ArmA1 & 2 supports of ATI GDDR5 v-cards

[sluggCDN]

I decided to start a separate thread since it's seem to be the recurring issue with ATI cards and ArmA. And it's a serious one - ArmA doesn't run on one of the best video cards on the market regardless what version of ArmA is installed.

I just got myself this video cards (to see specs see the link below):
Diamond Radeon HD 4890 Xoc 1GB 925MHZ 1GB 4.2GHZ GDDR5

ArmA doesn't seem to be able to start with it at all. Upon starting the game the screen goes black for about 5-10 minutes with only a sandclock visible in the centre. Once we are past that stage ArmA starts in what I think is 600x480 screen mode; the top half of the screen is completely black, the bottom half is filled with nothing but ArmA infinitae ocean. There are also 5 black squares where the interface buttons should be, along the bottom of the screen. I assume it's them since by clicking on the last one I can close the game.

This cannot be! - after all the issues ArmA had since its release I thought this card might finally give me an opportunity to experience the game the way it should be. Instead I get the blank screen. What does it take to play ArmA normally?!

My system specs:
Core2Duo E6400 2.13ghz
6gig DDR2-800 RAM
Diamond Radeon HD 4890 Xoc 1GB w/ Catalyst drivers ver.9_4
Windows XP Pro 64bit

Can devs or anyone else shed some light on what's going on or someone has similar issue? I'm affraid that buying this card I can play any latest game out there but ArmA. Since ArmA2 is based on the same slightly upgraded graphics engine I won't be getting ArmA2 either. But that might be the case for everyone who gets a 4800 GDDR5 generation ATI card.

[[FRL]Myke]

...regardless what version of ArmA is installed.

Does this include the latest beta patch 1.16? At least the cangelog states that this betapatch should resolve some ATI related issues.

Did you ever deleted the arma.cfg? This could also help (occasionally it does, no guarantee though).

Does the arma.rpt say something about it? If you could make it possible that we could take a look at it, this could be very helpful. Also the dxdiag.txt could help us to help you.

And one thought i had while looking at your system specs: you're running "one of the best video cards on the market" with a CPU on the lower end? ArmA scales better with CPU power than with GPU power. No offence mate but if i were you i would look for a better CPU also. Take a look at the E8400 or the E7500. Even better for a quad with around ~3GHz but there it is a question if you can afford it.


And for completeness: Phenom X4 @ 3GHz, 4GB DDR2-800 and a HD4870/512MB with Catalyst 9.4 also.
I strongly doubt that architecture is so different between your GPU and mine. For sure yours is faster but general internal structure should be quite similar. I think to remember it is exactly the same and the improved performance is a result of a die-shrink. Both GPU's are named RV770.

On my PC ArmA runs quite well with high settings and viewdistance of above 5km.

I write this to show you it can be solved and ArmA should run on ATI with Catalyst 9.4. So please provide the missing informations i've asked at start and we'll see where your problems lies.

[sparks50]

My new 4890 is working ok with Arma.

[Mr_Tea]

It will more likely be an problem with the driver than one with the cards itself.
Blame ATI for crappy driver support, my next card will come from Nvidia again.

[kklownboy]

It will more likely be an problem with the driver than one with the cards itself.
Blame ATI for crappy driver support, my next card will come from Nvidia again.

Well for me, since the ATI 9.2 drivers ARMA ran/runs great. But untill the 1.16b patch i had to run in window mode, or boot with less than 4GB of system RAM. Window mode makes CF/CFX and some SLI setups, not use multiGPU.
But yeah no bad issues, ATI 4870x2's and 9.4ATI+1.16b.

[sluggCDN]

Persistance pays off!!! After about 6th session of ArmA reinstall and patch updating up to 1.16 I managed to get ArmA running on my card. There is an issue when updating ArmA from 1.08 to 1.14 and 1.14 to 1.16. The installer throws out the error saying "There isn't enough space" or something to that extent. Cancels the installation process but the Installer windows still says "Installation is successfuly completed". I assure you I have 499 gig of free space on my hard drive. But ArmA still plays. I will post feedback. It plays overall well with all settings on high/very-high in forested areas. Quite beautiful. But after a while, probably due to buffer overflow, frame rate drops. I will post more feedback later.

[Dwarden]

maybe your temp drive (temp directories if manually defined) or/and system drive got not enough space (not the destination drive where game is installed to) ...

so in multi drive system make sure these 3 drives got enough free space ...

[Yoma]

There used to be an issue with the installer not able to tell true drivespace on 64 bit systems if i recall correctly.

[PuFu]

There used to be an issue with the installer not able to tell true drivespace on 64 bit systems if i recall correctly.

never had an issue on XP 64

[POTS]

I don't think ddr5 is the reason why it's not working (i've got ddr5). But I do think ArmA doesnt recognize the performance capabilities of ddr5, so I'm crossing my fingers for full support in arma2.