Just got my GTX460...New Game...!

[TechnoTerrorist303 10]

K just found the oc menu on my board, watch videos and read alot about how to OC an E8400. There is alot to it then just the FSB OC most was said about vcore and all other settings:butbut: Lol im lost in it. I would like to know what my overclock options is on my main board though. It has the option to go 5%,10%,16% and 20%. Iv yet to see any vids or info about that option on an ASUS P5N-D board. When i had the AI Suit tool it had that option also but iv tryed it at 10% and got an failure, had to start back up at default. Thanks for the info on most of the CPU OC. Think ill let it be at 3.00GHz for a little bit longer.

Don't think in terms of percentages in overclocking, those settings are meaningless really. You increase the speed of your FSB by small increments which will in turn increase the speed of your cpu. The reason those vids talk about vcore is because you will need to increase the volts going into your CPU as you ramp up the speed otherwise it just fails. If you want some more in depth help feel free to pm me.

[Shadow NX 1]

Couldnt find it discussed on the other pages so i would like to know if anyone here has tried A2 with a 2GB variant of the 460.

Everywhere i read that the 2GB only makes sense in very high resolutions or if you use texturemods with very high resolutions, yet A2 is not like the other games out there and if 1GB more than usual help to get less texture load and lod popping then im very willing to invest the few bucks more for a 2GB version.

Mainly been thinking of the Palit Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 Sonic.

Or is it all just a hype and A2 wont benefit at all with 2GB GPU Ram?

[liquidpinky 11]

I would settle for the 2GB version if given the choice, with high settings on my SLi 285s the 1Gig memory is pretty much used up on both cards and I don't have everything maxxed out.

I monitor this usage using EVGA precision so I can keep an eye on my GFX cards quite accurately.

Bear in mind, more GFX memory requires more physical RAM to match it.

A 1gig GFX card will be allocated 1gig of RAM automatically, a 2gig GFX card will be allocated 2gig of RAM and so on.

[Shadow NX 1]

So if i take the Palit with 2GB ( which seems very ok for the 179Eur it would cost me atm ) i should finally consider getting a Win7 64Bit.

Just unsure if the 64bit wont collide with me often playing older games.

[fusionofp 0]

My aim with any game is to bring FPS down to 30 ! What point is there in running any game at 100 FPS if you have to reduce eye candy to do it ?

I use EVGA Precision too and have never seen more than 800mb GPU ram used, mostly it's around the 780Mb mark.

That is with very high: textures, AF, shadows, memory and object detail, I always use low AA and low landscape detail (cos I can't see through grass :))

(1680x1050 with a slightly oc 9800GT)

Never had any problems with texture popups

.

I think I've managed quite well seeing as my mobo is designed for HTPC use and my CPU is a Q8200.

I can't see any immediate need for a 2Gb card and when we do need it maybe the 460 will be obsolete ?

Even so , I will be getting a 460 soon :)

[liquidpinky 11]

My aim with any game is to bring FPS down to 30 ! What point is there in running any game at 100 FPS if you have to reduce eye candy to do it ?

I use EVGA Precision too and have never seen more than 800mb GPU ram used, mostly it's around the 780Mb mark.

That is with very high: textures, AF, shadows, memory and object detail, I always use low AA and low landscape detail (cos I can't see through grass :))

(1680x1050 with a slightly oc 9800GT)

Never had any problems with texture popups

.

I think I've managed quite well seeing as my mobo is designed for HTPC use and my CPU is a Q8200.

I can't see any immediate need for a 2Gb card and when we do need it maybe the 460 will be obsolete ?

Even so , I will be getting a 460 soon :)

If he wants higher detail and has a bigger monitor resolution like myself then the 2gig memory becomes attractive.

My 285 are using 980MB out or 1024 and I have a lot of settings I can crank up higher still in game.

Personally I would future proof myself a bit and get the 2gig version. All depending on budget of course, but if the cash was there then I would take the step up without any second thoughts about it.

Currently I am even loathed to get 1.5GB 480s as I feel that may become a bit on the low side quite soon.

[Shadow NX 1]

Bit offtopic but anyone here uses Win7 64bit?

Would have used the search function but its rather useless here.

So how does it benefit A2 with the bigger Ram usage ( i have the usual 4GB ) and most important how problematic will it be if i decide to play a classic like Jagged Alliance 2, Vampires, OFP etc?

Also im worired about drivers as some of my components are 5+ years old

[TechnoTerrorist303 10]

Bit offtopic but anyone here uses Win7 64bit?

Would have used the search function but its rather useless here.

So how does it benefit A2 with the bigger Ram usage ( i have the usual 4GB ) and most important how problematic will it be if i decide to play a classic like Jagged Alliance 2, Vampires, OFP etc?

Also im worired about drivers as some of my components are 5+ years old

If you have 4gb ram and you're not using a 64bit OS then you're not using all of it.

I have win7 64bit ultimate. No compatibility problems so far.

[Shadow NX 1]

And you do also play a classic from time to time or just new stuff?

Because i think i read that old games with 16bit installers or even worse things like dosbox dont work under 64bit at all.

[aaman 0]

Look Shadow NX.

Have you try this?

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=66677&page=2

I dont think 2 gig ram on the graphics card will stop lod pop, thats the CPU´s job, but 8192x8192 textures, why not?

Or you could try to make textures to a mod without LOD´s;)

Like this one.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=110503

Edited December 8, 2010 by aaman

[Przemek_kondor 13]

Anyone did a comparison of 460 and hd6850 in arma2 (on the same cpu)?

[aaman 0]

Anyone did a comparison of 460 and hd6850 in arma2 (on the same cpu)?

Maybe you should ask with what settings.

One card would probobly be better with one type of settings, the other card would be better with other settings, if there is a hunt for fps, i would take the card with the fastest CPU if i must take a graphic card.

[der.hannes 10]

damn this thread! now i need to get a new grephics card ;)

still i use a gtx260 and its realy the bottleneck in arma, i cant overclock it because the fan gets so incredible loud (i have a silenced case) and the card gets very hot...

but because i bought myself a OCZ Vertex2 and overclocked my Q6600 (2,4ghz) to 3,6 (without water cooling and its still around 40 degree celsius - i love this cpu) arma is running very smooth.

only performance killer is AA & postprocessing, can i expect to use these with a 460 or 560?

edit: what about the noise level of gtx 460 or 560? whats your experience?

[-)rStrangelove 0]

edit: what about the noise level of gtx 460 or 560? whats your experience?

My MSI Gtx460 produces a lot less noise than my former EVGA Gtx260. But thats maybe because MSI uses different fans/coolers. :)

Buy MSI

[aaman 0]

damn this thread! now i need to get a new grephics card ;)

still i use a gtx260 and its realy the bottleneck in arma, i cant overclock it because the fan gets so incredible loud (i have a silenced case) and the card gets very hot...

but because i bought myself a OCZ Vertex2 and overclocked my Q6600 (2,4ghz) to 3,6 (without water cooling and its still around 40 degree celsius - i love this cpu) arma is running very smooth.

only performance killer is AA & postprocessing, can i expect to use these with a 460 or 560?

edit: what about the noise level of gtx 460 or 560? whats your experience?

The truth now pleas, did the SSD realy make a difference in FPS game preformance?

[infiltrator_2k 29]

The HD 6870 seems a good buy at £199 inc delivered, although I'm not sure ArmA2 likes ATI/AMD cards

[tpw 2315]

only performance killer is AA & postprocessing, can i expect to use these with a 460 or 560?

I crank AA and postprocessing right up with my 460 with minimal impact on FPS.

[Load81 10]

Anyone did a comparison of 460 and hd6850 in arma2 (on the same cpu)?

i could only find this..seems this game likes ati/amd cards. the 6870 stomps the 470 and at high setting is even with a 480. the 6850 and 460 are kinda even untill u turn the settings up then the 6850 pulls away a little.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2010/10/22/ati-radeon-hd-6870-review/6

[ziiip 1]

I got a similar upgrade and while it made things hella more awesome for a couple weeks, it soon becomes the standard again as you push the settings harder

Sooo true.

[Coffeecat 10]

i didnt think that this thread would pull so many attention, but to report back, yes its allready "standart" but i dont want to miss that card now:)

btw. Chernarus seems to need much more CPU speed, it runs much worse then the desert maps from OA. now i just ordered a new cooler to push my cpu to 3.6-4.00 Ghz. Still only the card makes a difference like night/day for me!

Edited December 8, 2010 by Coffeecat

[der.hannes 10]

The truth now pleas, did the SSD realy make a difference in FPS game preformance?

the increase was barely noticeable in arma benchmarks, but the game felt much smoother - the textures load much faster (i think chernarus has more textures than i have ram), lod switching reduced, map opens very quick and for every missionmaker its very enjoyable how fast you can load your missions in the editor and alt/tab without hang times.

[Touch Off 10]

@ Shadow NX. I would make sure that you have drivers for all your components before doing any upgrade to windows 7 64bit. You will benefit from running a 64bit system as you will have access to the full 4GB, as opposed to 32bit which will only access a certain amount, around 3.2-3.5GB depending on how your hardware is allocated address space.

Ultimately I had to upgrade my motherboard due to the fact I wanted an updated FSB speed but more importantly drivers by ASUS that supported windows 7 64bit. The other reason was that I actually wanted to run a 45nm chip on what was a motherboard that only supposedly supported 65nm Core technology. The Q9550 I eventually got didn't work as well as many had hoped for, wasn't detected, on boot the system would always find an error and underclock the CPU at times.

I actually got around this by finding an updated BIOS that had the microcodes specific to later versions of Core Quad chips, the Q9550 worked fine but I was lucky enough to be given a more updated P45 motherboard that supported my CPU and the extra FSB speeds I could reach, so far so good. Windows 7 runs really well and I'm very happy with it. On release it was a little temperamental, certain errors appearing like COM surrogate has stopped working and all this but eventually this was ironed out, along with the 30second wait on boot after the welcome screen if you had your desktop colours set to solid colour, no wallpaper.

Anyway, I digress, research as best you can about what your current hardware is, mostly your motherboard and its CPU support, then look into other peripherals you miight have that would be needed after the upgrade. TV cards and certain sound cards can struggle to keep up, depending on the manufacturer. I use high end audio cards as I write music and at the time of upgrading I eventually gave up hoping for updates from a company, who I won't mention, to allow me to run my audio interface on 64bit Win7 :(

As for upgrades, who really cares, if you have the money to spend it all on the latest stuff, great, but for me if your system is well configured and defragged, preferentially with ARMA installed near the start of a separate HDD, then an SSD seems like a slight waste of money, especially when it won't be long before they are half the price and twice the size. I always choose to purchase CPUs once they've been around a short while as I know I can get enough performance from my machine to write music and play certain games without having to spend a stupid amount that could, personally speaking, go on far more important things.

The 460 was the sort of upgrade I like waiting for. Much the same as the 8800GT when it was released, it offers a nice performance for a relatively small outlay. CPUs can also be picked up second hand, and even if there has been an overclock by the user, and they maybe lie and say it never has been, if it works, it works. Some good deals on bundles out there that people, who upgrade as soon as the latest flashy and expensive version comes out, want to get rid of. Don't miss out on an opportunity to maybe spend a fraction of your money on a more than decent upgrade and have money left over for other things, if PC related maybe a new monitor or new sound card etc.

You can always push things too far when it comes to getting the most out of a PC and if attempting to get the most, you can find benefits with what you already have, tweaks can be done etc, but the other key to it, for me, sometimes, is to remember what it used to be like before you upgraded and, if possible, work with what you have.

I will always make sure that the CPU is upgraded ahead of anything else. Most important parts after that would have to be motherboard and PSU a close second. with FSB technology (Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad) there is a wide range of RAM out there that if bought in pairs will offer you enough performance for even a 1333MHz FSB speed. This would actually only require 666MHz or DDR2 5300 RAM. If you want to overclock you should get the 6400 RAM at 800MHz, this would allow you to reach for a 400MHz bus speed equalling a 1600FSB speed. That's if you can overclock a 333MHz bus speed CPU, like a Q9550, to 400MHz. Shouldn't be too hard, and isn't.

After that I would look to spending money on hard drives, and yes, with SSDs becoming ever more cheaply available, it is difficult to recommend HDDs without mentioning them. Having said that I would recommend buying two decent HDDs, like a Hitachi or Samsung F3/F4 that won't set you back much more than £60 and if you RAID these you will have more than enough drive Read/Write performance to eliminate the glitches you might find at times. More RAM also helps here as the textures are placed in memory as I believe and kept there for future loading to the graphics card, which would also benefit from more VRAM if, with a high resolution screen, you find you need more. Also if you decide to up your view distance to the full 10000. Personally I don't see the point in either and I find a 22inch LCD perfect for what I require, YMMMV of course and I also only really like to up the view to 5000-6000 as I don't really fly a lot on ARMA to really demand it. I play DCS black shark and A10 for a more pleasing and realistic flying experience and so with infantry missions I'm quite happy. I could push it further though but I'd rather just have things running smoothly, otherwise that addictive nature of upgrading could take a hold, and it ain't healthy I tell ya! ;)

I do now want to sell my 'old' DDR2 RAM that is in 1GB sticks for 4GB and have 4 2GB sticks so I can use 8GB RAM on my system, for audio use it makes a lot of sense as many libraries of sounds need a large amount of RAM. I like to justify it somehow...

Shit, sorry that's so long, girlfriend went to bed and I'm bored.

Good luck with your upgrade.

Edited December 9, 2010 by Touch Off

[meade95 0]

What is a good brand to get - With regard to the GTX460? ASUS, EVGA, PNY??

I currently run XP, Dell XPS System, Quad-Core 2.6ghz (I know it will be bottled necked going to the GTX460) ...with a GT8800 512 RAM video card.

[Touch Off 10]

Well you could push your quad core further, even without adjusting any voltages. You have to do certain things to make sure you aren't overclocking your RAM more thna it can handle, underclock it, adjust CAS latency and also set your PCI speed and PCI-E speed as to not overclock those unecessarily.

I am not best knowledgable on OCing so ask elsewhere for clarity on that.......

As for the GPU, surely there isnt that much difference but I just decided to get the ASUS 768MB version, for reasons I outlined in my previous post (at some point :O)

One thing I can tell you is that it does a great job with the eye candy and when compared to my 8800GT is about 30 degrees cooler when running and a motorway or two quieter. It is very good and I believe that's one of the reasons I got it as I read a few reviews about how quiet this particular version was. Well that and also I'd become aware of its performance at the price.

Out of the 3 makes you mentioned I've only ever heard good things about EVGA, not sure about PNY, I thought they were owned by ASUS? Dunno, Gigabyte are also a good make and after a long time going for ASUS motherboards I'm qute happy with the price/performance of Giga's stuff

Edited December 9, 2010 by Touch Off

[enad 11]

I crank AA and postprocessing right up with my 460 with minimal impact on FPS.

Yeah Nvidia cards handle AA MUCH better than ATI. I was running AA on low or disabled with 4870x2 but when I got my 480, now 580, I was able to put it up to Very High with hardly any FPS impact.