ArmA 3 System Requirements

[Incognito84 10]

I want to be able to play at high or max settings but I think I may have a bottleneck or two in my system:

i5-2500k Sandybridge

Zalman ZM660-XT 660W PSU

Asrock P67 Pro 3 mainboard

4x2GB (8GB) Gskill 12800 RipJaws DDR3

Nvidia GTX 460 1GB Zotac

I didn't overclock my CPU yet and am not in a hurry to unless necessary. What is holding me back the most? What is the most important thing to upgrade? I was thinking my video card was weak but people tell me that the CPU matters a lot more in Arma engine games.

My Arma2 performance is good enough but lags in detailed environments on maximum settings.

I also can't justify spending more than $400...

Thanks!

[SexParty 1]

I want to be able to play at high or max settings but I think I may have a bottleneck or two in my system:

i5-2500k Sandybridge

Zalman ZM660-XT 660W PSU

Asrock P67 Pro 3 mainboard

4x2GB (8GB) Gskill 12800 RipJaws DDR3

Nvidia GTX 460 1GB Zotac

I didn't overclock my CPU yet and am not in a hurry to unless necessary. What is holding me back the most? What is the most important thing to upgrade? I was thinking my video card was weak but people tell me that the CPU matters a lot more in Arma engine games.

My Arma2 performance is good enough but lags in detailed environments on maximum settings.

I also can't justify spending more than $400...

Thanks!

Take a good look at the new teaser BI just released...

To run this on max settings without any 'lag' you're going to need a very fast PC. My current PC is what I would call borderline minimum specs for smooth max settings gameplay.

Thermaltake Level 10 GT LCS

Thermaltake 850 Bigwater Liquid Cooler

Intel i7 2700k @ 5000mhz (liquid cooled)

ASUS P8P67 WS Revolution

Corsair Vengence Ram 4GB x2 @ 1600mhz

Powercolor HD6990 and Sapphire HD6970 tri-crossfire @ 925mhz and 1350mhz

Sound Blaster XFi Titanium Fatality

Silverstone Gold Strider 1000w PSU

P14093 3DMark11 Score.

I would start with overclocking your CPU to it's max, then selling your GTX 460 and using that cash and your $400 to upgrade your GPU. Your PSU is small though so that will limit your choices but the new HD 7970 and GTX 680s are both very energy efficient and you should get away with it. That should be then good enough to run the game on max without AA. Then later on if you find your CPU is still holding you back you can upgrade it to 2700k and OC that which should handle the physics fine.

But honestly, gone is the time where you could run games on max settings with a single GPU and mid range CPU. If you want things to look pretty and run at 60PFS then you have to pay for it.

[Incognito84 10]

Take a good look at the new teaser BI just released...

To run this on max settings without any 'lag' you're going to need a very fast PC. My current PC is what I would call borderline minimum specs for smooth max settings gameplay.

Thermaltake Level 10 GT LCS

Thermaltake 850 Bigwater Liquid Cooler

Intel i7 2700k @ 5000mhz (liquid cooled)

ASUS P8P67 WS Revolution

Corsair Vengence Ram 4GB x2 @ 1600mhz

Powercolor HD6990 and Sapphire HD6970 tri-crossfire @ 925mhz and 1350mhz

Sound Blaster XFi Titanium Fatality

Silverstone Gold Strider 1000w PSU

P14093 3DMark11 Score.

I would start with overclocking your CPU to it's max, then selling your GTX 460 and using that cash and your $400 to upgrade your GPU. Your PSU is small though so that will limit your choices but the new HD 7970 and GTX 680s are both very energy efficient and you should get away with it. That should be then good enough to run the game on max without AA. Then later on if you find your CPU is still holding you back you can upgrade it to 2700k and OC that which should handle the physics fine.

But honestly, gone is the time where you could run games on max settings with a single GPU and mid range CPU. If you want things to look pretty and run at 60PFS then you have to pay for it.

Really? I didn't know it was so dire. I also didn't think of the i5 2500k as being a mid range GPU. I can just overclock it.

I don't need to have everything at max and running smooth, just running smooth and looking good. The GTX 680 looks to be around $700 over here (I'm in Korea), how about the 580? I have a small-ish monitor (at 1680x1050). If I get the 580 would I still need a PSU? I thought my PSU was fine. I have a typical setup with a single GPU which means I can't be using more than 400W. Why would I need a bigger PSU?

Edited April 9, 2012 by Incognito84

[mr. bravo 17]

Really? I didn't know it was so dire. I also didn't think of the i5 2500k as being a mid range GPU. I can just overclock it.

I don't need to have everything at max and running smooth, just running smooth and looking good. The GTX 680 looks to be around $700 over here (I'm in Korea), how about the 580? I have a small-ish monitor (at 1680x1050). If I get the 580 would I still need a PSU? I thought my PSU was fine. I have a typical setup with a single GPU which means I can't be using more than 400W. Why would I need a bigger PSU?

i5 2500 is a mid-end CPU, but the difference in performance compared to high-end CPU's in games is moot because their advantages are just more cores and threads and better memory-control, which will only make a noticable difference in certain applications that are designed to make use of this. Overclocking your current i5 will give you a lot of free performance that will still be considered high-end in games for at least another year. So dont worry about that. A better cooler is however highly recommended if you want those higher frequencies, if you're still using stock that is.

The new Ivybridge CPU that will be released within a month wont be that much faster than Sandybridge in games, but will overclock better and have higher stock-frequencies. So if you have a Sandybridge already, upgrading to Ivybridge wont give you much more performance.

Your PSU is fine, as long as you're not going for crossfire/SLI or x2 GPU cards. Good things with having an "overpowered" PSU however is that it wont produce much heat, its components last longer, and it brings more stability to your system. Especially overclocked systems will benefit from this since they are dependent on stable currents.

About your gfx-card however, that's where your bottleneck is. If you're only upgrading for ArmA3, then it's best to wait until closer to release, since new cards are released all the time and you dont want it to be "outdated" the day you have ArmA3 in your hands :p Latest generation of GPU's has just been released, so prices on these are pretty high right now. Now that both AMD and Nvidia has released their new series, more price-wars are to be expected as soon as stocks are more filled.

Also, both AMD and Nvidia are yet to release their double GPU cards, which will be interesting ;) Since these cards will be kings of their series, prices on 7980 and 680 will probably drop a little on release. Rumors say this will happen within a month or two.

Edited April 9, 2012 by Mr. Bravo

[Incognito84 10]

i5 2500 is a mid-end CPU, but the difference in performance compared to high-end CPU's in games is moot because their advantages are just more cores and threads and better memory-control, which will only make a noticable difference in certain applications that are designed to make use of this. Overclocking your current i5 will give you a lot of free performance that will still be considered high-end in games for at least another year. So dont worry about that. A better cooler is however highly recommended if you want those higher frequencies, if you're still using stock that is.

The new Ivybridge CPU that will be released within a month wont be that much faster than Sandybridge in games, but will overclock better and have higher stock-frequencies. So if you have a Sandybridge already, upgrading to Ivybridge wont give you much more performance.

Your PSU is fine, as long as you're not going for crossfire/SLI or x2 GPU cards. Good things with having an "overpowered" PSU however is that it wont produce much heat, its components last longer, and it brings more stability to your system. Especially overclocked systems will benefit from this since they are dependent on stable currents.

About your gfx-card however, that's where your bottleneck is. If you're only upgrading for ArmA3, then it's best to wait until closer to release, since new cards are released all the time and you dont want it to be "outdated" the day you have ArmA3 in your hands :p Latest generation of GPU's has just been released, so prices on these are pretty high right now. Now that both AMD and Nvidia has released their new series, more price-wars are to be expected as soon as stocks are more filled.

Also, both AMD and Nvidia are yet to release their double GPU cards, which will be interesting ;) Since these cards will be kings of their series, prices on 7980 and 680 will probably drop a little on release. Rumors say this will happen within a month or two.

Thanks for the info! Greatly appreciated.

I'll wait until Arma 3 has been out for a few weeks before making any decisions. Arma 2 was pretty buggy on release and there is a chance Arma 3 will be buggy as well, which means I don't need to go running right into the game before it's patched anyway. I'll just save up and get a new video card I guess.

By the way, my mainboard is an Asrock P67 Pro 3... that should handle a 680 GTX fine? The 680 is way too expensive right now but when it drops a bit I'll definitely consider it.

[mr. bravo 17]

Thanks for the info! Greatly appreciated.

I'll wait until Arma 3 has been out for a few weeks before making any decisions. Arma 2 was pretty buggy on release and there is a chance Arma 3 will be buggy as well, which means I don't need to go running right into the game before it's patched anyway. I'll just save up and get a new video card I guess.

By the way, my mainboard is an Asrock P67 Pro 3... that should handle a 680 GTX fine? The 680 is way too expensive right now but when it drops a bit I'll definitely consider it.

No problem!

Your mainboard will handle it nicely, yes. As long as it's PCI-e x16 there shouldn't be any problems.This new generation of gfx-cards is supposed to be the first that also supports the upcoming PCI-e 3.0 standard, but it will still be compatible with the previous version. Nvidia currently even have this de-activated on their new cards, for some reason, but will probably kick in soon again with new drivers when there are proper mainboards for it. But this whole PCI-e 3.0 thing doesnt really matter in this generation of gfx-cards anyway, so there's no loss in performance.

Hopefully ArmA3 wont be as buggy on release as previous titles. They are going to let the community test an alpha/beta-version of the game this summer already, which should at least deal with the worst kind of bugs before release :)

[Steakslim 1]

Not to mention the current set of Mobo's that support pci-e 3.0 are a bit of a mess right now.

[SexParty 1]

Thanks for the info! Greatly appreciated.

I'll wait until Arma 3 has been out for a few weeks before making any decisions. Arma 2 was pretty buggy on release and there is a chance Arma 3 will be buggy as well, which means I don't need to go running right into the game before it's patched anyway. I'll just save up and get a new video card I guess.

By the way, my mainboard is an Asrock P67 Pro 3... that should handle a 680 GTX fine? The 680 is way too expensive right now but when it drops a bit I'll definitely consider it.

GTX 680 is probably the better bet because it's more energy efficient than the GTX 580 so just wait as suggested. Get a $30-50 after market cooler which will help with OCing in a big way but I mean everything else you have should be totally fine for that resolution.

PCI-e 3.0 won't be the new standard for a while so don't even worry about that.

[Whirly 1]

I know a few guys here have topnotch rigs, it would be awesome if they could post some high-settings gameplay footage here along with their system info.

[MADDOGdb7 10]

do you think it would be wise to stick with an i5-2500k or upgrade to an i7?

[CameronMcDonald 146]

I think it'd be wise to wait the remaining 8 or so months and find out.

[oldbear 390]

I will suggest to wait until "Community Alpha" release to test your rig in game.

"Community Alpha" is planned to be released after E3 (June 5-7).

Of course your CPU is under what is called everywhere "Arma3 Requirements" but I believe that these requirements were only a planned target for BIS.

We will get the real game requirements at game release, late Q4-2012, after all of us have sent feedback to BIS having been unable to/trying to/enjoying to play the "Community Alpha".

[danny96 80]

4gb RAM with Intel core i5 won't be enough to play?

[St. Jimmy 272]

4gb RAM with Intel core i5 won't be enough to play?

That should be enough. If I can play Arma 2 with my AMD 6000+ 3.0GHz dual core (which really sucks), I think i5 should not have troubles with Arma 3. 4GB RAM is enough in any game.

[spotter001 82]

4gb RAM with Intel core i5 won't be enough to play?

Of course it will.

check the official requirements info instead of listening to illiterate trolls who speak of i7. even if u have a monster card like 7970 or gtx 680 u'll still be good to go with i5 without any significant bottleneck on the part of the cpu.

[Edoardo 1]

Hey guys , i don't know if i can play the game with this system :

Intel Core Sandy Bridge i5-2400 3,1 Ghz

Memory : 8 GB

Video card : Nvidia Geforce GTS 450 1 GB

Because i saw that the Radeon 5770 , the video card in the minimum system requirement , is much better than my GTS 450 ; do i need to change it ?

[vuckotadic 10]

Hey guys , i don't know if i can play the game with this system :

Because i saw that the Radeon 5770 , the video card in the minimum system requirement , is much better than my GTS 450 ; do i need to change it ?

Im 100% sure GTS 450 will run ArmA 3, but you will have to lower settings.

[papanowel 120]

Im 100% sure GTS 450 will run ArmA 3, but you will have to lower settings.

I would not bet on that.

[oldbear 390]

Let's remember what was published about requirements at A3 announcement :

Estimated system requirements

OS - Windows 7 / Vista

CPU - Intel Core i5 or AMD Athlon Phenom X4 or faster

GPU - Nvidia Geforce GTX 260 or ATI Radeon HD 5770, shader Model 3 and 896 MB VRAM, or faster

RAM - 2 GB

HDD - 15 GB free space

DVD - Dual Layer compatible

DirectX® - 10

At the moment it was called "Estimated system requirements" and even if its called "system requirements" now, from my point of view it's more a planned target than a definitely fixed limit.

At the moment we don't know for sure if the "GTS 450" is in or out the targeted area but we all are going to have practical answers of such questions playing "Community Alpha" !

[arjan123nl 1]

Do you think my video card can run arma 3?

-AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series

[maddogx 13]

Do you think my video card can run arma 3?

-AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series

The Radeon HD 6700 series is a range of cards. You should either have a 6750, 6770 or 6790. All of them will run Arma3, but how well exactly depends on which particular card you have.

[nikiforos 450]

Will I be able to play with normal settings?

i-5 2500k overclocked to 4,2 ghz

GTX 570

4 gb ram?

Thank you !

[papanowel 120]

Will I be able to play with normal settings?

Without any problem but remember that the game is still in development.

[arjan123nl 1]

The Radeon HD 6700 series is a range of cards. You should either have a 6750, 6770 or 6790. All of them will run Arma3, but how well exactly depends on which particular card you have.

Oh i get it im realy an dummy with all that pc stuff i wonder wich one i have...:p

Edited April 16, 2012 by arjan123nl

[vuckotadic 10]

Oh i get it im realy an dummy with all that pc stuff i wonder wich one i have...:p

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