Bad Pilot

I run a dedicated server and have noticed that the 2nd beta for 1.07 crashes to desktop at least once a day. Previously, it was fine on 1.05 Beta and then on 1.07 first Beta. I've set my server to reboot at 04h00 every day because of this. Anyone else have this? My system: - Athlon XP 3000+ 2GB RAM. XP Pro SP2. No display, keyboard or mouse attached.

So, you dramatically increase a gfraphics setting and predictably lose fps. Then you want someone to fix your low fps? Gee, let me think... Turn your goddamn settings down.

How can I make my ArmA server's ping show in the ingame browser screen? It's running on dedicated hardware with 100mb ethernet into my 6mb UK BT HomeHub ADSL modem/router. The max I've had connected in testing is myself on my client rig plus 8 others on internet connections, totalling 9 players, and I've had those players confirm the connection was solid and low ping. I'm not running anything except XP Firewall and the HomeHub's own firewall. I turned off all the firewalls and it still gave me a '?'. So I turned them back on. F

You can't choose things to exclude with the filter. Sometimes I want to exclude Evolution missions (no offense :P)... can't be done.

I've got 512MB DDR3 AGP and I've pretty much decided that an aperture of 128MB is optimum on my system. I say my system - but that's really two computers, as I've upgraded my Athlon XP 3000+ to an Athlon 64 2800+ a few weeks ago and the 128MB setting was best on both. F

I love it. I'm incredulous at people's complaints about graphics in ArmA. They're brilliant and evocative. The environments are lifelike and challenging. The skies, landscapes, weapons effects, weather and lighting are awesome. Loads of times, I've just stopped en route somewhere - even during a firefight - to look at the rising/sinking sun on the water or colouring the clouds. Playing ArmA immerses you in the authentic atmosphere, sights and the sounds of modern warfare isntantly recognisable from contemporary TV news reporting. It's buggy as hell but I'm glad I'm playing it instead of BF2142 or Red Orchestra. Each patch (anyone not using the beta patch needs to wake up and install it) brings significant changes and improvements. All future patches will also do this. Linux should be supported. VoN should be fixed ASAP. Graphics whingers should be shot for missing the point, after they've installed the beta patch and/or tried the US demo and still complain. F

In the past when my PC's rebooted it's been due to one of the following: - 1. Overheating. 2. Lack of power. 3. Starforce copy protection on a racing game. I'm always having to ramp up the PC cooling and room ventilation in the warmer months in order to prevent the computer overheating. Your PSU looks fine and should cope with you system OK. One area to think about is the video card: I have an identical Sapphire card and I've been amazed at the amount of discussion on their forums about powering the thing... Firstly, you have plugged two molex connectors into it haven't you? Secondly, you're advised to give thought to which molex connectors are used on the video card. It's got two power connectors because it needs loads of juice. It won't get that juice if your primary hard-disc and both video card sockets are fed off the same wire. In my system, two hard-discs are fed from one wire. Another wire goes into my DVD-RW and then into the Radeon (the thinking is that I'm never going to be hammering the DVD whilst hammering the Radeon). A third wire only plugs into the Radeon. F

I changed 1GB -> 2GB and noticed better performance, especially with the -maxmem startup parameter. Not sure if the beta patch needs the parameter...

It was nice to be back on Wednesday after a couple of weeks servicing the girlfriend.

Rather than deleting the folder (which ArmA may require), create a new player profile by clicking on the icon at the top of the main screen.

Well, I press SPACE to talk on VoN and I tap it and the microphone icon appears until I tap it again. Presumably, that means it's an on/off switch. What command is your CAPS-LOCK bound to? I'm really very bored of VoN not working. Very, very, very bored indeed. It's essential in Veteran mode for exchanging info with people who are with you when you don't know who they are. You can even prevent TK's by using verbal challenges. Did I mention how bored I was with this feature being broken? No? Well, I'm very bored.

I find it hilarious that people might be confused by the floating zone, or that they'll think it's a lag bug thing. I like the idea of the game coming with all keys unbound. First thing I do with every fps I get is to delete all the bindings. It's tedious to assign something and have the game say 'that key is already in use' whilst I'm setting it up.

Corrupt data isn't a good sign and clearly needs to be removed before you continue. You've probably got SATA which I know nothing about but IME, IDE drives can corrupt if the PCI bus is overclocked. Overheating can become an issue as the days get longer now (Northern hemisphere) and I'm a perfect example of that - my study has very poor ventilation and as summer I have a thing on my game where I start to get spear-like graphical glitches coming out of players' necks. When that happens I know it's time to take the lid off my PC. If I do, it calms down; if I don't, the game eventually crashes. F

I've played fps since the start and missed OFP. I come to ArmA with the floating zone and loved it from the start. I can't see any problem with it and I had no sense of having to get used to it. It's realistic so it's cool.

I never even notice the wild changes in scenery. I'm a dumbass - but happy.

The demo is well optimised, so the problem lies in your configuration. Tell us what you've got. And please confirm that you've successfully installed the downloaded executable and that it's the actual game that crashes. F

It can take a long time to join an Evolution mission. Several times, I've given up waiting myself on SuicideSquad and others. It's a feature of the mission that it requires so much work by the server to get a new connecting client singing off the same hymn sheet. Any time you think the PC has frozen connecting to a server, press escape a couple of times to fairly quickly return to the game browser.

if they remove the pagefile, 70,000,000 numpties will complain they get out of memory errors...

Had to do a lot of reading to find what your point was. you could have just posted the info. I'm unconvinced. Microsoft Memory Managers have always been the worst. Even back in DOS, I never let the OS manage my memory automatically. No reason to change now. F

My Computer Properties ------------------------- I don't have access to XP Home but this is how you do it in Pro: - 1. Click 'Start' 2. R-Click 'My Computer' & choose 'Properties' 3. Select 'Advanced' tab 4. Click 'Settings' in the 'Startup and Recovery' area 5. Use the drop-down to change 'Write debugging information' to '(none)' After doing that, you can completely switch off Pagefile. Don't switch off pagefile unless you have enough RAM! If I had 768MB of RAM and I played ArmA, I would leave the Pagefile on. Prefetch ---------- Prefetch has its uses - but none of those uses are useful to me. When I turn my computer on, I want it lean and mean; I want it the same today as it was yesterday. Prefetch 'speeds your system up' by ... slowing it down. Go figure. If you check your Windows\Prefetch folder, you might find 100+ objects with 5MB+. These are snippets of the top 100 (or however many) applications and system programs you use, and XP "helpfully" loads them ALL at startup in case you're going to use them. You can safely delete the contents of prefetch at any time. It'll rebuild its library as you use the computer. I disabled it in the Registry. Beta Patch ============ Has anyone experimented with mem settings for the beta patch? The changelog mentions RAM optimisations for systems with >1GB phsyical RAM... I've wondered whether this meaens I don't need the maxmem=1280 I use so far. F

Keep the clock. The more people who know how to tell the time, the better. For fun, I sometimes use the ArmA analogue watch as a compass. Doing that with digital is a pain in the ass. F

XP doesn't create hidden pagefiles if you turn off pagefiles. There's a BSOD memory dump setting you need to turn off in My Computer Properties in order to be able to negate the need for the 2MB pagefile. I'd do that anyway; you don't want memory dumps mouldering in your C:\ drive. My XP computer isn't very good and struggles with ArmA. To start with, I was playing with pagefile enabled on a separate hard-disc. Disabling the pagefile made the game run faster. After running like that for a day or few, I heard about and started to use the maxmem parameter because I have 2GB RAM. Initially, I made some mistakes by setting it too high: my AGP aperture was there hiding and when ArmA started using that RAM, it crashed. Now, I'm generally running ArmA with '-maxmem=1280'. Benefits of turning off the pagefile and increasing the game RAM include faster map screen switching and faster texture loads. The game just plain runs better. Turn off 'prefetch' too, and empty the windows prefetch folder. And upgrade Vista to XP :P. F

Check the similar thread in troubleshooting.

Ah, I was dubious because it talks exclusively about "parallel port" joysticks so haven't installed it. Will if I get time but my girlfriend's visiting at the moment

Did it work?