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

[Leon86 13]

16GB RAM is too much.

There's no such thing as too much ram.

Wouldn't recommend multigpu either, would only do it for a performancelevel that can't be had with single gpu.

[bangtail 0]

ARMA3 has only supported SLI officially for some weeks actually.

I agree about 1 780 potentially being better than 760 SLI because of SLI compatibility issues and the 780 having 3GB VRAM versus 2+2=2GB of 760 SLI.

16GB RAM is too much.

I know you're fairly new here - but please don't perpetuate the 'SLI doesn't work' fairy tale.

Do you even own an SLI rig?

And FYI, there was a profile from right around day 1 of the Alpha.

Obviously, we'd all prefer a single GPU because it is less hassle in general but SLI works fine if you require it.

For example, at 1600P (or above) there is no single GPU that is going to handle A3 (and quite a few other games) well.

Of course, there will always be a CPU bottleneck where A3 is concerned, but in situations where you are not hitting that bottleneck, SLI makes a very noticeable difference.

Nvidia have publically stated that they are going to make A3 specific optimizations by way of their drivers, I suspect they are waiting till the actual release to implement them.

Edited August 21, 2013 by BangTail

[Sneakson 1]

There's no such thing as too much ram.

Wouldn't recommend multigpu either, would only do it for a performancelevel that can't be had with single gpu.

Yes there is...

4GB is enough. I tried this some days ago with Crysis, two Chrome windows with about 15 tabs in total mixed with Wikipedia pages and Google image searches and Photoshop CS6 and one or two Word documents aaand Dropbox et cetera in the background and I hit 3GB out of 3.25GB usable out of 4GB in total so yeah…

8GB is more than enough and recommended for new computers though.

Some people even only recommend 6GB but 8GB is easier to get and very cheap anyways.

However Windows 32-bit only supports 4GB and even Windows Home 64-bit only supports 16GB I heard recently and that much is overkill for anything other than work.

32GB is nonsense even for serious work.

And there’s such a thing as having too much RAM because it does get expensive and doesn’t improve anything so that’s just dumb really.

You can spend it on a lot else that makes a difference instead not to mention more than 1600 MHz memories is another big waste.

I haven’t really seen any benchmarks of how much memory different games use but ARMA3 only uses less than 2GB for me I think.

---------- Post added at 19:34 ---------- Previous post was at 19:28 ----------

I know you're fairly new here - but please don't perpetuate the 'SLI doesn't work' fairy tale.

Do you even own an SLI rig?

And FYI, there was a profile from right around day 1 of the Alpha.

Obviously, we'd all prefer a single GPU because it is less hassle in general but MultiGPU is fine if you require it.

For example, at 1600P (or above) there is no single GPU that is going to handle A3 (and quite a few other games) well.

Of course, there will always be a CPU bottleneck where A3 is concerned, but in situations where you are not hitting that bottleneck, SLI makes a very noticeable difference.

I’m just retelling exactly what SLI users are telling me. Not to mention what benchmarks are telling me.

How is your SLI? 90% scaling?

[bangtail 0]

Yes there is...

4GB is enough. I tried this some days ago with Crysis, two Chrome windows with about 15 tabs in total mixed with Wikipedia pages and Google image searches and Photoshop CS6 and one or two Word documents aaand Dropbox et cetera in the background and I hit 3GB out of 3.25GB usable out of 4GB in total so yeah…

8GB is more than enough and recommended for new computers though.

Some people even only recommend 6GB but 8GB is easier to get and very cheap anyways.

However Windows 32-bit only supports 4GB and even Windows Home 64-bit only supports 16GB I heard recently and that much is overkill for anything other than work.

32GB is nonsense even for serious work.

And there’s such a thing as having too much RAM because it does get expensive and doesn’t improve anything so that’s just dumb really.

You can spend it on a lot else that makes a difference instead not to mention more than 1600 MHz memories is another big waste.

I haven’t really seen any benchmarks of how much memory different games use but ARMA3 only uses less than 2GB for me I think.

Again, flat out wrong.

Use Premiere, Photoshop, After Effects (and that's just off the top of my head) and you can easily use any amount of RAM - It's only games that suffer from RAM usage restrictions and even then, having a large amount of RAM is good for RAMDrives which can benefit games (A3 being one of them).

---------- Post added at 13:38 ---------- Previous post was at 13:36 ----------

I’m just retelling exactly what SLI users are telling me. Not to mention what benchmarks are telling me.

How is your SLI? 90% scaling?

When it is not limited by the CPU it can be as high as 90% although that is not constant obviously.

The point is that it works fine.

I don't know if it was the 326.80 driver or the last BIS patch (or a combination of both) but the performance is the best it's been since Alpha (for me at least).

Edited August 21, 2013 by BangTail

[Sneakson 1]

Again, flat out wrong.

Use Premiere, Photoshop, After Effects (and that's just off the top of my head) and you can easily use any amount of RAM - It's only games that suffer from RAM usage restrictions and even then, having a large amount of RAM is good for RAMDrives which can benefit games (A3 being one of them).

---------- Post added at 13:38 ---------- Previous post was at 13:36 ----------

When it is not limited by the CPU it can be as high as 90% although that is not constant obviously.

The point is that it works fine.

None of them are games. Nuff said. This guy clearly isn't a professional artist or programmer.

My point was that there are a lot of SLI issues that people should be aware of and that it isn't just 100% extra performance instantly and always.

[bangtail 0]

None of them are games. Nuff said. This guy clearly isn't a professional artist or programmer.

My point was that there are a lot of SLI issues that people should be aware of and that it isn't just 100% extra performance instantly and always.

No, not 'enough said'

32GB is nonsense even for serious work.

Not true.

ARMA3 doesn't have great SLI support AND doesn't require that much graphic card strength to begin with so you're likely not to see much increase!

Not true.

Refrain from offering misleading 'opinions' that have no basis in fact.

Now, enough said :)

[Sneakson 1]

No, not 'enough said'

Not true

Not true.

Refrain from offering 'opinions' with no basis in fact.

Now, enough said.

Okay, so for heavy serious work more than 32GB may be usable but then we're really talking serious CG work.

Also I've heard of many users that can max out all graphics settings with single graphics cards so suck it.

Got any evidence otherwise then spit it out.

[bangtail 0]

Okay, so for heavy serious work more than 32GB may be usable but then we're really talking serious CG work.

Also I've heard of many users that can max out all graphics settings with single graphics cards so suck it.

Got any evidence otherwise then spit it out.

Who cares about what you've heard :rolleyes:

That's the problem with guys like you, you have 0 experience with the hardware in question and you insist on acting like an authority on it regardless.

As far as maxing out 1600P on a single card goes, newer graphically intensive games are not going to run maxed at 1600P or above on any single GPU card.

I know this because I actually own 1600P monitors and for example, if I try to play Crysis 3 or Far Cry 3 maxed with only one Titan, it can drop into the teens FPS wise.

Finally, I don't appreciate being told to 'suck it' so I'll just go ahead and add you to the ignore pile ;)

Edited August 22, 2013 by BangTail
Clarity

[Sneakson 1]

Who cares about what you've heard :rolleyes:

That's the problem with guys like you, you have 0 experience with the hardware in question and you insist on acting like an authority on it regardless.

As far as maxing out 1600P on a single card goes, newer graphically intensive games are not going to run maxed at 1600P or above on any single GPU card.

I know this because I actually own 1600P monitors and for example, if I try to play Crysis 3 or Far Cry 3 maxed with only one Titan, it's in the teens FPS wise.

Finally, I don't appreciate being told to 'suck it' so I'll just go ahead and add you to the ignore pile ;)

Yeah and I don't give a shit about what you've made up either.

After spending an hour on settings newcomers straight the last thing I need is some idiot lecturing me on how necessary 16GB RAM is to play ARMA and how great SLI works.

Especially from oneone calling me new since I've played ARMA3 for 5 of the 6 months it's been playable.

[kilroy the nerd 14]

So, how's an AMD Radeon HD 7560D with AMD A8-5500 APU at 3.2 ghz on Arma 3? Using a 64 bit OS, and having 8 GB RAM as well. I'm running Arma 3 at about 20 FPS lowest settings when there's nothing going on, and in say your average MP session of domination or such, it drops to 7-10 FPS. Anything I might be doing wrong? I get similar FPS on medium on Arma 2: CO, if that matters here.

[Leon86 13]

For arma it makes sense to have lots and lots of ram.

http://www.bistudio.com/english/company/developers-blog/85-breaking-the-32-bit-barrier

[Sneakson 1]

So, how's an AMD Radeon HD 7560D with AMD A8-5500 APU at 3.2 ghz on Arma 3? Using a 64 bit OS, and having 8 GB RAM as well. I'm running Arma 3 at about 20 FPS lowest settings when there's nothing going on, and in say your average MP session of domination or such, it drops to 7-10 FPS. Anything I might be doing wrong? I get similar FPS on medium on Arma 2: CO, if that matters here.

First of all a note on lowest settings: Shadows should not be low! You'll actually see better performance with them on standard.

Because shadows standard or higher moves them to your graphics card...

However it doesn't seem you have a graphics card at all? You’re using integrated graphics.

I would obviously recommend a discrete graphics card.

If you’re running with no background programs on, all settings on the lowest possible except for standard shadows and 100% scaling I guess you could try 50% scaling as a last resort but if really sounds like to me that you’re going to want a graphics card really.

Also can’t tell if you’re running a desktop or a notebook.

64 bit OS, 8GB RAM is all great though and but your CPU doesn’t seem very strong so best would probably be to upgrade both CPU and graphics card but only trying out a medium strength graphics card could be well worth it.

[chrisb 196]

I’d say most players play on 1920x1080p, probably half lets say, maybe more. I play on a 42†monitor at 1920x1080p and it looks lovely.

Frame rates for the mission type I play (should always be the case, machine fit for the mission types you want to play) are high, i.e. no more than 120-150 ai (in A3), meeting no more than 30-40ish at one time (fire-fight).

With the above ai this plays at +40fps which is more than enough i.e. rarely falls below 40fps (maybe 35fps in instances) and when not engaged running quite a bit higher +50/60fps.

So happy gaming on a mid range (now, little older) pc (my A2 pc, see sig).

Much of what is said in this thread is totally misleading, always has been, it’s the same on the A2 thread dealing with the same subject. Every machine is different and every player uses their own machine differently, mine are purely gaming pc’s and really only Arma, they play the game at high enough fps, smooth game-play for every mission I play, which are the types of mission I like.

If you want to play with large numbers of ai then your machine is going to give you silly ai, because the cpu will be struggling to cope (most any cpu), when I say high I mean in the hundreds 400 above lets say. Playing like that is a pigeon shoot, large battles stupid ai. Always consider how many ai your likely to meet in any mission your playing. For a good gaming experience you’ll always need lower ai levels, well designed missions and away you go..

Don’t believe much of what is written here in this thread, on the whole its very misleading.

Lets face it, this post of mine here will be very misleading for many people with different machines, its all down to how you setup for your gaming, pc wise..

Edited August 21, 2013 by ChrisB

[Sneakson 1]

For arma it makes sense to have lots and lots of ram.

http://www.bistudio.com/english/company/developers-blog/85-breaking-the-32-bit-barrier

Actually check the date.

5 years ago, during ARMA1 and referring to breaking the 32-bit barrier in other words 4GB RAM however the text even seems to say they could only use 2GB back then ;)

But who has more than 2GB RAM in their computer anyways? Hahaha...

---------- Post added at 20:50 ---------- Previous post was at 20:36 ----------

I’d say most players play on 1920x1080p, probably half lets say, maybe more. I play on a 42†monitor at 1920x1080p and it looks lovely.

Frame rates for the mission type I play (should always be the case, machine fit for the mission types you want to play) are high, i.e. no more than 120-150 ai (in A3), meeting no more than 30-40ish at one time (fire-fight).

With the above ai this plays at +40fps which is more than enough i.e. rarely falls below 40fps (maybe 35fps in instances) and when not engaged running quite a bit higher +50/60fps.

So happy gaming on a mid range (now, little older) pc (my A2 pc, see sig).

Much of what is said in this thread is totally misleading, always has been, it’s the same on the A2 thread dealing with the same subject. Every machine is different and every player uses their own machine differently, mine are purely gaming pc’s and really only Arma, they play the game at high enough fps, smooth game-play for every mission I play, which are the types of mission I like.

If you want to play with large numbers of ai then your machine is going to give you silly ai, because the cpu will be struggling to cope (most any cpu), when I say high I mean in the hundreds 400 above lets say. Playing like that is a pigeon shot, large battles stupid ai. Always consider how many ai your likely to meet in any mission your playing. For a good gaming experience you’ll always need lower ai levels, well designed missions and away you go..

Don’t believe much of what is written here in this thread, on the whole its very misleading.

Lets face it, this post of mine here will be very misleading for many people with different machines, its all down to how you setup for your gaming, pc wise..

I think all we need is more benchmarking.

And then a solid guide.

I’m planning on (finally) going to buy my new computer Friday after which I’ll have lots of old and new equipment I could try out to check performance differences at least between higher spec things.

I’ll have a 1920x1200 screen that easily can be set to 1920x1080, a 4770K that can be set to work like a 4670K, a 560 Ti and 770 that probably can be downclocked (?), 4GB DDR2 RAM and 8GB DDR3 RAM, several SSDs and HDDs ranging from weak to extreme… and water-cooling to test some overclocking performance too not that I would recommend it to anyone.

When the game comes out I wouldn’t mind writing a buyer’s guide, settings guide and whatever else newcomers need to play the game.

I’ve already read a lot about it and especially been looking into the best current components.

[reservoirdog 15]

Walls of text incoming :)

Hello!

It looks like to me that your CPU is too weak for your graphics card! A 760 vs a 260 is a big step and should definitely make a big difference however your CPU is 4 years old which quite old for a CPU!

Your CPU does 2.8 to 3.5 GHz while a new CPU does 3.5 to 3.9 GHz and even at 3.5 a new CPU would be stronger than your three generations older CPU.

It seems to me that you’re experiencing that your CPU is bottlenecking your graphics card.

You shouldn’t(!) return it for a better card!

By the way ARMA does support SLI now.

What you should do is buy an Intel Core i5-4670K or i7-4770K if you work with 3D or video rendering or other work that needs an i7 and have extra money to spare.

If you want to confirm this use Ctrl+Alt+Delete, Task Manager, Performance tab, Resource monitor, CPU tab and watch your â€CPU – total†and â€CPU 0... 1... 2...†and so on to watch each individual core and MSI Afterburner or any similar program to monitor your GPU usage then play the game and Alt+tab out of it and watch what your readings were 10 seconds ago to see how much your CPU and GPU was in use. If the CPU is around 90% in use and the GPU down around 50% in use then you have a clear case of bottlenecking.

Note that right now we’re investigating if something can be done to speed up performance on i7s so if you can wait a week or two something may be able to be done like disabling hyperthreading or allocating ARMA to virtual cores which we have discussed but not thoroughly tested yet.

Also overclocking will speed up your CPU obviously.

But if you just want things to go easy buy a new CPU, they’re cheap.

Also make sure you’re running 64-bit Windows 7 by the way which isn’t obvious to everyone.

Oh and if you want a higher framerate you can obviously turn down your settings!

What settings are you on?

---------- Post added at 18:40 ---------- Previous post was at 17:52 ----------

• Case: are you sure you want a computer that big? Check out the measurements and compare to the mid-size Phantom 410 and other models available here:

http://www.nzxt.com/product/detail/34-phantom

Excellent cases otherwise, I hear.

• HDD: WD Blue 1TB it is yes sir.

• Can’t say much about that monitor but knowing the series I’m assuming it’s a 120 Hz 3D-ready 1920x1080 16:9 TN-monitor. Right now that’s exactly what you should get if you want 120 Hz over the better image quality that some 60 Hz monitors offer.

• Okay now: EVGA. 760. 4GB. First of all EVGA are nice and usually cheaper than the other brands but rarely best. Still, nice choice. 760 yes. 4GB? Well, mostly no. I don’t know what the price difference between 2GB and 4GB is however if you’re only gaming in 1920x1080 you won’t need more than 2GB VRAM so you may as well save some money there right? Okay.

• Antec 1300W... NO. Are you planning on running a light-weight computer or a nuclear reactor son? 430-550W is enough. Also 80+ Bronze to Gold will be enough. Unless you’re planning on using many graphics cards soon in which case 800W+ will be enough to run any two cards.

• Corsair Vengeance K70... yes. Nice amount of buttons and red switches I assume that should be nice to game on and probably write on as well.

• RAT 5? Matte, absolutely! If they’re not matte they get very sticky. But why the RAT 5? Why not RAT 7? Also take time to check out the websites of Corsair, Logitech, Mad Catz (RAT), Microsoft, Mionix, Razer, Roccat and SteelSeries to see if they have any other keyboards or mice that you like.

Nearly everyone does mice by the way. Gigabyte known for their graphics cards and motherboards and Aerocool, Cooler Master, NZXT, Thermaltake and Zalman all known for cases and cooling have allmade some mice apparently. Zowie is another company that only make high-quality mice and keyboards.

• Corsair have the best memories but G skill are second. However you’ve made some very bad choices. First of all 8GB (2x4) is surely enough. Second they should be 1600 MHz not 2133 MHz because not all CPUs and motherboards support more than 1600 and I think you have to overclock them and stuff to make them work and besides there’s nearly no difference in speed. And buying 2x4GB 1600 MHz instead of 32GB 2133 is going to save you $250 without making your computer one bit weaker :) You may send this money to me now.

• Windows 7 HP SP1 64-bit is what you should buy yes and it doesn’t even support more than 16GB memory so it’s a good thing I set you straight, huh? I own.

• Samsung 840 Pro 256GB? Are you some sort of millionaire again? 840 or 840 Evo will do but I would recommend 250GB because SSDs drop in cost so much evey year buying anything over 500GB would be madness and buying 1TB only really makes sense if you want to go 100% SSD. Which is somewhat early.

• i5-4670K hell yeah.

• MSI Z87-G45 Gaming hell yeah. Why not get an MSI GTX 760 2GB while you’re at it instead of EVGA?

• Corsair H100i? Do you have any idea what you are doing? First of all you will only need additional cooling if you’re going to do overclocking which in best case will earn you 10-20% CPU strength. If you do want to overclock and is prepared that it will decrease the lifelength of your CPU and possibly void your warranty and all that I would recommend the Noctua NH-D14 or the Corsair H110 or I guess if you really want the H100i. They will all work about the same however I think the H100i is a lot louder and naturally both water-cooling solutions are more expensive than the air-cooling solution without being much better actually.

I can tell you don’t know much about computers. Being your first build too. Have you even got someone around that can build this computer for you? Because if you order this they’re all going to be in parts and you’re going to have to put it together yourself unless ofcourse you buy it through a site that mounts it for you or you know someone that can do it for you.

Good luck.

Summary:

Some NZXT Phantom

MSI Z87-G45 Gaming

MSI GTX 760 Gaming 2GB (aka MSI N760 TF 2GD5/OC 2GB)

Intel Core i5-4670K

2x4GB 1600 MHz Cl9 memories by Corsair or G Skill

Western Digital Blue 1TB

Samsung 840 Evo 250GB (or 120GB)

DVD?

Corsair CX500M or Seasonic G-550 or something such

Think twice about extra cooling (and overclocking)

Think twice about that monitor (it’s expensive!)

Windows 7 HP SP1 64-bit

Whatever mouse and keyboard

And finally you probably have some speakers already.

Edit: oh and shit son, you wrote 2 760s? No. How much money do you have and what are you trying to do with this computer?

In Battlefield 3, a well optimized game:

1 760 - okay

1 770 - 20% better

1 780 - about 45% better

1 Titan - about 60% better

2 760 - about 77% better and about as expensive as 1 780 however there some some drawbacks with using 2 graphics cards:

• Draws more electricity

• Needs a better power supply (still no more than 800W)

• Microstuttering in some games

• Games have to support SLI

• It sometimes takes a couple of weeks for game to have SLI support

• Even with SLI support the second card doesn't always add 90% (best case) as can be seen even in Battlefield 3 it only adds 77%

• Other compatibility issues

• ARMA3 doesn't have great SLI support AND doesn't require that much graphic card strength to begin with so you're likely not to see much increase!

---------- Post added at 18:50 ---------- Previous post was at 18:40 ----------

ARMA3 has only supported SLI officially for some weeks actually.

I agree about 1 780 potentially being better than 760 SLI because of SLI compatibility issues and the 780 having 3GB VRAM versus 2+2=2GB of 760 SLI.

16GB RAM is too much.

---------- Post added at 18:56 ---------- Previous post was at 18:50 ----------

£500 Entry-level

£800 Mid-range

£1000 Strong

£1500 Stronger and classier

£2000 Maxing out a sane build

£3000 Extreme build

£4000 Maxing out including monitors, audio and basically everything.

---------- Post added at 19:02 ---------- Previous post was at 18:56 ----------

According to what we're hearing about another guy with a slightly weaker CPU and a 760 you shouldn't upgrade graphics card all too much.

Save for a 4670K then a 760 probably.

You can probably tweak your settings a bit by the way but if you really wanna go higher then upgrade.

Check my settings.

I so appreciate your imput. So my goal, max arma, right?, everyone's goal. I am extremely new, but humble. I have always bought preassemble CPU's and have over paid. I work to hard and have been saving way to long to want to get this wrong. About the gpu, 2 760's sli or one Asus gtx 780 dc20c-3gds. 3gb ?

Thanks

[reservoirdog 15]

What to do? 2 gtx 760's or one 780 Asus 3gb? Also I dont want to over clock.

[bangtail 0]

1 x 780 :)

760 SLI is not that much faster than a single 780, not enough to warrant 2 cards imho.

[Sneakson 1]

What to do? 2 gtx 760's or one 780 Asus 3gb? Also I dont want to over clock.

1 780 but remember that 1 770 is at worst 15% weaker in very graphics intensive games and 30% cheaper.

Oh and two 760s may give nicer performance in many games but for ARMA it's questionable.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Sneakson

[ric 1]

Couldn't agree more.

Too many people on here have ridiculous expectations of low to mid range hardware where Arma 3 is concerned.

Even more annoying is that they don't apply these expectations to other games, it's just a double standard where A3 not running at a constant 60FPS on a 660 (for example) is unacceptable but they don't level the same assault on the myriad of other games that a 660 won't run at a constant 60FPS.

Equally, many people don't take into the consideration the fact that this is a non linear simulator and not some corridor shooter - it requires a lot of horsepower, which as you quite rightly pointed out, costs money.

From the Alpha up until the current dev build, the performance has been constantly improving but no patch will turn a 660 into a 780.

the expectations people have have is for there hardware to be used...if all four of my cores are screaming at 90-100 percent and my GPU is doing the same and i have to turn setting down to bring FPS up then logic tells me my rig needs to updated....but if core 0 is at 90-100 percent and the other 3 are floundering at 20-25 percent and my gpu is a %40 and falling along with my FPS and dropping settings from ultra to low only gets me maybe 5-7 more FPS then that is a failure of the game engine to fully and properly utilize my hardware.

here is a prime example of scaling across cores and performance related to it (this is not BF3 VS ARMA3 )

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1654043

first test i5-2500k with all 4 cores active, running an overclock of 4.2ghz

Frames

40855

Time (ms)

300000

Min

70

Max

201

Avg

136.183

second test i5-2500k with only 2 cores active and cpu downclocked to the minimum (3.4ghz no turbo mode)

Frames

19941

Time (ms)

300000

Min

32

Max

115

Avg

66.47

[Azza FHI 50]

lol at the last 3 pages. my advice is

- get the stongest cpu you can afford

- better to get a strong single gpu and add another one later rather than 2 average gpus

- arma is not a plug and play game if you want it to run well for a long time. u need to keep your pc healthy by being aware of spam downloads (do not install ask toolbar when downloading adobe reader etc), if you are not good at keeping your pc healthy then u will need to reinstall windows every 6months to a year to keep it fresh, I do this anyway. sometimes you cant do anything about malware etc so u need to keep ur anti virus/malware scans constant

- research launch parameters that suit your hardware

- use an ssd for arma (you can install steam games on different drives)

- at least give your cpu a mild overclock to ~4ghz its not that hard

- be aware that SP frames are mostly better than MP

- don't take advice from ppl who don't have the track record e.g ppl that talk about ram usage and run a 32bit system. look for ppl who have been on these forums for a long time.

- since operation flashpoint none of these games has been able to run maxed out with the highest tech available at release, arma 3 has done the best job so far

- lets remember that its still in beta, yes I no things aren't gonna change drastically from now till launch, but from now until this time next year( or even 6 months) things will have changed drastically as bis does a great job supporting the game after release.

[Leon86 13]

Actually check the date.

5 years ago, during ARMA1 and referring to breaking the 32-bit barrier in other words 4GB RAM however the text even seems to say they could only use 2GB back then ;)

But who has more than 2GB RAM in their computer anyways? Hahaha...

Don't comment on things you don't bother to read or dont understand. It says: "This technique in theory allows even for a 32b application to use more memory than 32b address space allows - the size is limited only by the possible size of the file mapping, and by the free RAM"

[Sneakson 1]

lol at the last 3 pages. my advice is

- get the stongest cpu you can afford

- better to get a strong single gpu and add another one later rather than 2 average gpus

- arma is not a plug and play game if you want it to run well for a long time. u need to keep your pc healthy by being aware of spam downloads (do not install ask toolbar when downloading adobe reader etc), if you are not good at keeping your pc healthy then u will need to reinstall windows every 6months to a year to keep it fresh, I do this anyway. sometimes you cant do anything about malware etc so u need to keep ur anti virus/malware scans constant

- research launch parameters that suit your hardware

- use an ssd for arma (you can install steam games on different drives)

- at least give your cpu a mild overclock to ~4ghz its not that hard

- be aware that SP frames are mostly better than MP

- don't take advice from ppl who don't have the track record e.g ppl that talk about ram usage and run a 32bit system. look for ppl who have been on these forums for a long time.

- since operation flashpoint none of these games has been able to run maxed out with the highest tech available at release, arma 3 has done the best job so far

- lets remember that its still in beta, yes I no things aren't gonna change drastically from now till launch, but from now until this time next year( or even 6 months) things will have changed drastically as bis does a great job supporting the game after release.

I wouldn't say getting the strongest CPU you can afford is the best choice really.

Don't comment on things you don't bother to read or dont understand. It says: "This technique in theory allows even for a 32b application to use more memory than 32b address space allows - the size is limited only by the possible size of the file mapping, and by the free RAM"

Haha! YOU shouldn't comment on things you don't understand.

Since you know so much about it why don’t you explain where this entry says that ARMA needs lots of RAM?

What that entry seems to say to me is that they made a way for the 32-bit version of ARMA back when there was no 64-bit version of ARMA tu se more than 4GB of RAM on 64-bit systems with more than 4GB RAM.

And the highest amounts of RAM mentioned in it is 2-4GB RAM, obviosuly. And saying that 64-bit systems can use more than 4GB RAM which goes without saying.

So how does this translate into different game two sequels and 5 years later using lots and lots of RAM?

Edited August 22, 2013 by Sneakson

[kilroy the nerd 14]

Well this is interesting. Decided to browse for tweaking guides, decided to use the beta one from Day0, and I get more or less the exact same FPS, with far crisper graphics. What's with that?

[Sneakson 1]

By the way (on the topic of nothing in particular):

I measured some Crysis today:

100% GPU usage with 560 Ti (2011)

50%-ish CPU usage with Q9550 (2008)

Could hardly believe it. Not sure if something is throwing the readings off for whatever reason and if there’s any excuse but Crysis is (surprise!) very graphics card heavy. Definitely expected my CPU to work more.

Gonna check how ARMA3 compares in a moment.

Edit: okay. In ARMA3 it's 50/50 lol... that's just sad.

Well this is interesting. Decided to browse for tweaking guides, decided to use the beta one from Day0, and I get more or less the exact same FPS, with far crisper graphics. What's with that?

FXAA activate? It's ah mazing.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Sneakson

[mobile_medic 43]

As far as maxing out 1600P on a single card goes, newer graphically intensive games are not going to run maxed at 1600P or above on any single GPU card.

I know this because I actually own 1600P monitors and for example, if I try to play Crysis 3 or Far Cry 3 maxed with only one Titan, it's in the teens FPS wise.

Hmm... I haven't played crysis 3 (though it benches at around 50 IIRC fully maxed at 2560x1440). I have played Far Cry 3, and I get far better performance than what you just described with a single 780 @ 2560x1600 with far cry 3. Fully maxed, I get around 32 average, and I've not seen it go below 27, and the peaks are in the mid to upper 40's. If I back MSAA down from 8x to 4x, I average around 40. If I back it down to 2x I get 45-50 average. If I turn it off, I get 60 average. At 2.5k resolution on Far Cry 3, the difference between 4x and 8x MSAA is not really perceivable. Certainly not worth the 10fps sacrifice. The difference between 2x and 8x MSAA at this rez, on this game, is negligible visibly, but the fps difference is significant. If you are really getting in the teens on Far Cry 3 with a Titan (which benches about 2% faster on average than a 780 for games), then I would suggest you might explore if you are having some other problem. It certainly doesn't wash with my experience, and it is far away from several benchmarks I have seen for the titan (and 780) running Far Cry 3 at 2560x1600 and 2560x1440.

Too many people on here have ridiculous expectations of low to mid range hardware where Arma 3 is concerned.

Interesting... My machine handily exceeds the recommended specs (especially after recent GPU upgrade), and it doesn't matter whether I play A3 at 2560x1600 or 1080p (or 720p for that matter)... the end result is the same. The engine bottle-necking areas of the game will tank GPU usage, and cause frame rates to drop significantly with regular drops into the 20's. The lowest I've seen is 12, and there wasn't even that much going on. Pesky people with our unrealistic expectations... expecting our high-end machines to actually maintain a playable framerate under reasonable conditions. :)

--

My recommendation to anyone in this thread considering an upgrade... Unless you have a really old machine, don't upgrade just for this game. The performance gains are negligible once you pass a certain point (at least as of this post), and the hardware (contrary to popular belief) is not the limiting factor of performance in this game. Don't let them fool you. If you have need/desire to upgrade for other purposes as well... then, go for it.