BIS - help us help ourselves!

[shuurajou]

Hi BIS,

This isn't a whine post, it's a cry for help on behalf of the community. The publishers (who we're meant to 'officially' go to support) can't answer this, only you can help.

There are issues with Arma 2 right now, and in many cases, it seems like little tweaks here and there using Arma's settings can help us help ourselves.

There are many threads where users are struggling with issues and the solutions to these issues being suggested are things like using command line arguments '-winxp' or '-maxmem=2047' (these are only 2 examples). Many people are also being told to change their 'localVRAM' and 'nonlocalVRAM' values set in their CFG file. The problem is I believe many people are guessing what these things do, and giving them out to each other wrongly.

Would you be able to help us, by defining what the what the different parameters do and mean, and how we can use them to help ourselves.

An examples would be the 'video memory' setting - it's debated constantly what the different settings mean, who should use what and what governs the default setting setting.

Another example would be the localVRAM & nonlocalVRAM cfg values. Some people suggest changing them - some people say Arma doesn't read those values, merely fills them with what it thinks are your video card memory and page file values.

The problem is BIS, only you can tell us truely what these settings mean, and how we can use them to help ourselves, or how we can look at these values to identify problems.

I think everybody appreciates the efforts to bring us the beta builds and that you are working to improve the game, but these basic bits of guidance will really help us further.

So BIS, will you support us in supporting ourselves?

I'll update the thread as we get answers below:

Arma2.cfg parameters:
localVRAM=X
[The localVRAM parameter is auto detected and is used by the Arma 2 engine for graphical optimization, this specific value indicates Arma 2's autodetection of GFX card resources (cited from official BI suport)]
[localVRAM parameter was made for debuging purposes only during developement(cited from BI Developer)]
Oustanding Question(s): It is not clear from the information provided that 'GFX card resources' means the amount of RAM on the video card, although this is likely

nonlocalVRAM=X
[The nonlocalVRAM parameter is auto detected and is used by the Arma 2 engine for graphical optimization, this particular value indicates Arma 2's autodetection on local available resources from main memory via AGP (cited from official BI suport)]
[localVRAM parameter was made for debuging purposes only during developement(cited from BI Developer)]
Oustanding Question(s): Whether or not this value matters in anyway for users with PCIe cards isn't clear. It also isn't clear if "local available resources from main memory via AGP" means AGP aperture size.

In Game Settings:
Video Memory [UNKNOWN - missing from the manual]

Command Line Arguments:
-winxp
[The -winxp command line argument minimizes the different approaches in Win7/Vista to XP, in some cases it has seen to enable multi-GPU support (cited from official BI support)]
Oustanding Question(s): It is not confirmed if this command line argument forces Arma 2, in a Windows 7/Vista environment to use Direct3D 9 instead of Direct3D 9EX.

Many Thanks,

Shuurajou (to see my own personal troubleshooting journey, click here).

PS> I have highlighted this thread to Miloslav Cinko (Customer Support) of Idea Games (BIS exclusive publisher) to see if we can get the ball rolling on some answers via that channel too.

Update #1 - 26th August 2009 - 11:12 UTC:
Blank email received from publisher in response to my request. Hoping it's just an accident and have highlighted to them if they did send me any info - it's not showing.

Update #2 - 26th August 2009 - 11:25 UTC:
The publisher has responed to my email and has queried if this thread has provided me the answers we need. I've advised so far this isn't the case, and highlighted the questions we have outstanding that need the attention of a BI developer.

Update #3 - 26th August 2009 - 12:42 UTC:
I have had a further response from the publisher via someone called 'Lynx', although their comments seem to be as a result of looking on the forum/wiki, not validating with the developers if the forum/wiki 'guesses' from users are accurate/inaccurate. I've requested absolute confirmation.

Update #3 - 26th August 2009 - 13:10 UTC:
Lynx has advised he is official BI support and the information he is providing me is from the programmers at BI. I am confirming more granular details to ensure this information is useful.

Update #4 - 26th August 2009 - 13:10 UTC:
I have ongoing discussions with 'official BI support' via the publisher 'IDEA GAMES', but have also received contact from an actual BI Developer (I sent a request for help when I created this thread). I won't name the developer as people will likely fill their inbox thinking they will get help, however they have sent me to another developer to get concrete answers to my questions - however they have advised that the parameters were only created for debugging purposes (not meant to be a user configurable option).

Updated #5 - 27th August 2009 - 11:40 UTC:
Sadly, BI official support feel that my questions are as a result of my own personal frustration and seem reluctant to assist. Please see the email chain for your viewing here here.

Updated #6 - 27th August 2009 - 12:37 UTC:
Trying to source this information from official sources (so the community doesn't have to guess) has been time consuming and resolving any ambiguity around the information given seems not to be a possibility as the publisher seems not to view this as their responsibility. I have tried to do this for the community as there are threads with several thousand views and no answers - however, I really don't have the time and effort to continue this further without the support of the publisher. I hope the information in this thread is post proves helpful to some people - good luck.

[Sick1]

Yes please help us with this. You guys must have a good amount of people that worked on this game and one of them is bound to know what these things do. I know that most if not all arma players check and read these forums at some point so the stage is set and everybody is watching BIS.

You guys are the gods so bring the rain!

[W0lle]

The startup parameters are explained here.

[shuurajou]

The startup parameters are explained here.

Hi W0lle,

Thanks for your response. Sadly that is a community wiki so isn't official statements from BIS so is possibly inaccurate.

Based on my examples, and looking at the wiki...

Command line argument: -winxp
The information seems inaccurate on the wiki. We know -winxp helps some GTX 275/285 users (they only have on gpu) and it's suspected it forces using a windowsXP version of Direct3d 9 which may explain some it makes a difference for people who have only one GPU. So the explanation of 'use it in Vista/Windows 7 to enable multi-GPU support (Arma2)' is merely one of many results that using this command line can achieve, but not an explanation of BIS as to what they designed it to do and the effects it may have.

CFG parameter: localVRAM=X
The guidance on what this means, should have defined as a value or how it can be used to help is not on the wiki.

CFG parameter: nonlocalVRAM=X
Again, any guidance is missing on the wiki for this.

In Game Parameter/Setting: Video Memory
Guidance on the wiki is missing for this. Guidance is required on what each setting determines and how it should be used in correlation to your setup.

So all in all the wiki hasn't helped with these particular questions, and they are key questions as many times they are quoted as 'solutions' to problems when nobody knows what they really do.

W0lle, if you're happy to take these questions to BIS I think you'd be doing all of us a huge favour.

[W0lle]

This is the official BI Studio Wiki. More official it doesn't get, maybe check the domain it's hosted at.

[BeerHunter]

-generateshaders Use unknown. (Possibly for use with Buldozer)
-download Use unknown. (Possibly set auto download of missing Mod pbo's from
server.)
-disableProgramDrawing Use unknown. (Possibly for use with Buldozer)
-useProgramDrawing Use unknown. (Possibly for use with Buldozer)
-gamertag= Use unknown.

Yep - thats really helpful ain't it..if BIS doesn't know what there for how are we supposed to ??

All in all though it's an informative site. Txs

[shuurajou]

This is the official BI Studio Wiki. More official it doesn't get, maybe check the domain it's hosted at.

I appreciate the Wiki is provided by BIS but the content is owned and produced by the community and can be changed by anyone. I'd imagine keen forum users put a lot of that information on there. Hence the ambiguity on some of them and inaccuracy in other areas.

The problem is the community made it, with their guesses, not BIS. Even I can go in and change things if I want with wrong information.

Regardless, the questions I've posted are parts of solutions people recommend all the time, but nobody is agreed on what they do and there's no guidance from BIS if we're getting things right or not. The manual provided to me on Steam doesn't actually have a 'Video Memory' setting.

The game isn't perfect yet, and we appreciate BIS is working on it, but to make the best of the things before the patches to come, we need help from BIS about the settings and parameters so we can help troubleshooting ourselves. We need support from BIS as they know what -winxp actually does an why/if we should use it. BIS will know what they created the different 'Video Memory' settings in game for and how we can use them depending on hardware (there are only guesses on the forum - everyone says different). BIS will know why/if we should look at the local/nonlocalVRAM cfg parameters and how we can use them to diagnose faults or if indeed we can use them at all.

If BIS can answer these key questions then we can make sure they are on the wiki, accurate, and locked (if that can be done), then that'd be really helpful. Only the developers can tell us the real answers to the questions I've posed - the community can only guess.

[W0lle]

First of all, the Wiki is not only filled with community knowledge but BI developers also add or edit articles.

Second, the Wiki is well moderated and the one who fills it with nonsense of false information has modified articles for a long time then.

We will see if a developer will answer this questions here, I wouldn't bet though.

[shuurajou]

First of all, the Wiki is not only filled with community knowledge but BI developers also add or edit articles.

Second, the Wiki is well moderated and the one who fills it with nonsense of false information has modified articles for a long time then.

We will see if a developer will answer this questions here, I wouldn't bet though.

Hi W0lle,

I appreciate you addressing our concerns here and contributing to the thread.

That's great to know BI developers contribute to the Wiki. It's also great to hear it's moderated.

It'd be great to see if a developer can come and help us out here, as if they can't - who can?

[Karhis]

Some of the stuff in the startup parameters Wiki are remnants from old ArmA1.

Like

-world=empty (for faster game loading.. no island and no menu animation loaded (1.05))

refers to old ArmA version 1.05, doesn't it?

And

-openal Use OpenAl sound.

refers to OpenAL sound which is not used in ArmA2 according to moderator Dwarden in his first post in sticky thread " Missing xAudio2 file(s) & sound issues"

This information seems to be copied and pasted from older information applicable to ArmA1 and therefore leaves us guessing what certain parameters do if anything.