with the same issue. Also, it's worth mentioning that the 197.55 drivers only support the GTX 480, and specifically only add support for 4-way SLI.

Try turning off Threaded Optimization in the nVidia Control Panel. I posted this in the other beta thread (thanks to sprayer_faust for the information) but I'll post it here as well. Not so much a fix as a workaround, but after doing that I've had zero crashes with the "error in v-buffer" stuff. No performance difference between Threaded Optimization on/off that I could see.

Interesting, yes, though I still consider it to be a workaround. Though maybe knowing that will help you guys figure out what the issue is. :cool:

Well, I just received a PM from sprayer_faust regarding these crashes, and he suggested that I turn off Threaded Optimization in the nVidia control panel. Turns out, with my standard crash test (low flybys over Chernogorsk) I was unable to get the game to crash! I will do more testing, but it seems like for the moment at least, this has fixed, or at least worked around the issue for me. Let me know if you have any luck as well. I didn't notice any performance difference between Threaded Optimization on or off.

Yep, pretty much a fresh install of ArmA2, fresh install of Win7, fresh beta install.

Also worth noting, when I was testing the Default video memory crash, once when I did it (a couple low flybys of Chernarus does it every time) I instead started to get MASSIVE rendering errors, with black dots all over the screen and then random grey/white polygon flashes. When I exited to Windows, some of the black dots were still flashing around on my screen. I've tested my GPUs with FurMark Xtreme Burning mode for 15+ minutes, and never do the cards get over 90C, nor do they artifact at all, so it is NOT a heat issue. Something is very wrong with this beta's rendering methods, and I'd exercise caution when using it.

Just FYI, it did not fix the Default video memory setting crash. Same "v-buffer creation error" as before, along with it seems a new error, something about "Vertex buffer, out of memory?" I posted in it the other beta thread.

Just tried with Very High video memory setting. Stutter actually seems worse, and I'm only using ~3900 VD. LOD thrashing might be slightly improved but performance-wise it seems either the same or worse than before. :( Did not notice the white ground while flying around, but I didn't test for that long.

About the same performance for me, and sadly it does not fix the Default video memory crash. :( Though it did introduce a new error when it crashed, on top of the "v-buffer" thing: Error during v-buffer creation: error 8876017c Error during v-buffer creation: error 8876017c Vertex buffer needs to be created before rendering. Out of memory? ca\buildings2\houseblocks\houseblock_a\houseblock_a2.p3d Vertex buffer needs to be created before rendering. Out of memory? ca\structures\rail\railway\rails_linebreak_concrete.p3d Vertex buffer needs to be created before rendering. Out of memory? ca\buildings\misc\plot_green_vrat_r.p3d Vertex buffer needs to be created before rendering. Out of memory? ca\rocks2\r2_rockwall.p3d

Versus conventional hard drives, I'd say SSDs, even in their current form, are probably a lot more reliable and long-lasting.

If this fixes the Default video memory crash, I will love you long time. ^__^