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

[Sneakson 1]

Yes, the CPU is stock. I did try to OC it once but had some issues. I never really had a need to mess with it before though, so I guess I should give that a shot before anything else.

And yes, 20 FPS in multiplayer. The thing is, I still only get 20 FPS when I run a "multiplayer" mission on my machine with practically no scripts, and I'm the only one playing. I have a mission saved that I goof around on with a handful of helicopters and the only scripts running are respawn and VAS. In singleplayer I'm usually hitting around 45-50 FPS with all the same settings.

Does the built-in Headhunters mission run well? I've never noticed any performance issues playing that by myself using the LAN setting. There shouldn't be any performance issues when you're alone I would think anyways.

I hear there are some utopian servers that have high framerates even with many players. Not sure what their secret is but you may want to look around and see if one of them works any better.

[Sterlingarcherz101 15]

Jester honesty your rig is pretty decent, I have noticed in latest few patches considerable performance drops , back in September /October I was getting 60fps on multiplayer.I don't know what they have done but it has Never been that high since. It is a Bohemia arma3 issue.

Is your machine having problems with other games? If not you already know the problem.

I do not recommend you upgrade till at least broadwell.

[DieselJC 196]

Windows 7,64Bit Prof/8GB Ram/Phenon940 x4 Proc./XFX6770,1GB Graphics Card..Thinking the card may be a bit weak for A3.

JC

[JestersDead 2]

Does the built-in Headhunters mission run well? I've never noticed any performance issues playing that by myself using the LAN setting. There shouldn't be any performance issues when you're alone I would think anyways.

I hear there are some utopian servers that have high framerates even with many players. Not sure what their secret is but you may want to look around and see if one of them works any better.

I don't think I've played headhunters. On SP missions / campaign, I really don't have much of a problem with framerate. It's really a multiplayer thing I think. It just seems like it's gotten WAY worse lately. I've always had "so-so" performance in MP, but lately it's almost unplayable.

Is your machine having problems with other games? If not you already know the problem.

No, I really don't have issues with other games. I know it's an arma thing, I just thought maybe there was something I could do to get a little improvement since I play arma more than anything else. I actually had my system monitor running on my 2nd display last night, and my CPU usage was barely hitting 30% during high load, and it never used more than 4 out of 8Gb of RAM. I ordered more RAM this week, but I'm really not sure it'll help much. I uprgaded to 16Gb of DDR3 2133, so hopefully I get a little framerate bump.

[r0llinlacs 10]

How well should I be able to run this game?

AMD Phenom X4 9150e 1.8ghz

4GB DDR2 800mhz

XFX 7850 OC 2GB BlackEdition

600 Watt PSU

Win7 Ultimate 64-bit

Edited March 16, 2014 by r0llinlacs

[KrazyBee 8]

so guys i decided to go with 4670k and nvidia 770.how much watts psu should i get.

btw u think this mobo is good for ocing the cpu http://www.microcenter.com/product/414820/Z87-G41_PC_Mate_Socket_LGA_1150_ATX_Intel_Motherboard

Edited March 16, 2014 by Krazybee

[Sneakson 1]

so guys i decided to go with 4670k and nvidia 770.how much watts psu should i get.

btw u think this mobo is good for ocing the cpu http://www.microcenter.com/product/414820/Z87-G41_PC_Mate_Socket_LGA_1150_ATX_Intel_Motherboard

Good choices. Your computer will probably use about 300W however you should always buy a bit more than that, 400 minimum and 600 maximum. Of course you can’t have too much so you can buy as much as you want but I only have 520W with a 4770/770.

Supply units are noisy so remember to look at wattage, then make sure it’s at least 80+ Bronze, and then check out reviews to see how noisy it is.

Having a completely fanless unit is the best of course since they are nearly dead silent and then the only thing making noise will be the case fans basically.

No idea if that mobo is good for overclocking... in theory it's supposed to be worse than some others but I don't know what difference it really makes. I bet it overclocks as well as any other board.

You can't plug in anything better than 2.1 speakers to it though which is something you should remember in case you have a bigger sound system.

Also remember that overclocking isn't always cost-efficient if you have to spend extra on a cooler.

Edited March 16, 2014 by Sneakson

[KrazyBee 8]

Good choices. Your computer will probably use about 300W however you should always buy a bit more than that, 400 minimum and 600 maximum. Of course you can’t have too much so you can buy as much as you want but I only have 520W with a 4770/770.

Supply units are noisy so remember to look at wattage, then make sure it’s at least 80+ Bronze, and then check out reviews to see how noisy it is.

Having a completely fanless unit is the best of course since they are nearly dead silent and then the only thing making noise will be the case fans basically.

No idea if that mobo is good for overclocking... in theory it's supposed to be worse than some others but I don't know what difference it really makes. I bet it overclocks as well as any other board.

You can't plug in anything better than 2.1 speakers to it though which is something you should remember in case you have a bigger sound system.

Also remember that overclocking isn't always cost-efficient if you have to spend extra on a cooler.

thanks for ur reply.i guess ill gowith 650-750 watts.i already have h80i water cooler so i wont have o buy it.if i go with 780 u think i can run arma all maxed out?

[Sneakson 1]

thanks for ur reply.i guess ill gowith 650-750 watts.i already have h80i water cooler so i wont have o buy it.if i go with 780 u think i can run arma all maxed out?

I don't think the 780 will make a big difference. It's 40% stronger than the 770.

[oldbear 390]

@ r0llinlacs : from my point of view the question is not "How well should I be able to run this game?" but "Can I play Arma3 on this rig ?".

The AMD Phenom X4 9150e 1.8ghz is well under the minimum specifications level.

From a technical point of view, this PC can run the game, but playing it is an other story.

In order to play and enjoy it on Single and Multi as well, your rig must be around the "Recommended" specifications level.

Looking at your rig specifications, I think that the only way to play and enjoy Arma3 is to upgrade the "CPU/RAM/MoBo" pack.

Even an Haswell i3 such as the i3-4130 on a 1150 socket MoBo will do the job, I know, I have followed this way.

[nikiforos 450]

I currently run the game with an i5-2500k 4.4 GHZ. If I decide to upgrade my CPU which should I buy for better performance? And would that better performance be big compared to my i5-2500k? Is it worth an upgrade?

[Sneakson 1]

I currently run the game with an i5-2500k 4.4 GHZ. If I decide to upgrade my CPU which should I buy for better performance? And would that better performance be big compared to my i5-2500k? Is it worth an upgrade?

There doesn't exist a much stronger CPU than the 2500k.

[oldbear 390]

@ Nikoforos : late i5-4670K and i7-4770K are more powerful and more efficient than the i5-2500K.

Have a look at this chart published on the Hardware.fr site in this review "Intel Core i7-4770K et i5-4670K : Haswell en test" :

[beware : this site is in French, so open the link at your own risk.]

Of course this chart must not be used as a proof of some "truth", it just shows the CPU hierarchy related to RV Engine.

You are currently playing Arma3 with an i5-2500K @4.4 GHZ.

At the moment my own answer about the upgrade is that it's urgent to wait a bit :

- you don't need it on the spot, the i5-2500K is a well built, efficient CPU and is probably doing well in game,

- the upcoming "Haswell refresh with K" can change the things,

- there are some rumors about an "Haswell Extreme Edition".

Edited March 19, 2014 by OldBear

[nikiforos 450]

Thank you for all replies guys , I think I will keep my current setup for now.

[xMenta 10]

arma 3 engine is pretty heavy, i got i5 + HD7870 OC and still a lot of fps drops

[JestersDead 2]

Well I upgraded from DDR3 1600 8GB to 16GB of DDR3 2133, and overclocked my CPU to 4.2Ghz, and I am noticing a bump in framerate. I was hovering around 22 FPS before, and now it's pretty stable at about 30. I used to get a lot of stutter when firing anything on auto, especially the miniguns on the littlebird, but now they have a pretty stable rate of fire. I still dip down into the 20's occasionally, but at least now I'm averaging 30 and dipping briefly into the 20's instead of stable at 22 and dipping into the teens.

[doveman 7]

Well I upgraded from DDR3 1600 8GB to 16GB of DDR3 2133, and overclocked my CPU to 4.2Ghz, and I am noticing a bump in framerate. I was hovering around 22 FPS before, and now it's pretty stable at about 30. I used to get a lot of stutter when firing anything on auto, especially the miniguns on the littlebird, but now they have a pretty stable rate of fire. I still dip down into the 20's occasionally, but at least now I'm averaging 30 and dipping briefly into the 20's instead of stable at 22 and dipping into the teens.

And you compared with the exact same build before/after changing the RAM and overclocking?

I'm not disputing that OC'ing the CPU would be likely to make a difference (I'm not so sure the RAM would though, although if upgrading to 16GB means that you now have sufficient free RAM for A3 not to need to use the pagefile, whereas before it had to, then that would make a difference) but at the same time BIS may have tweaked things between builds, so unless comparing with the same build it's impossible to say that the HW is completely responsible for the improvement.

I'm jealous anyway, as I'm stuck on about 20 fps on the Scouting missions in Adapt :(

[JestersDead 2]

Well, I installed the RAM and didn't notice any difference. Then I remembered that I hadn't changed the BIOS settings so the PC would recognize the higher spec RAM. While I was in there, I OC'd the CPU as well. After rebooting I did notice higher framerate in most situations, and the game ran a lot smoother. It's still not what I would consider great performance, but it bumped me up to "acceptable".

Like I said, it still dips into the 20's under heavy load, but the majority of the time it's now around 30. So I gained about 8 FPS average.

[doveman 7]

Like I said, it still dips into the 20's under heavy load, but the majority of the time it's now around 30. So I gained about 8 FPS average.

Well that's around 36%, so quite an improvement :)

[Sneakson 1]

Well, I installed the RAM and didn't notice any difference. Then I remembered that I hadn't changed the BIOS settings so the PC would recognize the higher spec RAM. While I was in there, I OC'd the CPU as well. After rebooting I did notice higher framerate in most situations, and the game ran a lot smoother. It's still not what I would consider great performance, but it bumped me up to "acceptable".

Like I said, it still dips into the 20's under heavy load, but the majority of the time it's now around 30. So I gained about 8 FPS average.

I think everyone would be interested in a benchmark where you test the RAM at 1600/2133 with a constant CPU clock.

There's been some talk about RAM frequencies significantly affecting performance.

I've been considering changing my 16GB 1600 in for 8GB 2400 both to free up some money (since 16GB is very abundant) and if I could have better performance too that would be great.

22->30 is a MASSIVE difference. In frametime it's the same difference as between 34 and 60 fps I believe... so the difference in smoothness is quite big.

[JestersDead 2]

I'll try to benchmark it when I get home. Shouldn't be too hard, changing the RAM frequency on my MOBO only takes a minute.

[bangtail 0]

- there are some rumors about an "Haswell Extreme Edition".

X-99 and Haswell-E in September.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7874/haswelle-8-cores-x99-ddr4

Can't wait - DDR4 and up to 10 full speed SATA ports among other things, plus an 8 core CPU (not so relevant for most games but the MT performance is rumored to be up to 50% better than SB-E/IB-E).

Edited March 25, 2014 by BangTail

[KrazyBee 8]

so quick question before i got buy the pc.im getting 4670k and mobo from msi.psu 650 watts.my question is im deciding between 760 and 770.i wanna get 760 cuz of budget but the question is can i play everything on ultra with 760???i had 7970 before and i had everything on ultra.is 760 better than 7970??

[jumpinghubert 49]

@Krazybee

I googled for 2 minutes: 7970 roughly 12% faster than GTX760

http://www.computerbase.de/2013-06/nvidia-geforce-gtx-760-test/4/

ramspeed is very important, done with helo´s arma3 benchmark:

cpu 4.5Ghz/ram 1600Mhz: 36 fps

cpu 4.5Ghz/ram 2400Mhz: 42 fps

cpu 4.5Ghz/ram 2666Mhz: 43 fps

cpu 4.8Ghz/ram 1600Mhz: 37 fps

cpu 4.8Ghz/ram 2666Mhz: 45 fps

[KrazyBee 8]

@Krazybee

I googled for 2 minutes: 7970 roughly 12% faster than GTX760

http://www.computerbase.de/2013-06/nvidia-geforce-gtx-760-test/4/

ramspeed is very important, done with helo´s arma3 benchmark:

cpu 4.5Ghz/ram 1600Mhz: 36 fps

cpu 4.5Ghz/ram 2400Mhz: 42 fps

cpu 4.5Ghz/ram 2666Mhz: 43 fps

cpu 4.8Ghz/ram 1600Mhz: 37 fps

cpu 4.8Ghz/ram 2666Mhz: 45 fps

thanks for ur time.i think ill go with 760