Strange boot problem, wont play with 1 video card.

[skypine27 0]

I have a really strange problem with Armed Assault.

I recently built a new SLI system (not just to play Armed Assault)  with 2 PNY 8800 Ultras.

Anyway, Armed Assault loads and plays "fine" (though still not even close to maxed out on a Quad Core QX6850, 4 Gigs Ram, and 2 8800 Ultras...)

But here comes the problem....

The game will not work at all with ONE video card.  For reasons I dont care to go into, I have decided not to run 2 cards in SLI.  I am now down to one 8800 Ultra.  Armed Assault loads, but I do not get the red Atari screen.  I just get a black screen, all the way to the Armed Assault main page.   Everything stays black, but works, like looking at a photo negative (see screen).  Everything works, but you could not possibly play the game.... I have tried nvidia forceware 162.22 aned 163.44. Same black / grey screen problem.

http://img164.imagevenue.com/loc1108....MG]

This happens EVERY time I try to load the game with one video card.  I have uninstalled and reinstalled it many times.  I have even formatted the HD and reinstalled Vista several times.  Each time, no luck.  With one card, the game just will not show playable colors.   I can have both card installed, an de-select SLI (so the game runs on just one card), and it plays fine.  The issue comes into play only when I have one video card physically installedin the system...

Any ideas?

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

This is nothing new.

It's your 4 gig memory and new nividia drivers.

With 163.44 beta, I had to disable "Memory Hole Remapping" inside my bios, so it looks like only 2 gigs of memory are used, or my game would load just as yours does. Some will just pull 2 sticks of memory.

158.24 WHQL did not have this issue....but SLI would fall apart quickly w/ArmA.

Also, with 158.24... I had to add the -maxmem=512. It is not needed with 163.44 .

Nividia drivers have come a long way since Feb, and surely the "4gig" problem will be fixed soon.

Try it, and see if it helps.

EDIT= Also check your game profiles with Ntune or the Nvidia CP....I did not get the sli option with ArmA profile..so I renamed arma.exe to FEAR.exe, and yes...sli is beautiful.

[skypine27 0]

Interesting thought about renaing arma to fear.exe! Never thought of that.

In any case, Im running one video card, no more SLI for a while.

The thing I did not like about SLI, in general, is with 2 8800 Ultras, they use System memory. I have 4 gigs installed, and with one video card, all Vista memory pages display "3.25" gigs of memory, in the control panel/system screen and in the "welcome to" screen on bootup (if you have that check box enabled)

However, when I install the 2nd vidoe card, my memory drops down to 2.75 GB in all windows screens. And, if I enable SLI Broadcast Aperture in the BIOS (which is reccommended in SLIzone formums), the system memory drops FURTHER to 2.50 GB available. I had several "low memory" warnings from Vista while game, with several bit torrents open in the background etc. I'm not willing to make this sacrifice for SLI yet.

Unless someone knows of a way to physically stop a 2nd video card from using system memory, then Im using one card for the immediate future.

I will try the next set of nvidia drivers, after 163.44 (they had the same Black Screen problem) and see if Armed Assault will run then

Thanks man

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

I take it your using Vista 32bit?

That would change things.

You should be able to tell any game profile (NV CP) to use 1 GPU. Most of my profiles are set to "Use SLI" after installing video drivers.

I've yet to try reinstalling 158.24, to see if I get the SLI option back for the ArmA profile after installing 163.44.

I did disable it while using 158.24 .

For now...I'm tickled with the way ArmA is playing.

edit=..btw...once I set a profile to use 1 gpu...the only way to get the sli option back..is to reinstall the drivers, but this doesn't apply with 163.44...ArmA profile remains "single gpu".

[skypine27 0]

Are you gaming under Vista 64?  How does that work??

I'd like to upgrade to 8BM of ram and run SLI in Vista 64, but assumed it was terrible for games.  I play tested Vista 64 on my laptop, and even with simple games like Civ IV, Sid Miers Railroads, etc, I got a LOT of crash to desktops that I did not get while playing with Vista 32

Has vista 64 finally become game-able?

PS.  I'll probably wait until the next version of forceware comes out (ie, greater than 163.44) and try Armed Assault then.  I'd like to be able to play it, with one video card, and without removing DIMMS!

I refuse to go SLI with two 8800's under Vista 32, until when, and if they ever get the memory bug fixed. I dont like having gigs of ram installed, only to have windows only be able to access 2.50 of it! (with two video cards installed)

Thanks for the info man.

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

With 158.24 drivers, SLI only worked in my games like NFSMW, FS10 AND GTI Racing ect, most the older games would have major issues w/sli. OFP has never had a problem w/SLI being enabled, but the sli indicators do not appear in that game, so I dought sli works in it, even though it's profile says "Nvidia recommended SLI".

I also want to run 8 gig of memory..but not until someone gets some 2gig sticks that work properly. (My MB holds 4x2gig)

I've been testing this pc and Vista so much since Feb...that I almost gave up until 163.44...and things can only get better now.

I do not like having to cut my memory in half either...but for now it does help ArmA, and I really do not see any loss if I'm only using a com (Ventrilo) and playing ArmA...even while running a server as a service, and your quad setup shouldn't either.

Also...as far as CTD's in games....ArmA has been the only 1 that I had those with...but tweaks like -maxmem=512 stopped them while using drivers before 163.44 .

I do believe your memory and SLI issue..is due to the 32 bit version.I believe it takes XP64, Vista64 or a Windows server OS, to utilize memory over 3.5. I have no idea about Linux anymore.

[skypine27 0]

Good to know that Vista 64 is finally becoming gameable. My mobo (Striker Extreme) also has 4 dimm slots. So I also need 4 2GB dimms. (they are available on Newegg, though still too pricey and at slower speeds than the 1 GB dimms)

I think by the time SP1 is released for both OS's, I'll try a switch to Vista 64 w/ SP1 slipstreamed and see how that works. They'll also be far cheaper and faster 2 GB dimms available by then.

Thanks for the info (gave up playing Armed Assault until it will boot wth all 4 dimms installed in Vista 32...)