Radeon 7970 released - ARMA 2 Performance Gains

[jedra 11]

It got a good review in Custom PC here in the UK - performance was especially good in Arma 2 OA. Apparently it still struggles with AA though, but with SMAA and the like this may be less of an issue. Nvidia or AMD, I have had lots of both and they are both as bad and as good as each other! Mind you, probably the best cards I ever had was a pair of 8800GTX's which still perform remarkably well in one of my other rigs - although it took nVidia about 2 years to get the drivers right!

I'll probably wait until nearer Arma 3 release to see what's about then, but this card is tempting.

[Dwarden 1125]

what's quite surprising on new GPU releases is that they still don't have such pixel rate like e.g. some NVIDIA or their own older products

the reason is that ROP unit count is still locked at 32 (i was in hope to see 48 or 64)

NVIDIA serie 460,470, 560 had 40 ROP units

plus 480, 570 and 580 has 48 ROP units which makes the pixel rate overshoot even fastest AMD card by 10 to 25%

Edited February 2, 2012 by Dwarden

[domokun 515]

It got a good review in Custom PC here in the UK - performance was especially good in Arma 2 OA. Apparently it still struggles with AA though, but with SMAA and the like this may be less of an issue.

D'you have a URL to the review?

Because I couldn't find it on www.custompcreview.com

[jedra 11]

what's quite surprising on new GPU releases is that they still don't have such pixel rate like e.g. some NVIDIA or their own older products

the reason is that ROP unit count is still locked at 32 (i was in hope to see 48 or 64)

NVIDIA serie 460,470, 560 had 40 ROP units

plus 480, 570 and 580 has 48 ROP units which makes the pixel rate overshoot even fastest AMD card by 10 to 25%

It will be interesting to see what develolps this year. AMD for some reason didn't go into direct competition with nVidia's top card. Maybe they have something else up their sleeve? The price seems pretty good for this card though.

On another note, I wish nVidia would stop messing around with their naming conventions - you can't tell anymore how good the card is from the name!!

I think it's worth waiting a bit though - please give us at least three days notice before you release Arma3 - give me chance to get a new card at the last moment ;-)

[Leon86 13]

On another note, I wish nVidia would stop messing around with their naming conventions - you can't tell anymore how good the card is from the name!!

meh, it's quite ok imo. the 400 or 500 is the generation,

50 is just enough to play new games

60 is decent performance and gread price/performance

70 is semi highend

80 is highest end single gpu

90 is highend dual gpu

[jedra 11]

meh, it's quite ok imo. the 400 or 500 is the generation,

50 is just enough to play new games

60 is decent performance and gread price/performance

70 is semi highend

80 is highest end single gpu

90 is highend dual gpu

Yes, that's OK, but then they start adding suffixes which completely screws things up, meaning that a 570tx is actually better than a 580tv etc (made those up to illustrate as I can't remember the exact cases!). Going for the biggest number is not always getting you the best card! As I said before I am manufacturer agnostic (my machines are probably 50/50 nVidia/AMD at the moment) but I think you need to be more careful what you buy with nVidia.

[Leon86 13]

only thing they use now is Ti and only for the 560, I guess they did it to not have to call the card 565. The 465 was such a piece oh crap so I kind of understand that.

Rest of the naming nonsense is only for oem models, probably suck compared to the standard model, they always do :)

[froggyluv 2136]

what's quite surprising on new GPU releases is that they still don't have such pixel rate like e.g. some NVIDIA or their own older products

the reason is that ROP unit count is still locked at 32 (i was in hope to see 48 or 64)

NVIDIA serie 460,470, 560 had 40 ROP units

plus 480, 570 and 580 has 48 ROP units which makes the pixel rate overshoot even fastest AMD card by 10 to 25%

Yep, strange that the upcoming 600's series seems to be going back to 32 ROP - http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2012/2/10/real-nvidia-kepler2c-gk1042c-geforce-gtx-670680-specs-leak-out.aspx

[froggyluv 2136]

Need advice on best setting for this card with Arma2. My old SMAA FXAA; Sharp; etc... worked well with my 460 SLI but leave strange glowing lights on the foliage since switching over to this card. AA (from game menu) on this card creates strange fluffy white vegetation everywhere as well. After a week of agony, I finally got my CCC to open and need advice as to best tweak this lil lady to best serve Arma :)

[jedra 11]

Need advice on best setting for this card with Arma2. My old SMAA FXAA; Sharp; etc... worked well with my 460 SLI but leave strange glowing lights on the foliage since switching over to this card. AA (from game menu) on this card creates strange fluffy white vegetation everywhere as well. After a week of agony, I finally got my CCC to open and need advice as to best tweak this lil lady to best serve Arma :)

I suspect that you are the forward scout in this matter - so far I haven't seen anyone else who is lucky enough to have one of these cards!

One thing you could try is to delete your .cfg file and re-launch Arma. Sometimes graphical glitches can be overcome by letting Arma re-create this file for itself. You'll have to re-set your graphics options im-game and then alter your SMAA/FXAA settings back in the config but it's a small price to pay if it works!

I would be very interested to here more about your experiences with this card though - so keep us posted.

[cjph 0]

I thought having ATOC=7 in the armaOA.cfg file could cause some shiny vegetation (I edited ATOC down and it helped).

cj

[froggyluv 2136]

Honestly can't say Im too happy with this card as far as Arma is concerned. I deleted Cfg; reduced Atoc to 0 as well as the PPAA's etc... and vegetation is still shimmers like crazy in Chernarus. Not fun in the middle of an MP battle to have everything around you distracting you to no end. I even lowered everything to default and disabled AA in both game and CCC - still problems.

*sigh* I'll try and stay patient for a while with this one but honestly my old 460 SLI allowed me to jack every setting up to max without a hitch...starting to get that sinking feeling...

[james2464 177]

I think the 680GTX will be very popular with Arma 3

We only have around 2.5months until community Alpha

[NeuroFunker 11]

can't say i'm also much happy with my 6970, i'm playing with old geforce 8800gt now, normal texture details and 1330x resolution from 1920, and the game feels lot smoother, i think arma is more nvidia optimized then ATI.

[froggyluv 2136]

I hear you - Im seriously considering just throwing my 1 working 460 back in.

So here is a pic of how FUBAR'ed the vegetation is. (Too tired now to resize)

http://i1133.photobucket.com/albums/m594/froggyluv/arma2oa2012-03-1713-11-30-03.jpg

Trust me, it's worse in person then maybe looks here. This is on 100% Res/no AA whatsoever, all PPAA settings set to 0 as well as ATOC set to 0. Making matters worse is everytime I try a different driver (full uninstall/clean etc..) my.NetFramework gets corrupted (even after Windows re-install) and that breaks the CCC. Have tried pretty much all drivers now.

Seriously tiresome....

[jedra 11]

I guess that's the problem with using the latest tech. I remember my SLI'd 8800GTX's being rubbish for over a year when Vista first came out, but after that they were awesome. In fact, they are still going strong in my spare rig and handle most things I throw at them.

The drivers will get better. I hated my HD5970 OC when I first got it, but with 12.2 they are finally performing well.

[burdy 11]

I hear you - Im seriously considering just throwing my 1 working 460 back in.

So here is a pic of how FUBAR'ed the vegetation is. (Too tired now to resize)

http://i1133.photobucket.com/albums/m594/froggyluv/arma2oa2012-03-1713-11-30-03.jpg

Trust me, it's worse in person then maybe looks here. This is on 100% Res/no AA whatsoever, all PPAA settings set to 0 as well as ATOC set to 0. Making matters worse is everytime I try a different driver (full uninstall/clean etc..) my.NetFramework gets corrupted (even after Windows re-install) and that breaks the CCC. Have tried pretty much all drivers now.

Seriously tiresome....

I have a 7970 and same exact problem.

[kotov12345 10]

is anyone can tell me actual fps when flying over chernarus in editor with vd10 km and app mod driver setting 1920 1080 on these new cards ? or may be on 6 series cards ?

thanks

[Baff1 0]

Thanks for posting the intel on the new card. This one is definitely on my radar.

It has enough of a power increase to make it a noticeable upgrade and enough Ram for triple screen play.

I'm currently trying to um and ahh about it as long as possible to see if Nvidia come out with a single GPU card with native triplescreen (or more!) support. Plus I have to convince Mrs Baff to leave me so that I don't have to spend the money on her instead.

I bought a geforce 6800 once, instead of her engagement ring. * hope I'm never drunk enough to confess that to her.

So I'm kind of hoping that I'll be budgeting for the end of summer and may get a looksie at a new Nvidia offering in before shelling out.

Ideally, I'd like something with a little more RAM than this for Arma so I could ramp up the texture detail or maybe add more screens into the mix.

Nerdishly, I love teh textures.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Baff1

[d3lta 10]

the card is up to 30% faster than the 1.5gb GTX580

This is not important.

More important is know if ARMA is optimized for Radeon HD7970 and if drivers it's OK. I guess not. :( I see ARMA running better on NV cards. :(

[bangtail 0]

The 7970 is awful in ArmA 2 (among others). I had 2 of them at release and they were nothing but trouble.

[froggyluv 2136]

Bang's pretty much dead on and I kinda regret not listening to his ATI driver complaints before I pulled the trigger. The truth is I really WANT to like this card and it does do some heavy lifting as far as Benchmarks and some games are concerned -but for Arma specifically, my Nvidia 460 got me prettier results even as a single card solution. If I were to decide again (and I still might at day 29 of hopefully a 30 day return policy). I'd probably go for the soon to be released 680gtx (even if it really is a 660 as many are speculating) as the most trustworthy leak at Tom's Hardware shows it can hold it's on if not straight up outmuscle a 7970 except in VRAM (Eyefinity etc..). At standard Monitor resolution it apparently outright dominates the 7970 and one could also wait for the upcoming 4gb version.

As far as those having the 'sparkly trees' problem with 7970, try disabling Arma's Anisotropic filtering and enabling the Card's version -seems to work so far. All of the nice Arma config AA options are still pretty much a no go which is a real bummer.

[bangtail 0]

Same, I really wanted this to be a good experience with Team Red but sadly, it was not to be :(

I've heard the 4GB 680s will not release tomorrow (Only the 2GB) so I'll just stick with my 580s for now as I prefer 3GB+ of VRAM for my resolution.

Leaked performance looks very promising tbh (even if they are midrange).

[domokun 515]

This is not important.

More important is know if ARMA is optimized for Radeon HD7970 and if drivers it's OK. I guess not. :( I see ARMA running better on NV cards. :(

Really? Please share the benchmarks with us

So far the only benchmark that I've found show the contrary, i.e. the Radeon 7 series performing better than similarly priced NV cards

Edited March 22, 2012 by domokun

[kotov12345 10]

Really? Please share the benchmarks with us

So far the only benchmark that I've found show the contrary, i.e. the Radeon 7 series performing better than similarly priced NV cards

good tests looks like truth.So optimal price/speed graphic is 6970 - but if you got enough cash get 7970 :) but if you will play other games might be useful to buy 570 :)