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

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

Comparing with benchmarks is preety senseless in my opinion. This 3-4fps are lost in an Ingame situation

[jumpinghubert 49]

the alternative is comparing......without benchmarks :p The altis benchmark isn´t ideal but better than nothing ;)

[Groove_C 267]

Downclocked my 16 GB (4X4) from 2133 MHz 9-11-10-27 to 1600 MHz 8-8-8-24 and did 3 runs @ Altis benchmark.

Lost 5 FPS (average). Don't think the minimal FPS was affected.

Gained 1 FPS (average) going to 2400 MHz 10-11-11-30 @ 1.65 V.

So going from 1600 MHz 8-8-8-24 to 2400 MHz 10-11-11-30 will give you 4-5 FPS more (average). Minimal FPS won't change much I think (if at all).

Have managed to get 50 FPS @ Altis after 3 runs (51, 50, 50) @ Ultra @ 1680x1050 @ Win 8.1 x64 @ SSD Intel X-25M SATA II 275 MB/s read & 80 MB/s write.

Have compared FPS at different RAM speeds on Altis

Scores:

45 FPS @ 1600 MHz 8-8-8-24 2T

46 FPS @ 1866 MHz 9-9-9-27 2T

49 FPS @ 2133 MHz 9-11-10-27 2T

50 FPS @ 2400 MHz 10-11-11-30 2T

Downclocked from 2400 MHz @ 1.65 to 2133 MHz @ 1.5 V. I don't see the need to stress my RAM because of 1 addition FPS and that's average - not minimal.

Faster RAM brings you more FPS only at lower resolutions and lower graphic settings. The higher the resolution and graphic settings the less faster RAM makes the difference.

Edited October 17, 2014 by Groove_C

[killerwhale 1]

with your Titan card, what is your minimum fps?

[XenoN585 1]

Specs:

Asus p5nd motherboard

q8200 quad core 2.33 ghz overclocked to 2.8ghz

4gb ddr 2 ram 800mhz

gtx460 1gb

i get a max of 15 fps on multiplayer and this game is unplayable for me ? I play on lowest settings possible highest ill get is 20 fps. Single player or missions i get easily 40-50 and its very smooth and playable someone please help me?

[killerwhale 1]

Specs:

Asus p5nd motherboard

q8200 quad core 2.33 ghz overclocked to 2.8ghz

4gb ddr 2 ram 800mhz

gtx460 1gb

i get a max of 15 fps on multiplayer and this game is unplayable for me ? I play on lowest settings possible highest ill get is 20 fps. Single player or missions i get easily 40-50 and its very smooth and playable someone please help me?

Im afraid your PC is a bit low. you're still using ddr2 800mhz and people are talking about 2400mhz. Your video card is also not good enough. you probably are going to have to upgrade to enjoy better FPS.

[jumpinghubert 49]

Downclocked my 16 GB (4X4) from 2133 MHz 9-11-10-27 to 1600 MHz 8-8-8-24 and did 3 runs @ Altis benchmark.

Lost 5 FPS (average). Don't think the minimal FPS was affected.

Gained 1 FPS (average) going to 2400 MHz 10-11-11-30 @ 1.65 V.

So going from 1600 MHz 8-8-8-24 to 2400 MHz 10-11-11-30 will give you 4-5 FPS more (average). Minimal FPS won't change much I think (if at all).

Have managed to get 50 FPS @ Altis after 3 runs (51, 50, 50) @ Ultra @ 1680x1050 @ Win 8.1 x64 @ SSD Intel X-25M SATA II 275 MB/s read & 80 MB/s write.

Have compared FPS at different RAM speeds on Altis

Scores:

45 FPS @ 1600 MHz 8-8-8-24 2T

46 FPS @ 1866 MHz 9-9-9-27 2T

49 FPS @ 2133 MHz 9-11-10-27 2T

50 FPS @ 2400 MHz 10-11-11-30 2T

Downclocked from 2400 MHz @ 1.65 to 2133 MHz @ 1.5 V. I don't see the need to stress my RAM because of 1 addition FPS and that's average - not minimal.

Faster RAM brings you more FPS only at lower resolutions and lower graphic settings. The higher the resolution and graphic settings the less faster RAM makes the difference.

Thanks for your qualified (because of quantified) investigations. I think with 2133 its your sweet spot. With my more intuitive benches (with AI (40vs40) and a fixed perspective in an open field (to be shure my cpu is bottlenecking and not my gpu)) I get good gains in minimum fps too. To keep in mind how much the gain is try to get the 5fps plus with cpu-overclocking only :).

[forteh 11]

A question for you guys here regarding hardware upgrades!

Having upgraded my machine to play A2 a few years ago I never reckoned that I would be able to run A3 with any playability until a friend recently suggested that I get it and try as he didn't see that much of a speed difference from A2 to A3.

So my specs are: -

i3-530 @4.2ghz

8Gb DDR3

GTX260 core 216 (overclocked to something close to gtx280 speeds I think)

This ran A2 pretty well and I was more than happy enough with the framerates (I'm not chasing the fabled 60fps, I am happy as long as it doesn't dip much below 30-35fps). I bought A3 and installed it and after a bit of research and the standard tweaks I can now run it at 25-50 fps @1680x1050, high textures, the rest as standard and all AA off.

I am potentially looking at future hardware upgrade path on an absolute shoe string as I don't have much dispoable income at this present time. I would like to be able to achieve 35-40 fps minimum at 1080p with most settings at high.

GPU wise I am hoping to pick up a second hand gtx660 when I can afford it. Currently the 260 is typically running at 90-100% load with most of the vram utilised. The 660 by all accounts performs well in a3, uses less power and is physically smaller than the 260.

CPU wise I can only really upgrade to an 1156 quadcore, an i7 would be ideal but if I can't get it running at 4+ ghz would I be starting to lose performance. I'm not sure that A3 really utilises more than the two cores I have now, I understand that the i7 has double the cache which would improve things but would it make up for a deficit in clock cycles?

Realistically I can only afford to upgrade one of the two and my thoughts are leaning towards the gpu but would I end up being severly bottlenecked by the i3?

Would appreciate any thoughts :)

Fairly low fps aside (although I am impressed that is running as well as it is) I am loving the new version, particularly liking the helos, the freetrack setup and warthog hotas make them all the more satisfying to fly!

[Groove_C 267]

@ forteh

If you're low on budget and want to keep you current mainboard, go for an i5-760 (8 MB cache) @ 4.0 GHz as an i7-870 won't bring you more FPS at all.

I had the i5-760 @ 4.0 GHz (1.3475 V) for 3.5 years. Changed to an i7-4790K (4.6 GHz) an guess what - I still have FPS deeps below 20 FPS at times in multiplayer despite the fact that average FPS is "way" higher.

Try to get atleast a GTX 760 or a GTX 660 Ti, but not the GTX 660.

Edited October 20, 2014 by Groove_C

[forteh 11]

@Groove_C

Thanks for the advice, particularly on the i5/i7. I'm not really up to speed on the overclocking process these days but I was under the impression that I would need an unlocked K processor to be able to achieve decent increases or do you work around this by playing with ram ratios? (For reference I have a gigabyte GA-H55-UD3H). Because I already have a 4.2ghz cpu I feel that the cost/performance benefit would be less than getting a newer gpu; however I don't know how much difference, if any changing from a HT dual core (the i3) to a true quad core would make in A3. There would be advantages for me to go to the i7 for using solidworks at home but that is another kettle of fish :D

There seems to be a fairly substantial range of 660ti cards on ebay around the £80-90 mark which is probably about the upper limit at the moment, I will keep an eye out!

Thanks again :)

edit: I have an i7 4770k @ 4.2ghz here at work, could always install A3 here, plug in my gtx260 and see how the fps compares.

[Groove_C 267]

@ forteh

Here is the difference in average and minimum FPS in A2 RFT patch 1.62

GTX 580 (512 CUDA cores + 384 bit)

2x 2 GB DDR3 1333 Kingston LoVo (CL7-7-7-20-1T @ 1,25 Volt)

Win 7 X64 SP1

http://i.imgur.com/iOcMRQ2.jpg (221 kB)

http://i.imgur.com/MtvBOt7.jpg (206 kB)

Look for i7-870, i5-760 and i3-540.

As you can see the average FPS difference is evident, but the min FPS difference is not as high as the average is.

An i5-760 with @ turbo boost on 4 cores clockes from it's default 2.8 GHz to 3.0 GHz (3.2 GHz 2 cores and 3.33 GHz 1 core) brings you 6 minimum FPS more than an i3-540 @ 3.0 GHz @ Hyper-Threading

An i5-760 with @ turbo boost on 4 cores clockes from it's default 2.8 GHz to 3.0 GHz (3.2 GHz 2 cores and 3.33 GHz 1 core) brings you 12 average FPS more than an i3-540 @ 3.0 GHz @ Hyper-Threading

Edited October 20, 2014 by Groove_C

[forteh 11]

I see what you're saying, clock for clock the i5 is pulling 25-50% more fps than the i3 with the same gpu, assuming that the processors are both clocked to the same speed and the relationship is linear then yes it will add a significant boost.

Whether or not the gpu would then become a bottleneck to the cpu I don't know; only one way to find out, I will get A3 installed on my work machine and see how it runs!

[Groove_C 267]

@ forteh

What is your RAM speed? 1333 MHz or 1600 MHz?

If you have 1600 MHz RAM sticks, you can simply set your BCLK to 200 MHz, Multi (Ratio) to 20 for CPU and 8 for RAM. This will result in 4.0 GHz for CPU and 1600 MHz for RAM.

You don't need a "K" model for this.

If you have 1333 MHz RAM sticks, you can simply set your BCLK to 190 MHz, Multi (Ratio) to 21 for CPU and 7 for RAM. This will result in 3.990 MHz for CPU and 1330 MHz for RAM.

You don't need a "K" model for this.

Don't forget to disable Turbo Boost, CPU and PCI-E Spreed Specrum, EIST (Speed Step), C1E and C-States.

Don't forget to enable LLC (Loadline Calibration adds 0.050 V to voltage you set)

Don't go above MAX 1.4 V! Or 1.35 + LLC enabled

Edited October 20, 2014 by Groove_C

[forteh 11]

Off the top of my head I currently have 2x2GB @ 1600Mhz and 2x2GB @ 1333Mhz.

The 1600Mhz is corsair xms3 which I got at the same time as the motherboard/cpu, the 1333Mhz is some spare ram that was left over from a PC upgrade at work and I plugged it in to see if it would work. I have a set of 2x4Gb 1600Mhz sticks at work that I could swap out if I wanted to keep the 8GB ram in my machine at home (or add it to my corsair ram to give 12Gb 1600Mhz).

At the moment my BCLK is 192 x 22 multi, I think the ram multiplier is 8 which gives a ram speed of 1536, does this mean that I am effectively overclocking the 1333Mhz sticks?

Huge thanks for the info, it has all changed since the days when you used a graphite pencil to link two pins on the chip to unlock the multiplier!

[Groove_C 267]

@ forteh

Yes, you are.

But you shouldn't put together different sticks' brends, models, speeds, timings, voltage, volume.

All sticks must come from the same manufacturer, same model and each stick must be of the same volume, run at the same speed with same timings and voltage. Otherwise it can make your sistem unstable or make you lose performance.

When you overclock your 1333 MHz sticks, you must upper their timings and voltage accordingly. But you can't dou this in your case. Otherwise you will also upper timings and voltage for your 1600 MHz sticks.

Let's imagine you wanna buy 8 GB RAM.

In this case you should buy a single kit of 4 sticks 2 GB each.

In worst case if you already bought a single kit of 2 sticks (2 GB each) and wanna add some more RAM, you can later buy exactly the same kit to add another 4 GB (2 sticks of 2 GB each) to reach 8 GB in total.

There can even be problems if you have added more RAM to your already existing RAM with same speed, timings and voltage, but form another manufacturer and model.

Like you have 2x 2 GB 1600 MHz 8-8-8-24 1.65 V (Corsair)

and you addd 2x 2 GB 1600 MHz 8-8-8-24 1.65 V (Kingston)

Edited October 20, 2014 by Groove_C

[forteh 11]

I know that I shouldn't mix and match the sticks, I put the spare 2x2Gb sticks in because I needed to use solidworks at home and that uses 4Gb + just opening some of the models and the extra ram facilitated this (speed isn't as critical as volume). I don't actually know what timings the ram is currently running at, I think it is all set to auto in bios but the system is rock steady.

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

Yes, when overclocking Ram you should give more voltage. The DDR3 Rams are specified for 1,65V. You can give it to them, even when the Numbers are turning Red in your Bios Setup, its no problem.

And motherboards have sometimes custom specifications for their Ram Slots (different bandwith and other stuff) you should check what the specs of your Motherboard Ram slots is.

I run my Ram with 1,65V too, they run with 2000Mhz but with CL1 timing :)

[Groove_C 267]

@ forteh

And don't wonder why 4 sticks for a total of 8/16 GB are more expensive than 2 sticks for a total of 8/16 GB.

Because if you have your 8/16 GB spread on only 2 slots, your bandwith is 128 bit only.

But if you have your 8/16 GB spread on 4 slots, your bandwith is 256 bit.

As each slot is 64 bit.

[forteh 11]

I've just been doing a few quick tests in A3, running through the combined arms showcase scenario.

GPU load is 90% pretty much constantly, CPU load is 45-60% per core, fps is sitting around 25 with the settings I have worked out.

I have taken two of the ram sticks out and just have the corsair installed now, looking at it in cpuz the it is specified as pc3-10700H (667Mhz), however it has an xmp1600 profile in the timings table with 9.0-9-9-24 at 1.650v.

I tried running with the 2x4Gb kit from work but ended up with a system hang on boot :/

edit1: found another matched pair kit of 1600mhz at work so I can install 4x4Gb sticks for a full compliment, all of them crucial pc3-12800.

With regards to the system hangs would it possible that some dust has settled in the ram slots and is causing bad contact? This is the first time I have experienced this issue in the four years I've had the system and only since switching ram sticks around.

I have now installed A3 at work (i7 4770k @4.2Ghz - 16Gb - 500Mb/s SSD - quadro2000), it's a cad workstation but I will see how it runs with the quadro and later test it with the gtx260 from home :)

edit2: Ran a quick test over lunchtime and it was pulling slightly higher fps, but not by much, using the same settings I spawned in the editor in the middle of Pyrgos town and was getting a steady 30 fps. Once I have the 260 back in my machine at home I will test the same again and see what happens.

edit3: Have now tested the same location in Pyrgos with the same settings on my machine at home and it's the getting 30-32fps, if anything it's slightly faster and I was able to bump the settings up a little; I dare say heavy AI involvement would bring it back down though. I tried the same thing with my cpu clocked back to default 2.93Ghz and got 20-22 fps.

Edited October 21, 2014 by forteh

[Relevence 10]

Hey this seems like a relevant place to ask.. What are the correct launch parameters for the FX series cpus? They don't use hyper-threading, and they aren't true 8 cores either. I have read I could damage my system with the wrong line, and obviously I get terrible usage without the line. I cannot find any information on the web about this, does anyone have a definite answer? I have an 8320 and I would really like to get what I can out of it. Yes I know Intel does better, but money is money :). Thank you for your time, and if this was a bad place to put this I apologize, this is my first post on the forums.

[forteh 11]

I guess just set it as a quad core, as long as it can see it as multiple cores it should utilise them to an extent; not entirely sure how it could damage the system - don't hold me on that though! Can't comment on the performance side really, my i3@4.2ghz gets loaded about 40-60% on both cores continually at the moment.

[Relevence 10]

Hey thank you for the reply! I really appreciate the help. I will give it a try. I was getting 12-24 fps last night without any lines on a nearly full 80 player king of the hill server.. I am excited to do better. :)

[forteh 11]

I have been having all sorts of memory issues at home since swapping the gpu around so last night I cleared the cmos and set about overclocking the machine again from first principles. I got the mobo/cpu/ram as a pre-overclocked bundle from OCUK 4 years ago (to save the time/hassle of having to learn the method on new hardware); it was clocked from 2.93 to 4.02, I upped the bclock to 192 to get 4.2 about a year ago and have been reasonably happy with it since.

I have now tested the bclk and ram stable up to 222Mhz, ram at 6:2 to give 1333Mhz (9-9-9-24-34-1T). As I left it last night I dropped the bclk to 205 and multi up to 22 for a 4.5Ghz which was prime95 stable for a good 30 minutes (will do proper stress testing when it isn't 2am!) with a peak core temp of 82°C; the temperature is a little high although still more than 20°C from the tjmax of 105°C. I will look to improving the airflow to the machine, it is currently screwed to the wall in a home rigged wooden box with a completely open side, I will look into putting a hinged door on and channelling fresh air into it.

Tested it in arma and have gained approximately 50% fps on my control test (load into the middle of Pyrgos) going from 25-30 to 40-45 fps! Under game load cpu temperature didn't reach 56°C.

Very pleased with the increase, it will be interesting to see how quickly the cpu will bottleneck a newer gpu when I get it installed :)

[nikiforos 450]

82°C sounds quite high with Prime95

[forteh 11]

I would agree, as I said the case is completely open with zero consideration to air flow, I have a bunch of 120mm fans I can stick in where I need

This particular chip has always run hot though, at 4.0ghz it still hit 60°C; I guess I didn't get one of the cool running ones :(

For reference this is the case build, my pc is in a 43" square walk in cupboard and there simply isn't room for a decent sized case. I took an angle grinder to a generic atx case to harvest the mobo tray and back plate from it and screwed it onto a sheet of wood which is in turn screwed to the wall and will eventually be built into the desk. I now have plenty of room for my chair without kicking the pc and it is well off the floor to minimise dust inhalation :)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v9j0i1vytd1m55m/IMAG0379.jpg?dl=0