Can your PC max out ArmA 2?

[Flogger23m 2]

I am wondering what components/specs are needed to max ArmA 2 out. When I say "max out" I mean full graphic settings, some AA and AF (4x or higher) with 40 frame rates or higher in areas with lots of grass/brush or cities. I don't intent on buying a new PC to play ArmA 2 smoothly anytime soon I am just curious to know what is required to do what I listed above.

I recently upgraded my GPU to a GTX560ti 2GB. Not the best card there is, and I do realize that ArmA 2 requires a good CPU (which I lack) but I am a bit annoyed that I still get 23-24 frame rates in certain areas with no units aside from the player. :( And I only play at 1680x1050 with a few settings turned down.

My specs:

AMD 965 <--- Probably limiting me.

GTX 560ti 2GB

8GB DDR2

Win 7 Pro 64bit

WD FALS HDD

[l mandrake 9]

It depends on view distance - do you mean at 10,000m or something more reasonable (4-5,000)?

[Angus S 10]

I struggle to get 20 fps on utes with no ai, it's the reason I don't play much anymore

[Herbal Influence 10]

I am ok with specs shown below, but I am also someone who does not need more than 23 fps ... and a large view distance. But I max everything else out ...

[Leon86 13]

You cant "max out" arma 2 on any rig.

You have to choose between terrain detail, model detail and viewdistance.

[ast65 10]

Yes :j:

[Laqueesha 474]

Yes, but it usually results in less than 5 FPS.

[maddogx 13]

With 10km view distance and everything else as high as it goes, I can barely achieve a stuttery 20fps in some areas of Takistan (no units). Disabling postprocessing (which I don't like anyway), reducing VD to 6km and HDR to "high" makes it playable, although running an actual mission comes with a slight performance hit.

I'm guessing an overclocked Ivy Bridge CPU, a good SSD, excellent RAM and a top of the range PCI-E 3.0 graphics card might allow you to run the game on max settings.

[RSF TheCapulet 59]

On Takistan, I can run 10k without issue. But I don't run any AA. Just FXAA and max AF. (I'll never understand why people don't run max AF. It's nearly impact free)

Chernarus is a different story though. During the TOH preview, I actually got a solid 30FPS from the air with 10k/10k view and object distance. But in regular arma 2, 10k kills me, and doesn't even look nearly as good as the TOH preview did. If I drop it to 7500, that will usually level me out to 38-40.

i5 2500k at 4.7 Ghz (Just got it up to 7 from four today. :D)

16GB of ram at 1920 Mhz

AMD 6970 (Have 2, but don't use crossfire for Arma)

And the important PBOs put on a ramdisk.

[cjgsicknote 10]

Well I've got gtx560 ti, i52310, 8gb ddr 5 and arma runs admirably considering the overall cost of my rig. Between 40~60 fps at 1920~1080 which is perfectly playable with mostly very high settings but view distance down to 3k. Gamebooster seems to help but noticed things seem smoother after1.60 anyway. Sure beats a console!

[kireta21 13]

Tested on elevated area with forest, AA 5, Viewdistamce 5000m, everything else maxed out.

My 600€ rig managed 40fps on Utes and 30fps on Chernarus.

With 10000m viewdistance 10 fps less on both, and terrain detail automatically reduced to normal (dunno how to turn it off).

[Flogger23m 2]

Looks like you do need a very high end OCed i5/i7 to play the game with higher frame rates. I play at 6000 meter view distance I believe, as lower than that I can not see enemy AI tanks/vehicles, but they can see and shoot at me. :p I found this problematic when using the vehicles mainly, so I increased the distance up to 6000.

[domokun 515]

Tested on elevated area with forest, AA 5, Viewdistamce 5000m, everything else maxed out.

My 600€ rig managed 40fps on Utes and 30fps on Chernarus.

With 10000m viewdistance 10 fps less on both, and terrain detail automatically reduced to normal (dunno how to turn it off).

Sounds good. Care to share your €600 config?

[RSF TheCapulet 59]

Sounds good. Care to share your €600 config?

€600 is just a very small bit lower than what I paid for my config. So I imagine he's probably pretty spot on with me.

[cuel 25]

20-40 fps with an i5 2500k, hd6950, 8gb ram. most of the stuff on max

[cjgsicknote 10]

Trying to squeeze some extra fps out of my system. Im using gamebooster and have attempted to oc my gpu using msi afterburner. My asus gtx 560 is factory oc to 830mhz and I've pushed it to 920. Does anyone know if I'll need to up my voltage at this level? Everything seems fine but worried Im gonna blow somethin to bits!

[RSF TheCapulet 59]

Judging my the sound of your experience, I'd stay as far away as possible from raising your GPU voltage. GPUs are much more delicate than CPUs in that regard.

[Nutlink 10]

Depends on the map, location, and whether I'm in the air or on the ground. With 8GB RAM, a 2600k@4.8Ghz, and a single 6970 I can't run with everything maxed out with a 3k VD on Chernarus in the woods for example. However, same settings and a 6k VD works fine on Takistan.

[echonyne 1]

shit..my Corei5 @ 2.4~2.9Ghz + AMD ATI 5650M (1Gig) Gfx Card is really pumpin out enough FPS....that too MAXED OUT :D (on Arma2:RFT)

FYI: you need to have a good combination of "stream processors", "transfer channel bandwidth" and the "card memory" to have a crunching FPS rate.. all hands down :) and yea.. I am running 3GB DDR3 1333Mhz RAM

all the above config. on Windows 7 x64 Ultimate (Genuine Ed.)

Edited January 27, 2012 by echonyne
added RAM + OS

[mobeus 10]

Maxed everything easy - I have a good job so I have a good system - waiting for arma 3 :)

[Lyudmila 1]

My specs are:

i7 intel procesor (old version) 2.6mhz

geforce 9800gt 2gb ram

enough memory

My game runs 40 fps with 1.6 km of view distance and good graphics, but not maxed out. The biggest drop in fps is from high levels of antialiashing, falling to 30 or 25.

In 10km of view i have 30 fps, not bad at all, i can fly choppers and planes good, but is very unconfortable when it comes about infantry shooting in a forest or something else.

[Pummel 10]

No.

I can run it pretty close though since my recent upgrade. I got an i5 Sandy Bridge which I overclocked to 4.6ghz and that helps a lot. My graphics card is an HD5870. Resolution is 1680x1050 which also helps a lot, seeing as it's rather low these days.

On Takistan and Utes I can crank everything except AA which have set to it's lowest setting, and I turn off all post production because I don't like the blur. With those settings I can play great - even with view distance on about 10,000. Some places though, it all goes slow. Chernarus for example, the game just runs really slow unless I drop pretty much everything, that's why I never play there - because it's so ugly like that :P

[TedStryker 1]

This thread got me curious, so i did a few benchmark tests (E08 Benchmark in Arrowhead). Nothing scientific, i actually forgot i had my browser running in the background during all 3 tests.

My Comp:

MSI 870U-G55 "Military Class" (cool huh!) mainboard

Win7 64bit

AMD PhenomII X4 955 (Quad Core) 3.2GHz

4GB RAM

AMD Radeon HD 6800 2GB

Nothing is overclocked

System cost me about 600 (US) and change to build myself, had a power supply and case though...

Dont know if it makes a diff, but i had 1GB memory used in the background from browser and such.

First test everything MAX with Interface Rez of 1366x768 and 3D Rez 1705x960 (Never noticed before the diff in Interface rez and 3D rez till after 2nd test. Was default setting) and MAX distance.

18FPS

Second test I left everything the same EXCEPT the max distance which i put to 4000.

21FPS

Last test, during which i noticed the 3D and Interface resolutions different, I changed the 3D rez to my default monitor rez of 1366x768 (same as interface), KEPT distance at 4000 and turned SHADOWS to NORMAL.

30FPS

Maybe i should have done a few more but i got bored, and wanted to PLAY! But, I came to a few of my own conclusions on how I think I'll keep my settings (always knew shadows were a killer) and I hope this helps and/or answers question for someone.

BTW, i've only owned this game a week now so if anyone has any suggestions on what configuration they think would work best with my system i'd love to hear it!

Edited February 9, 2012 by TedStryker

[domokun 515]

Dont know if it makes a diff, but i had 1GB memory used in the background from browser and such.

Yes it would make a significant difference

BTW, i've only owned this game a week now so if anyone has any suggestions on what configuration they think would work best with my system i'd love to hear it!

Try these settings and let us know how you get on

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

He may also want to try Game Booster 3

It's free!

You can tweak it for even better performance by letting it shut down anything you don't use while gaming.

I get 22% boost, but then again I don't have that much to shut off, it's mainly from closing themes, windows aero, ect.

It's really easy to setup and use.