Will-my-pc-run-Arma3? What cpu/gpu to get? What settings? What system specifications?

[tonygrunt 10]

Hi,

I'm currently looking into buying a new PC, I live in Japan, so chosing anything in a PC shop is a long hard process, here are the two PCs im thinking of buying,

FMVD53LB1 FUJITSU ESPRIMO

INTEL HD GRAPHICS 2500

INTEL H61 EXPRESS CHIP SET.

MEMORY 4 GB

CORE I3 3240 3.40 GHz

Windows 7. 64bit.

second candidate...

LENOVO 57316989

windows r 8 64bit.pentiumR G2030

3.00GHz

4 gb memory

intelR H61 EXPRESS

INTELR HD GRAPHICS CARD.

please let me know ASAP!

From what I gathered from searching, both PCs have integrated intel hd graphics and seem to use small factor cases with no possibility of a graphics card expansion and CPUs are dual core.

These PCs are targeted for office usage and not gaming, avoid them.

[verstand3n 13]

so what cpu should i buy? i5 k modell or i5-4670? Or should one go for Hyperthreading? i7 or Xeon v3?

guess graphics wise GTX 770 or 7970Ghz should be sufficient.

I am really not sure how much cpu power I need and if I should sacrifice some cpu power to go for Hyperthreading for some other games, that I may play in the future.

I am really not keen on spending 500 bucks on a Sandy Bridge-E :(

[Phantom 11]

My (new) Rocket :

Intel Core i5 4670K @ Standard (3,4 Ghz)

Crucial 8 GB DDR3 1600

Sapphire Radeon 7970 3 GB

Gigabyte Z87 HD3

2 x SSD 120 GB

1 x HDD 2 TB

Having great FPS @ ~50-60 FPS !!

[surfer 42]

If you're into mobile computers I can fully recommend my new laptop:

Intel i7 4700Q 2.4 GHz

AMD Radeon HD8970M

16 GB ram

Samsung Pro SSD

15" screen at 1920 x 1080

Win7-64

Pricetag: 1.370 € in Germany

The autodetect gave me 60 fps in the editor/sp with everything maxed. After switching off clounds, vsync and all that blurry post effects and reducing visual distance and objects to 1000 I'm running between 80 and 120 frames, it looks and feels just great.

[Leon86 13]

so what cpu should i buy? i5 k modell or i5-4670? Or should one go for Hyperthreading? i7 or Xeon v3?

guess graphics wise GTX 770 or 7970Ghz should be sufficient.

I am really not sure how much cpu power I need and if I should sacrifice some cpu power to go for Hyperthreading for some other games, that I may play in the future.

I am really not keen on spending 500 bucks on a Sandy Bridge-E :(

4670K is pretty much the best cpu you can get for arma (and other games with a heavy thread, the "total war" games for example).

[flyfinn 0]

Hi..

Got my new pc..:cool:

Intel Core i7 4820K @ Standard (3,7 Ghz)3,9 Ghz turbo

watercooled by coolermaster seidon 240

and by test i read easy to OC to 4,7Ghz.

Kingston 24 GB DDR3 1600

Asus rampage IV extreme

Asus GTX Titan 6 GB ( getting 1 more later for SLI)

Samsung SSD 840 evo 250 GB

seagate barracuda 2 TB

No crashes with Arma 3 so far and 5500m viewdistance

almost everyting on ultra getting 60 FPS...:bounce3:

Edited October 6, 2013 by Flyfinn

[verstand3n 13]

Anybody playing with a FX-8350 or high-clocked six- or quadcore from AMD and feeling it limits?

Because that would be the cheapest solution for me, since I could keep my motherboard.

The Techspot benchmark says it does not make a difference. but i don't really trust that benchmark.

[oldbear 390]

Related to FX-8350 performances here are 2 reviews

The 1 st one is related Haswell i7 and i5 but include some CPUs comparison, of course it's not related to Arma3 but to Arma2OA.

As far as I know Arma3 engine behave more or less like previous one, CPU wise.

The review is in French but the screen does not need translation :

"Intel Core i7-4770K et i5-4670K : Haswell en test"

Source : http://www.hardware.fr/articles/897-21/cpu-jeux-3d-crysis-2-arma-ii-oa.html

2nd one is related to Arma3 beta and is all in Polish (for my own eyes, I have done a crude Google unfinished translation, if you ask I can send it)

Nevertheless the screens don't need any translation :

"ArmA III (beta) – test kart graficznych i procesorów. Bez mocnego CPU nie podchodź"

ArmA III (beta) - a test CPU and graphics card . Do not get it without a strong CPU.

Source : http://pclab.pl/art54599.html

Edited October 8, 2013 by Old Bear

[aseliot 2]

So here are my spec;

i7 860 @2,6/3,2 turbo

8 GB DDR3

7950 3GB OC (950/1250)

Now i have 40-60 fps depending on what is on the screen obviously but it seriously drops sometimes for example the convoy mission on steam workshop where the part in total darkness just has an unplayable framerate and it just froze when all the AI started shooting. Would buying a h80i (Within my budget) and overclocking to 4+ Ghz help or should i buy a second 7950 (I have a decent deal on one)

[verstand3n 13]

Old Bear: thank you!

I guess I can figure what the conclusion might be ;) The charts say it all. The FX does perform poorly and for that matter does not justify upgrading my Phenom II X4 965BE (OC) either. Would have been so easy to just pick the most expensive AMD cpu that my board can hold. Guess now I am back to buying Intel...

I just don't understand why they (the polish guys) don't benchmark the recent haswell intel cpus. Also find it interesting that for A2:OA there is a significant performance gain between i5 and i7 and for A3 it seems not present. Unfortunately the french guys don't give the frequencies. so it might be due to higher frequencies. I can't believe in A2 the VR engine supported hyperthreading and now in A3 it doesn't. Pure speculation though :(

[oldbear 390]

@ MissVerstanden : from my point of view performance gain between i5 and i7 in the A2:OA review is related to CPUs working frequencies* and L3 size, nothing to do with hyperthreading.

*... the french guys is giving the frequencies here :

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/897-9/core-i7-4770k-i5-4670k-i5-4430-cartes-meres.html

[verstand3n 13]

thx again!

weird that the techspot benchmark shows a completely different result: http://www.techspot.com/review/712-arma-3-benchmarks/page5.html

guess I'll just wait for more people to bench A3...

[swiftn7 1]

EDIT: NVM, just overread the last post from Old Bear.

Old Bear: thank you!

I guess I can figure what the conclusion might be ;) The charts say it all. The FX does perform poorly and for that matter does not justify upgrading my Phenom II X4 965BE (OC) either. Would have been so easy to just pick the most expensive AMD cpu that my board can hold. Guess now I am back to buying Intel...

I just don't understand why they (the polish guys) don't benchmark the recent haswell intel cpus. Also find it interesting that for A2:OA there is a significant performance gain between i5 and i7 and for A3 it seems not present. Unfortunately the french guys don't give the frequencies. so it might be due to higher frequencies. I can't believe in A2 the VR engine supported hyperthreading and now in A3 it doesn't. Pure speculation though :(

I would rather say they are on standard clocks, otherwise it won't be compareable. The difference of around 4 fps between i7 and i5 is marginal, in my opinion, and won't legitimate the extra 100€.

[oldbear 390]

@ MissVerstanden : as I have written elsewhere ... "these benchmarks are interesting but quite out of range IRL ! Do you seriously think I will upgrade my "Athlon II x2 250 / HD 7770" rig with a Titan ? I will consider the cost as lethal for my budget."

I am currently playing on "i7-3770/GTX 670 OC / 8 Go Ram Corsair/Samsung 840 System SSD & Crucial 128Go Arma dedicated SSD"

I am currently testing on "Athlon II x2 250 / HD 7770/8 Go Ram Kingston /WD Scorpio Blue 500Go System HD & Intel 80Go dedicated SSD" ... also tested with HD 6870 and GTS 450.

I have also tested a "Core 2 Quad 9400/ HD 7750/ 4 Go Ram Kingston/Crucial 128Go SSD"

and a "i5 2500/ HD 7870/ 8 Go Kingston/WD Caviar Black 1To"

The Arma* games were already CPU dependent and from what I am experiencing, this game appears more "GPU demanding" than previous Arma2/Arma2:OA.

[Shibbyland 10]

Hi All,

Could you please give me some guidance on FPS?

I am running an i5 3470 processor, Nvidia GTX 660, 16 GB RAM. I noticed my graphics settings defaulted to ULTRA. Is this normal regardless of specifications?

I have also noticed regardless whether I set graphics to ULTRA or HIGH, the game remains at 30 FPS. It seems playable (the odd slow down but generally ok) but on exiting the game on ultra I am notified that the colour scheme may need to be changed.

If I set graphics to standard or low I get 60 FPS but I would not enjoy the game on these settings.

What are other people's experiences? How does my PC stack up? Is the seeming to be stuck on 30 FPS normal?

Regards

Shibby

[Longshanks 10]

I got my first gaming PC in 5 years ago on Oct 11, I ordered Arma 2, ArmaOA, and Arma 3 and my framerates were like 20 or less, I was really unhappy, My new PC is a mid range gaming PC, I have a haswell intel 4770 processer 3.4, a Z87 Gigabyte board, A EVGA Superclocked Nvida 760, 8 gig of ram, supercooled, 700 watts of power and so on, I could not get it to run until I found from google where others had gone into the CFG file and made changes, changed their NVIDIA profile and applied it to the games, and disabled a few features in the games and made framerates on all the game are between 45 and 60 and I have the setting on high and very high. Anyway I am new here so I do not know if I can post the links to the sites where I found this info, If I can I will.

[Thvle 10]

Hello guys, with this PC how much FPS I can have?

i5-3570K - 3.6Ghz

8GB 1600Mhz

HD 7770 1100/1250

SSD Crucial M4 128.

1366x768 resolution.

My idea is to play with a minimum FPS of +40. Is it possible?

[oldbear 390]

@ Shibbyland : "i5 3470 / GTX 660 / 16 GB RAM" is well above BIS "recommended specification" but just on par with Papa Bear recommendations :cool:

Your main goal will be to stay above 30 Fps*. It depends mainly on your "Visibility" settings, on your monitor resolution and some adjustments in the "AA&PP" section.

AA&PP : I will suggest you to use [H]ardOcp recipe : http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/10/02/arma_iii_video_card_performance_iq_review/#.Ul6HueKKl1E

... When it comes to AA in ARMA III there are a few things to remember and consider. SMAA is the worst graphics option in this game. Why? Because it literally reduces the texture quality on every single object in the game. Sure, it does a great job reducing rigid lines in some places that other AA solutions can't touch, but having that done is not worth looking at a world full of blurry objects. Next, enabling FSAA (MSAA) by itself, with no other aliasing will actually reduce the quality of textures very slightly. This can be counteracted by enabling some level of FXAA.

We recommend just enabling and leaving FXAA on ultra, because it doesn't cost much performance at any resolution. It also reduces a vast amount of aliasing and truly "crisps up" the image, making it appear sharper and clearer. It's best to use this with some level of FSAA enabled. With 8X FSAA enabled there is a large drop in performance. That being said, 2X is pretty affordable and 4X FSAA provides a great quality image.

Therefore, best AA combo in this game, FXAA Ultra + 2X/4X or 8X FSAA and you will get the best texture quality, no blurring, crisp textures, and well anti-aliased objects and vegetation.

Visibility : You can tweak the visibility parameters to a limited view distance around 2500m in order to get better FPS rate or set a 10 000 m view distance to enjoy the landscape, make pictures to your friend to show them where you are spending your holidays at a dramatically low FPS rate.

Monitor : don't forget that your monitor resolution is having a huge impact on your FPS ... it's easier for a rig to pull a single 1680x1050 monitor like mine (Iiyama B2206Ws) than trying to pull 3 x Dell 2408WFP amounting to 2560x1600 like in [H]ardOcp test.

* Why the 30 FPS limit ? Well ... we are speaking here about the parameters to be set in Single Player, but due to the ways Arma* is built you are going to experience 5/10 FPS drops on Multi Players if you are playing a well built mission on a well hosted pro server (not the makeshift your pal built with an old Core2Duo with a DSL connection) an occasional drop to 20 Fps is not really a problem in this game.

@ Longshanks : "I could not get it to run" ? With such a rig : "i7 4770 @ 3.4/ EVGA Superclocked Nvida 760/8 Go", the game must run smoothly without tweaking anything. Unless you are "BF" intoxicated or suffering from the "60 FPS syndrom" there is no need to tweak the .cfg. It's known that the game is not doing so well on the so called High End PC.

For my part, I am happy with "i7-3770/GTX 670 OC / 8 Go Ram Corsair/Samsung 840 System SSD & Crucial 128Go Arma dedicated SSD" getting 35/45 FPS.

@ Thvle : Even if the HD 7770 is an excellent GPU, it's probably the "weak link" on the way to the average 40 FPS Graal. You will have to set down the 2 Visibility settings but your 1366x768 monitor will help you on the way.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Old Bear

[lapa 1]

Hi..

Got my new pc..:cool:

Intel Core i7 4820K @ Standard (3,7 Ghz)3,9 Ghz turbo

watercooled by coolermaster seidon 240

and by test i read easy to OC to 4,7Ghz.

Kingston 24 GB DDR3 1600

Asus rampage IV extreme

Asus GTX Titan 6 GB ( getting 1 more later for SLI)

Samsung SSD 840 evo 250 GB

seagate barracuda 2 TB

No crashes with Arma 3 so far and 5500m viewdistance

almost everyting on ultra getting 60 FPS...:bounce3:

Now, this is something I would buy if I had the money. However, I probably wouldn't buy the extra Titan. Especially after overclocking your CPU, you should be golden. For the money, another Titan wouldn't give that much of an improvement IMO.

[ric 1]

Hi..

Got my new pc..:cool:

Intel Core i7 4820K @ Standard (3,7 Ghz)3,9 Ghz turbo

watercooled by coolermaster seidon 240

and by test i read easy to OC to 4,7Ghz.

Kingston 24 GB DDR3 1600

Asus rampage IV extreme

Asus GTX Titan 6 GB ( getting 1 more later for SLI)

Samsung SSD 840 evo 250 GB

seagate barracuda 2 TB

No crashes with Arma 3 so far and 5500m viewdistance

almost everyting on ultra getting 60 FPS...:bounce3:

OH MY GOD!.......you do realize you DON'T need another titan right?????

[Gera_CCT 12]

Holy Mother! Hey Flyfinn, How about MP performance?

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

Just upgraded my budget system, almost 'complete' now.

case - Cooler Master 430 elite

motherboard - Asrock Extreme 4 z77

psu - Corsair TX-650w

cpu - i5 3570k .... (upgraded from pentium G2020)

gpu - Asus GTX 660 ..... (upgraded from 650) ... almost purchased a 7970 but trying to stick to lower budget.

memory - 8GB .... (upgraded from 4GB)

HDD - 1 TB seagate barracuda

SSD - (still have to get one)

The 660 is enough for me to run A3 comfortably. Might get a 'new' GPU next year, but for now its enough.

[flyfinn 0]

Holy Mother! Hey Flyfinn, How about MP performance?

Hi..just tryed Jammys CTI becti server 32 players..5000 m viewdistance by choise and objeckts was 2400m serversettings.

No OC..

at the beginning 35 FPS online and when lots of AI respawn down all the way to 10 fps for short while..

So BI needs to work on the optimization if possible.. maybe i still need that second titan too..:confused:

Cooler master storm trooper ATX

Intel Core i7 4820K @ Standard (3,7 Ghz)3,9 Ghz turbo

watercooled by coolermaster seidon 240

and by test i read easy to OC to 4,7Ghz.

Kingston 24 GB DDR3 1600

cooler master PSU 1000 w gold

Asus rampage IV extreme

Asus GTX Titan 6 GB ( getting 1 more later for SLI)

Samsung SSD 840 evo 250 GB

seagate barracuda 2 TB

[ric 1]

Just upgraded my budget system, almost 'complete' now.

case - Cooler Master 430 elite

motherboard - Asrock Extreme 4 z77

psu - Corsair TX-650w

cpu - i5 3570k .... (upgraded from pentium G2020)

gpu - Asus GTX 660 ..... (upgraded from 650) ... almost purchased a 7970 but trying to stick to lower budget.

memory - 8GB .... (upgraded from 4GB)

HDD - 1 TB seagate barracuda

SSD - (still have to get one)

The 660 is enough for me to run A3 comfortably. Might get a 'new' GPU next year, but for now its enough.

the 660 is enough, i have one and get 35-50 in MP (for the most part) most of the time my CPU will choke long before the GPU does.

Edited October 18, 2013 by ric

[oldbear 390]

@ Flyfinn : BIS can ... and must work on game optimization, but they can't work on missions optimization.

If the missions has wrong parameters, faulty scripts and so on, it's to the author to do something.

... and a Titan SLI will only make a hole in your budget.