I have a good laptop but how can I get more graphic performance out of Arma?

[Sobcheck 1]

I have a HP DV6-6135DX laptop computer. This computer was bought by me a few months ago under the impression that it was a good gaming laptop (Not great, but good). I have since installed Arma 2: free and I love this game! My only problem is that my screen can get choppy while I play. I want to buy the full version and even Arma 3 when it comes out but I don't know if my laptop will be able to handle those. I noticed that Arma 2: free doesn't even come with the HD graphics that the full version does. Basically what I am looking to do is find a way to get my laptop to run the full version and Arma 3 on a pretty high graphics setting without having my screen get choppy.

Here are my laptop specs:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c02880009&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&cc=us&dlc=en〈=en&lc=en&product=5118737

So I was thinking that upgrading my hard drive to a 7200 rpm might help along with installing 2 more GB or ram. I think my processor and graphics card are pretty much good enough to run any Arma game, right?

Edited January 5, 2012 by Sobcheck

[Kindling 1]

I'd suggest allocating around 2GB to a RamDisk and moving as much of the assets as you can to it. This will give you an idea of whether a faster HDD would help (though you may just be better off getting the extra RAM and creating an ARMA 2/OA RamDisk). If you do get a new HDD, get an SDD (Solid State Disk) if you can afford it, they're much faster.

Unfortunately, laptops are not ideal for gaming, especially resource-heavy simulation games like ARMA2. That said, you could try some configuration and graphics setting tweaks!

For now, I'd suggest trying the RamDisk idea and getting some sort of resource monitor to tell you what part of the system is maxing out - if it still runs slow with a RamDisk then it's either memory, graphics or the CPU.

Note: I'm presuming the 6GB is system RAM, and that you have dedicated graphics RAM.

[ArmAriffic 10]

By choppy you mean low fps or artifacts on the screen? if it's artifacts then change the video memory in the video options

and btw to play A2 really good on a laptop you need one like mine (in my sig)

Edited January 5, 2012 by ArmAriffic

[PuFu 4600]

@SobCheck: you laptop is NOT a gaming laptop. The GPU is pretty week, and the HDD is slow for a game like A2 that needs to load(read stream) lots of assets from it.

Unfortunatly, even with a faster HDD (i guess you could even buy an external USB3 or eSata HDD for it) things won't matter a lot more...

@ArmAriffic: you laptop, even while a bit better than the OP, lacks a proper GFX card. I am uncertain of you average FPS that your are getting, not the resolution and settings you are playing with.

Edited January 5, 2012 by PuFu

[ArmAriffic 10]

@ArmAriffic: you laptop, even while a bit better than the OP, lack a proper GFX card. I am uncertain of you average FPS that your are getting, not the resolution and settings you are playing with.

On the OA benchmark I got 41 average FPS on all normal settings

PP is disabled

AA is disabled (I use FXAA = 10 instead)

View distance is 2500

Native screen res (1366x768) and 100% 3D res

Heres my ArmA-II mark score

Edited January 5, 2012 by ArmAriffic

[old_painless 183]

When travelling, I have used a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop that is absolutely NOT a gaming laptop and still had decent Arma performance with A2OA 1.60.

It has an i5 processor, an SSD hard drive and 8 Gb of RAM. No dedicated graphics, probably this HD3000 integrated junk.

I think the single most important factor that enables this machine to deliver a tolerable Arma experience is the SSD. So I would go for that, or more ram so that you can set up a RAM drive (or use this FancyCache that has been discussed on these pages)

-OP

[domokun 515]

Basically what I am looking to do is find a way to get my laptop to run the full version and Arma 3 on a pretty high graphics setting without having my screen get choppy.

Try these tweaks.

[asuseroako 17]

I play ArmA II on an MSI GX640 laptop. I'm pretty satisfied with my settings shown in details here:

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=121752

All videos in this playlist were recorded on the MSI GX640 laptop.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3BCD097A54E0B028&feature=viewall

Voice command in ArmA II is so much fun. :)

[Guest]

I see no reason why you can not use those topics everyone else uses to discuss any kind of improvements for better gameplay:

- ArmA2 / OA (low) performance issues

- Operation Arrowhead performance optimizations/comparisons

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