Leopoldo

EDIT i was reading another thread about this issue and this tip was given to fix this when it happens, i have no idea yet if it works but i thought i would let you guys know, when i get around to trying it i will update, removing this tip if it doenst work or saying for sure that it does work TIP: And for the rare time it does happen, holding shift then typing: Keypad minus FLUSH hello I have managed to get ARMA 2 running pretty well with playable FPS at high detial/rez which i am happy about but i have 1 issue thats frustrating as it can cause me to lose lot of progress. Sometimes when playing ARMA 2 it will just cut out and go to the desktop, it could be called a crash to desktop but i dont get any error messages, nothing about driver issues and when i look under task manager ARMA 2 is still listed as running and when i look at my resources it still is actually using the CPU and Memory. The only thing i can do when this happens is manually End Task for ARMA 2, there is no way to get the game back on the monitor as it no longer appears on task bar or in the ALT+TAB list. This has happened a few times whilst getting out of vehicles but its started happening when i am saving a game. It will start to save, the screen goes a little darker and then the game just cuts out. Sometimes the save is successful but usually its not. I have tried reinstalling ARMA 2 but it still happens. It doesnt matter if my system is overclocked or running ats stock frequencies. I am running the game patched to 1.05 (as a matter of interest whats better to install all the patches in order or just install the latest 1.05 patch?) I tried to do a search an cant seem to find any threads relating to this, i am hoping i am not alone but i may be. Is anyone else suffering from this bug/glitch, is there a way to fix it? my specs are Intel i7 965 EE 3.20GHz EVGA X58 Classified Motherboard 3x2GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 2000 8-8-8-24 2x EVGA GTX 295 (Quad SLI, PhysX disabled) Intel 80GB SSD Gen 2 (OS Windows 7 Porfessional 64bit) 2x 300GB WD VelociRaptor (RAID 0) (Game data) 2x 1TB WD Caviare drivers (RAID 1) 1x 150GB Raptor (Misc, Page File) As an added piece of information as i am using an SSD for my OS drive i have put things lime "My Documents" folder onto my 150GB Raptor, its set up correctly and applications etc are able to find and use these folders. I am wondering though since this bug happens when i am trying to save it may be causing an issue with ARMA 2. ARMA 2 is able to save there, a folder for ARMA 2 was created correctly by the game and i have some saves in there but it may be that on rare occasions this is causing a bug to happen? It also occurred to me that this might only happen when the screen goes darker for things like saving and when it is "receiving" (loading). ---------- Post added at 04:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:58 PM ---------- i just found a couple of errors in Windows Event Viewer for ARMA 2, these are not actually reports for the CTD i have been talkinga bout but they may give an insight into a problem that may be contributing to it here is what the Event Viewer reports: Faulting application name: arma2.exe, version: 1.5.0.62017, time stamp: 0x4b2f54d8 Faulting module name: arma2.exe, version: 1.5.0.62017, time stamp: 0x4b2f54d8 Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x0062163a Faulting process id: 0x1458 Faulting application start time: 0x01caa098c983daff Faulting application path: E:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\Bohemia Interactive\arma2.exe Faulting module path: E:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\Bohemia Interactive\arma2.exe Report Id: c740dee8-0c94-11df-857c-001fbc015199 and another report Faulting application name: arma2.exe, version: 1.5.0.62017, time stamp: 0x4b2f54d8 Faulting module name: kernel32.dll, version: 6.1.7600.16385, time stamp: 0x4a5bdbde Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x0001135d Faulting process id: 0xc4 Faulting application start time: 0x01caa0f36d25c160 Faulting application path: E:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\Bohemia Interactive\arma2.exe Faulting module path: C:\Windows\syswow64\kernel32.dll Report Id: da771932-0ce6-11df-8bf2-001fbc015199

thanks man, just read this in another thread, good to hear that it does work.

Alot of people have been having this issue, its been discussed in this thread http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=94601 One person took the time to report the bug to BIS so if you guys can spare a minute you should sign up and then when your accounts activated (you just have to wait, sometimes can take a few days) and vote for this issue, the more votes the more likely something will be done about it. thanks.

With my experience thats pretty much baloney, there is just something wrong with the coding or driver optimizations for this game. check my specs in sig, my game is pretty much capped at 25-30FPS no matter what changes i make i still only get 25-30FPS, the good thing is that it doesnt ever drop really. On my low spec rig i actually get better FPS and thats only using a Intel core 2 Quad at its stock speed of 2.66GHz and a single GTX 285 at stock speeds. Everything about my second rig is mediocre or poor, i use an old Maxtor DiamondMax 10 for my OS and the game yet the game gets better FPS.

Thanks for the input sadly i dont think its anything i can utilise as i dont use any programs like Team Speak (TS stands for Team Speak?), i dont have anything like Messenger installed either. Its not caused by taskbar "pop-ups" for me. If it was then it still be a game problem as there is no way to get back into the game once you have been "taken out", although its still running in task Manager the ARMA 2 icon disappears from the Task Bar and its not available via the ALT+TAB menu. As for uninstalling my Virus Scanner i dont fancy doing that for one game. I was having an issue with slow loading textures and stutter which i fixed by putting ARMA 2 on my exclusions list, now my Anti Virus does not monitor/scan the game, so its pretty much like turning it off. My Page file size is 9216MB as i have 6GB of memory, i may give the 3x pagefile size a try (18432MB) as a band-aid until the cause of the excessive memory usage (if thats what it is) is fixed at BI's end and put out in a patch. I also make it a static size so the pagefile doesnt get de-fragmented.

I really do thank you for your input Bulldog but i have a hard time believing the whole "extra draw from ARMA 2) and here is why I can overclock my cards to 720/1552/1242(2484), thats one heavy OC from the stock 576/1242/1000(2000), i can run a loop of Vantage on eXtreme setting without issue. That includes a 4.0 Ghz OC on my cpu. I can run Furmark 1.8.0 and OCCT GPU stress test at those clocks. Also when playing ARMA 2 i can monitor GPU usage and most of the time the game only utilises 50% of each GPU, only rarely will it go up to 80%/90%. I guess there is the memory usage but Crysis uses the same if not more memory, so does GTA 4, Vantage also will use up all available memory on eXtreme. Maybe this is more Nvidia's fault for not bothering to make sure its SLI drivers 100% compatible with ARMA 2 which is a pitty because when you can play it it is a great game but in the state things are at the moment i play it less and less.

Its not an night time issue for me, it can be random but there are times its more likly to happen than others. When you get in or out a vehicle, when the system is going to load something and the screen darkens for the "receiving" text (anything that darkens the screen seems to eb able to trigger it), saving can cause it (agaijn screen goes darker for saving). If i use a UAV and zoom in on buildings etc eventually the rendering will go hay-wire and i can get this issue (sometimes i get a proper crash error). Using the binoculars to zoom in again can cause it. It can be night or day, mostly they have happened during the day for me. I also didnt start getting them until i had gotten to the Razor Two missions before that was pretty smooth sailing.

Its amazing how it seems people want to blame anything but ARMA 2 or Nvidia drivers. I clean out dust every week, my system can play any other game without issue,i have tested with OCCT 3.1.0, no memory errors and no errors whilst running the graphics stress test. I can also run Furmark no problem, 200 GPU's can handle alot of heat, with a stress test like Furmark on max settings for my system the GPU's get up to a temp of 90 degrees C with AUTO fan. I get no crahes, no artifacts or anything like that. Now my system has been rock solid for abut the past year, i then go and buy ARMA 2 and now i am being told my hard drive isnt fast enough, i have corrupt files, i have a PSU issue, i have bad cards, my cards are getting too hot, my overclock is not stable. Its funny how he easiest way to stop having any issues is to basically just stop playing ARMA 2 and everything back to rock solid stability. I dont have any overlocks at the moment even on my CPU as i am trying to troubleshoot ARMA 2. The only thing so far that seems to work is reverting back to earlier Nvidia drivers as the 195.xx series to current 196.xx series are junk when running SLI, the more GPU's you run the worse it gets, i am running Quad SLi so you can do the math. I went back to 191.07 drivers and so far i have not had this multi-colored crash yet, fingers crossed, if it happens i will update. To me most of these problems are pretty simple its either down to ARMA 2 as we all know its not a perfectly coded game, every review you read tells you the games full of bugs and then there are the crappy SLI drivers Nvidia have been putting out recently. Everytime i look in the ARMA 2 folder at those dump files they are always full of errors.

My cards are not overclocked.

DVD version here, purchased in the UK, i think it starts off at version 1.01.

thanks for informing me of the difference, i will give compatibility mode a try.

I get this also and it can cause crashes. If i look at a distant village with buildings sometime i can start to get this "flickering" where textures turn white, if i am zoomed in (like with binoculars) it can start to get progressively worse quickly before things just get so crazy the game crashes. Same thing can happen in helicopters or if i am using the UAV and i zoom in on a location.

This game is very strange, it plays better on lower end rigs than it does on high-end for those saying you need more memory, faster hard drives i say you need a faster hard drive, i dont agree unless that person is running 1x2GB of DDR1 333 with an IDE drive. My "spare parts" rig specs Intel Q9450 2.66Ghz @ 2.66GHz ASUS Maximus Extreme X38 Motherboard 2x2GB DDR3 1066 8-8-8-24 (thats some slow memory right there) 1x GTX 285 1GB @ stock clocks Maxtor DiamondMax 10 hard drive (really slow HD even though its SATAII and not only do i run the game from this hard drive i also run the OS on it and my pagefile). 19" Monitor (1400x900) I have the view setting jsut about maxed out and everything on Very high except AA, Post Processing, Anisotropic Filtering and Terrian detial? (the one that gets set to nromal with a high view distance). i get around 30-40 FPS, no stuttering (aslong as you keep your HD defragged and add it to the exclusions list for your Anti-Virus so its not scanned/monitored during play you dont need to get yourself an SSD or set up an 8GB RAMDisk just to play this game). Yet on my main rig i get around 15-25fps with the same settings and it seems to crash more, i have reinstalled many times, i use Windows 7 64 but so does my spare parts rig (i dont install carefully on that rig either). So it seems the lower specced rig that i dotn take as much care of when it comes to install etc will play better than a high-end rig that i have reinstalled about 30 times (i have reinstalled the OS twice). Quad SLI may be an issue, the game doesnt seem to crash as much if i use a single card. Also i have noticed that performance is pretty much capped in this game and its got nothing to do with CPU speed or Hard Drive, 3.30Ghz gives the same performance as 3.70Ghz/4.0Ghz and if a Maxtor DiamondMax drive can allow this game to play smoothly anything can. If i lowe setting (quality/detial/resolution) instead of a FPS increase i basically get a lower utilization of my GPU's (which i can monitor with EVGA Eleet) so no matter what changes i make i get the same FPS due to the GPU utilization. I am going to try turning off Hyper-Threading and see how that goes but if that doenst stop the game from crashing (textures go all white then he game slows down before it finally freezes, this usually happens if i zoom in whilst using the UAV or looking at a far away village through my binoculars or it can happen randomly, usually in a helicopter where again you can see more of the area around you) then i am probably just going to shelve the game, i have put too much time and effort into troubleshooting this game and in general nothing really makes any difference. Its either a game code issue, a problem with Nvidia Drivers (GTX 295/Quad SLI), the Operating System or a combination of some or all of those but thats down to BI to get sorted, they made the game, most other games play perfectly so they need to ind out whats causing these issue and if its to do with Nvidia drivers and/or the OS they need to start talking with Nvidia and Microsoft. I kind of knew what i was getting into with this game, infact due to the reviews i read i wasnt going to buy it (they pretty much stated the game was full of bugs and the performance was poor) but when i saw it reduced by about 75%, i got it for round £8.00, i thought i couldnt lose really. I like the gameplay/style but the execution of the game is poor.

I dont use any mods and i read from patch 1.05 there is no need to do the XP compatibility thing.

I dont think it has that much do to with the CPU to be honest, running at 3.30Ghz for me gives the same FPS and smoothness as 3.70GHz. The main issue is that changing settings instead of increasing FPS what it actually does is lower the GPU utilization, its although ARMA 2 has some sort of cap in place that the performance cant go over. I have tried all these changes and when i have the game paused, making changes with the graphics options i do see the FPS change but as soon as i go back to playing the game it always drops to the same FPS. This game actually runs better on my secondary rig so for those who say you need a good harddrive is pretty much a load of rubbish as the game plays fine on my ancient Maxtor drive, a Diamondmax10, it has very poor performance and i run not only the game from that hard drive but the OS and the pagefile is also on that drive, aslong as you exlucde the game from being scanned/monitored by your Anti-Virus software it will play fine without lag/slowdown or textures not laoding. I have my Q9450 set to stock 2.66GHz, i have 2x2GB DDR3 1066 8-8-8-24 memory and a single GTX 280. The game actually plays better on that rig than it does on the one in my sig. I am going to try turning Hyper-Threading off to see if that makes a difference as it may be the reason for the crahsing on my main rig that doesnt seem to happen on my secondary rig and i have the in game settings set pretty high on my "spare parts" secondary rig (it also runs windows 7 64). ARMA 2 is the only game that gives me problems on my main rig, its all very well blaming everything on the hardware but the simple fact is every other game plays nice with thiss hardware, ARMA 2 is the only game that has issues and if you read reviews all will tell you the game is buggy as hell, infact from the reviews i read i was not even going to buy it until i saw it for the bargin price of £8.00, reduced from its full price, if it wasnt for that i would never have picked up the game. I have reinstalled me OS a couple of times because of this game and i have reinstalled the game because people were telling me "oh it might be your OS" or "oh its probably some of the game files are corrupt" yet everytime the same thing happens. If the game runs fine on your rig be thankful as thats not the case for every configuration ad it seems the higher end your rig is the more crappy ARMA 2 plays, this may be a Quad SLI issue i dont know.

thanks for the reply I have tried running the game on my raptor drive, doesn't make any difference. i have tested other games to see if its possibly my system but i had no issues until i started trying to play ARMA 2 and i till have no issues with any other games or benchmarks. to me this seems like an issue with Nvidia drivers and Quad SLI and possibly the game itself. For example i get a negative value for 3D performance in the ARMA.cfg

SSD didnt really help anything for me, there is a problem with the game and how it runs with the GTX 295. If i turn everything to the lowest settings possible, instead of getting a FPS increase i just get lower GPU utilization (which i can monitor through EVGA's eleet). Its the same with increasing GPU frequency, instead of increasing FPS it just means the GPU is not utilized as much. Something is not playing nice or is capping performance for my config that nothing is helping. I am going to try some old drivers see if that helps but i am not going to remove one of my GTX 295's just to play ARMA 2. The latest Nvidia drivers are junk and have been ever since 195.xx really, supposedly the 191.xx series drivers could kill hardware that had the nForce 200 chip on it, atleast for EVGA Motherboards.

ouch yeah, maybe wait and see if someone else can give you something to try before reinstalling, also with steam games you can do a back-up, you may or may not include the problem on that backup but it may be worth a try first.

Ok this type of "crash" is now happening for me when i use the UAV, sometimes when actually viewing the UAV camera it will kick me from the game to desktop or when i try to exit the UAV it will do it. very very very very frustrating, i am almost at the end of my tether with this game, i am close to putting it in a dark corner and forgetting about it.

I have a similar issue but it doesnt happen in game, the game will get to a point where textures/etc are so messed up that the game will crash (textures unloading and then reloading, shadows being where the should not be), eventually things get so messed up that the game crashes, i am then met by my desktop covered in these multi-colored pixels. restarting my machine gets rid of them and i have no issue with any other game. this only started happening when i put ARMA 2 on my SSD. ARMA 2 is the only thing that gives me issues and my hardware has been performing perfectly until trying to play this game and i only have issues when trying to play this game.

i have the same feeling at the moment, it seems the more you try and tweak things to help this game the worse it gets. My last attempt to fix performance, by putting the game on my SSD ended up in a spectacular fail. Nothing else had changed just removed the game from my VRaptors and put the game on my Intel SSD. to begin with everything was great and i replayed a portion i had played many times before but this time all hell broke loose. I had the chopper on the Razor2 mission take me to the base you are given a waypoint to talk to someone, well when i was almost there there was some loading lag/freeze and then it got continually worse before the whole thing just crapped out, i had textures loading and unloading at different times, i had shadows appear over everything then disappearing, eventualy it go do bad the game just packed up and i crash to desktop. Now here is the kicker and something that has never happened before i had a bunch of multi-colored pixels all over my desktop. I thought maybe one of my cards had finally died but when i restarted my machine and tried crysis, COD: MW2 and other games they all ran fine, I tried ARMA 2 again but the same exact thing happened around the same area. I really am sick of this game now, i had gotten to a point where it was playable, smooth decent FPS (but not as much as i would expcet for my machine) but i had annoying crash to desktop (well it was not really a crash, there was no error messages but arma 2 would disappear off screen, booting me to desktop but was still running in Task Manager and using resources but there would be no way for me to get the game back except to End Task and restart the game) it seems trying to alleviate this problem and increase FPS just made things a whole lot worse, i am now worried this game might actually damage my machine.

now you have a copy of your saves maybe reinstalling the game may help?

wrong the X38 and X48 socket 775 chipsets supports DDR3 (Dual Channel) as does the P45 chipset. Also those with Dual GPU cards, the important thing for games such as ARMA 2 is "Dedicated GPU Memory" On the GTX 295 dedicated GPU memory is 896MB not 1792MB. A GTX 296 as 2x896MB and it also has 2x GPU. That means each GPU has "Dedicated GPU memory" of 896MB. The reason for this is on Nvidia cards PU's can only access their own Dedicated GPU memory, so a single GPU on a Dual GPU card can not access all 1792MB and also with the way SLi is set up the data stored in the Memory must be stored in each GPU's memory, this means that the data is duplicated, so if you enter 896MB (or the byte equive;ant) into ARMA 2 it will use the 896MB for GPU1 but it will also duplicate it for GPU2 Dedicated Memory meaning that all the memory is being used. this is the same for all nvidia Dual GPU cards (its the same principal for SLI, if you have 2 GTX 285's in SLI you dont have 2GB of memory, you have 2x1GB, which means 1GB of Dedicated Memory per GPU, as with the Dual GPU cards the game data needs to be duplicated and stored on each GPU's dedicated GPU Memory), this is also correct for ATI cards running in Crossfire or Dual GPU ATI cards. ---------- Post added at 12:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:37 PM ---------- you may be good at modding cases and whatnot but your a little clueless about hardware, there is no such thing as a D0 stepping 965, might want to change that to C0 (C0 is whats used for a C0/C1 stepping)

I have the latest intel chipset drivers. All my other drievrs are up to date also. This game really is starting to bug the hell out of me, i had gotten to the stage where that i was getting a smooth experience and good FPS, i was just getting these random CTD, it seems the more i tried different things to fix this issue the worse things got. I had read about a fast hard drive making all the difference so i put ARMA 2 on my Intel SSD, to begin with all was fine but then it started having a real hard time updating the graphics and then it just froze, i guess because things started to go hey-wire (loads of weird texture effects, different parts loading and then unloading), it then crashed but this time i have a load of different colored pixels all over my desktop. This happened twice, i thought oh no one of my cards has crapped out but i tried other games and they work fine. I am glad it seems some people seem to be able to play this game without issue but it looks determined to try and kill my PC.

that would just mean there is less to render i am not sure what your trying to say, i think your trying to say that the benchmark is not a good representation of the performance you will get in game, which is exactly what i said and cant understand why you seem determined to argue that point with me. I disagree that the benchmark is not like playing the game, its exactly the same, there is nothing done differently in the benchmark thats not done when actually playing the game. Whether you can control the character (it being on a rail) or in first/third person view is irrelevant. Thats the whole point of the benchmark, the results are misleading however due to how they have chosen to move the camera view. Misleading doesnt mean its not using the same resources and rendering exactly the same as it would if you were playing the game but the average FPS it reports is misleading about how those quality settings might perform when actually playing the game.