AMiRAl

(sorry for double-posting, but my precedent is less in the subject of ATI 48xx issues) Thr0tt is right, what leads to this bug on our systems ? do we need to force a parameter somewhere in the game config files about quantity of memories ? or in the CCC ? at the beginning i was wondering if the game 'believes' that i have 1 'true' Gb of video ram available, that's why he would keep on filling it, above the 512Mb max (that are really available for the first GPU ... X2 inside :butbut:), and never start recycling it ! (Crossfire : on, 512Mb detected on each 2in1 card in ATI Tools) as shown on the graph above, after a -flush or a Alt-Tab to desktop, it's ok again, almost instantly, the engine could do this automatically and a smarter way as soon as vram ressource gets low, just before the artifacts attack ! do our systems have unbalanced video ram, system ram, extended ram (pagefile) than common ? or is it purely a game or CCC parameter ? or video driver or BIOS problem (video memory management, fragmentation, recycling ?) i'm sick and tired with this game and driver testing and tuning, i expected it for months, pre-ordered it, promoted it around to my game and even airsoft pals lol, prepared my good (in other games) old rig, but still can't play it ... :mad::mad: X2

Generally (with Windows OS) it is optimal to have its Pagefile.sys, near the beginning (= the center in case of a classic hard DISK drive, because all transfers are quicker there) of a distinct physical disk than the OS and program (/ game) files. and so the computer can access and "busrt read" the ressource files on the OS&program physical disk, while loading ("burst write") and work with this data in pagefile.sys on the second disk (quicker is better, for example a 'vRaptor' 10000tpm). if it's well balanced (roughly, a disk or raid or ssd reads at least twice faster that it can write) it's optimal for loading and working in pagefile by limitating impact of concurrent access to 'dead' data, etc ... while working in pagefile, which is an slow but big extension of your 'alive' RAM. it seems that arma 2's engine doesn't use the fast System RAM on the Mobo to keep textures data, for the graphic card to work with ... but it loads them in the pagefile, on a hard drive which may be much slower in access, read, write !? i think that a small fast 10000tpm disk for pagefile.sys would do quite well too. but as i have already a raid of two 7200tpm hard disk with xp and arma2 installed on, i wanted to try a SSD fast enough (tiny capacity but with RAM cache). i've read, but i can't remember where, a post of a BiS dev who gave these advice to a player with a high-end system wanting to play on awesome resolution and quality : use a SSD. Indeed it must be better that the system loads texture ressource as quickly as possible in pagefile, and then that the graphic card picks (/ and works?) the texture data in a fast access, fast read, fast transfer disk ... a SSD :o frankly it "feels" better with SSD than with my pagefile on the same Raid as Windows and Arma 2 files ... quick loadings, relative stability in framerate (no more sudden <10fps incidents), no blank textures. but sorry i have no measurement to show, since i'm still struggling with artifacts for now, a few hours each week (... caused by the poor management of VRAM, on the Graphic Card, that fills up to no good :( ) @Basil Brush, you should try to completely move your pagefile.sys to the ssd too (reboot needed). in my opinion that's this file who needs critically the more disk performance, once the game is launched and loaded ;) i may try to reinstall Arma 2 on mine too, next to my pagefile, to grab a little more loadings secs, but only if its 'internal' transfer rates are better than transfer from my raid to the ssd (all sata II, sata (I) is really slow in comparison). anyway, pay caution when resizing, relocating or defragmenting your windows pagefile ...

+1 i hadn't seen you post yet, but that is exactly what i noticed with ati tray tools last night (screenshots available if needed) too. huge artifacts come *always* and *only* when the Free Video RAM reaches 0 on this graph. even on low settings, it takes a little more time to fill but it still happens ! on 'normal' or mixed 'normal/high' settings, it takes only 1 or 2 minutes of wandering (and shooting) in the first mission of harvest red, and it gets totally unplayable : artifacts explosion ! "alt-tab" to desktop, see the graph and the Free VRam instantly reset to 512Mo, go back in the game ... okay for the next one or two minutes, repeat. :/ that's not about temperature (highest video card sensors don't even reach 70°C with arma 2 and fans set to 40%) i got plenty of crashes to desktop with Catalysts 9.6 + CCC (AI Off) or huge slow downs ... and artifacts, so i'm running the Catalyst 9.5 without CCC (but Crossfire activated and options controlled by Ati Tray Tools) C2D @ 2.8Ghz ASUS Mobo 2Go DDR2 Corsair DC non-o/c Sapphire HD 4850 X2 1 Go stock (= only 512Mo per each GPU, Video Memory = Normal in Arma2) XP(32bits) SP3 + Windows Pagefile on a SSD Drive (with SDRAM as cache) for the textures System and Game on a Raid i try to play at least 1440*900, or 1600*1050 (22"). all other games are really great at this resolution with this graphic card ... now i'm very very disapointed with Arma2 performances. i can't play it yet ! so loading, paging and temp problems have been dealt with, now it doesn't crash, doesn't dramatically slows down, it can be (very) beautiful, and playable (25-50 fps) ... for some time, but quickly, always, it gets out of VRAM !? only a manual Alt-Tab to the desktop can free it, so how can it work by others ppl with 'only' 512Mo Video Card too !? (seeing my graphs i guess i'll still get the artifacts (ok, later) even with the 2Gb version (2*1024) of my 4850 X2, since step by step VRam consumption gets bigger and bigger, no matter the options) :(

Hi everyone, and thanks for the tips. @Brainbug : i will try this asap. indeed, i experiment the same artifact problem from the first time i've launched the game (yesterday :rolleyes:). it happens fast in the middle of nowhere in Chernarus land too, when looking in a given direction. the higher my video options are, the faster it appears. with a Sapp. HD 4850 X2 1Gig ( C2D @ 2.8GHz, 2 Gb RAM, Xp, Dx 9.0c march 2009, CCC 9.6, ArmA II 1.02, very high, 1680x1050 100%) the 'anisotropic filter' option was locked on ("4x" if i remember well) in my arma 2 advanced video option menu. i couldn't change it. i'll try and disable it in the CCC to try this workaround, and give you feedback. i really hope that Bohemia and/or ATI give us a real fix soon ! Edit (June 24th) : in fact disabling 'anistropic filtering' helps quite a lot, i can play much longer without getting artifacts ... but it doesn't completely solves the problem sometimes in places rich in objects (villages center) : they still suddenly appear and then go in seconds. so as proposed in firsts posts i manually set my GPU fans above 45% (hopefully i use a headset when playing !) and i was freed of these annoying polygons for this time. i may check every other workaround too, since it seems that multiple factors lead to this.