Finally a fix for Nvidia 200 series video card low FPS (also fixes video memory/textu

Woohooo... 20+ hours spent on this.. finally got it working.. Im pretty confident this will work for anyone with 200 series card (perhaps other ones too).

In addition to trippling my FPS it also fixed the Bug where under Advanced Video options I couldnt select anything above Normal for Video Memory size (top 2 options on the left, textures and memory) now i can set them to very high.

This is for Vista 64 bit, not sure if it will work on other ones.

I have GTX 295 GTX (which is an SLI card with 2x GPUs) 2GB of vram.

Here are the steps:

1) Uninstall the current Nvidia driver and install 182.50 from April. You can find it on Nvidias site under archived drivers. its HAS TO BE that particular one. I have tried 7 other ones including the new Beta 190 without any results.

2) In steam right click on ARMA 2 under Installed Games and go to Properties and under Launch Options put "-winxp" without the quotes.

3) Go to START -> (and in the Start Search thing on the bottom) type msconfig. Then go to Boot tab and click Advanced Options. Top right check mark "Maximum Memory" and type in "3584" and click OK. Then Apply and OK.

4) If you have an X2 card or a 295 GTX or an SLI of any Nvidia card (doesnt have to be EVGA, mine isnt).. install the EVGA SLI Enchancer from here http://www.evga.com/articles/00463/ (you have to create an account to download)

5) Reboot

6) Start ARMA2 from Steam sidepannel thing (desktop shortcut might work too).

PS - I am also using the Beta steam version (not sure if it matters) but you can get it via going to View -> Settings -> Account tab (look at the bottom).

BOOM! I went from 20-30FPS to 58-60FPS.

Ofcourse the end user shouldnt have to go through this much trouble to get the game to run good. But this works for now... until BI patch the game.

My Full sped:

Intel Quad Q9550 (2.83Ghz per core)

8GB DDR3 1600 RAM

Nvidia 295GTX (dual GPU)

10k RPM Veloci Raptor HD

1680x1050 22inch DELL

Hope this helps everyone. Feel free to repost this if it works for you. Please give (Duxa) credit though if you do Thanks!

---------- Post added at 05:02 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:44 AM ----------

Just for reference after doing this:

Intro aircraft carrier - was 20-25fps now 55-60fps

Intro to the night mission on the chopper - was 10-15fps now 40-55fps

Out in the field/forest - was 20-30fps now 55-60fps

my intro at carrier was 60 fps any way dude, similar specs!

also there new nvidia drivers! 186.18!

You're talking about an SLI fix from the looks of it, not an Nvidia 200 series fix. My fps on the carrier intro with a GTX280 is already 50-60fps at 1050/most high settings.

You could probably have skipped everything and gone straight for the EVGA SLI fix.

well, the nvidia driver 182.50 is the ONLY current solution for the memory detection issue in ARMA2.

Michael

also there new nvidia drivers! 186.18!

Can anyone verify if the new 186.18 drivers also work? Or do we definitely have to use 182.50?

Can anyone verify if the new 186.18 drivers also work? Or do we definitely have to use 182.50?

I used 186.18 and was getting pretty bad frames, so I switched to 182.50 after reading that it worked better, but I didn't notice a difference. Might have even been slower. This game runs so slow it's not funny. I understand there is a lot going on in Arma II, but I think it renders objects even when they're not in your view. If you start looking strait into a wall, the frames on FRAPs don't change, whereas in most games they do because all the game renders is the wall in front of you since it is all you see.

I mean, c'mon. I've got...

AMD X4 Quad Core Black Edition @ 3.45Ghz

4GB DDR2 RAM (although on 32bit Vista, so 3.something GB)

GFX260 OC @ 20%

...which isn't the best, but it dominates most games on the market, and even games like Crysis I still manage to stay over 30 FPS for 99% of the game, usually in the low 50's with the worst case being mid 20's for a short bursts when I blow tons of stuff up with miles of island in view. That's with almost everything maxed except AA. Arma 2 shouldn't be struggling to get 1/3 the FPS of Crysis with everything on normal, low, and disabled.

I upgraded to a Gigabyte GTX 295 on Friday in preparation for Arma2. (Fresh install of Windows 7 RC 64 bit, which is what I was running previously)

Imagine my amazement when the GTX 280 I took out of my machine which managed a solid 60fps in the the game is now running at about 30fps on the GTX 295 with every tweak mentioned in this forum having been tried.

And that's 30fps with major stuttering.

I managed ~5,500 in ArmaMark with my GTX 280 and G.Skill falcon SSD at 1680x1050 with the recommended benchmarking settings on another thread.

It's about half that now FFS.

Hope they fix this soon.

Full system spec:

Asus Rampage II Extreme ROG

Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.7 with Thermalright Extreme 1366 cooler

Gigabyte GTX 295 (previously XFX GTX 280)

G.Skill Falcon 128 SSD

WD Velociraptor 300 and Seagate 7200.11 500 for storage

6 Gigs OCZ Gold DDR3-2000 RAM @ 1850Mhz

Samsung T220 1680 x 1050.

If this system cannot beat the living #%%$ out of ARMA2 at my gaming resolution, then ARMA2 = Epic Fail. rofl.

fwiw - the above system's 3DMarkVantage GPU performance score = 21,800. go figure.

You have to use 182.50 any other driver will not detect the video memory properly and will cause bugs. I was using 186 previously but had to revert..

and I knew this was too good to be true... i went from 20-30fps on intro and 15-30 fps on first couple missions up... but once i get to mission Razor Two it is again at 20-25fps... when driving, it goes down to 5-10fps. =(

if you NVIDIA card owner read (performance tips) and post your experience here : http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=76908 and http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=907283

Sorry didnt help here with 186.18 or 182.50. I actually get slightly better fps in armamark 2 with 182.5 but does not translate to anything extra in game.

I think I have found the problem,

if (VID==NVIDIA && CPU==INTELi7) {

for(i=0;i++;1<100000) {

// Suffer you fools for spending so much money on computers! HAR HAR its april fools

} Else {

Work properly;

}

I thought the Evga SLI fix only worked with the new 186.18 drivers. If you revert back to 182.50, wouldn't that cancel out the Evga fix?

Rolling back from the latest 186.18 nvidia drivers to 182.50 decreased my fps a littlebit :)

Sorry didnt help here with 186.18 or 182.50. I actually get slightly better fps in armamark 2 with 182.5 but does not translate to anything extra in game.

I think I have found the problem,

if (VID==NVIDIA && CPU==INTELi7) {

for(i=0;i++;1<100000) {

// Suffer you fools for spending so much money on computers! HAR HAR its april fools

} Else {

Work properly;

}

*tears in my eyes*

ROFL.

+1

You have to use 182.50 any other driver will not detect the video memory properly and will cause bugs. I was using 186 previously but had to revert..

and I knew this was too good to be true... i went from 20-30fps on intro and 15-30 fps on first couple missions up... but once i get to mission Razor Two it is again at 20-25fps... when driving, it goes down to 5-10fps. =(

So your initial post didnt fix anyting after all? Your fix of going to 182.50 doesnt work?