New Beta Build 70644 up!

[SASrecon]

New Beta Build 70644 is up!

Click here to download (http://www.arma2.com/beta-patch.php)

Changelog:
[70582] Improved: Increased dynamic cloud layer visibility.
[70493] Fixed: Shadow artifacts visible on some windows while moving.
[70439] Fixed: Transient z-fight-like shadows artifacts while zooming.
[70372] Fixed: AI vision was too good on moonless nights.

I'm very glad they've sorted the z-fighting :)

[AnimalMother92]

Yeah I just got the email for this, but the server still lists 70313 as the newest. Sounds like some nice fixes.

[SASrecon]

Yeah I just got the email for this, but the server still lists 70313 as the newest. Sounds like some nice fixes.

ha, didn't notice until just now :D
Probably still finalising uploads or something. Maybe it was taken down :confused:

[NoRailgunner]

Where is the beta build 70644??
Be careful - sometimes some little devils aka bugs can delay a release by surprise. ;)

[Xeno]

644 was up for some time, at least that's what the 16 MB I have here on my hard drive tell me :p

Xeno

[TRexian]

[70372] Fixed: AI vision was too good on moonless nights.


This one made me giggle a bit. :) Seems to me like the AI can't see anything at night... so... "too good"?

Edit:
Yeah, still showing 313 as the most recent for me... not a big deal, though.

[MavericK96]

Yeah I just got the email for this, but the server still lists 70313 as the newest. Sounds like some nice fixes.

How do you get email notifications of new betas?

Also, if the z-fighting is fixed, SWEET! Though it says it's regarding shadows, so it might not be entirely fixed.

[NoRailgunner]

Xeno - find the (new) bugs and tell us about :p:icon_twisted:

[AnimalMother92]

How do you get email notifications of new betas?

http://www.qbasix.com/ARMA2/

That's what I used, but the page isn't loading for me at the moment.

*edit*
70644 is back up!

[MavericK96]

Yep, it's up. Downloading now. :cool:

[Punisher5555]

Do we still need to use the -exthreads ?

[Scrub]

Wow, good elements of Polish. Sweet. Looks like BIS are dusting and sweeping the floors after remodeling the engine. Dl'ing now: )

[MavericK96]

Do we still need to use the -exthreads ?

I was just wondering the same thing actually.

[mr.g-c]

Just installed and started it and now with "Namalsk" map, i get a "wheater overcast" scripting error on start.
a bit from the RPT:


Exe version: 1.05.70644
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather1.height'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather1.size'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather2.height'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather2.size'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather3.height'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather3.size'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather4.height'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather4.size'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather5.height'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather5.size'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value

[MavericK96]

Initial testing: Stutter seems a little worse in this release, but overall framerate is on par with 70313. Minimum FPS went down in this by about 2-5 FPS as you can see from the results from the _FPS_6 test below.



Avg Avg Low High Low
70313 exT=0 37 26 52 13
70313 exT=3 37 26 52 10

70644 exT=0 36 26 50 9
70644 exT=3 36 26 52 8

[otreblA_SNAKE_[ITA]]

Are you using -exThread parameter?

[Alex72]

So how does the Z-fighting look for you guys? Could be good to not only look at FPS but also test the changes they do show us in the changelog.

[MavericK96]

;1631421']Are you using -exThread parameter?

If you're referring to my post, yes. Check out the two different benches for 70644, one is exThreads=0 and one is exThreads=3 (I didn't test eXthreads=1 because it was by far the worst performance for me in 70313)

[MadDogX]

After a quick test I can say that z-fighting in general does still exist. Apparently the patch changed some specific occurrance of z-fighting. Since it was related to shadows, I'm guessing it wasn't related to distant objects through scopes, as shadows aren't drawn that far.

[MavericK96]

Yeah, I think the self-shadowing on objects is what improved, as there used to be some z-fighting with those, and it seems better now. Distance object z-fighting seems about the same from what I can tell from flying around for a bit.

Also, stutter definitely seems worse in this version, but not terrible. Also, I haven't yet gotten the black screen "Receiving..." issue even with about 10 minutes of flying around Chernogorsk and surrounding cities. Obviously more test time is needed (online is where I get the problem the most and it affects gameplay the most, and I haven't tested it in MP yet) but if it was a trade-off to have a little more stutter versus no "Receiving..." screen, I'll take it. :cool:

[Alex72]

Scratch what i said. This is not about Z-fighting distance problem.

This is the problem with shadows being applied to objects while zooming. Walls, houses and other objects got Z-fighting-look a like when shadows set to HIGH or above. From my tests so far - it's fixed. :)

This was a really annoying bug and it seems to be fixed.

[MavericK96]

Well, this is interesting. I just played online for probably about 20 minutes, flew a heli over to the coast north of Chernogorsk and went on foot for maybe 50 meters, and then the game crashed with this message:

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii140/AFireEternal/InvalidAccessError.jpg

In the .RPT file I get this repeated over and over (look familiar?):


Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 8988 KB, error 8
Virtual free 25456640 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 2680565760 B
Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 8992 KB, error 8
Virtual free 25456640 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 2680565760 B
Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 8996 KB, error 8
Virtual free 25456640 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 2680565760 B
Memory store: Failed mapping, already mapped 9000 KB, error 8
Virtual free 25456640 B, page free 4294967295 B, physical free 2680565760 B
File read error: addons\ca.pbo,ERROR_NOACCESS
Error 3e6 reading file 'addons\ca.pbo'
ErrorMessage: Invalid access to memory location.

This is with Video Memory on Default, exThreads=0.

[Alex72]

Been flying over things a lot and no crashes. You still running video memory with default? The setting that doesnt seem to work properly for many people.

Can anyone else test fire a lot of FFAR's or shoot a lot of MG HE rounds close to the ground while flying a harrier for example. I didnt notice any sound cut out in this beta. At least it hasnt cut out so far. It was present instantly before doing such things.

EDIT: Flying is very smooth until coming up over villages/cities where it feels performance is worse in this beta. But only when going over houses. Otherwise its the same - very smooth flying.

That can be a reason to the crashes Maverick if your memory isnt properly set through "default". More stress than usual over cities and not properly set the video memory setting. Just an idea.

[JW Custom]

Can anyone else test fire a lot of FFAR's or shoot a lot of MG HE rounds close to the ground while flying a harrier for example. I didnt notice any sound cut out in this beta. At least it hasnt cut out so far. It was present instantly before doing such things.


I can't remember having this issue with ArmA vanilla but many times with sound mods. Don't have time to test right now though.

[NoRailgunner]

Comparing test with patch 1.05.62017 and beta build 70644 I have to say that the average fps is +3 higher with 1.0562017 - on all three benchmark tests. The only bigger changes are with FPSm. But the fpsm even differ from 1-10fps if the mission is only repeated over again. :confused:
Imho flying over something doesnt show all whats needed ingame - better have a benchmark missions with some AIs moving around.
Perhaps its good to have a "AI stress-test" for better evaluation?

Going to try some missions to see how good or bad the new build feels.
Btw can we expect significant improvements for AI in this or next builds? :)

[Richey79]

Shadows seem to render properly all the time now for me (set to high), and those seen on windows look crisp and clean. Feels like twilight is more pleasant to look at too, although that might be wishful thinking.

After an hour's testing, I haven't had any artifacts or HDR 'strobing': I had both of these (minor but) annoying problems pretty regularly before this beta (ATI cards).

I managed to induce the 'Invalid Access To Memory Location' crash a couple of patches ago. Can't remember exactly what I did to get it, but I think it was a command line parameter I had added - either cpucount=x or fullproc. Something I did to try to appease the gods of multi-core threading. When I removed the offending parameter, all was well once again.

If the game has somehow set the wrong amount of graphics memory in the .cfg file and you've set it to 'write-protect' at some point, that could maybe lead to the error...?

[sprayer_faust]

I have had a couple of crashes in MP a few days ago. Then I remembered I set the video memory on default after reading a post here. I think it was you Maverick. You said that the game runs smoother on default. I changed it back to high and all was right, no crashes. I think high is for cards at around 1GB.

EDIT:

Or maybe it was exThreads=3, because I run exThreads=0 now. Don't know which one (exThreads or default), I changed both at the same time.

[CarlGustaffa]

This one made me giggle a bit. :) Seems to me like the AI can't see anything at night... so... "too good"?

Try a NVG less fight, with some moonlight as the only lightsource (AI doesn't seem to be helped by flares without scripting), and you'll figure out how incredibly good they actually are, once you've been made. And that is with a moon.

[MavericK96]

EDIT: Flying is very smooth until coming up over villages/cities where it feels performance is worse in this beta. But only when going over houses. Otherwise its the same - very smooth flying.

That can be a reason to the crashes Maverick if your memory isnt properly set through "default". More stress than usual over cities and not properly set the video memory setting. Just an idea.

Yeah, I've found the same to be true, it's definitely related to flying over cities/buildings, not just out in the open.

And it's obvious something is wrong with the Default setting, but that's why I'm complaining about it, because I want it to be fixed. :cool: It's supposed to detect how much VRAM you have and use it accordingly, so theoretically any amount of VRAM *should* work on this setting. Unfortunately, as it stands, this is not the case, and setting it to High or Very High gives me awful stuttering, stability or not. Obviously this is because High/V. High is not utilizing all of my VRAM, so Default seems the obvious choice. However, stability is an issue as I have said.



I managed to induce the 'Invalid Access To Memory Location' crash a couple of patches ago. Can't remember exactly what I did to get it, but I think it was a command line parameter I had added - either cpucount=x or fullproc. Something I did to try to appease the gods of multi-core threading. When I removed the offending parameter, all was well once again.

If the game has somehow set the wrong amount of graphics memory in the .cfg file and you've set it to 'write-protect' at some point, that could maybe lead to the error...?

Interesting, though the only parameter I've been using (other than exThreads) is maxmem=2047, and I've tried with and without that and there's no difference I can see in either performance or stability. I don't use cpuCount because I never saw a difference with that either, and I have HT turned off. Never heard of this "fullproc" one, though.

And I don't have any of my config files write protected. Here is what it detects for Local and non-Local memory:


localVRAM=1054539776;
nonlocalVRAM=2147483647;

Which seems about right, since I have 1 GB VRAM. Not sure about non-Local, or how it obtains that value. My page file is set at a minimum of 6 GB, maximum of 9 GB.


I have had a couple of crashes in MP a few days ago. Then I remembered I set the video memory on default after reading a post here. I think it was you Maverick. You said that the game runs smoother on default. I changed it back to high and all was right, no crashes. I think high is for cards at around 1GB.

EDIT:

Or maybe it was exThreads=3, because I run exThreads=0 now. Don't know which one (exThreads or default), I changed both at the same time.

Yeah, you were the one that told me about setting Threaded Optimization off in the nVidia control panel. That more or less solved the "v-buffer creation error" I was getting, but this seems to be a different animal altogether. I agree that High is more stable but at the same time it comes with a steep performance cost in terms of stutter for me. Also, performance seems to decrease over time while LOD thrashing seems to increase over time with High/V. High. until it gets to a point of being unplayable.

The whole thing seems like a memory leak somewhere.

---------- Post added at 04:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:22 PM ----------

Did some flybys over Chernogorsk as per usual, and I still get the "Receiving..." issue with exThreads=0 (no exThreads param used).

With exThreads=3, I get "Out of Memory" crashes. I can't win with this game, lol. :(

[Punisher5555]

Maverick96.

You can see where the nonlocalvram number comes from.

You are running Win7 Pro x64 so do a start->run->dxdiag. Click the Display tab. You will see the number under the Approx. Total Memory.

[MavericK96]

Maverick96.

You can see where the nonlocalvram number comes from.

You are running Win7 Pro x64 so do a start->run->dxdiag. Click the Display tab. You will see the number under the Approx. Total Memory.

My Approx. Total Memory says 3817 MB. I'm guessing this is local + non-local VRAM?

EDIT: Interesting to note also is that, for the hell of it, I tried turning back on Threaded Optimization, and I saw no difference in the new beta versus having it off (i.e. no v-buffer crashes so far). So maybe they fixed that issue at least so that you don't have to have Threaded Optimization off.

[BangTail]

Just installed and started it and now with "Namalsk" map, i get a "wheater overcast" scripting error on start.
a bit from the RPT:


Exe version: 1.05.70644
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather1.height'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather1.size'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather2.height'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather2.size'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather3.height'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather3.size'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather4.height'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather4.size'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather5.height'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value
Warning Message: No entry 'bin\config.bin/CfgWorlds/namalsk/Weather/Overcast/Weather5.size'.
Warning Message: '/' is not a value


Same thing here

[Geraldus]

With this beta 70644 and exThreads=3 i get benchmark 1 average fps droped from 34 to 29 and got a LOT of flickering textures on buildings and vehicles. :confused:

[darthmuller_cro]

Maybe not important but CAA1 project crashing game with this beta...

[Punisher5555]

I am getting Windows memory low errors now. I had no issues with 313. I think there is a memory leak somewhere.

Wiin7 x64 Pro
8Gb RAM.

[MavericK96]

With this beta 70644 and exThreads=3 i get benchmark 1 average fps droped from 34 to 29 and got a LOT of flickering textures on buildings and vehicles. :confused:

I also noticed the flickering. I've gotten that in the past but it seems worse in this beta than in 70313.

[Bulldogs]

Due to the changes in the cloud system (weather forecast) I'm guessing that all custom maps will have to be recompiled.

[TonyGrunt]

@<hidden>
I have reported the same problems with yours in dev-heaven just a bit earlier, so you are not alone.
For me Chernogorsk has become a no fly zone, as the problem intensifies there.
On MP I usually set View Distance 5000-8000 depending and it has a negative effect on stability.
I think the problem is being worked on by BIS as in the latest betas I noticed a new command line "maxVRAM=", I tried setting some different values at it but couldn't notice any difference.

[MavericK96]

@<hidden>
I have reported the same problems with yours in dev-heaven just a bit earlier, so you are not alone.
For me Chernogorsk has become a no fly zone, as the problem intensifies there.
On MP I usually set View Distance 5000-8000 depending and it has a negative effect on stability.
I think the problem is being worked on by BIS as in the latest betas I noticed a new command line "maxVRAM=", I tried setting some different values at it but couldn't notice any difference.

Interesting, thanks for at least letting me know that I'm not alone. :D

Hopefully we'll see some use of that new parameter. How did you find out about it?

[TonyGrunt]

Text search in EXE file, searching for any of the known parameters brings you to the sections with them (2 sections ASFAIK).

[Alex72]

I can't remember having this issue with ArmA vanilla but many times with sound mods. Don't have time to test right now though.
You never had sounds cut out in vanilla arma? Lol it has been around since ArmA even. But i had it cut out yesterday once. Felt bit better but might been lucky.

[JW Custom]

You never had sounds cut out in vanilla arma? Lol it has been around since ArmA even. But i had it cut out yesterday once. Felt bit better but might been lucky.

Like i said, i can't remember having this issue with ArmA 2 vanilla. I have been using sound mods most of the times and i never played ArmA 1 so i wouldn't know about that!

And like i said i have had the sound cut out while using sound mods. With some of the first versions of ACEX_SM i even had sound cut outs using the M249, that i have never experienced with vanilla ArmA 2 maybe thats why i connect the issue with sound mods.

[Alex72]

Yep its an old problem alright. Go vanilla - get in a heli with FFAR's - shot a lot of them when close to the ground so you hear the explosions - experience the lack of sounds. :D

Really great having the shadow problem gone while zooming though. Good stuff. If the grass could be a bit lighter for performance also that would make my day.

[Pauliesss]

The Z-Fighting is still there if you do maximum zoom with M107, sad...:mad:

[Zipper5]

I don't think it's possible to entirely remove it, Pauliesss. Even big-budget/big-title games have the same issue.

[GossamerSolid]

I think I'm doing something wrong here. I set the target to arma2.exe in the beta folder and the start in folder is the root of arma 2. I deleted the old beta folder and then installed this one. I run the game and get:

"Error Compiling pixel shader PSSpecularAlpha:0"

Once again you all seem to be running it fine so I'm probably just missing something.

Specs:
Q6600 @<hidden> 3.0ghz
4gb ddr2
GTX 260 core 216
Win 7 Pro x64

[kklownboy]

most likely your shortcut is wrong.

[The.D]

A friend of mine has the same problem, GossamerS. We just went through several attempts to fix it - but to no avail. After searching around a bit it seem that some others have experiences this error since the 7xxxx beta patches.

[GossamerSolid]

A friend of mine has the same problem, GossamerS. We just went through several attempts to fix it - but to no avail. After searching around a bit it seem that some others have experiences this error since the 7xxxx beta patches.

oh boy, maybe it's a mod I'm running. Here is my shortcut line:

"E:\Games\Armed Assault 2\beta\arma2.exe" -showScriptErrors -nomap -nosplash -world=Empty -mod=@<hidden>;@<hidden>;@<hidden>

[The.D]

The bug is definitely not caused by any mod - should I, against all odds, stumble upon a solution I will post it here. Don't count on it though :-/
The only thing that really "helps" is reverting to earlier betas or v1.05.

[NoRailgunner]

your shortcut is missing -mod=beta; ;)

[RobertHammer]

your shortcut is missing -mod=beta; ;)

that's the Fix :)

[GossamerSolid]

Hahahaha I forgot that -mod=beta

man I'm a tool :)

thanks for pointing that out.

[The.D]

your shortcut is missing -mod=beta;

Oh... not for my friends it isn't... :/
Ah well - he reverted to an earlier version for now. Glad you have it sorted out ^^

[mr.g-c]

Now that horns are transfered over Network like it was in previous VR-Engine games (Thanks for that! :-) ), how about we now get finally back that Reload-Animations and Reload-Sounds to be transfered over Network too?

[GossamerSolid]

Now that horns are transfered over Network like it was in previous VR-Engine games (Thanks for that! :-) ), how about we now get finally back that Reload-Animations and Reload-Sounds to be transfered over Network too?

horns ARE transfered over the network in the betas now?

If that's true I gotta get everbody on these betas. I'm sick of honking to myself when somebody is in my way :)

[Michael Withstand]

Hello guys I'm new what's with the ExtThread parameter? what does it do?

[CarlGustaffa]

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=98906 ;)

[Thr0tt]

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=98906 ;)

Indeed - This will give you the explanation Michael.

[Drew]

sorry i usually use an addon launcher but im curious to check my FPS with this new beta...how do you use the -exThreads=3 ? is it -mod=Beta;-exThreads=3 in the shortcut line?

[MavericK96]

sorry i usually use an addon launcher but im curious to check my FPS with this new beta...how do you use the -exThreads=3 ? is it -mod=Beta;-exThreads=3 in the shortcut line?

Yeah, you add it in the command line. You want to leave a space between the -mod parameter and the -exThreads one, though. And you don't need the semicolon.

[Flash Thunder]

Yep its an old problem alright. Go vanilla - get in a heli with FFAR's - shot a lot of them when close to the ground so you hear the explosions - experience the lack of sounds. :D

Really great having the shadow problem gone while zooming though. Good stuff. If the grass could be a bit lighter for performance also that would make my day.

Indeed, the sound engine currently cant play that many sound files at once, my Helos engine cuts off when firing about 6 FFAR's in quick sucession.

Grass detail graphics option is a must, having grass enabled in most MP servers Bogs the hell out of performance.

Its a huge performance increase with no grass for me around 15 frames.

anyways Great Beta patches as always BIS! :yay:

alittle boost in performance.

[MavericK96]

Thinking about this upcoming (maybe) -maxVRAM parameter, I feel like BIS should just change the Video Memory setting to specific values, such as 256 MB, 512 MB, 1 GB, etc. If they could hard-code the game to never use more than the specified value, I feel like it might help the stability a lot, because currently it seems like the game is incorrectly utilizing VRAM and trying to access memory that is not available or not there at all. Hence all the Out of Memory or v-buffer crashes.

[Michael Withstand]

Hi Maverick I believe what was causing me black screen was having to do with ArmA 2 assigning too large non local VRAM.

I haven't had a single black screen issue since I set it correctly. Thinking to set it to zero as well.

So I think you were spot on in saying that. :-)

Anyway on this beta

Benchmark 1 lost 2 average fps.

But I'm gaining 4-10 more fps in campaign and other missions such as village sweep.

[MavericK96]

Hi Maverick I believe what was causing me black screen was having to do with ArmA 2 assigning too large non local VRAM.

I haven't had a single black screen issue since I set it correctly. Thinking to set it to zero as well.

So I think you were spot on in saying that. :-)


What exactly did you set differently? The non-local VRAM in the .cfg? What'd you set it to? :cool:

[Michael Withstand]

What exactly did you set differently? The non-local VRAM in the .cfg? What'd you set it to? :cool:


First I set my paging file for the installation drive to 512Mb to 1024Mb. It was set to none before( I have 8Gb of DDR2 I needed no paging file).

Then I set the nonlocalVRAM in ArmA2 cfg to 768000000(768Mb which is lower than 1024Mb of the paging file available). That's it. You need to change the cfg file to read only after setting this up.


If I set the nonlocalVRAM parameter to 0 while setting the page file to none I still get a black screen.

Now I'm trying to set the local VRAM to a value slightly lower than what Arma 2 set for me while setting the drive paging file to none. My GPU memory is 512Mb and the localVRAm was set to 519Mb. Now I set it to about 507Mb. I keep my fingers crossed.


And about the gain in fps with the beta patch well it was a false observation. In fact FPS is reduced with the beta patch :-(. Hope they'll optimize it before releasing it out.

[NoRailgunner]

More often I see first white textures - no matter which parameter or ingame memory usage or if I change arma.cfg...
Using the latest Nvidia driver 197.45 for the 9800GTX+ 512MB on a DuoCore 8400 CPU @<hidden> with Vista32.

[MavericK96]

First I set my paging file for the installation drive to 512Mb to 1024Mb. It was set to none before( I have 8Gb of DDR2 I needed no paging file).

Then I set the nonlocalVRAM in ArmA2 cfg to 768000000(768Mb which is lower than 1024Mb of the paging file available). That's it. You need to change the cfg file to read only after setting this up.


If I set the nonlocalVRAM parameter to 0 while setting the page file to none I still get a black screen.

Now I'm trying to set the local VRAM to a value slightly lower than what Arma 2 set for me while setting the drive paging file to none. My GPU memory is 512Mb and the localVRAm was set to 519Mb. Now I set it to about 507Mb. I keep my fingers crossed.


And about the gain in fps with the beta patch well it was a false observation. In fact FPS is reduced with the beta patch :-(. Hope they'll optimize it before releasing it out.

That's interesting, I'll try it out. I'm pretty sure I tried altering those values in the past and I didn't see a difference, but maybe with these new betas it will matter more. Thanks for the info. :cool:

And yeah, I'm getting overall lower FPS with this new beta, specifically lower minimum FPS, which indicates (both visually and framerate-wise) more stutter.

---------- Post added at 02:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:46 AM ----------

I tried editing the local and non-local VRAM values in the .cfg (to 1024000000 and 2048000000 respectively) and flew around for awhile. The game seemed fairly stable for longer than before, but as I made several passes on Chernogorsk performance seemed to decrease more and more each time (lower framerate + more stutter each pass), and eventually the game just crashed with an "Out of Memory" error. So I guess maybe this helped, but not fixed the problem. The fact that performance degrades over time and then ends with a memory error says to me that there is a memory leak.

I set non-local VRAM to 2 GB because my page file is 6 GB so there really should be no problem there. I might try setting it to 1 GB just to see what happens, but I'm not super hopeful. I think this just needs to be sorted out on the dev end.

[sprayer_faust]

I have:
localVRAM=1073741824;
nonlocalVRAM=0;

As you can see I have set the localvram to the precise value of 1024^3 B = 1GB and made the file read only. I don't use nonlocal. No problems.

[Michael Withstand]

My paging file in the game directory is now 3Gb and the game is using 2Gb as nonlocalVRAM.

Haven't had a single black screen now.

It helps a lot for me.

To test for blackscreen just press Esc while in game and wait for the longest about 20 minutes or so. If the blackscreen didn't kick in they you're safe.

But I'm not having out of memory error.


As for setting nonlocalVRAM to zero,
For me the game becomes smoother(increase in fps) when paging file is used(nonlocalVRAM is set to non zero) but must be lower than the size of the paging file)

[Suma]

Changing localVRAM / nonlocalVRAM have the same effect as adding line bestPerformance=1, or leetSuperDuperHaxor=1337.

The VRAM values are only written by the game, never read.

[Myshaak]

leetSuperDuperHaxor=1337 doesn't work? Oh snap... I was living in a lie :(

[EricM]

bestPerformance=1

I get the best fps with -bestPerformance=3, 1 is much less satisfying for my ego.

[=WFL= Sgt Bilko]

Changing localVRAM / nonlocalVRAM have the same effect as adding line bestPerformance=1, or leetSuperDuperHaxor=1337.Shock :butbut: So I guess the "-AutoKillAllAI=1" doesn't work either then.

[MavericK96]

Changing localVRAM / nonlocalVRAM have the same effect as adding line bestPerformance=1, or leetSuperDuperHaxor=1337.

The VRAM values are only written by the game, never read.

Good to know, thanks. :cool:

[Protegimus]

Yep its an old problem alright. Go vanilla - get in a heli with FFAR's - shot a lot of them when close to the ground so you hear the explosions - experience the lack of sounds. :D


Alex, I alway put that down to 'deafness' from concussion rather than a bug. Is it definitely not by design?

Protegimus

[Alex72]

It happens with other types of sounds as well and not just explosions. Deafness where you only cant hear 1 sound but can hear the rest? :) Its usually 1 or 2 sounds that are cut out. I notice this in other older games as well. Pretty sure its a shortcoming rather than by design.

[JW Custom]

Changing localVRAM / nonlocalVRAM have the same effect as adding line bestPerformance=1, or leetSuperDuperHaxor=1337.

The VRAM values are only written by the game, never read.

Maybe now we can avoid getting more reports on how editing this value will dramatically increase your performance lol

[Yoma]

I just tried -DownloadOA=1 and now my Arma2 stopped working!
:D

[NeMeSiS]

I just tried -DownloadOA=1 and now my Arma2 stopped working!
:D

Must be FADE.