arma 2 tweaks

almoststew1990 · 27 Jun 2012 at 09:23

I am running arma 2 on my laptop and it runs acceptably (well pretty poorly, but playable) except for 1 second hangups that happen every minute. Does anyone know why this is happening? Or any ini tweaks to turn off some effects?

My specs:

HP pavilion Dv3 4100sa
Intel P6100 2GHz dual core
ATI m5470
4GB ddr3

I know they're pretty weak specs, and it is my CPU letting me down, so any tips to improve performance? I have got a desktop computer which plays It fine, but I am away from home for a while.

Omaeka · 27 Jun 2012 at 09:26

Isn't that an onboard graphics chip?

almoststew1990 · 27 Jun 2012 at 09:29

Nah, it Is discrete; I have an intel chip HD chip apu thing too, for switchable graphics.

Omaeka · 27 Jun 2012 at 09:33

Discrete?

If you run the game through Steam, I can tell you a good launch option to boost fps.

almoststew1990 · 27 Jun 2012 at 09:36

Discrete, dedicated, not shared kinda thing... Ok cool, yeah go for it!

Xcept1 · 27 Jun 2012 at 09:39

Arma II Beta patches improve performance. Like Omaeka said, there are some launch parameters you can use to increase performance. Download the ArmA II launcher to start with and the latest beta patch.

Omaeka · 27 Jun 2012 at 09:54

Do not use the Arma II Launcher, instead download the Beta patch, install it. Now find your ArmA II OA folder @ C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2 operation arrowhead.

Backup the original ArmA2OA.exe and copy the one from C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\arma 2 operation arrowhead\Expansion\beta

into the directory where the backup now is. Set your Steam launcher options for ArmA II OA to this:

-mod=@dayz -beta=Expansion\beta;Expansion\beta\Expansion -nosplash -skipintro -noPatchCheck -world=empty -noFilePatching -cpuCount=4 -exThreads=7

There are two customized .cmd files you need to run after this, they are user modified versions of the standard ones Steam uses and I cannot find where to download them, so unless you can find them yourself, trust me with your email address and I will send you a .7zip or .rar archive (up to you) containing them.

I can guarantee they are virus free as I have used them for a few days now, and I am totally clean. If you are worried I may be trying to give you a virus, I'm sure there are some people on this forum who can back up my integrity.

almoststew1990 · 27 Jun 2012 at 10:07

CPU count 4? Threads 7? Will that not adversely effect performance as I only have 2 cores (and 1 thread per core)?

HR4 · 27 Jun 2012 at 10:19

Is it ‘Arma 2’ your running or ‘Arma 2 Operation Arrowhead’? or combined ops etc, the reason I ask, is that Arma 2 OA is better optimised for performance than straight Arma 2.
The 2ghz is going to hold you back quite a lot, but you already know that.

What are your in-game settings, the more details the better..

Edit: I would not run cpu count 4 if you only have the two.
To be honest with the latest game patches i.e 1.60 or 1.11 depending on what your running, the game does most all of this automatically. However things may be different for Steam, I use hard copy (disc's).

Omaeka · 27 Jun 2012 at 10:22

almoststew1990 said:
CPU count 4? Threads 7? Will that not adversely effect performance as I only have 2 cores (and 1 thread per core)?

I have 4 cores and 4 threads so go figure... It gave me a giant performance increase, though.

enigma27 · 27 Jun 2012 at 10:25

Omaeka said:
There are two customized .cmd files you need to run after this, they are user modified versions of the standard ones Steam uses and I cannot find where to download them, so unless you can find them yourself, trust me with your email address and I will send you a .7zip or .rar archive (up to you) containing them.

what do these files do exactly? was going to try this method rather than using the launcher but not heard of needing to run these custom files before.

almoststew1990 · 27 Jun 2012 at 10:28

I'll 'fess up, it is arma2 free which I use for the armoury mode. I also play dayz with arma free + oa. so a performance increase in both would be nice. I have all settings on minimum, inc view distance. res and 3D res are both 1024*600 lol. what graphics settings can I turn up , to take pressure off the cpu? I think I read that the lowest settings give more work to the CPU so that the Gpu isnt strained...

Xcept1 · 27 Jun 2012 at 10:28

Omaeka said:
Do not use the Arma II Launcher

Lul what? Using the launcher is so much more easier than steam. Hell I don't even have steam running anymore to play it.

almoststew1990 said:
I'll 'fess up, it is arma2 free which I use for the armoury mode. I also play dayz with arma free + oa. so a performance increase in both would be nice. I have all settings on minimum, inc view distance. res and 3D res are both 1024*600 lol. what graphics settings can I turn up , to take pressure off the cpu? I think I read that the lowest settings give more work to the CPU so that the Gpu isnt strained...

Make sure Video Memory is set to Default. Gives better performance. I belive setting shadows to high or very high takes a load off your CPU as well.

Heres a pic of the ArmA II Launcher. Simple to use and pretty much has all the options you could need to change,

almoststew1990 · 27 Jun 2012 at 10:36

Cheers, set the vram to default but no improvement in the hang ups. It was on normal befpre, which I figured was 512 (my amount) anyway. Shadows have been completely disabled, so shouldnt have any load on either Gpu or CPU right?

Xcept1 · 27 Jun 2012 at 10:40

I would imagine that would be the case but with ArmA you never know!

What do you have your Anisotropic filtering and Antialiasing set to?

The Visability option is pretty important as well. Cranking that up will cripple a lot of systems.

Turn off Post-Process effects. Makes the game look better and gives better performance.

almoststew1990 · 27 Jun 2012 at 10:50

Aa and af are both off, visibility is 500m. Pp is also off. Everything is off or minimum except vram, which is default. Cracking the visuals up to medium/low doesn't affect the frame rate or hangups at all either, for better or worse...

Xcept1 · 27 Jun 2012 at 10:52

I'm guessing that will be as good as you are going to get then

almoststew1990 · 27 Jun 2012 at 11:01

Alright thanks for the help guys, guess ill just have to wait a week or so till I am home!

bJN · 27 Jun 2012 at 11:28

Taken from http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma2:_Startup_Parameters

-maxMem=<number>

Defines memory allocation limit to number (in MegaBytes).
256 is hard-coded minimum (anything lower falls backs to 256). 2047 is hard-coded maximum (anything higher falls back to 2047).
Engine uses automatic values (512-1536 MB) w/o maxMem parameter.
yet FileCache was always excluded from the virtual address limit, see our developers blog: http://www.bistudio.com/index.php/company/developers-blog/85-breaking-the-32-bit-barrier

-maxVRAM=<number>

Defines Video Memory allocation limit to number (in MegaBytes). Use to resolve e.g. Windows problem: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2026022/en-us?p=1
128 is hard-coded minimum (anything lower falls backs to 128). 2047 is soft-coded maximum , any value over 2GB might result into unforseen consequences!

-winxp

Forces the game to use Direct3D version 9 only, not the extended Vista / Win7 Direct3D 9Ex
- the most visible feature the Direct3D 9Ex version offers is a lot faster alt-tabing. May help with problems using older drivers on multi-GPU systems.

-noCB

Turns off multicore use. It slows down rendering but may resolve visual glitches.

-cpuCount=<number>

Change to a number less or equal than numbers of available cores. This will override auto detection. Details below.

-exThreads=<number>

Change to a number 0,1,3,5,7. This will override auto detection (which use 3 for dualcore and 7 for quadcore). Details below.

-malloc=<string>

Since OA 1.60 - Set the particular allocator to be used. Significantly affects both performance and stability of the game. More details.