** Arma II - tweaking & troubleshooting thread **

[L33]

Arma II tweaking & troubleshooting
PLEASE KEEP THIS THREAD ON TOPIC!

Apologies for creating yet another Arma 2 thread, but this will just get lost in the main thread and the same questions asked over and over...

Other threads

• Arma 2 multiplayer thread
• Arma 2 demo thread
• Arma 2 general thread

This is a work in progress - more will be added. None of the tweaks or fixes are guaranteed to solve your issue, ArmA II is quite buggy and many problems will only be solved with a patch!


Important: This guide is based on patch version 1.02. Please make sure you are patched up to this version.
> Download patch 1.02 for all languages <


Common details

• In this guide 'the config file' will be reffered to. Its location is Documents\Arma2\Arma2.cfg
• In this guide 'your profile file' will be reffered to. Its location is Documents\Arma2\yourname.Arma2Profile
• If you have created a custom player under a new name, your profile file will be in Documents\Arma2 - Other Profiles\yourname\yourname.Arma2Profile
• Please remember to backup all files you do not wish to lose when editing them!
• It is advised to set your config file/profile file to readonly after editing to prevent your custom values being overwritten!

Video FAQ, problems & tweaks

• ATi users please make sure you are running Catalyst 9.7 or later.
• nVidia users please make sure you are running 182.50 or later.
• Fraps can be used to monitor your FPS as there is currently no native option or command to display FPS.
• ArmaIIMark is a benchmark utility that can be used to see differences when tweaking settings etc.

General video tweaks, settings and snippets

• For the vast majority, Windows XP and XP x64 offer far better performance (about 30% increase) in Arma II than Vista or Windows 7.
• SLI/Crossfire users should set the value of 'localvram' within the Arma2.cfg file to equal HALF of their total video memory - so for 2x 4890 1GBs, this should be set to 1Gb. NOTE that this setting is in bytes, there is an online unit converter here should you need one
• Shadow setting 'Very High' usually offers better performance than 'High'
• Video memory setting 'Default' uses the value in Arma2.cfg. 'Very High' is 512mb, therefore 'Default' will actually be higher if your card has more than 512mb vram.
• Your terrain detail will automatically be lowered if Arma2 determines that you set your 'Visibility' too high.
• TrackIR needs to be enabled in control options before it will work.
• Lowering 'scenecomplexity' in your profile file will generally increase FPS while lowering detail. Its default values depend on your system but are usually between 300000 - 1000000.

SLI / Crossfire not working
How to test: Download Everest or GPU-Z and monitor the utilization of each GPU.
There is no definate fix for this, but there are a number of things you can try:

• (ATi cards) Use ATi Tray Tools to force Crossfire 'enabled at startup'.
• (All cards) Add "-winxp" to your ArmA II shortcut
• (All cards) Rename Arma2.exe to either Crysis.exe, fear2.exe, arma.exe. This forces drivers to enable different SLi/Xfire profies which may work better.
• (ATi cards) ENABLE Catalyst AI and set it to 'Advanced' in the catalyst control centre.

Overriding Vsync 'off' in control panel does not work
How to test: Use Fraps to see your in-game FPS. Vsync will limit your FPS to equal your monitor refresh rate (normally 60 for LCD monitors)

• (ATi cards) Use ATi Tray Tools to force VSync off. Choose the 'Vista workaround' option (see this post).
• (NV cards) Use Rivatuner to force VSync off.

AA is always set to 'Disabled' in ArmA II options
Official AA support is rumoured to be coming in patch 1.03. In the mean time, you can manually enable AA but please note all shadows will be disabled.
Open the following file with a text editor and edit the value of FSAA: Documents\Arma2\Arma2.cfg

• FSAA=0; - Disabled
• FSAA=1; - Low
• FSAA=2; - Normal
• FSAA=3; - High

Flickering distant textures when using 'Default' Video Memory setting
There is no definate fix, but the following have worked for some people:

• Change your video memory setting to 'Very High'.
• Within Arma2.cfg, check your localvram is set correctly. For SLI/crossfire users, set this value to the correct amount of ram for ONE of your cards. NOTE that this setting is in bytes, there is an online unit converter here should you need one.
• (ATi cards) ENABLE Catalyst AI and set it to high in the catalyst control centre.

Game is stuttering / pausing even with decent FPS
Known fixes:

• Use Windows XP or XP x64.
• Core i7 users: Disable hyperthreading in BIOS.
• ATi users: Disable ATi HDMI sound devices in device manager.
• Defragment your hard disk after installing a patch - the patches tend to massively fragment the Arma II files.

Audio FAQ, problems & tweaks
Sounds in the distance are disproportionately louder than those up close when using 5.1 sound

• This should be fixed in patch 1.02, but the previous workaround was to change your speaker settings to 4.1 or 2.1 sound.

Audio stuttering / popping / cracking or other artifacts

• If you have ffdshow installed (usually installed as part of a codec pack), add 'Arma2.exe' to the exception list for ffdshow audio

Misc audio tweaks

• Change 'soundEnableHW' to '1' in your profile file to enable hardware audio playback for compatible cards like Creative XFi & Asus Xonar.
• Change 'soundEnableEAX' to '0' in your profile file to disable EAX effects

Crashing FAQ, problems & tweaks
Random crashes to desktop with error message 'out of memory' (or similar)

• Try adding -maxmem=2047 to your ArmA II shortcut. This setting limits the amount of memory that ArmA II uses. Try gradually decreasing this value until your game is stable. Any setting above 2048 is ignored as Arma II is a 32-bit application (and is not large address enabled) so cannot use more than 2GB of ram.
• Try setting your pagefile to 6Gb, or setting to 'Allow windows to manage'. Pagefiles smaller than 2GB are not recommended.

Crash to desktop with error message 'Could not commit' when saving or autosaving

• Try deleting your savegames (back them up first if you do not want to lose them), especially if they were from a previous patch version (1.0 or 1.01). The save games are located in Documents\Arma2\saves

PC reboots, freezes or shuts down during gameplay

• 9 times out of 10 this is due to an unstable overclock. Try running CPU, RAM and GPU(s) at stock clock speeds. For CPU overclock stability testing, try running Intel Burn Test for a good few hours.

Installation (inc securom) & startup troubleshooting
Errors: 'cyclic redundancy check', 'CRC does not match' or freezing installation

• Try coping the entire DVD to a temporary folder on your hard disk and installing from there.
• Check for scratches and fingerprints on DVD.
• Try another DVD drive.
• External DVD drives are known to cause issues with this game both during installation and with securom; try an internal drive where possible.

Securom error: 'Please insert correct disc' shown at launch

• Disable/uninstall any virtual drives such as Daemon tools.
• If using a download version, make sure that paul.dll, unicows.dll, lang.ini and logo-paul.bmp are present in your Arma 2 directory. If they are not, copy them from the installer files (or the temporary files that the install extractor creates).

Securom activations

• Securom will only allow you to activate Arma II 5 times. If you reach the activation limit, they're not willing to help you and simply refer you to the place where you purchased the game (who will in turn refer you back to securom). To prevent this happening, revoke your activation when you uninstall: Instructions here

Error when launching: X3DAudio1_6.dll was not found

• Update DirectX 9 to the latest version which can be found on the Microsoft website

 

[L33]

Thanks for all the suggestions/corrections etc, I'll edit them in

Ha, L33 I was writing one of these threads today at work but hadnt got to the performance tweaks part.

Ive written help on multiplayer and what to do upon first joining an MP game. Might get it amended into here and the title changed slightly if you dont mind. An ARMA II Useful Resources | Performance Tweaks & Fixes thread?

Of course! Sounds great, I know a lot of people will benefit from that particular info

 

[L33]

In the arma2.cfg what does HDRPrecision=8 mean and what would lowering the number do? I know its HDR, but would turning DR off increase fps?

HDRPrecision possible values are 0,8,16,32 as far as I know, the higher values being higher performance/less detail.

Add "Disable ATI sound drivers" in Device manager up the top. Stopped ALL of my stuttering issues, now get 60fps online.

That was already in the guide

 

[L33]

Are you sure that's the case about Win 7 being slower than XP? Can that be verified? I ask since ArmA 1 runs about 30% quicker on Win 7...

I've personally verified it, see quoted post below from the main Arma2 thread. As always though, these things can be different on different hardware so this may not be the case for absolutely everyone, but there are lots of similar cases on the BIS forums (XP faster than 7)

I experimented by comparing Win 7 and XP x64 last night, as I noticed my friends machine running WinXP was actually running smoother than mine despite his rig being much lower spec.
If you don't want to read all below then to summarise, XP runs this game MUCH smoother.

I was running a few week old Win7 x64 build 7127 and fresh XP x64 SP2. After comparing I then made a completely fresh install of Win7 x64 build 7229 to make sure it wasn't the clean install that was making the difference rather than the OS.

My specs:
Core i7 @ 4.50Ghz
6GB DDR3 @ 1600Mhz
2x ATi Radeon HD 4890 1GB in crossfire
etc etc

Settings: All at highest except view distance 4000, fillrate (render) 100%.
I used the exact same settings and drivers on all installs.

Both the old and fresh Win 7 installations averaged around 35fps and both suffered from stutter.
XP x64 averaged around 50fps and was as smooth as silk. Looks like I'm going to have to keep an XP install just for this game.

EDIT: It seems I'm not the only one that has noticed this. According to this post on the BIS forums, Win 7 or vista combined with an i7 processor is the problem, specifically hyperthreading.

 

[L33]

Any way to skip the slowwww frikkin intro?

Yes, add -nosplash -world=none to your shortcut/command line

(ATi cards) Use ATi Tray Tools to force VSync off. Choose the 'Vista workaround' option.
help me find which menu its in. lol

same here, cant find that option anywhere

Go to Game Profiles > Manage Profiles. Create one if you dont have a default one already, the vista workaround option is in the Direct3D Tweaks tab

 

[L33]

I tried setting the video memory setting to 'default' but I get huge artifacts (like giant polygons all over the screen) and also missing textures/objects. This doesn't happen straight away, but as soon as I start moving and new things get loaded into memory. If I set it back to 'very high' it returns to normal.

Anyone else experience this?

I believe this is the same problem as listed in the 1st post under 'Flickering distant textures when using Default Video Memory setting'. Try enabling catalyst AI if you're an ATI user, and make sure your localvram setting is correct (see 1st post)