ArmA 2 stuttering performance

[[8]1|SSgt.Goldman]

I'm experiencing stuttering video performance in ArmA 2
Every 10-15 seconds the screen stutters for a very short moment (micro-stutter),
but long enough to be VERY VERY anoying :mad:

Even at all settings redigulously low or even disabled (like AA etc) @ 800x600 @129 FPS!

How to sove this?


My config:
- Windows 7 ultimate 64-bits
- NVidia 196.21 Windows 7 64-bits drivers

- CPU: Intel i7 965 3,2 Ghz
- MEM: 6 GB Kingston DDR3 1800Mhz CL7
- HDD: Intel X25-M SSD
- VIDEO: Nvidia GeForce GTX 295

[{AToW}Hitman]

Any backround programs which could cause this? Antivirus perhaps?

*edit found some links:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=91509&highlight=freeze&page=2

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=77858&highlight=freeze


ok one friendly advice, several people who experienced this were able solve the problem by (order doesnt matter sometimes they needed only some sometime all):

- temporary disabling antivirus while running ArmA 2
- disabling all unneeded applications (especially browsers, media players, scanners etc.)
- using windowed mode instead of fullscreen
- using fullscree mode instead of windowd
- disabling forced AA / AF in drivers (huge performance killer as game does that self ingame)
- changing ingame advanced video settings (needs lot of try&fail cycles)
- using -maxmem=2047 (with 3+ GB ram only)
- restarting OS
- defragmenting drive
- place ArmA 2 (demo) on different drive than OS (2 HDD system) and ideally different than swap file (3 HDD system)
- updating drivers
- installing SP2 for Vista

*edit#2 So far what I've read about microstutter it has been the problem of having too many backround programs running, try closing them down or use gamebooster to do it.

[[8]1|SSgt.Goldman]

Hitman thanks for the links,

I've done all that was mentioned except:
- running ArmA2 in windowed mode
- installing ArmA2 on a different drive than the OS.

NOTHING helped... and I cannot believe my Intel X25-M SSD
isn't capable of running windows 7 and ArmA2 simultaneously.

Other suggestions, before I reinstall it on one of my WD Velociraptors ?

EDIT: I will try to kill more background crap

[[1]MFR.BarmyArmy]

Defragmentation

Alot of stuttering is as Arma loads textures esp. at the beginning of the game and if you "jump" location (ie. mapwarp).

Use sysinternals contig.exe to ensure your .pbo files are contiguous.

C:\Games\ArmaII> contig -s *.*

BA

[[8]1|SSgt.Goldman]

Barmy, thanks for you comment.

I was thinking about read performance. But SSD's don't need to be defragmented....
(because there is no read-head that has to move all over the disc searching for fragments)
It's even bad to defragment a SSD (because it wears down faster by doing this) :thumbsdown:


PS gamebooster closed a lot of windows crap but did not get rid of constant micro-stutters...
(even while the ArmA2 demo1 scenario runs with 129 average FPS !)

:mad:

[[8]72|JSgt.Super64]

Wow Goldman, yeah im surprised too you're getting any studdering while using an SSD drive. This leads me to believe some process in the background is turning on/off every 10-15 seconds. Especially if its consistently in that time frame. But I dont think your bottleneck is hardware limitations.

[[8]1|SSgt.Goldman]

Super

I can't exactly time them, but the micro stutters are not exactly every 15 sec. sometimes it's even around every 5 seconds.

I'm going to try:
1) a reinstall of the game on the SSD
if that does not solve it
2) a reinstall of the game one of my WD Velociraptors
after that...
3) format C... ?

[[8]72|JSgt.Super64]

Before formatting C, I would first look at all the windows services through the management console. Sort by start up type. Look at which ones are set to start up type "Automatic". Examine them closely. Try to figure out which ones might not be really necessary. They give little descriptions if you highlight them. Look for anything that might poll the system intermittently. Something is taking CPU attention away from ArmA2.

Another thing to try, for a test, is to start up ArmA2. Then minimize it and launch task manager. Find the arma2.exe running in processes. Right click on it and change the priority to High. See if this improves performance.

[[8]Gen.t0m]

When I run Java applications with Arma2, I get the same sort of stutter you are talking about Goldman

[[AToW]Dren]

dunno if this helps (have helped me once), if you GPU haves 2 slots for your display, try on swapping to other

[[8]1|SSgt.Goldman]

Thanks guys!

Stupid software...

I've used several options mentioned below together with a fresh install of ArmA2 (still on the SSD).
It finally runs smooth again ! (40 FPS average in benchmark 1)

1920x1200
2000 view distance
All settings very high
shadows and postprocessing disabled
Looks like I'm ready for sunday

G.

[[AToW]Dren]

grats, your BTR waits comrade

[[8]3|SW0.DaMan]

a couple of weeks till the BTR, Welcome back Goldman!

[[8]72|JSgt.Super64]

grats, your BTR waits comrade

Извините мой друг. Посмотрите на его ранга. Он выбрал Америку! :bravo:

[[1]160|1Lt.PolishAviator]

Bloody decadent western people stealing our crews... :thumbsdown: :biggrin:

[[8]95|Jlt.DonCorleone]

Super, I don't why google translator translating good, but he translated only 1(!) word with mistake!

[[1]MB|Pvt.Zoog]

1|Sgt.Goldman;99375']Thanks guys!

Stupid software...

I've used several options mentioned below together with a fresh install of ArmA2 (still on the SSD).
It finally runs smooth again ! (40 FPS average in benchmark 1)

1920x1200
2000 view distance
All settings very high
shadows and postprocessing disabled

Looks like I'm ready for sunday

G.
So you basically reinstalled ArmA 2 to fix this problem? I bought the same SSD yesterday and have a fresh install with Win 7 64 and ArmA 2 on the SSD. Updated all drivers of the system but my ArmA 2 performance is much worse than when I used a normal regular harddisk. I get a lot of slowdowns when looking around, even when I look at the same place again it slows down again, and it also stutters randomly. Also zooming in and out causes slowdowns sometimes :redface: Never had problems like this on my old drive..

[[8]Gen.t0m]

I was under the impression that Very High Video Mem hunder settings required 2GB GFx Mem, i.e 280GTX x 2?

[[8]1|SSgt.Goldman]

@t0m
I don't know what the requirements for Very High Video Mem are
but I have a GTX 295 which is 2x GTX 260/280 cards stuck together bringing the total video mem to 1792 MB.

@Zoog
I had the exact same stuttering as you describe. I :
- de-installed ArmA2
- installed the lastest nvidia drivers (196.21)
- in Nvidia Control Panel changed Vertical Sync to Force Off
- reinstalled ArmA2.
- disabled virus scanner and useless windows services (via gamebooster)
- set startup command line to: "C:\Games\ArmA 2\arma2.exe" -winxp -maxmem=2048 -nosplash -cpuCount=2 -mod=@ATOW
- changed resolution to 1920x1200 (both !) and All settings to Very High
(postprocessing disabled because, for me that gives a weird white shiny surface on buildings...)

No idea what of the above settings makes the difference but now everything runs smooth on very high settings.
(PS For better viewing in a chopper I've set terrain detail to low and viewdistance=6000).

Some things on SSD's
- make sure you have the latest firmware update for your intel SSD drive
- If you have the Postville version of the SSD, make sure you have the TRIM firmware update)
- NEVER defrag your SSD (so switch it off in windows!)
- Try to avoid removing data a lot (performance will degrade)
- Don't fill up all the GB's, leave some space

G.

[[1]MB|Pvt.Zoog]

1|Sgt.Goldman;99447']@Zoog


Thanks for the info. I tried almost everything, but I haven't tried the maxmem and winxp parameters (because I didnt need them before), I will try those for tonight. And will try a reinstall tomorrow.

All my drivers are up to date (including firmware for SSD and BIOS) etc. Also read somewhere that it could have something to do with my SB750 chipset. But I have a topic open @ BIS (http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=94319) so hope some support or dev can say something about SSD performance, but I doubt it.

[[1]MB|Pvt.Zoog]

Goldman, could you check something for me if it's not too much of a hassle?

Could you run CrystalDiskMark (http://release.crystaldew.info/CrystalDiskMarkSetup) for me with the same settings as you see below, to see how high your 4k write speed is? I'm seeing people getting over 50mb/s in that particular column, while I barely reach 20mb/s. I'm curious how yours is operating, maybe something is wrong with my SATA interface (read some stories about the SB750 on my mobo not working very good with SSD's).


http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/1686/sddspeed.jpg

[[8]1|SSgt.Goldman]

@Zoog:
bear in mind that almost all HDD benchmark tools are written for HDD's so they do not always give correct results for SSD's.
For more details read the indepth SSD articles from the anandtech site.

Here are my results: (for both my SSD and HDD's)

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f350/Goldman001/ARMA/SSD_vs_HDD.png

So it seems that your score of 20 mb/s in the 4k write is not that bad at all.

PS I have the first series X25-M (not the Postville) and it's several months old,
so my peformance degrades and I cannot use the TRIM command)

[[1]MB|Pvt.Zoog]

Thanks for posting. Yeah, I read all the Anandtech articles before I bought my drive, they are very good reads :)

A few minutes ago I finally found the problem! On my normal HDD I had been using version 9.9 of Ati drivers, when I tried the SSD I used the latest, version 9.12. Well, today I reinstalled Windows and everything, but this time used the 9.9 drivers. This fixed the problem with slowdowns, so it seems to be a driver issue :thumbsdown:

Although right now I have buildings untextured for 7+ seconds (white model) or buildings appearing after 2 secs when I look behind me. That's new, but we'll see, for now the slowdowns are gone :smile:

[[8]1|SSgt.Goldman]

Although right now I have buildings untextured for 7+ seconds (white model) or buildings appearing after 2 secs when I look behind me. That's new, but we'll see, for now the slowdowns are gone :smile:

Good to hear your slowdowns are gone.

All you need now is a Nvidia card and your texture issues are also gone :biggrin: :wink:
JK ... got no idea what that could be... drivers again ?:mad: