ARMA II and OA random freeze

OK. I cannot get either of these games to work without random freezes.

m11lxr2 i7 / 4gb (gpu drivers 258.96)- no overclocking at all.

Currently have most video settings set to medium but have also tried setting all to low. Res at 1366x768.

These are the steam bought versions of the game and I have tried the most upto date betas and are still suffering exactly the same issues.

Game plays fine from anywhere between 3-10 minutes and then will just freeze and become unresponsive. OS is fine and I can switch out of the game and use the OS or launch another game fine.

What I cannot do is kill the failed arma2.exe process. Even pskill fails to kill it and the process is still running (or at least visible in the task manager). I also cannot shutdown/restart the system at this point, it will get as far as the shutdown splash screen and sit there until I do a hard reset.

Anyone else encountered similar issues or have any advice?

Cheers, Paul.

EDIT - Just to add some additional info. I'm not seeing this type of behavior in any other game with exception of fallout3, but this will occur after an hour or two of gaming.

 

@Darkgen - add this to your shortcut's run line and see if it helps..

-cpucount=2 -exThreads=2

example c:\program files\bohemia\arma 2\arma2.exe -cpucount=2 -exThreads=2 -maxmem = 4096

See if that helps at all.

Best wishes, StevenX

 

@Darkgen - please please let me know how it plays for you as well? I have been wanting feedback from the R2 folks for a while on this game.

If you can, run the pre-loaded benchmark that comes with OA. Something like XXXXXXX8. (can't remember the name and at work). It's under single player, and missions I think.

BW, StevenX

 

Made zero difference, still freezes and I need to do a full restart to actually kill the process.

OA benchmark was around the 25fps mark. Let me clarify what the settings are. Any in particular you wish me to test?

And how it plats? Really frustrating I can't even get the game to last longer than 5 mins! However it plays fine till it freezes

Cheers, Paul.

 

Darkgen - can you set visibity to around 600, all settings to normal, shadows high, post processing low, disable AA and AF and then run the OA benchmark and let me know what you get?

Thanks,

StevenX

 

Info-
ARMA II and OA benchmarks -
Steam versions-
ARMA II - File version 1.7.71.750
Video settings (DEFAULT) http://http://mire.darkgen.net/~paul/m11x/arma2_settings.jpg

Running Benchmark01 - 23FPS (23FPS with -cpucount=2 -exThreads=2 -maxmem=4096)
Beta (1.7.72.588) - 27FPS

OA - File version 1.54.0.72967
Video Settings (DEFAULT) http://http://mire.darkgen.net/~paul/m11x/arma2oe_settings.jpg

Running Ingame Benchmark - 32FPS (30FPS with -cpucount=2 -exThreads=2 -maxmem=4096)
Beta (1.54.73.116) - 31FPS

will update running latest beta mods -

 

Thanks.. you definitely want to use the beta mods if possible. I purchased the British Invasion add on or whatever. It seems to have the latest beta stuff built in for the most part. BW, StevenX

 

Additional as requested -
http://mire.darkgen.net/~paul/m11x/arma2oe_s_settings.jpg

Normal - 35FPS (beta also 35FPS)

now I just need to sort out these damn freezing issues. It's clearly a significant flaw is it pretty much prevents the ability to kill the errant process and shutdown the PC cleanly.

I have to be honest I've not considered running the game at anything less than native resolution (1366x768). What are others running the 3d resolution at? And is there really no-one out there who has experienced the type of freezing non-dying process that this game seems to conjure?

 

Your 3d resolution or fill rate is not at 100 percent. Notice at the right hand side. Change this so that both are at 1366x768. Then test and let me know please sir? Thanks for testing!

BW, StevenX

 

Using beta mods for OA - 29 FPS.

Is that comparable to what you're getting?

--
Perhaps a driver issue, seems so bizarre I can't kill the the tainted process without a hard restart every time, damn annoying.

 

Wow... That is almost spot on.
Benchmark OA (map 8 or something like that)
OC CPU only 29-30 fps (it's one or the other never lower or higher)
OC CPU + GPU @ 550/850 32-33 fps (again on or other never lower or higher)

There has to be something else that needs to be enabled for this so the I5/I7 gets a few more FPS. I wonder if you look at core utilization and thread utilization if you can see what is going on?

BW, StevenX

 

To be honest fellow, all the benchmarks in the world currently mean nothing to me since I cannot actually play the game!

And I'm sure you can probably eek out more FPS on the i7 that I have.

Hohum, maybe new drivers will do it, otherwise it's a full rebuild I fear. I can't continue hard resetting the laptop so I guess I'll not bother with Arma.

Nevermind, Paul.

 

@Dark - have you tried un-installing the game, using a registry cleaner like CCleaner, and then re-installing it again? The only reason I would do a full blown O/S reinstall is if you have never done it since receiving the machine. I always like a fresh install myself. I also do a clean load about once every 3 months or so.. Game re-install is worth a try if you haven't done it yet. If you download from stream you can always back it up, then redownload it if you want to start completely over and try it again. I dont think it's the video driver. I use the exact same (I dont have optimus). I do wish you good luck. Sorry to hear of the issues.

 

Quick update -
Did a fresh rebuild in the end (to win7 x64 ultimate) using all the officially released drivers for the m11xr2 to include the 335m (257.30) and thus far everything works out of the box.

Managed a quick gameplay run on both arma2 and oa and no crashing! YAY!

Will try run the same benchmark tests as before at some point.

Cheers. Paul.