Considering Purchasing

[AJScott 10]

Hi there I've been looking at buying Arma2 for some time and i've made up my mind, I'm going to buy it if I can get a new machine because this current machine i'm on won't work with it. So i'm going to be spending a lot of money just for Arma2 and from what i've seen, it's definately going to be worth it. My question is are these specifications going to work with Arma2, and how well. For example, could I run it on low/medium/high settings?

Intel® Core™ i3-530 Processor

- 2.93 GHz

- 2.5 GT/s DMI

- 4 MB L3 Cache

Windows 7

3GB DDR3 RAM

(I'm going to have to buy a graphics card, but im looking at a GeForce one about 1GB)

[Kristian 47]

I don't know about your Hardware, but I guess this SHOULD be posted on the

Will my PC Run this? What CPU/GPU to get? What settings? System Specifications thread

[Dynamic Echo 10]

Yeah that is fine but get a GTX460 if you're going Nvidia, otherwise you'll only have to upgrade down the line. If you don't mind going Ati (no reason not to really), then get a 5870 if you can. If possible though you should get an i5, though that i3 should suffice. Have fun. But yes, this should be in that aforementioned thread.

[AJScott 10]

I'm not very technical when it comes to all this. The computer i'm looking that, that comes with all this isn't that expensive. Because it comes with integrated graphics, which means crap all and i'd spend about £50-100 on a graphics card. So if I do that, what settings could I run it on?

[Toasticuss 10]

I'm not very technical when it comes to all this. The computer i'm looking that, that comes with all this isn't that expensive. Because it comes with integrated graphics, which means crap all and i'd spend about £50-100 on a graphics card. So if I do that, what settings could I run it on?

Your looking at mediumish if you go with a decent graphics card.

An i3 is only 2 cores so thats going to be bottle necking a bit of the power

Edited July 30, 2010 by Toasticuss

[AJScott 10]

What about frame rate wise, if I have the settings on low how smoothly is the game going to run

[ziiip 1]

Radeon 5850 or 5870 (or the NVIDIA counterparts). Nothing less. ;)

[binkster 0]

Your processor has alot to do with the FPS too. I would go quad and get higher than i3. Just sayin

[SPC.Spets 21]

The GTX 460 1Gb is a good vga card, Im going to buy one soon

[Dynamic Echo 10]

As people have said a quad core (preferably an i7 900 series) would be ideal, but you can get decent frame rates with a dual and a reasonable graphics card. My laptop (specs in sig) has a dual core and a mainline (ie. not intended directly for gaming) graphics card but I'm getting a good 35-40 fps on the Operation Arrowhead benchmark at 1600x900 with low-medium graphics settings and a 2 click draw distance. The preferred graphics cards I would say are:

Ati: HD 5850, HD5870

Nvidia: GTX460, GTX 470 or GTX 480

If you go with an i7920 with a 5870 (as I have) then you'll probably be able to pretty much max it out with a reasonable visible distance and good frame rates. But that will be expensive.

If you're looking to go with that machine and a £100 graphics card then low is probably going to be where your settings will be, and you absolutely will not get a good enough card for much less than £100. Realistically, £180 is nearer the mark, with things like this or preferably this, though it is more expensive. It won't get the same frame rates but a 5770 could probably do the job, though you'd want the GDDR5 version rather than the DDR3, something like this.

Edited July 31, 2010 by Dynamic Echo

[Inkompetent 0]

If you want to get away fairly cheap and still pack decent power with the graphics card I suggest the 1GB version (not only has more memory than the lesser 5770, but also has a faster memory bus) of the ATI 5770. Not being in the 5800-series it isn't among ATI's 'power'-cards, but it gives a lot of performance for its costs, and it supports all modern stuff like DX11 and Shader 5.0. Should cost about €150 and should last you for quite a while. The nVidia GTX460 and ATI 5850 is another price class up from this one.

Otherwise I'd suggest the a bit older ATI 4870 which is a real powerhorse and should be quite cheap nowadays.

At medium settings you should be getting 'fair' framerates with the i3 CPU and the above graphics cards. ArmA2 is a bad representative when it comes to boasting framerates because the FPS is generally lower in this game than other shooters because of the scale of the game, but at the same time you don't need 60FPS to play this game well. An avarage of 35FPS will probably do you just well most of the time.

With an older (but severely overclocked) dual-core CPU, a ATI 4850 512MB graphics card, 2GB DDR2 RAM and WinXP I tend to avarage about 35fps at 1280x1024 at medium/high settings.

[AJScott 10]

I've decided against getting an i3 processor, i'm looking at a Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q8300. How well would this work with the game, would it run smoother than an i3?

[Toasticuss 10]

I've decided against getting an i3 processor, i'm looking at a Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q8300. How well would this work with the game, would it run smoother than an i3?

It should be a bit better but if your going with a Core 2 your going back to a socket 775 motherboard, DDR2 ram and leaving no room for future components.

[Inkompetent 0]

It should be a bit better but if your going with a Core 2 your going back to a socket 775 motherboard, DDR2 ram and leaving no room for future components.

Agree with Toasticuss. There's no point in getting a socket 775 motherboard. Go for an i3 or i5 CPU, because you thus get a socket 1156 motherboard and is quite futureproof (for example DDR3 RAM and possibility to upgrade to i5 or i7 CPU). You can install all new Intel CPUs on that aside from their very, very best ones which require a yet bigger socket.

i3 CPUs are effectively Core 2 Quad CPUs anyway, based on the exact same technology, but with some improvements here and there (like integrated memory and PCI-E bus and support for DDR3 RAM). You just have to make sure you don't pick one of the slower i3 CPUs when you get it, but one of the faster ones instead, and you'll easily match the best Core 2 Quad ones.

Edited August 1, 2010 by Inkompetent

[AJScott 10]

Thank you for your help, i think i'm going for an i5, found a machine around £570 which suits my budget and all my needs.

[MengJiao 10]

I'm not very technical when it comes to all this. The computer i'm looking that, that comes with all this isn't that expensive. Because it comes with integrated graphics, which means crap all and i'd spend about £50-100 on a graphics card. So if I do that, what settings could I run it on?

I have a machine very close to what you are considering. I turned down or shut off a lot of the graphics options in the game and keep my view distance at around 2km. The game looks fine, beautiful even and runs without a hitch.

[Placebo 28]

There's a very clear pinned thread just for this kind of thing (as mentioned in the first reply), please post such questions there.