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
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
Video FAQ, problems & tweaks
General video tweaks, settings and snippets
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:
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)
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
Flickering distant textures when using 'Default' Video Memory setting
There is no definate fix, but the following have worked for some people:
Game is stuttering / pausing even with decent FPS
Known fixes:
Audio FAQ, problems & tweaks
Sounds in the distance are disproportionately louder than those up close when using 5.1 sound
Audio stuttering / popping / cracking or other artifacts
Misc audio tweaks
Crashing FAQ, problems & tweaks
Random crashes to desktop with error message 'out of memory' (or similar)
Crash to desktop with error message 'Could not commit' when saving or autosaving
PC reboots, freezes or shuts down during gameplay
Installation (inc securom) & startup troubleshooting
Errors: 'cyclic redundancy check', 'CRC does not match' or freezing installation
Securom error: 'Please insert correct disc' shown at launch
Securom activations
Error when launching: X3DAudio1_6.dll was not found
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
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
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