deszythe

in towns or crowded place its usually lower yea but never (maybe in extreme cases such as 20 arty strikes blowing everything up around me) ever goes < 25 , which is the point were i realize "choppy" effect the other guy who has same GPU as u (6950) has 60-70 fps, you should get that too when everything runs perfect i guess ! in Takistan AA is the most critical variable to performance on my machine, on Cheranus ist VD

funny thing is my freind just call me, we made it he use my steam while i use his CD. lol he had alredy 3x crash

guys i have tested a round abit maybe it is still a CPU limit, BECAUSE, see in Chernaruss SP Maps in campaign mode (im talking especilly about the last missions where youre the commander), i get the CPU bottle necking even at very low viewdistance like 3500. then i have too reduced GPU usage (50-70%) and not so good fps (25-30) which stay the same even if i reduce reslution to like 800x600 (or what ever the lowest is), and normally im playing on 1920x1200 resolution... so its like CPU bottelnecking (funny thing is i have i5 2500k @ 4.5 Ghz), but when i degrease view sitance further then abracadabra the FPS rise like a rocket ! on Takistan it is realy 100% GPU and always 40-70 fps @ 5k view distance and i can even go to 8k view distance when im flaying a chopter the first Chernaruss missions, as well as Chernaruss Multiplayer, lies in between, and it yield 30-50 fps @ 5k view distance my settings are allways this: 1920x1200 (3d+interface), 5000km view sitance, Very High, texture high, memory high, AF veryhigh, AA low, object veryhigh, terrain high, shadows high, HDR high, post processing disabled), and my specs are i5 [email protected] ghz and ATI6870 so@OP have you tested Takistan map or only Cheranus

im now very sure this all is a problem of steam because now ive had clean install of the DVD version from a freinds DVD and no single problem, no single bug, nothing, despite running Avast which i originally thought to be the problem causer !!! yet i have tested this for 48 hours, and if it keeps stable and bugfree for 3 more days i will order my own DVD copy from Amazon and give Steam the middle finger :p

u speak russian ? i may be can halp translation

thecapulet i may have gotten one or two details wrong with multi GPU or in english, but youre getting more wrong than right now 1. believe me or not AMD drivers, when u install the driver suite with CCC, it CAN install shitty from time to time, may have something to do with virus protection or just shitty code or broken driver files on a hosting-mirror, have you written the CCC or read the sourcecode or why are you so sure it always installs fine on every machine in the world and how you explain google the many results where driver reinstall helped even its official troubleshooting suggestion from AMD!! rmeoval of driver can be done with driverCleaner in safemod ofc but i never found it a necessisity since Win7 (was different back in XP), just overwrite is fine 2. regarding BIOS update the idea is that ther maybe is bandwidth missing on the PCI-e slot, which can well be a reason of GPU not fully stressed in game, i think there was a bug in the release BIOS of an ASUS P67 or MSI board dunno wchich where it only gave 4x PCIe on the primary slot. of course its a rather exotic reason mostly its CPU bottleneck but that had been ruled out now (reduce resolution and view distance to minimum!), and of course the effective bandwith is NOT equal to only the way the PCIe slot is electrically bound, it also has to be support by chipset... and of corse effective bandwith its also to the bus of NB or respecivley BCLK!! there aer totally differnt!! 3. RenderFramesAhead is also one of teh most often successfully used vgadrivers tweaks in both Singel and multi GPU systems on the Bethesda-Engine RPGs, of course i dont know if tis in ARMA has the case but its definately not a multiGPU only parameter im not writing things out of my stomach but from my experience in building systems and fixing them. just a sec you say you gain plus 24 fps averaged-over-time (u mean not only for a few seconds in specific game situation or where its loading new textures or objects right??) in a game by overlcocking DRAM on sb from stock to 1900mhz swith other wise 1000% identicall settings system and gamewise ? i have trouble beliving this seriously u mean 2.4 fps ?!! even that is very much for RAM OC, especially on a sandy bridge platform, normally i doesnt have no significant impact on games and i dont know a single review or "official" benchmark result which would result in such a devastating gain of performance from RAM-OC. normally it looks like this: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=616&Itemid=99999999&limit=1&limitstart=7 http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=210&Itemid=99999999&limit=1&limitstart=6 if thats true you might have discovered some serious trick :D should dirt3 become a reference benchmark for comparing RAM haha. i mean seriously !! although i have a certain feeling it sounds more like one of kotovs motherboard stories

1333 Mhz DDR3 should be more than enough ! overclocking RAM is not bringing much performance on Sandy Bridge (a littel though... not much) the problem source is probably not hardware related though, i cannot say fully ! have you latest BIOS ? can you check with GPU-z if your GPU is fully powered with at lest 8x PCIe and has the bandwith it needs ? how about other games ? benchmarks ? so if other games etc run sufficient and GPU is used fully then the problem is PROBABLY software-related or driver related. sometimes AMD drivers install shitty, without any apparent reason, happened to me a lot of times already wwhere i reinstalled the driver and had a huge FPS boost in any game, maybe try that too maybe also try a different MEmory Allocator ? play around with RenderFrames Ahead in the graphic driver or wht its called may help too, it helped me to resolve a similiar issue (low GPU usage, low FPS) in Skyrim @theCapulet: you have 6970 or 6870 ?? EDIT: HAVE Another idea: is it possibel that you load the CAP (crossfire Application Profile) you would use for dual GPU also for single GPU ? it MAYBE causes your game to only partially use the GPU on the singel card ? actully first thing i would do is to de-install Graphic drivers and re-install them

srry didnt knoiw what "RAM disk" was ^.~ yes in my opion you can PSU rule out totally, also for Crossfire, because as i said either it works, or it crashes or turns off, but insufficient PSU does not only decrease FPS, this is impossibel in my eye i just checked its generally at 90 to 100 % also in fire fight with me. it just slightly drops to about 70 when theres really a lot of trouble on screen (artillery bombs and chopter crashes and so), then also FPS dropes, and it also drop a little when i zoom scope (to about 80) but then there no FPS drop i notice. on the other hand, i never have muich FPS generally (around 30-40 mostly, down to 20 in special situations sometimes, generally i have better fps in Takistan then in Chernaruss) i have max settings, except AA, and 6000 view distance ( i have the same CPU and same OC as you, but only 6870 gpucard) i hope youre not using the ugly 12.1 shit "preview" drivers or ? they suck very big!!! if use them make back to 11.12 ^^ whats your mother board ? using the primay PCIe slot yes ? have disabled lucid virtu if you have Z68 board? (this makes many problems on my machine) have maybe tried disable Anti Aliasing ? have AA setting in driver on "application controlled" ? maybe also disable VSync ? oh and i think there is some issue with post processing and shadows too maybe play around withj these two, better disable both for testing purposse

@alexc: Steam right ? yeah, saem thing here ! however i dont crash so often (maybe once per 4 hours), and so far only on Chernarus maps, so its playable, but it sucks ! i might try going back to 1.5x if you guys say it started with 1.60, this might be worth a shot !

whats your HDD ? Arma has insane texture streaming. i got like +100% smoothness when i switched from HDD to SSD. and if texture cant be streamed, well then GPU is of course not at full load and everything starts to choppy. but since you mention firefights there might be another issue (particle ?), i dont know. watch your HDD load ? whats your view distance how many meters btw ? the only thing i can tell you: its unlikely/impossible that the PSU is responsible for FPS drop PSU is either is good, or the computer shuts down or crashes or does other weird things, but not just decreased FPS do yu have a good (confirmed by others) CrossfireX application profile for ArmA2 ? you NEED a working application profile or CFX will not work or even make things worse, as you noticed !

dunno was talking about campaign singel player

okay i figure it is defiately only happen on the Chernaruss Map on certin circumtence but only Chernaruss. having the affected machine (it is actully only one, the only modern one heh) now run a Takistan Map for 20 hours straight and no crash with AVAST also be fully enabled and also maximum tolerable overclock added to complete system (BCLK 103.9 x 45 as well as GPU/VRAM 20% overclock) i will let it run few more hours the night through as i dont need the machien anyway now two things i want to test on this machine now is: - DVD version of game - 1.59 and latest BETA

yea its really weird, i can also play it on my very old Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz singel core and (recently added) HD5570 AGP card this game seems to absolute crappily scale with multipel CPU even worse then Skyrim and on my i5 2500k i can run folding@home in background assigned to core 2+3, and there is 0 loss of performance in ARMA2 when i do so ~

you have 2x580 GTX ? Then you should be able to play actuly on 10km and max, provided your resolution is within normality (1080p or less), but not over 60 FPS. who needs that much FPS annyway ? still, because of microstutter, i wouldnt go SLI/CFX, because microstutter will REDUCE your subjectively "felt" FPS, the more the low the total FPS are, so that in the end the effective (subjectivE) performance gain is meager ~~ also, ARMAII has really EXTREME microstutter more than other games i notice when i see the game on my freinds ATI 6990 but then again its maybe because he also turn everything to max and 10km view distance and additionally he run eyefinity with some kick ass resolution @SnR: this CPU have turbo mode it should be enough !!!

PvPscene i dont think thhis is of no use, i have done it (the WER report sended nearly every time when crash too) and mailed twice time and there is no answer sadly. i also have stress tested my hardware and memtest86+ for 20 hours, and also prime and furmark together, and attached all the screenshots as well as dxdiag and windows errorlogs, as to prove its not hardware, heat, or driver related and rest of my system be stable perfect, i did this iin my second mail. only thing i didnt send is full dump, i made it but its so large i cannot send it with slow internet, and i also remember from my days of programming of being no use to have compleat memory dumps, but maybe today it is totally different, so if the missing full dump is the reason i can upload it or send it by (real life) mail ! I am now disabling all Steam Features and will test it with Avast activated and steam deactivated. i have more then a feeling its actully root is coming from Steam overlay. especilly since all the guys who were crashing on the server at the same time (!) at least those i have talked to were use steam. Its just very hard to say whats the case because there will be soemtimes a whole night without crashing ! a question: can i burrow DVD from a friend and install it with my steam codes for testing ?

you have Steam release?

thats maybe also a good point: i also have only crashed on chernaruss maps EVER so far, just checked all the RPT history, coincidence ?

hmm just something VERY funny happened i was playing on Warfare (chernaruss) in mp commanding a shitload of units, when suddenly like 50% of the players crashed at same time including me. is there a known issue with warfare ? it was already in the final state, but i always though only the server would crash if its overloaded. dunno if its related to the other crashes though...it was also different in that there is a stack report Distribution: 1491 Version 1.60.87580 Fault address: 00A1D3BB 01:0061C3BB c:\program files (x86)\steam\steamapps\common\arma 2 operation arrowhead\ArmA2OA.exe file: warfarev2_070liteco+bw (__CUR_MP) world: chernarus Prev. code bytes: C2 08 00 D9 44 24 08 8B C1 8B 4C 24 04 83 21 00 Fault code bytes: 8B 00 51 D9 1C 24 89 01 E8 B1 FE FF FF 8B C1 C2 Registers: EAX:EE9FFFFC EBX:DB5E3700 ECX:0182F860 EDX:EEA0001C ESI:EE9FFFF8 EDI:BBD2F040 CS:EIP:0023:00A1D3BB SS:ESP:002B:0182F848 EBP:0182F86C DS:002B ES:002B FS:0053 GS:002B Flags:00210246

sure depends on the setup, its always like this on PC, tis not XBox ;-) easiest assumption is maybe it depends on whether its steam release or not, do you have steam release ? my config for nailing down problem more: STEAM Release vanilla+OA pack, Win 7 x64 SP1 fully updated, P8Z68 ASUS, HD6870@catalyst 11.12, i5 2500k, 8gb DDR3, Crucial m4 128 GB SSD, Samsung HDD, Intel Rapid Storage drivers when i turn on the realtime protection in AVAST a crash is taking place somewhere between 2 minutes or a few hours but eventually it will take place only matter of time when its turned off i can play indefinitely still continuing to test this, but im 99% sure its the root cause on my sys ah whats also MAYBE interesting is : im playing like 80% MP and 20% SP (campaign), and the crashes ALWAYS happen in single player ---------- Post added at 05:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:09 PM ---------- btw im also using AVAST on this setup for long time (i use it on all my PCs) and its actully the first time that there is any issue with any game or software, and im playing lots of different games ^^

kotov you provide mis information. i hope there are no gullible users who google, maybe land here, and then buy a motherboard for nothing. if htere are no circumstances (e.g heat, insufficient PSU, CPU not supported etc) every mainboard can give perfect perfomance, no matter if you call it "office" board or "gaming" board. may be you are working at a mainboard manufacturer an want to increase the sales of these bling-bling highend mainboards, i dont know, but what you say is plainly wrong and misleading. people who believe you will invest money for nothing ! I DO NOT DOUBT that some low-end mainboards or "office boards" as you call them have insufficient cooling, e.g. on the MOSFET/VRM, these may lead to throttling of CPU and thus decrease in FPS, sure, BUT these can be fixed easily by adding cooling and it is not needed to buy a nexpensive motherboard, unless you NEED ITS FEATURES !!! if you dont need the features of a motherboard, you dont need to buy it, there is NO PERFORMANCE INCREASE OF ANY SIGNIFICANCE !!! CPU and GPU make up 95% of the game performance, provided the CPU is supported by the motherboard and there is sufficient cooling ,sufficienc RAM and a sufficient (7200 rpm) HDD, clean system, latest drivers etc THERE IS NO WAY A MOTHERBOARD PER SE AFFECTS PERFORMANCE THAT MUCH, unless there is a bug/incompatibility/insufficient cooling/non-supported CPU etc please get your facts straight mr. kotov and do not deceive the people who might believe you. i find this not okay what you are doing oh by the way: i have also an office H61 Board in my HTPC (i3 2320, 5750, 4 Gig RAM) and i get all the performance i want in games ! all benchmarks are normal how they should be !!! how can that be when its an OFFICE BOARD ? Trolol

i have had zero issues now the whole week, but today, i again installed AVAST , and boom ! 2 Minutes and first crash. at least I now know the problem source ---------- Post added at 09:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:47 PM ---------- okay i have tested a bit and can confirm that AVAST is causing the problems. but if I manually deactivated the Guard function during game, i am perfectly fine. maybe that helps some peoples !!!

yes, i imagine he trolling. no person can be so stupid, especially not when working in IT ^^

Hello i just buy ARMA2+OA very great ! sadly in campaign, when there is a cutscene, it happens sometimes that i crash. the game freeze and i can only go to task manager and then it says it has crashed. when i look in the Arma2OA.RPT it say this Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION at 009023D2 Allocator: c:\games\steam\steamapps\common\arma 2 operation arrowhead\dll\tbb3malloc_bi.dll can you explain why this happens and how i may fix ? oh, and please excuse my bad english ! i have very clean install of Win 7 x64 with latest drivers and firmwares fresh ! also i have no clutter in system. what can be done about this ? i googel and read is hardware, but cannot be, everything else run 100% perfect. system i5 2500k, ASUS p8z68, 8 GB DDR3, AMD 6870, 650w Corsair TX, i use win x64 AVAST, Steam, and running fine BF3, WoW, Skyrim, Crysis and other games. all software like DirectX and Framework and all drivers is also installed and up to date, and temperatures are perfect too. i am clueless !!! help would be appreciat ! greets

i have now - due to getting my m4 Crucial SSD - set windows completely fresh, and the problem is gone. possibly it was either corrupt installation of steam and/or ArmA... or maybe corrupt drivers... who knows !

it dont matter , for exampel if you buy some cheap-ass H61 Mobo for 40$ or you buy ASUS Maximus IV Rampage Extreme (Z68 board) for 400$. rest component is teh same, e.g. i5 2500, 6870 Radeon, 8 Gig RAM and decent PSU. then game performance (fps wise) will not be varying much, if it vary at all !!! of course its totally different, when you compare this to, for exampel an LG 775 board with LG 775 CPU. even if it is the same clock, it doesnt say anything in compare to other !!! but motherboard itself has nearly no impact on performance, as long it support teh CPU ,and teh CPU is not bottle neck the GPU. then everything must be good !!! and in the case here, i dont know if board support CPU. if it dont, it may need BIOS update, and if still not, it may well be that the CPU is downclocked because the board cant handle it. in this case of course your are right saying its the motherboard. but IF CPU is supported, the rest dont matter. then it cannot account for great performance loss and especially not for THAT low FPS. it maybe makes a few percent, but never ever that much !