Texture lag. How to solve it ? [Archive] - Bohemia Interactive Forums

Balschoiw

May 30 2009, 14:39

As with Arma 1 I have texture lag and LOD problems all over the place with Arma 2. I have already installed the older Nvidia-driver but it doesn´t help.

Whenever I zoom in, be it with a scope or right mouse only I get the lag. Even when looking around the LOD swaps very slowly. Sometimes the game comes to a complete stop for some time.
Even when running the grass and tree detail just randomly loads which makes running a funny LSD experience.

I don´t get it why this is still happening with Arma 2 ?

I have a rather fast computer, so I don´t get this at all.
My Specs:
Intel Quad Q9550
Nvidia GTX 280 1GB
4 GB DDR 800 Dual channel Ram
SATA HD with own partition for Arma 2

The issue gets worse after playing a while which indicates to me that either the GFX-Ram or the shared RAM is filling up and then the things are temporarely loaded to harddrive.

What can I do...I mean I can´t buy a new comp ? It is already pretty fast.
To be honest I´m not happy about the comeback of Arma deficits :(

Revelation78

May 30 2009, 15:40

What's your view distance set to? I remember in Arma1 that the shorter your veiw distance the less this occured. I didn't have any occurrance of this until I updated to the 1.01 beta patch. It now happens from time to time, though I do have my view distance set at 3000 meters.

.kju [PvPscene]

May 30 2009, 15:47

What are your texture settings?
What is your HDD speed (HD Tach)?

In the long run a SSD is probably a good idea for A2.

BlueSteel

Jun 1 2009, 20:33

Try setting video memory to the last setting (something that translates to "default"). In ArmA 1 that setting was specifically added for videocards with more than 512MB RAM (the only one back then was the 8800GTX with 768MB). It autodetects the video RAM and allows more of it to be used to store textures.

Before that option was added, cards with more than 512MB actually had incredibly bad texture lag. Houses 10m away would be extremely blurry until the texture finally loaded after half a minute or so...

So give it a shot, I don't have any texture lag on my system. (4GB RAM, GTX 260 with 892MB RAM)

Oh, and you should also set texture resolution to either High or Very High; the lower the setting, the sooner the low-res textures will be loaded. (soon meaning closer to the camera)

Sickboy

Jun 1 2009, 20:37

Yea or Video Memory to "Normal" I'm thinkin High = for 1 GB, and Very High for like 2 GB, though just a guess :)

How much space do you have free on the ArmA 2 partition and is it defragmented?
(IIRC, having less than 20% free space on a partition can degrade performance)

BlueSteel

Jun 1 2009, 22:03

Well, I meant setting "Grafikspeicher" (Video RAM) to "Voreinst.", which means "Default".

From the changelog of patch 1.08 (http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Version_History#Engine_Change_Log):

- New: Support for larger texture cache with new Texture Detail level "Default", useful for cards with over 512 MB VRAM.

That added setting fixed all my texture loading problems on my 8800 GTX back then. Worth a shot on that GTX 280 of yours!

BangTail

Jun 2 2009, 02:06

1.08? We are talking about ArmA 2 here, not ArmA.

The LOD/Texture problems are horrendous and totally kill the immersion. I love the game but I would have to say that this is the only real issue I have at the moment. Buildings appearing and disappearing, textures on NPCs and buildings taking far too long to update.

SSDs don't help JFYI so don't waste your money thinking that they will. I have 2 X-25s and there is no difference whatsoever. I was doing that Campaign mission where you have to move through the town (the one after you have to designate targets with the LD) and I had to stop playing because the texture problems were so bad.

I'm sure it will get fixed but it is a problem. Im not sure but it looks like ArmA.cfg is saying I am only using 256 MB of VRAM (I have 1 Gig of VRAM). I don't really want to mess with the setting as I'm not sure how to change it without causing more problems.

Great game though, one of the best I have ever played.

Cheers,

Eth

EDIT : Several people have said that using the -winxp switch helps, Im going to try it out now.

EDIT2 : Doesn't help at all. Turning all the settings down does help but that isn't really a fix tbh.

Scrub

Jun 2 2009, 02:09

Thanks for the insight to this problem. After about 5 hours of playing (wow does time fly) I started to get these issues.

Cross

Jun 2 2009, 02:29

BangTail

Jun 2 2009, 02:37

try this

There is no such setting in ArmA 2 (at least I dont have one).

All I see is "low" or "normal"

Has anyone else seen this option?

Eth

EDIT : I just tried setting both Vid memory and Texture size to "low" and it doesnt help. Im still getting white buildings and slow texturing. I think this is a problem that only BIS can solve.

.kju [PvPscene]

Jun 2 2009, 06:33

Test your HDD speed with HD Tach and post here.

BangTail

Jun 2 2009, 08:05

Test your HDD speed with HD Tach and post here.

This isn't an HDD issue. At least it isnt for me. I have Intel X-25 SSDs and 12 gigs of DDR3 1600 Mhz RAM.

The game uses very little RAM (about 10% on my system). Is there a way to force it to use more?

Eth

ohara

Jun 2 2009, 08:16

Try run game with argument -maxmem=2048

Maddmatt

Jun 2 2009, 08:17

Personally I see texture loading glitches at the 'low' setting, but not at 'normal'. But my PC is about on the games minimum requirements so maybe isn't a good comparison.

BangTail

Jun 2 2009, 08:17

Try run game with argument -maxmem=2048

Will do mate :)

Tx

Eth

EDIT : I set it to 3072 and the game is much improved (still not perfect) but way better than before, so cheers O'Hara. I'm really enjoying the game, one of the best I've ever played :)

BlueSteel

Jun 2 2009, 09:26

1.08? We are talking about ArmA 2 here, not ArmA.

Don't forget that ArmA 2 is built on the same engine, every fix that went into ArmA 1 is also present in ArmA 2.

But I'm glad that you managed to fix it, have fun!

BangTail

Jun 2 2009, 09:44

Don't forget that ArmA 2 is built on the same engine, every fix that went into ArmA 1 is also present in ArmA 2.

But I'm glad that you managed to fix it, have fun!

Delete please.

Eth

BlueSteel

Jun 2 2009, 09:56

That may be but my point was that the settings you are talking about are NOT present in ArmA 2 (at least not via the menus).

Eth

Apparently we get different options to choose from, since I get this:

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/3814/arma2.jpg

BangTail

Jun 2 2009, 09:58

Apparently we get different options to choose from, since I get this:

[IM]http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/3814/arma2.jpg[/IMG]

Nevermind, I found it :)

It's weird though, sometimes they are there and sometimes they aren't. I always get low and normal but the others only show up sometimes and they are always back to normal after I reload the game :(

Edit - Shadows can not be on very high for this to work apparently.

Eth

craig3000

Jun 2 2009, 10:03

if your PC doesn't run it were screwed :D

But seriously I saw this complete stopping your talking about when I watched a video on youtube, I thought it was auto saving or something but I guess not

mr.g-c

Jun 2 2009, 10:06

Try run game with argument -maxmem=2048
Ohh noes, do we have again to use all such kinds of workarounds to play Arma2 properly? :confused:

Sorry but why doesn't BIS Games since Arma1 run simply out-of-the-box, without the need for custom hacks/switches/shortcuts with switches/and so on ?? :(

Not that its a Problem for me personally, but what about all those "casual gamers" which never will read this forums and such "tips" ? ;)
They have a screwed game then "maybe" and throw it back into the next corner. :eek:

Balschoiw

Jun 2 2009, 14:31

Will check the suggested methods when I´m at home again.
Thx for the input.

telejunky

Jun 3 2009, 22:20

BangTail

Jun 3 2009, 22:50

pcgames mentioned it again: http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,685661/Armed-Assault-2-Grafikkarten-Benchmarks-plus-Optikvergleich/Rennspiel-Sportspiel-Simulation/Test/

ArmA2 can be beautiful but textures wont look good if a house/model only gets beautiful textures if you stand 2m in front of it...Please fix this :) This is the second thing after depth of field-removing option and bloom-reduce-option^^

Maxmem worked for a while but then I started seeing massive corruption etc and my save corrupted as well (not sure if it was maxmem that did that) but the graphics corruption is definitely caused by maxmem.

Eth

Skeptic

Jun 3 2009, 23:36

Added to A2 bug tracker (http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/1771).

whisper

Jun 4 2009, 12:54

Voted for it, I get the same on low spec PC (E6400, 8800GT 512M), flickering sometimes, and low res textures often.
All settings on medium apart for terrain and object details on low, and post-process to low

EDcase

Jun 4 2009, 15:56

Razorman

Jun 4 2009, 16:24

It may be an ArmA2 bug but the HardDrive condition is a big factor.
Must be a fast one and defragged.
ArmA (and I assume ArmA2) run best if installed on its own dedicated drive or partition. NOT on the OS drive.

To a degree but it's not a deal breaker, this game runs fine if you have a decent spec well maintained rig.

By decent i mean a minimum GTX260 card with a 3.4ghz + dual core cpu & 2gb ram, as a minimum.

This aint counterstike or bf2 ladies.

Yoma

Jun 4 2009, 18:40

I think as a community we need to get a bit smarter.
Maybe we should try to make a tool that can load certain "proven" presets based on your system configuration.
Don't know if it would be possible to make it though, it would need a lot of trusted user input to get it to a workable point.

Raechaer

Jun 4 2009, 21:04

I'm suffering from the same problem, the game is unplayable like this:
http://www.raechaer.de/arma2-2009-06-04-22-40-41-38_t.jpg (http://www.raechaer.de/arma2-2009-06-04-22-40-41-38.jpg)
That's with all settings maxed out, looks (and runs) the same with everything at low though.

Using the -maxmen option didn't change anything for me. I also used msconfig to limit Vista to 2 GB but that didn't improve things either.

But I noticed that ArmA detects localVRAM=262334336 (that's around 256 MB), I actually have a card with 1 GB though. Maybe that is causing the problem? Unfortunately changing the value in the arma2.cfg doesn't work as it gets overwritten as soon as ArmA starts.

My comp:
i7 920 @<hidden> 4.2 Ghz
12 GB RAM
2 GTX 285 in SLI
ArmA installed on a SSD
Vista x64

_Cappa

Jun 4 2009, 22:29

...arma2.cfg doesn't work as it gets overwritten as soon as ArmA starts.

Change Arma2.cfg to 'readonly' by right clicking on it > properties > readonly

Raechaer

Jun 5 2009, 06:04

That just prevents ArmA from writing the wrongly detected values to the .cfg, it still uses the value it detected and not the one I manually changed in the ArmA2.cfg.

Dimmis80

Jun 5 2009, 07:00

The game Crashes to desktop all the time.Every 10-20 minutes when i play it crashes.Some times with a message about it needs more memory on KB or something.My system is a Core 2 Quad 6600,4 GB DDR 2 1066,2 Radeon 3870 512 MB each on Crossfire and i play the games on a 22" 1680x1050.I have the latest drivers, patch 1.1,Service pack 2 on vista.It says Out of memory (requested 1708 KB) Reserved 294212 KB Total Free 10397 KB Free Blocks 139,Max Free size 1595 KB when crashes..Anyone knows a solution to that.!??

dkd

Jun 5 2009, 07:02

Raechaer,

I have the same flaw in Chernogorsk missions. The huge texture lag and such LOD of models totally kill the immersion into the game and I've had to stop playing the campaign. In the other missions game runs rather smoothly, fps is aceptable and the texture lag is insignificant. Maybe it can be connected with 64bit OS somehow?
I'm looking forward for a patch which can fix the issue.
My rig: Q9300@<hidden>/4GB/4870 512mb,WinXP64bit, screen resolution 1680x1050, fillrate=100%,Visibility: 1600, all video settings maxed out (the lowering that settings doesn't change the situation).

Basil Brush

Jun 6 2009, 13:54

Its not a 64bit OS issue as I get the slow textures (and flickering) on XP 32bit.
This is exactly the same issue I had in Arma 1 and its very annoying.

-=seany=-

Jun 6 2009, 16:32

sucks to hear that this is still an issue. Flashpoint never had this problem. Even on the min spec hardware when it was released, why must Arma and Arma2 be plagued by it?

I understand the need to swap LODs/textures when they are in the distance, but why does it need to do it with objects that are 3 meters away? If you spin your view/camera around all objects near you are switching textures (in an intensive town like Corazol). The game actually drops FPS while its trying to load textures so it completely circumvents any advantage of switching to lower quality textures in the first place. Cant all textures just stay as they are for at least 200meters around you?

Raggz

Jun 6 2009, 18:28

I set the "videomemory" to default in videooptions as tipped earlier in this thread, and this removed the slow texture loading almost completely for me (rarely happens now). And i started on the "Manhattan" mission and played a couple of hours with NO crashes. Earlier i had this setting on "Very high" and had slow texture loading and lot's of crashes in the "Manhattan" mission. This is with the latest Official Nvidia beta driver 186.08.

System:

Q6600 cpu
4Gb Ram DDR2
XFX GTX280 1Gb memory
Vista x64 Ultimate

Raechaer

Jun 7 2009, 19:12

I'd love to give that a try, but I can't select default for the videomemory (only low, normal and high). I'm sure I saw it before though, anyone got an idea how to get that setting back? Also using the 186.08 drivers btw.

Basil Brush

Jun 7 2009, 21:17

Does not make any difference for me still get this problem (if its the same one) with everything on low and 500m view distance, textures seem to load slightly faster but then it would with only 500m of objects to load I suppose..

example : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoozjv-hvgg

BF2_Trooper

Jul 7 2009, 23:35

If I'm stuck with a 512RAM video card (9800GTX+ actually) should I set Video Memory to DEFAULT or VERY HIGH?

Ernesto

Jul 7 2009, 23:52

If I'm stuck with a 512RAM video card (9800GTX+ actually) should I set Video Memory to DEFAULT or VERY HIGH?

I try everything.

It's a game engine problem. I don't want to hear we consumers trying to find a "magic solution", but a word for the company.

I search the official forums and nothing... A little respect for our consumers will sound good...

I have a mix of "minimum specs" and "recommendade specs", and run the game with unbeliave flaws in visual and performance...

---------- Post added at 11:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:44 PM ----------

To a degree but it's not a deal breaker, this game runs fine if you have a decent spec well maintained rig.

By decent i mean a minimum GTX260 card with a 3.4ghz + dual core cpu & 2gb ram, as a minimum.

This aint counterstike or bf2 ladies.

Is this type of answer relevant?

If a company want to sell a tilte, do not lie about the recommended specs... By recommended specs I undestand a rig capable to run the game with no big issues...

ArmA II isn't "BF2", but isn't DCS:Black Shark, FarcRy 2 or Crysis either... BS uses a LOT of CPU with all the "balistics", "massive units", etc, with good performance, huge map, beautifull visuals... The other two titles don't have all the "sim factor", but a far better and stable graphics engine...

So... what the point?

BangTail

Jul 8 2009, 00:02

I try everything.

It's a game engine problem. I don't want to hear we consumers trying to find a "magic solution", but a word for the company.

I search the official forums and nothing... A little respect for our consumers will sound good...

I have a mix of "minimum specs" and "recommendade specs", and run the game with unbeliave flaws in visual and performance...

---------- Post added at 11:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:44 PM ----------

Is this type of answer relevant?

If a company want to sell a tilte, do not lie about the recommended specs... By recommended specs I undestand a rig capable to run the game with no big issues...

ArmA II isn't "BF2", but isn't DCS:Black Shark, FarcRy 2 or Crysis either... BS uses a LOT of CPU with all the "balistics", "massive units", etc, with good performance, huge map, beautifull visuals... The other two titles don't have all the "sim factor", but a far better and stable graphics engine...

So... what the point?

Crysis barely breaks 50 FPS on a 965 w/ 4 GPUs @<hidden> 1680 x 1050.

As you say, parts of your rig barely meet the minimum requirements, so the problem lies with your machine, and not with the game. Your machine is only as good as it's weakest component.

I would agree that "Minimum spec" seems to have been applied a little optimistically in this case but "Minimum spec" does mean the absolute MINIMUM to make the game RUN and does not imply it is going to run well at any settings.

Eth

pokletu

Jul 8 2009, 00:35

I think I've found an approach; at least for Nvidia users(there maybe a coincidence, since I've messed with a bunch of settings, EVERYWHERE).

Remembering that those LOD's are called mipmaps, I went into my Nvidia settings; and for the Arma 2 profile, I set "Force Mipmaps" to "Trilinear".
Now, I don't really know what the bi/trilinear deal is, but my thought was to force the higher resolution textures. It appears to have worked, though. I almost NEVER have those texture readings, anymore.
//////////////////////////////
and an aside,
I've also downloaded the evga sli enhancer, which more than DOUBLED my FPS. I play in triplehead @<hidden>, both settings, and almost everywhere I get about 22 fps(not great, but for the resolution....) The enhancer set my Arma 2 profile to "Nvidia Recommended-SLI". It has to be there; dunno why. I usually set to "Force Split Frame Rendering". I am able to run "low" antialiasing, "high" video memory, and everything else, including postprocessing, at normal for my 22fps.

2x8800gt w/512; AMD 6600+@<hidden>; 2 gb Kingston Ram; 3x22" monitors in triplehead.

Hope this helps.

Ernesto

Jul 8 2009, 09:58

Crysis barely breaks 50 FPS on a 965 w/ 4 GPUs @<hidden> 1680 x 1050.

As you say, parts of your rig barely meet the minimum requirements, so the problem lies with your machine, and not with the game. Your machine is only as good as it's weakest component.

I would agree that "Minimum spec" seems to have been applied a little optimistically in this case but "Minimum spec" does mean the absolute MINIMUM to make the game RUN and does not imply it is going to run well at any settings.

Eth

My rig do not "barely meet the minimun requirements". I have more CPU power and memory. And my VGA lies between minimum - recommended. People with 2GB high-end VGA (over-over recommended) have similar problems.

The problem doesn't "lie on my machine". Crysis "breaks" 50FPS in my machine. I don't speak "all sliders up", but DECENTE PERFORMANCE WITH REALISTIC SETTINGS FOR MY RIG!

I really hate this type of nihilistic answers to questions about bugged or non-optimized software... :( If my "minimum rig" can handle the rendering of FarCry 2, why can't handle ArmA II? Even talking about DX9... The CPU power is enough for the much more complex DCS environment processing...

Sounds ilogic to me. I do not see where goes my resources in this game...

MehMan

Jul 8 2009, 11:08

Ernesto

Jul 8 2009, 11:44

Far bigger view distance, far more objects to render, a heck of a lot more information for the GPU to handle, more units on screen than in Far Cry 2, etc etc. Far Cry 2's VD is at around 200m. ArmA2 has the default viewdistance set at 1600m.

I can set the the view distance to 5km in game and fly with a chopper and the LOD and texture loading are beutifull implemented in ArmA II. But when I'm in an empty city, with nothing really forcing the rendering capacities of my hardware, I experience a lot of issues.

I'm comparing FarCry2 rendering in this situation, not the "10km open-field rendering"... When in a city I don't see "10km away"... The ArmA II engine handles well open fields and a lot of units, but is bugged as hell in cities, need a lot of optimization. And I don't comparing the quality of the static obejcts renderend in FarCry2 Dunia engine with the simplier used in ArmA II... or the physics...

I don't know if it's because the focus of the engine is open fields or something, but if a company put big cities in a game, need to improve the logic of LOD/loading textures in this situation.

Finally, Dunia engine supports longer rendering distances... not only up to 200m... Even in FarCry2 I can sniping far away...

BangTail

Jul 8 2009, 22:51

My rig do not "barely meet the minimun requirements". I have more CPU power and memory. And my VGA lies between minimum - recommended. People with 2GB high-end VGA (over-over recommended) have similar problems.

The problem doesn't "lie on my machine". Crysis "breaks" 50FPS in my machine. I don't speak "all sliders up", but DECENTE PERFORMANCE WITH REALISTIC SETTINGS FOR MY RIG!

I really hate this type of nihilistic answers to questions about bugged or non-optimized software... :( If my "minimum rig" can handle the rendering of FarCry 2, why can't handle ArmA II? Even talking about DX9... The CPU power is enough for the much more complex DCS environment processing...

Sounds ilogic to me. I do not see where goes my resources in this game...

I have a mix of "minimum specs" and "recommendade specs"

You said some of your parts were the minimum spec. I'm simply reacting to what YOU said.

Stop making comparisons using games that have little (if anything) in common.

And of course, you have proof that DCS:BS has "much more complex environment processing", right? Oh wait, of course you don't!

There are problems with the game, that is 100% accurate but plenty of us have it running well which kind of pisses all over your "It MUST be the game engine" theory.

Eth

S!fkaIaC

Jul 9 2009, 11:18

And of course, you have proof that DCS:BS has "much more complex environment processing", right? Oh wait, of course you don't!

If they would develop better human body models with better animations and make them human controllable DCS:BS could compete with OFP 1.96 for sure. Well, of course different way of modding.

And there are many good physics simulations in DCS:BS (also for ground vehicles!!!) and damage models which obviously DO WORK in a large scenario.

Since DCS:BS is a flight SIM, the rest of the scenario acts mainly as target, thats why infantry units looking like marsians when you come closer.

But they put A LOT of effort into it for the fact that they should be targets only.

=Spetsnaz=

Jul 9 2009, 12:04

i was wondering if setting texture and video memory to very high on a 512mb card does anything? cause it has'nt been doing anything to me.. and probably cause i run on a low resoultion?

Ernesto

Jul 9 2009, 12:41

ArmA II is not a FPS with some simple vehicles (like BF2) with a larger map and more realistic settings and AI units?

I like to compare with any FPS with vehicles... FarCry2 seems to be a good comparsion...

DCS:BS - reallistic FM and avionics, lots of ground units with accurate physics and ballistics, with on the fly AI... good terrain, large cities, low level flight, no "action bubble"... Maybe a "decent benchmark" for CPU load?

KeyCat

Jul 9 2009, 13:44

DCS:BS - reallistic FM and avionics, lots of ground units with accurate physics and ballistics, with on the fly AI... good terrain, large cities, low level flight, no "action bubble"... Maybe a "decent benchmark" for CPU load?

Sorry if I stray a bit off topic here... I think DCS:BS is a good sim but it has it's own share of issues IMHO...

1. Slightly improvement to the quite old LOMAC engine, that lacked severly in the LOD department.

2. Forrests/trees do not block AI LOS.

3. Forrests/trees does not have any collision detection and you can magically fly strait thru them.

/KC