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

[Leon86 13]

on par means the same

anyway, I've read that altis life is a quite heavy on the cpu, not sure how it'll run, on some servers you'll have higher fps than others.

[Sneakson 1]

The dpi war with gaming mice is really pointless and crazy. Even the highest sens players will never benefit from anything above 2000 dpi. The highest dpi's are always faked, mouse outputting more counts than the sensor reads, or even worse, created in the driver. This is why high dpi always gets you jitter.

If you're using a normal sensitivity it's best to set the dpi low, 400/800 range so the mouse has a clean output and the counts dont oversaturate the usb, otherwise you'll have jitter agian.

Yes, DPI is to mice what megapixel was for cellphones/smartphones 5 years ago.

However it’s worth mentioning that the DPI you need depends on your monitor too. With a 3840x2160 monitor you’re going to need twice the DPI compared to a 1920x1080 monitor to move your mouse the same centimetre distance diagonally across the screen using the same centimetre hand movement while maintaining perfect pixel precision assuming the monitors are the same size in centimetres.

The alternative would be staying on 800 DPI and buying a quad size mouse pad. Doing so would tire out your arms quite quickly methinks.

[Blu Ray 10]

the i5-4200u runs on 2.3 Ghz with 2 cores under load, it'll run, of course not on par with a recent desktop. Performance will depend heavily on settings and the mission.

It'll run about on par with Z4layeta's system I think.

notebookcheck is actually wrong, i5 4200U can run on 2.44 Ghz and not 2.3 Ghz with 2 cores under load, not sure how much of a difference that would make. Anyway, I'll buy Arma 3 and see how It goes, even I'm not able to run It decently on my laptop It will work on my desktop.

[arotished 10]

notebookcheck is actually wrong, i5 4200U can run on 2.44 Ghz and not 2.3 Ghz with 2 cores under load, not sure how much of a difference that would make. Anyway, I'll buy Arma 3 and see how It goes, even I'm not able to run It decently on my laptop It will work on my desktop.

ARMA3 runs on almost every laptop, dont even need to have a duel core as they developer dont know how to support it mulit CPU/GPU.

But, it really comes down to what you feel is decent.

I have a laptop with a 3,8Ghz i7, 680M SLi, SSD and 32GB and in order to get above 30FPS on Altis Life I need to put every setting on Standard and disable every AA option along with put 1000meters view distance. This makes the game look like Operation Flashpoint again and I need to control myself not to get angry due to the "lag" when I move my mouse.

I also have a desktop with a 4,5Ghz i7, 780Ti SLi, SSD and 32GB and in order to get above 40FPS in Altis Life on this computer, I need to reduce the view distance to 1500meters, the rest I have on Ultra BUT, I still get noticeable FPS drops with more then 2 things happens at once.

Overall, my hardware is not good enough to run the game decent for me.

[nikiforos 450]

I think that your hardware(desktop) is very good arotished, it's not your fault if Arma 3 is badly optimized.

[oldbear 390]

@ arotished : Altis Life "missions" and servers are known to pull hard on PCs. Whatever are the problems with Arma3 Multi-player management, it's not BIS responsibility if Altis Life "missions" are badly optimized, too often "tweaked" by amateurs and played on makeshift servers.

I am playing Arma3 with a "i3-4130/HD 7770/8 Go/256Go SSD" rig on "High" with Visibility=2 000m @20/35 FPS on Altis in Coop on our Clan server. Of course, playing a PvP game I am getting over 35 FPS. The game looks great and I enjoy it. Nemo auditur propriam turpitudinem allegans.

[Dyabolikal 10]

cpu - i7 - 3770 3.40 GHz

gpu - gtx 660 over clocked 2 gig ram

ram - 16 gig

I am downloading this game as I post this can someone tell me what specs I could expect to play on.

Thanks

Dya

[arotished 10]

@ arotished : Altis Life "missions" and servers are known to pull hard on PCs. Whatever are the problems with Arma3 Multi-player management, it's not BIS responsibility if Altis Life "missions" are badly optimized, too often "tweaked" by amateurs and played on makeshift servers.

I am playing Arma3 with a "i3-4130/HD 7770/8 Go/256Go SSD" rig on "High" with Visibility=2 000m @20/35 FPS on Altis in Coop on our Clan server. Of course, playing a PvP game I am getting over 35 FPS. The game looks great and I enjoy it. Nemo auditur propriam turpitudinem allegans.

I will never understand people that can enjoy playing a FPS game with 20fps, but hey, we are difference :)

[oldbear 390]

@ arotished : Arma3 is quite playable without any stuttering in the 20/35 FPS range, so it means you can enjoy a beautiful game at a rather low cost, there is no need to buy an overkill "4,5Ghz i7/780Ti SLi/SSD/32GB" rig to enjoy the game.

As I has previously said "...Playing without stuttering perception is achieved in Arma3 over 20 FPS. This limit is of course variable depending on physiological and/or psychological factor. ..... Remember that building up an image from what we get on the the screen is mostly a mental process..." and as an afterthought I will also add cultural factors.

Despite Sneakson said there is no serious research on a large groups proving otherwise. Only "papers" on limited groups not really representative of a given population. Some limited observations on US students are only ... limited.

If you are a member of a group under the cultural belief that a game must be played at 60 FPS, of course hearing somebody telling he is enjoying playing a seamless game at 25 FPS is nearly unbearable, a bit like a sin ... but as you said we are just different.

From my own experience, the main enhancements giving this seamless feeling even at low FPS rate are SSD and amount of RAM over 4 Go with 64Bits OS. An other factor is GPU drivers achievements and overall quality.

I have done many tests on my different rigs with and without SSD without any proof SSD was improving FPS, but the "feeling" was quite different, the game was smoother, more enjoyable.

@ Dyabolikal : with a "i7-3770/GTX 660 OC/16 Go RAM", you can expect to play on "Ultra", overall Visibility = 2000 m with 45/60 FPS on Solo missions and Campaign. I will suggest you to have a look at HardOcp "ARMA III Video Card Performance and IQ Review" you will find interesting hints to tweak the AA&PP section.

Multi-player will be a different story due to :

- Arma3 MP management issues. It seems BIS is working the point ATM, I hope we will get some enhancements ... soonâ„¢.

- Servers management and hosting. Some are well hosted and managed other are .... not

- Missions quality. Missions makers are doing their best, but too often missions are tweaked by more or less skilled people.

Edited February 23, 2014 by OldBear

[Sneakson 1]

You're adding in too much.

Player perception of fps variations depend on psychology, not physiology or cultural differences.

Unless you are saying a friend telling you that 60 fps is way cooler changes your physiology on the spot, eh? ;)

You’re also using the term “cultural differences†wrong. It’s used to differentiate between the general populations of different countries or heritages and not individuals.

Psychology does matter though. However that’s absolutely not all that matters. Different visual techniques such as motion blur can increase the perception of smoothness by decreasing temporal aliasing and uneven framerate drops such as micro-stuttering are more noticeable (sub-second framerate drops that a framerate meter wouldn’t always notice). The way in which you usually notice a stable low framerate is thanks to input lag.

It varies between different games and different media. I’ve never been bothered by console games usually having only 30 fps and in many current console games such as GTA V the framerate is consistently much lower than 30 fps and unstable but it still doesn’t bother me much. In Quake on a PC playing in 20 fps would probably drive me nuts though!

All movies (except for the damn Hobbit) are shot in only 24 fps. Still you never notice a movie stuttering, do you, because of motion blur decreasing temporal aliasing.

Also you said "papers on limited groups not really [being] representative of a given population"... and that's all wrong ;)

All of science is based around the fact that you can randomly select 100 people out of a much bigger population and have those 100 people be representative of the general population.

This is true because quantative human traits with a genetic basis are randomly distributed in populations. Video game skill is barely genetic and is not homogenously distributed across the world (South Korea vs Africa for example) or ages (younger players are usually better) however the study probably used a selection of already experienced Quake players that would be highly representative of any other group of skilled gamers.

At worst the study may not hold entirely true for completely inexperienced gamers.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Sneakson

[oldbear 390]

@ Sneakson : "All of science is based around the fact that you can randomly select 100 people out of a much bigger population and have those 100 people be representative of the general population" ... it's not science you are speaking about it's marketing.

[Sneakson 1]

@ Sneakson : "All of science is based around the fact that you can randomly select 100 people out of a much bigger population and have those 100 people be representative of the general population" ... it's not science you are speaking about it's marketing.

No, I'm talking about statistical analysis actually... has nothing to do with marketing and it's vital for just about every branch of science there is besides philosophy.

You don't have to measure all 300 million Americans to determine the average height quite accurately.

Edited February 23, 2014 by Sneakson

[Dyabolikal 10]

@ Dyabolikal : with a "i7-3770/GTX 660 OC/16 Go RAM", you can expect to play on "Ultra", overall Visibility = 2000 m with 45/60 FPS on Solo missions and Campaign. I will suggest you to have a look at HardOcp you will find interesting hints to tweak the AA&PP section.

Multi-player will be a different story due to :

- Arma3 MP management issues. It seems BIS is working the point ATM, I hope we will get some enhancements ... soonâ„¢.

- Servers management and hosting. Some are well hosted and managed other are .... not

- Missions quality. Missions makers are doing their best, but too often missions are tweaked by more or less skilled people.

Thankyou

[1DeadlyTrooper 10]

processor AMD FX-6100 Six-Core Processor

Manufacturer AMD

Speed 3.3 GHz

Number of Cores 6

Video Card AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series

Manufacturer ATI

Chipset AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series

Dedicated Memory 3.1 GB

Total Memory 4.0 GB

Memory 16 GB

Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition Service Pack 1 (build 7601), 64-bit

Service Pack 1

Size 64 Bit

Edition Ultimate

Display Maximum Resolution 1920 x 1080

thanks.

[oldbear 390]

The AMD FX-6100 is matching the Arma3 "Recommended" specs level. Despite what is written on the box, the overall performance level in game is more or less on par with older Phenom II x4 965. So you can expect to play a bit over 30 FPS in Solo.

Having a discrete HD 7950 or HD 7970 GPU will allow you to play on "Ultra" quality. As a general rule, quality parameters must be left as given by auto-detection, setting them down in an attempt to gain FPS is only counterproductive.

In this section, the only parameter you can set down is "Visibility", this <<video>> parameter is in fact directly impacting CPU. On my own rig I am gaining 10 FPS when I set down Visibility from 3800m to 2000m.

In the AA&PP section, I will suggest to use HardOcp recipe : "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."

[Sneakson 1]

processor AMD FX-6100 Six-Core Processor

Manufacturer AMD

Speed 3.3 GHz

Number of Cores 6

Video Card AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series

Manufacturer ATI

Chipset AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series

Dedicated Memory 3.1 GB

Total Memory 4.0 GB

Memory 16 GB

Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition Service Pack 1 (build 7601), 64-bit

Service Pack 1

Size 64 Bit

Edition Ultimate

Display Maximum Resolution 1920 x 1080

thanks.

Check my sig below for some inspiration on what settings work the best.

I did a lot of benchmarking on both my machines so the settings are pretty well perfectly tweaked for about a 50 fps average. Tweaking is difficult though because you always have to balance good graphics with performance and some settings only make a small graphical difference but also a small performance difference so it’s hard to decide what to activate and what not.

View distance doesn’t matter much but object distance is the heaviest setting of all. Decreasing shadows under 100 has no effect but increasing it over 100 does, in my experience anyways. Objects detail only matters in the ground and terrain detail only matters in the air (or the other way around) so you can tweak that to your personal preference.

Picture-in-picture kills framerate in vehicles.

Anyways I did all my benchmarking while measuring fps. Would be interesting to see if doing it while measuring frametimes instead would make a difference.

Oh and all my benchmarking is done in singleplayer, because multiplayer depends on connection, server, scenario and so on and is generally quite unstable.

Edited February 25, 2014 by Sneakson

[oldbear 390]

As previously said "Visibility" has a major impact on performance even if it is registered under "Video" option, it's CPU related. As Maruk said ..."Generally speaking, rendering distance and even object detail has some serious impact on the CPU as well (also affects simulation), yet most of the other graphical settings are solely or primarily on the GPU side."...

[gimpymoo 10]

Would an R9 290 be overkill for A3 or would the game still make use of it?

Would be paired with a 4770K at stock (for the time being).

Thanks.

[oldbear 390]

@ Gimpymoo : the R9 290 seems to be OK ... and this game being a greedy thing will swallow it as the rest. Nevertheless it's a lot of money and my own choice in this area is still the GTX 770.

[gimpymoo 10]

That is my thinking.

It is a lot of money but if the performance gains are there, it would be worth it in my opinion.

If the £50 extra for the R9 290 over the 770 gives £50 more performance, that is worth it, I am unsure though if it would?

[Sneakson 1]

Hey again.

I’ve been doing some cost-efficiency studies on overclocking, air-cooling and water-cooling.

I’m not going to go into excruciating detail however I have concluded:

• The 760 is cost efficient.

• Saving for a 770 instead of a 760 is 90% cost-efficient.

• CPU water-cooling is only 23% cost-efficient for 760 users, much less than a 770 upgrade (90%)!

• CPU air-cooling is only 42% cost-efficient for 760 users, much less than a 770 upgrade (90%)!

• Saving for a 780 instead of a 770 is 34% cost-efficient.

• CPU water-cooling is only 29% efficient for 770 users, somewhat less than a 780 upgrade (34%).

• CPU air-cooling is 59% cost-efficient for 770 users, actually much more than a 780 upgrade (34%)!

• As such, water-cooling is not cost-efficient for 770 or 760 users.

• Air-cooling however is cost-efficient for 770 users though not 760 users.

All calculations based on current Tom’s Hardware data.

With water-cooling I counted with a Corsair Hydro H110 which at $110 I assumed may boost your fps by 10%, based on absolutely nothing.

With air-cooling I counted with a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo which at $30 I assumed may boost your fps by 5%, based on nothing.

Note: this assumes you are in a situation where you are saving up to buy a 700-series card but have not yet done so!

By “upgrading†I only mean saving up for the next card and not selling your current 700-series card and buying the next one instead, which will always be cost-inefficient depending on how much you call sell your old card for.

Note that a 5% boost usually means actually only 2-5 fps in the 30-60 fps area. As such buying an air-cooler or water-cooler and overclocking will never mean a very big improvement.

The conclusion is that overclocking, air-cooling and water-cooling is usually not worth it! A 770 user may consider a Hyper 212 Evo which has a minimal cost but also delivers a minimal boost.

This small study can be improved by checking more closely what the most cost-efficient water-cooler is (Corsair may not be) and by checking more closely what exact performance boost a Hydro H110 or Hyper 212 Evo is capable of delivering.

The current values are based no hard measurements.

The study is also concentrated on the 760 and 770 which are the two cards most users should be considering.

Edit: I also tried doing some hyper-threading tests.

Initially I did 5 measurements with and 5 measurements without which showed a few percent difference however statistically I believe this was insignificant and likely chance at work.

I changed my settings to make the measurements more accurate and with the first measurement hyper-threading seemed to be significantly better however each measurement got worse and at 7 measurements there was no statistical difference at all. Not surprisingly because the final series with hyper-threading showed almost 8% difference between measurements... needs a sturdier benchmark.

This was using some Altis benchmark over in the user missions area.

A 4770K (which is more or less exactly a 4670K except with hyper-threading) is clearly not worth the extra $125-150 though.

Edited February 28, 2014 by Sneakson

[Ezcoo 47]

The conclusion is that overclocking, air-cooling and water-cooling is usually not worth it! A 770 user may consider a Hyper 212 Evo which has a minimal cost but also delivers a minimal boost.

I don't agree. For example, I have GTX 670 that equals to GTX 760. I bought €30/~$40 air cooler (HR-02 Macho) and overclocked my i5-3570k from 3,4 GHz to 4,5 GHz successfully, the temps stayed below the recommended maximum temp even during extreme stress tests. I got about 20-30% FPS boost. So I got about 1 % performance increase with every €, which I wouldn't consider "not worth it". Considering that the base performance was already high as i5-3570k is one of the best CPUs available in terms of A3 performance, the relative performance boost was also remarkable.

[Sneakson 1]

Hey guys, remember that your object detail caps object distance!

Standard: 3000 meters.

High: 5000 meters.

Very high: 7000 meters.

Ultra: 12000 meters?

Standard 3000 m object distance: 40 fps.

Standard 12000 m object distance: 20 fps, visually nearly the same as 3000 m object distance!

Ultra 10000 m object distance: 20 fps, visually extremely much better than Standard 12000 m distance.

The object detail and distance is the only settings I’ve changed and the view distance was always at 12000 m.

Visual difference between Standard 12000 and Ultra 10000 (both at 20 fps):

http://i.imgur.com/wjU61bG.jpg (354 kB) 1920x1200

http://i.imgur.com/u010O7k.jpg (368 kB) 1920x1200

Shows the importance of tweaking.

---------- Post added at 18:49 ---------- Previous post was at 18:43 ----------

I don't agree. For example, I have GTX 670 that equals to GTX 760. I bought €30/~$40 air cooler (HR-02 Macho) and overclocked my i5-3570k from 3,4 GHz to 4,5 GHz successfully, the temps stayed below the recommended maximum temp even during extreme stress tests. I got about 20-30% FPS boost. So I got about 1 % performance increase with every €, which I wouldn't consider "not worth it". Considering that the base performance was already high as i5-3570k is one of the best CPUs available in terms of A3 performance, the relative performance boost was also remarkable.

20-30% boost? :s

Maybe it's only my computer then. In ARMA3 I only measured a 5% difference between 4.0 GHz and 4.4 GHz with 4770K and a 770 2GB.

[dr_fowler 10]

Hey guys here are my specs:

Intel Core i7-4770K Processor

8GB DDR3 1600 Memory

Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 ti

ASUS Z87-K MB

1TB SATA-III 7200rpm HDD

Windows 7 Pro

What kind of performance/FPS rate can I expect?

(I know my GPU is somewhat lacking)

[Sneakson 1]

Hey guys here are my specs:

Intel Core i7-4770K Processor

8GB DDR3 1600 Memory

Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 ti

ASUS Z87-K MB

1TB SATA-III 7200rpm HDD

Windows 7 Pro

What kind of performance/FPS rate can I expect?

(I know my GPU is somewhat lacking)

I would be interested in knowing actually.

Haven’t seen anyone with such an imbalanced computer in terms of CPU to graphics card strength.

ARMA3 is considered “CPU-heavy†however that’s usually an overstatement and I would be interested in seeing how much your CPU compensates for your graphics card.

At worst: Medium settings (many settings on Ultra, because many settings don’t matter but the important settings will be Medium) with a 1600-something view distance similar to the old machine in my sig and at best… I have no idea.

Other than the graphics card everything else is up to the modern hardcore gaming standard though.

You should definitely be saving for a better graphics card (I’d say MSI 760 or MSI 770 with 2GB VRAM, unless you have an XHD monitor) next, then I would suggest buying an SSD of at least 128GB (the Samsung 840 Evo series is the best, then non-Evo).

Edited March 1, 2014 by Sneakson