Video Card for medium settings ?

[gambla 10]

Hi,

i know there are some threads about recommended hardware and benchmarks for Arma2. But most of the talk and the benchmarks are about running it with maximum settings. But benchmarks show, even with the latest and most powerfull cards, the fps will often drop to 20, or even lower, in some areas of the gameworld, or with too much units fighting. If i look at the benchmarks now, i would believe i need a very expensive GTX580 for my 20 fps minimum ? :eek:

Maybe you too miss a simple answer: What video card will run A2 on nice looking medium settings continuously at a minimum of 30 fps and above ? :confused:

thanks

[PhillyB 10]

just buy a nice gtx 460, should work fine for medium.

[Shadow NX 1]

yes, as it looks so far that card is the best bang for the buck.

Alternative may be the ATI/AMD HD5850 or the HD6850

Actually even a HD4870 will do for medium settings as i use one but soem setting should be bit higher than medium so that game looks appealing and that is where my HD4870 often limits too much in soem scenarios.

[suma 8]

But benchmarks show, even with the latest and most powerfull cards, the fps will often drop to 20, or even lower, in some areas of the gameworld, or with too much units fighting. If i look at the benchmarks now, i would believe i need a very expensive GTX580 for my 20 fps minimum ? :eek:

While I cannot tell for sure, without knowing what kinds of scenes you mean, it is very likely the scenes where you see drops under 20 fps are CPU limited, not GPU.

The scenes which are likely to be CPU limited are scenes with a lot of moving units (a lot of simulation or decision making code performed on the CPU) or a lot of fighting units (a lot of AI on the CPU).

If you want to be sure, reduce your 3D rendering resolution temporarily to an extreme (50 %) in the Video options. If the fps in those scenes will not grow, you are most likely CPU limited.

[ffur2007slx2_5 11]

Yeah, I'm the guy who play the game with 50% 3D resolution and my card is only HD4350, I can run the game at the fps around 36~38 in all scenarios except benchmark test 02 because this scenario is specifically designed for testing our cpu.

However, I also discovered a weird problem that when I set the texture very low, the game will always break with "device reset failed". So I checked rpt file and find the origin: Failed to create surface texture (ca\structures\wall\data\wall_indcnc_mask.paa:4)

So I tried to set the texture above normal, to my surprise, the problem is well solved and seldom happened again! In one word, changing everything low may not always be the perfect solution. lol.

[avengerzx 10]

Get a CPU Overclocked to 3.2ghz will improve

[gambla 10]

Thank you all for your comments. So i guess it should be a Coreâ„¢ i7-860 or a Coreâ„¢ i5-750 for CPU power then ?

[jgbtl292 0]

buy and lowprice ati 4890

i play with all on very high and 4-5km sight ;) 150€ is a good price

aa - off

3d - 125% 2500x1500

Edited December 28, 2010 by JgBtl292

[enad 11]

Another thing to invest in is good RAM, I just went from 4GB DDR3 1333mhz to 8GB DDR3 2000mhz and damn, my FPS is SO much better. For example, in a mission of mine on Lingor, I would get say 35-40 FPS at the beginning scene, now its almost always above 55 FPS. It really is awesome

As for a GPU, go GTX 460, it will run at mostly high settings and only costs about $150. Amazing deal for a great video card.

About the CPU, don't waste your money on an i7, go i5, i5 750 or 760, it's better for gaming anyways. :)

Good luck!

[Flubadoo 10]

Thank you all for your comments. So i guess it should be a Coreâ„¢ i7-860 or a Coreâ„¢ i5-750 for CPU power then ?

i7 has almost no gain in gaming performance over i5 processors. i7s are only better for huge multitasking and rendering shitloads, but you would probably get a Xeon for rendering a lot. So i5, unless you are very rich.

And I don't think that ArmA 2 is that GPU-dependent, but I suggest you get a 768MB GTX 460, or an ATi Radeon 6850. If you are decent at overclocking, I would recommend the GTX 460, as it can be pushed to even 800MHz core and 4Gigs Effective memory.

[SPC.Spets 21]

GTX 460 1GB is not too expensive and its an incredible card price/performance

[Jake34x 10]

I'm looking to upgrade my current graphics card (ATI HD 5450) and was wondering how much of a difference between the HD 5770 and the 5870 is, because the price of the 5770 is about $100 cheaper than the 5870 and the specs seem to be around the same?

[Paintface 10]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814141124

I would get the 6870 instead, i would personally not buy a new card that is any slower, cause 5850/6870 performance is where arma starts to run pretty smooth, 5770 would just be ok to play it at medium settings.

[11aTony 0]

buy and lowprice ati 4890

i play with all on very high and 4-5km sight ;) 150€ is a good price

aa - off

3d - 125% 2500x1500

Somehow I find that highly unlikely to be playable.

[suhsjake 1]

I'm still running a 8800 GTS Overclocked and I can still play on Normal Settings.

[Flash Thunder 10]

I got a 9800gtx that can run Medium-high just fine

my settings

Viewdistance 2500

Resolution: 1680x1050 (native res) 3d res: 1680x1050

Texture quality: Very High

Video Memory: Very High

AF: Very High

AA: None

Terrain: Very Low (this setting is very hard on performance)

Object Detail: Very High (to eliminate EXTREME LOD thrashing found on lower settings)

Shadow Detail: Disabled

HDR: Normal I cant tell any difference with these settings except lower fps

Post Processing: Normal or off (about 8 fps from normal to off)

I can usually get around 25fps to 50fps with these settings depending on the amount of action and scripts running.

[11aTony 0]

I got a 9800gtx that can run Medium-high just fine

my settings

Viewdistance 2500

Resolution: 1680x1050 (native res) 3d res: 1680x1050

Texture quality: Very High

Video Memory: Very High

AF: Very High

AA: None

Terrain: Very Low (this setting is very hard on performance)

Object Detail: Very High (to eliminate EXTREME LOD thrashing found on lower settings)

Shadow Detail: Disabled

HDR: Normal I cant tell any difference with these settings except lower fps

Post Processing: Normal or off (about 8 fps from normal to off)

I can usually get around 25fps to 50fps with these settings depending on the amount of action and scripts running.

OK if you like to play in range from 25 to 50. Personally I prefer to have performance over looks. I had 9800GTX before.

Same res but my settings were something like:

VD: 1.6-5 km (depends on what you are doing, inf, air...)

Textures: Normal

Video memory: Normal (as far as I know this should only be on very high if you have like over 1gb vram and 9800gtx has 512)

AF: Disabled

AA: Disabled

Post P: Disabled

Terrain: Low

Object detail: Normal

Shadow detail: High (or normal if you have really good cpu)

I found that PP, AA really kill this gpu and probably other gpus as well.

With settings like that I was getting 60 to 100 FPS which was then fully playable. Oh, except chernogorsk of course. Still the game looked amazing.

So overall I dont find 25-50FPS just fine however others obviously do.

[AlienXXI 10]

I don't see why people have FPS issues. I play with 8800GTS 512mb in SLI and I don't have any lag at all. I don't run high settings, but I run normal settings.

[Flash Thunder 10]

OK if you like to play in range from 25 to 50. Personally I prefer to have performance over looks. I had 9800GTX before.

Same res but my settings were something like:

VD: 1.6-5 km (depends on what you are doing, inf, air...)

Textures: Normal

Video memory: Normal (as far as I know this should only be on very high if you have like over 1gb vram and 9800gtx has 512)

AF: Disabled

AA: Disabled

Post P: Disabled

Terrain: Low

Object detail: Normal

Shadow detail: High (or normal if you have really good cpu)

I found that PP, AA really kill this gpu and probably other gpus as well.

With settings like that I was getting 60 to 100 FPS which was then fully playable. Oh, except chernogorsk of course. Still the game looked amazing.

So overall I dont find 25-50FPS just fine however others obviously do.

im sorry but this game looks like turd with those settings

UNPLAYABLE

[enad 11]

buy and lowprice ati 4890

i play with all on very high and 4-5km sight ;) 150€ is a good price

aa - off

3d - 125% 2500x1500

Somehow I find that highly unlikely to be playable.

Yeah BS, No way you can get playable FPS at such a high resolution(I don't even think that's a proper resolution to begin with) I struggle to get 50 FPS at very high setting with my GTX 580.

[dale0404 5]

OK if you like to play in range from 25 to 50. Personally I prefer to have performance over looks. I had 9800GTX before.

Same res but my settings were something like:

VD: 1.6-5 km (depends on what you are doing, inf, air...)

Textures: Normal

Video memory: Normal (as far as I know this should only be on very high if you have like over 1gb vram and 9800gtx has 512)

AF: Disabled

AA: Disabled

Post P: Disabled

Terrain: Low

Object detail: Normal

Shadow detail: High (or normal if you have really good cpu)

I found that PP, AA really kill this gpu and probably other gpus as well.

With settings like that I was getting 60 to 100 FPS which was then fully playable. Oh, except chernogorsk of course. Still the game looked amazing.

So overall I dont find 25-50FPS just fine however others obviously do.

So you can find a difference between 45 fps and 60 fps? I doubt it...