screen tear headaches.

[Rifle Eyez 34]

Posted a thread about this about a month ago hoping that switching from a VGA > DVI adapter to a straight DVI > DVI would help but it didn't.

It's hard to describe the issue and obviously i've coped with it since this time last year. The best way I can describe it is like a screen tear that almost blurs everything as I move the mouse. If i'm looking into a forest and move my mouse from one place to another doing a sweep everything seems to get torn and blurry. Not sure if this is just a ARMA engine issue but it doesn't occur from memory on any other games and if it does it's nowhere near as bad (AC3, BF3, sleeping dogs, Skyrim, TF2). Notice it tons inside buildings too, physically causes a real headache to move and focus on loot inside buildings as I move around. Every single straight edge is jagged as soon as I move - but it settles almost instantly as soon as I stop. I notice it on the trees too.

I've tried everything I can - vsync on/off, AA low, med, high. Every combination of graphics settings nearly. imaginable.

Anyone else suffer from this? I run a i5 quad w/ a Radeon 7850, 8gb corsair RAM and a 650w OCZ gold PSU. I run my OS on one HDD, Arma off another and I record on another HDD - all get over 120 mb/s write speeds when I test on dxtory.

Also, unrelated possibly, but I get severe pop up's too. Trees completely changing textures in front of me, buildings changing between insanely blurry, sharp, blurry, very sharp as I approach them. Flickering roof's that can change if I move my mouse slightly. Grass completely changing texture even if I look one way, then the other, then back again.

Halp.

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

Can you post a screen shot of your ingame settings?

[Rifle Eyez 34]

Sure - this is how I have it a majority of the time when I'm not chopping and changing settings. It doesn't help that I'm using a Arma free/OA - could that really make a difference? Maybe in physical texture quality (doesn't look drastically different apart from inside vehicles/buildings though).

I've played w/ launch parameters too - set up to my knowledge correctly (from the B.I forums) - maxmem, maxVram and the processor core parameter (forget what it was). Hasn't really made any difference.

Also every now and again I almost get a ''wave'' go vertically up my screen. It's hard to describe, almost like a transparent single wave that travels across the screen but not long enough to really notice - just a second. I noticed it this time when I went from crouched to standing.

I've noticed if I'm trying to read a sign or look at loot on the floor as I'm running past - focusing on anything small really as I move, it all appears to ''blur together'' and tear. Best way I can describe it. Not like post processing effects however. I thought I was crazy till a buddy of mine mentioned he gets a similar issue but neither of us could quite pinpoint exactly what it was to explain it.

Here's a couple examples of my 2nd problem that I get, much easier to capture than my main issue unless I uploaded a video and even then as it's not 100% true quality so it's hard. I've noticed the weird tear/blur/headache inducing effect on some streams I think when people move through buildings, so idk.

Example of the blur.

Happens on any map, not just Taviana. I can get whole blocks like this, literally so blurry the graphics may have come from Wolfenstein 3d back in the day, then I can get closer and they go sharp like the ones next to it on the picture. Then back to blurry from 20m away, then sharp. The picture quality is probably not great as it's from a 10 sec clip I then print screened - so not ''true to game'', but it's enough to see.

Example of pop ups. Notice how the first pic the whole arrangement of the windows is different.

Literally a second between the pictures, if that. I ran on the first pic, then came to a rest for the second. Both these pictures were 2 seconds after the blur one - so all in the space of 10 seconds of movement. Again, I get this on Chernarus too. Sometimes i'll get roof's of sheds etc flickering from 10m away, that physically change textures completely as I move. Can kinda understand it from 800m scoped in though.

Edited June 23, 2013 by showtime

[badluckburt 974]

I don't know about your first problem but about the second one:

It seems to be LOD texture and object swapping. I believe the engine does this when it determines there's not enough memory to hold all the data currently needed for the scene.

One thing that might help is setting Texture detail to High, this forces the game to render the higher quality textures further out. Also, is the HDD with Arma on it defragmented?

Another option you have is creating a RAM disk and moving certain PBO's to it, that might help solve this problem.

And one last question, do you have the same problem with maps like Takistan?

[Rifle Eyez 34]

I've just watched some gameplay I recorded on wasteland takistan as I haven't played on it for months, and I don't notice it as much. Looks a lot more ''solid'' in general. I still got a occasional pop when I run around a corner and look into the distance at a town 300m+ away, but once it's ''popped'' it's fine - on Taviana/Chernarus (only other 2 maps i've played) I can literally get this blur/pop up from 50m away that continuously changes untill I'm like <10m away from it. Causes as much of a headache as my first problem, especially in a forest if I'm keeping my eyes out for people and nearly all the trees/grass/vegetation changes (swaps, like you said) and pops up all over.

Reading on the B.I forums apparently a lot of people had/have issues with ARMA/ATI and 8gb of RAM specifically, but as these posts are 3 4 years old I believe patches may have helped..A ton of people were getting better performance, less LOD popping by forcing 4gb RAM on msconfig or pulling 4gb out physically. May be worth a try?

I've changed my maxVram and maxmem to use all 2gb of my 7850 vRAM and 8gb of my RAM (questionable if this works) but I believe i'd already changed those parameters when I took the pictures so I'm pretty sure that didn't work.

I'll run a defragmenter on my steam HDD, it says that drive is 1% defragmented but it's worth a try. And I actually have RAMDISK which worked originally but I had a ton of errors with it not starting properly.

As for my first problem, i'm clueless. Can't find too much information on it - every post on tearing seems to be relating to the static dead solider models that caused those INSANE graphic glitches...those were the days :D

[badluckburt 974]

This is getting a bit puzzling :) I recently upgraded my CPU to an i5 3570 and got 8GB to go with it so my setup is relatively similar to yours. My video-card is HD Radeon 6570 2GB which is less powerful than yours but I do not see these problems.

By the way, the maxMem parameter only goes to 2047, if you put any value above that, it falls back to 2047.

We do have different Video settings, these are mine:

View distance: 2000

Texture detail: High

Video memory: Very high

Anisotropic Filtering: Low

Antialiasing: Disabled

ATOC: Disabled

Terrain detail: Normal

Object detail: Low

Shadow Detail: High

HDR Quality: Normal

PPAA: Disabled

Postprocess effects: Disabled

Vsync: Disabled

You could try changing the settings to something like this and see how that works out. When you have Anti-alias turned on, it takes up a chunk of your video memory which means there's less room for textures - as you have Terrain detail set to Very High and Object detail to normal, that makes for quite a considerable amount objects to render.

[=DiG= Zgraphz 84]

Your problem isn't screen tearing, That's your Ambient Occlusions It's the HD radeon, nvidia has a similar thing, but it actually tears a rip in the screen from time to time. To fix this you need to open your Radeon Control panel. set your settings to the Master Set for Arma, if you don't know how to do that, i will be more than happy to help you. i would give you your settings over this thread but i dont want other people to copy the wrong information. or set it up themselves and causeing more issues. so i need to know, your OS,Ram, PCI-Express Slot settings and the good ole HD radeon settings.

Im very familiar with Radeon HD cards and quite good at Optimizing them, notice i said "Optimize" not Overclock. i can even tune your motherboard for optimization, key word again "optimization" not Overclock.

Edited June 23, 2013 by =DiG= Zgraphz

[Rifle Eyez 34]

Your problem isn't screen tearing, That's your Ambient Occlusions It's the HD radeon, nvidia has a similar thing, but it actually tears a rip in the screen from time to time. To fix this you need to open your Radeon Control panel. set your settings to the Master Set for Arma, if you don't know how to do that, i will be more than happy to help you. i would give you your settings over this thread but i dont want other people to copy the wrong information. or set it up themselves and causeing more issues. so i need to know, your OS,Ram, PCI-Express Slot settings and the good ole HD radeon settings.

Im very familiar with Radeon HD cards and quite good at Optimizing them, notice i said "Optimize" not Overclock. i can even tune your motherboard for optimization, key word again "optimization" not Overclock.

Finally, some progress maybe :) I'm pretty computer literate but not sure about ''master set''.

My OS is Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit, RAM is Corsair Vengeance 2 x 4gb 1600, PCI Express slot settings are just the default, and I've got a small OC through the CCC on the card - temps are all more than fine. If I underclock or go w/ the stock settings through CCC it makes no difference. Thanks!.

[Rifle Eyez 34]

bump. i don't care, my head hurts (again)

[badluckburt 974]

I don't know if your CCC is the same as mine as I have an older card but could you open it up and make a screenshot of the settings under Gaming > 3d application settings?

[=DiG= Zgraphz 84]

theres 2 ways we can do this. get good quality screenshots of your Performance tab, Cpu tab and display tab. im trying to find one on google image but im not sure what version u got

if you want me to optimize it for best fps i can do that, if you want it for fps/image quality, or pure image quaility at it's highest setting, i can do that as well.

Edited June 24, 2013 by =DiG= Zgraphz

[Rifle Eyez 34]

I know a screenshot would probably be easier but I already had this typed out from a message so figured I'd copy/paste - my drivers are the 13.4, could roll back or download the new 13.6 beta drivers?

AA Mode - use app settings

AA Samples - use app settings

Filter - standard

AA Method - multisampling

Morphological filtering - off

Texture Filtering

Anisotropic Filtering Mo (mode i think) - use app settings

Anistropic filtering level - use app settings

texture filtering quality - standard

surface format optimization - on

Frame Rate Control

Wait for vertical refresh - off, unless app specifies (it's off in game)

OpenGL Triple Buffering - on

Tessellation

Tessellation mode - amd optimized

Maximum Tessellation L..(level?) - amd optmized.

And here's some misc settings, like my monitor display settings etc -

Screen Refresh - 60 Hertz, True Colour 32bit,

DXDIAG

Display Mode - 1920x1080 (32bit) (60hz)

DirectDraw Acceleration - Enabled

Direct 3d Acceration - Enabled

AGP Texture Acceleration - Enabled

Edited June 24, 2013 by showtime

[=DiG= Zgraphz 84]

set everything to balance, aa method should be supersampling if you want higher image quality, use the ingame settings for the anisotopic filtering to your right settings, if you notice there are 2 formats of disabled, low,normal,high,highest/ 5,6,7,8 are for different formats, not sure but they are different sets, make sure u use the best for your gpu i have a nvidia and i use very high, maybe ATI might use 7 or 8, i heard 6 was good..Texture filtering quality should be higher in settings. Vsync should just be off. someone needs to take vsync out back and shoot it. Tessellation is boss for performance but set it to dirka dirka quality. maximum tess, should match the other one, openGL can go suck one. surface format optimization off. AA mod and samples is a hobo on crack when enabled, fast and amped up but totally unstable. but yah thats about it, and set the Filter to something more interesting that standard, nothing should be standard anymore.

Edited June 24, 2013 by =DiG= Zgraphz

[badluckburt 974]

There isn't anything wrong with those settings as far as I can tell. I don't see Morphological Filtering though, is that on by any chance? I tried using it on Arma once and it made everything all fonky.

[=DiG= Zgraphz 84]

from there you should be able to gauge the type of settings you want

[Rifle Eyez 34]

set everything to balance, aa method should be supersampling if you want higher image quality, use the ingame settings for the anisotopic filtering to your right settings, if you notice there are 2 formats of disabled, low,normal,high,highest/ 5,6,7,8 are for different formats, not sure but they are different sets, make sure u use the best for your gpu i have a nvidia and i use very high, maybe ATI might use 7 or 8, i heard 6 was good..Texture filtering quality should be higher in settings. Vsync should just be off. someone needs to take vsync out back and shoot it. Tessellation is boss for performance but set it to dirka dirka quality. maximum tess, should match the other one, openGL can go suck one. surface format optimization off. AA mod and samples is a hobo on crack when enabled, fast and amped up but totally unstable. but yah thats about it, and set the Filter to something more interesting that standard, nothing should be standard anymore.

I will try these settings and report back!

There isn't anything wrong with those settings as far as I can tell. I don't see Morphological Filtering though, is that on by any chance? I tried using it on Arma once and it made everything all fonky.

Yup, Morphological filtering is off. I'm starting to think it might be a physical thing e.g my semi budget 1080p monitor is dying on me possibly, however I don't notice it with any other games,

The best way I can describe the headache issue is if i'm looking at a road sign or billboard, when I'm stationary it's sharp, solid, fine. When I move the mouse from left to right everything ''blurs'' together, to the point I can't physically focus on it enough to read it. If I'm passing loot on the floor, I can't 100% tell what it is just running through. Movement inside any building is a complete headache, really hard to focus on anything. It's not like ridiculously bad like when the game had graphical glitches w/ the dead solider bodies, but it's very noticeable and enough to hurt my head haha. If I'm running alongside someone and look @ them, or panning around a forest or free looking around me the same happens again - it's hard to focus on a specific point as I move even if it's slow. Also if I crouch, then stand up, I get these horizontal transparent lines that travel vertically, but not the whole way up the screen. Not every single time but that's the best way I can replicate it. Waves is almost the best way to describe it. Again, v. hard to describe.

Funnily enough, if I search on google for ''waves/screen tearing'' the top 2 results mention my exact card, the 7850. Sapphire 7850 too. And it comes up on some other results on the first page- nothing helps.

https://www.google.c...erp.L35bOdGWgxI

Edited June 24, 2013 by showtime

[badluckburt 974]

I followed your Google search and found this on the second page:

http://www.gamespot....n-tearing-issue

The third post says this:

I was having this issue before and it's because I was using crappy VGA connection at 1080p.

Solved it by switching to HDMI.

I know you're on DVI but have you tried using HDMI or does your monitor not support that?

And I forgot to add, if you have access to a different monitor, try that and see if there's any difference.

Edited June 24, 2013 by BadLuckBurt

[Rifle Eyez 34]

I followed your Google search and found this on the second page:

http://www.gamespot....n-tearing-issue

The third post says this:

I was having this issue before and it's because I was using crappy VGA connection at 1080p.

Solved it by switching to HDMI.

I know you're on DVI but have you tried using HDMI or does your monitor not support that?

Sadly, no. I'm thinking I might get a new monitor, however I don't notice the issue on other games so i'd rather put 200-300 toward a new GPU or mobo/CPU as the issue only occurs in ARMA2 (especially with the standalone releasing soon ish). I'm gonna hop on a server and just have a play with some settings on RadeonPro (seems to be a more indepth tool than CCC) and see if anything happen

A friend of mine over skype actually confirmed he gets the same issue but neither of us could pinpoint why.

[badluckburt 974]

Ok, there's one last thing you could try and that is lowering the refresh rate to 59 in the Arma 2 config files. If you go to the Documents folder and into the Arma 2 folder, there's two files named Arma2.cfg and Arma2OA.cfg. Open up the latter and change the refresh value, save it and see if it works.

And now I'm all out of ideas :(