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

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Windows 7 home premium

AMD Phenom II X4 945 Processor 3400 MHZ 4 cores ect

Biostar motherboard (not sure)

AMD Saphire radeon HD 7700 Series

thats the basics of it I guess

I would say Low, depending on viewdistance etc

I have his CPU ( 4 GB RAM ) and my GPU is a 7770 ( 1 GB GDDR5 ). I can run the game on high at 30 - 45 FPS and on standard, it keeps around 60 FPS.

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TechSpot has posted a comprehensive performance review of ARMA 3 (read: a TON of benchmarks), although they've only tested the single player side of the game, there's a lot of good information including CPU scaling and image quality comparisons.

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TechSpot has posted a comprehensive performance review of ARMA 3 (read: a TON of benchmarks), although they've only tested the single player side of the game, there's a lot of good information including CPU scaling and image quality comparisons.

one thing i thought problematic is that they didnt test GPUs with consistent view distances... and therefore you get results WAY under what you could expect with a peronalized setting, according to their test my HD 6970

would be barely playable on 1080p, which i can assure you its not, i even play with 120%-150% 3d reslution to fill gpu usage...

btw according to that other benchmark that tested for ram performance and got 10% fps increase from 1333 to 2400, was anybody able to confirm that meanwhile?

Edited by Fabio_Chavez

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TechSpot has posted a comprehensive performance review of ARMA 3 (read: a TON of benchmarks), although they've only tested the single player side of the game, there's a lot of good information including CPU scaling and image quality comparisons.

Some serious issues with those benchmarks? They have run their benchmarks using the relatively simple "Infantry Showcase" mission which is hardly stressing Arma at all.. Not only that, they even set the AI skill to 0 - which probably means the AI is slower reacting overall (meaning even less CPU cycles used). Essentially - they were testing only GPU performance here.. thus never bottle-necked by the CPU (and I suspect that's why the 4770k is only a couple of frames better than the FX-8350 in charts).

Still, what's interesting is how well the SLI/Crossfire setup seems to scale for Arma.

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I was wondering if my computer should be actually able to run ArmA 3, or if its just the bottlenecks. I played two scenarios with a lot of AI and stuff happening on in SP, but obviously something less than that amount of AI and I can't even play MP.

Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Processor, 3400 Mhz, 4 cores

RAM: 4GB

OS: Windows 7 Home 32bit

Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 7700

Resolution: 1680x1050

Any suggestions on what to upgrade/change? Or should I just wait until things get fixed?

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I was wondering if my computer should be actually able to run ArmA 3, or if its just the bottlenecks. I played two scenarios with a lot of AI and stuff happening on in SP, but obviously something less than that amount of AI and I can't even play MP.

Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Processor, 3400 Mhz, 4 cores

RAM: 4GB

OS: Windows 7 Home 32bit

Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 7700

Resolution: 1680x1050

Any suggestions on what to upgrade/change? Or should I just wait until things get fixed?

If you are going to upgrade do not do it just for arma, that being said your best beT will be a ivy/haswell quad core win7-64 8GB of ram, at least a 660 (or equivalent) and a decent SSD.

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If you are going to upgrade do not do it just for arma, that being said your best beT will be a ivy/haswell quad core win7-64 8GB of ram, at least a 660 (or equivalent) and a decent SSD.

So I'm guessing I should wait until they optimize first?

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According to one of those Techspot comments, the game is already phenomenally optimized! :P

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According to one of those Techspot comments, the game is already phenomenally optimized! :P

did they really say "phenomenally"? i personally just thought it was fabulously optimized...but wow its higher than i thought :P

---------- Post added at 00:22 ---------- Previous post was at 00:21 ----------

So I'm guessing I should wait until they optimize first?

no, do what you are going to do irrelevant to the state of arma.

---------- Post added at 00:39 ---------- Previous post was at 00:22 ----------

ok I just went and looked at the techspot review and have to call BS, they are bench marking CPU performance using a GTX titan...there is a FX 4100 getting 43 FPS on ultra.....how many people put a $1000 video card with a $100 CPU? please raise your hand if that's your rig because we will dispatch the clean young men in clean whites to pick you up :)

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.............

ok I just went and looked at the techspot review and have to call BS, they are bench marking CPU performance using a GTX titan...there is a FX 4100 getting 43 FPS on ultra.....how many people put a $1000 video card with a $100 CPU? please raise your hand if that's your rig because we will dispatch the clean young men in clean whites to pick you up :)

So? It's a cpu benchmark test and they used the most powerful graphics card to avoid bottlenecking from the gpu, this is how it has always be done. For the graphics card test they also used a Radeon 7770, do you think many would pair it with an overclocked Core i7-4770K.

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Now looking up more intel stuff and seeing how mostly everyone keeps saying that A3 will run better on intel, I changed the parts of my possible upgrade a bit.

Does this setup make sense and would it run arma just fine?

CPU: Intel Core i5 4670K Quad Core Socket 1150, 3.40GHz

GPU: MSI NVIDIA GTX 660Ti 3GB

MB: Asus Z87-A

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 Mhz CL7

SSD: OCZ 128GB Vertex 4 Sata III-6Gb/s 2.5 inch SSD

Edited by coltti

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The techspot tests are pretty bad, arma is easily cpu limited in a mid to large scale fight and they're recommending sli or crossfire....

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The techspot tests are pretty bad, arma is easily cpu limited in a mid to large scale fight and they're recommending sli or crossfire....

I hope that's wrong, cant afford another GTX 780 SC 3GB LOL.

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I am so depressed =(

Performance really sucks balls, and I spent quite a bit of money on my PC which is really only dedicated for ARMA3 based on the provided recommended specs before release, and my rig is just a notch above that... I dont mind mid range performance, I mean I played ARMA 2 just fine on low to medium at around 30fps, but the rig i was using was just pretty generic, but after investing so much into a dedicated rig just for ARMA3, and seeing it struggle like this, it is depressing... I mean I can bitch about the annoiying popping of models and textures that distract me, the crappy mid range textures, the awful shadowing, the AI, the horrific parralax mapping that we still cant disable independantly, but all of that is moot, when we cant even comfortably run ARMA3 at 60fps on ultra with the recommendid spec that BIS provided... I litterally hardly get to play the game, as soon as performance drops, I start tweaking, even though i know it's futile, I still do it, and it takes up almost an entire evening... I hate it, it's frustrating as hell!

I shall end my little depressing rant here, and go finish my bottle of whiskey and play some GTA5... but I humbly wish that the devs would put in more effort to get ARMA 3 performance into tip top shape, hell even the DAYZ team seems to be coming up with some solutions, like the short range sync update, that sounds friggin like a major leap! why do I want network data sync to sync data from things happening on the other end of the map that doesnt affect me in any way? Likewise why does everything have to happen at such a large scale when it isnt even in range.... bleh, there I go again... I'm gonna shut up now... Just wanted to share my feelings lol, still a great product, I love ARMA, but I also seem to hate it (from a performance point of view).

and I am ready to be crucified by the hardcore elite fans now =)

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Just installed but not expecting miracles :) also no mention of ARMA 3 improvements, maybe next time.

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Shotgun what system specs did u buy?

Can anyone else with experience advise if arma 3 will benifit at all from the ivy -e cpu. Even if it doesnt use all 6 cores as efficient as possible will it still run faster than a 4770k. Or does haswell win this round?

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Shotgun what system specs did u buy?

Can anyone else with experience advise if arma 3 will benifit at all from the ivy -e cpu. Even if it doesnt use all 6 cores as efficient as possible will it still run faster than a 4770k. Or does haswell win this round?

No benefit whatsoever for A3 - went from 3970X to 4960X (and have tested with 4770K)

On the plus side, SB-E/IB-E Hexa cores are a major benefit for BF3 (and probably 4 as well) :D

Edited by BangTail

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Now looking up more intel stuff and seeing how mostly everyone keeps saying that A3 will run better on intel, I changed the parts of my possible upgrade a bit.

Does this setup make sense and would it run arma just fine?

CPU: Intel Core i5 4670K Quad Core Socket 1150, 3.40GHz

GPU: MSI NVIDIA GTX 660Ti 3GB

MB: Asus Z87-A

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 Mhz CL7

SSD: OCZ 128GB Vertex 4 Sata III-6Gb/s 2.5 inch SSD

CPU, MOBO and RAM look pretty cool. I'd change the GPU to Nvidia GTX 760 though (get Gigabyte model if you can, it's cheap, reliable, super quiet and factory overclocked, eg. MSI is another neat choice) for better bang for buck. I'd change also SSD – OCZ is probably the only SSD manufacturer nowadays that you should avoid really, they have a lot of issues in their SSDs. Samsung, Crucial and Kingston (excluding the V300 120GB model because of high risk of getting model with broken firmware). Samsung 840 is nice choice for example, but if you decide to go with 256 GB model, then Kingston V300 is probably the most cost-effective choice.

BTW – make sure you get a quality PSU. Bad PSU can pretty much cook every part of the PC, so getting a bad one might potentially cost you a price of new PC... Eg. XFX and some models of Super Flower and Seasonic are good ones. There are differences between models, so make sure you're getting a good one by googling for a while before purchasing anything.

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when we cant even comfortably run ARMA3 at 60fps on ultra with the recommendid spec that BIS provided...

I shall end my little depressing rant here, and go finish my bottle of whiskey and play some GTA5...

If you can handle 720p res and drops to 20fps in gta why do you need 60fps on ultra in arma 3?

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(get Gigabyte model if you can, it's cheap, reliable, super quiet and factory overclocked, eg. MSI is another neat choice)

A neat choice? I've never heard so much fanboy rubbish in all my life.

Lets get some perspective here, there is really no difference in choosing a brand name for a graphic card unless you consider warranty a factor too, these cards use exactly the same electronic components, exact same PCB and originate from same factory and differ only in cooling solutions, overclocking and cool designs :) the very idea that a Gigabyte graphic card is better than same card from ... say ... Asus is just silly.

For what its worth I went for EVGA for my latest overclocked and dual fan cooled GTX 780 purely because of its extend warranty, not that I'll need it as I'll upgrade to the inevitable 880 next year, this 780 was a replacement for my second machines GTX 680 that was in fact a Gigabyte packaged card with no other benefits from choosing a brand name what so-ever.

As for your SSD advice, although well intentioned I'm sure, its full of same brand name loyalty nonsense.

For sure SSD's are a more selective area where you can choose wisely, and I'm on my fifth SSD with ever increasing capacity and speeds and lower price too ... but you cant determine the quality of a product by its brand name alone.

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A neat choice? I've never heard so much fanboy rubbish in all my life.

Lets get some perspective here, there is really no difference in choosing a brand name for a graphic card unless you consider warranty a factor too, these cards use exactly the same electronic components, exact same PCB and originate from same factory and differ only in cooling solutions, overclocking and cool designs :) the very idea that a Gigabyte graphic card is better than same card from ... say ... Asus is just silly.

For what its worth I went for EVGA for my latest overclocked and dual fan cooled GTX 780 purely because of its extend warranty, not that I'll need it as I'll upgrade to the inevitable 880 next year, this 780 was a replacement for my second machines GTX 680 that was in fact a Gigabyte packaged card with no other benefits from choosing a brand name what so-ever.

As for your SSD advice, although well intentioned I'm sure, its full of same brand name loyalty nonsense.

For sure SSD's are a more selective area where you can choose wisely, and I'm on my fifth SSD with ever increasing capacity and speeds and lower price too ... but you cant determine the quality of a product by its brand name alone.

I don't know where to start... I think that becoming a fanboy is the stupidest choice that one could do, because you'd lose your objectivity which would made you to suffer yourself. I don't know where you got the idea of being "fanboy" – based on your logic, I could call you a fanatic EVGA fanboy as well. In addition, what the hell would I benefit from giving purely fanboy advices to strangers in Internet? :D Time to remove the tin-foil hat, mate.

I recommend Gigabyte GTX cards often because they're test winners around the world (cheap, low RMA rate, quietest but also most effective cooling also with higher loads and even factory overclocked, so they indeed are better than most of the GTXs with equal number), not because I'd be a fan of some manufacturer. I read hardware tests and user comments about hardware almost every day on tech sites, and base my opinion on them and on my personal experience.

Please show me an unmodified quote from my previous post where the "fanboyism" related to SSDs would be visible and what factors in my reply got you to come to conclusion that it was subjective instead of being objective. Actually, your reply looks more subjective than mine to me – for example, you don't give any reasons to my "SSD fanboyism", just claims, and you claim that the length of warranty is the only thing that matters, which is not the case – people consider different factors as important. For example, the reference model of GTX and the best aftermarket coolers have huge difference in loudness.

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The problem is your CPU. 2.6GHz just won't cut it. If you want stable 40+ fps in MP - get the latest i5/i7 Haswell and overclock it above 4Ghz mark.

I'm new to the forums (but not to gaming). I'm also new to Arma (all versions) but have bought OFP way back when. I bought A3 just before it went live. I've been playing it and have low FPS in SP (under 20) and MP (single digits). I've played only Stratis...haven't even tried Altis yet. I definitely don't think these FPS issues are solely dependent upon hardware, especially as the quoted text states.

I'm working on optimizing my config and launch options and so far, I've:

Config edits:

Changed GPU_MaxFramesAhead from 1000 to 1

Launch options:

-noSplash -cpuCount=8 -exThreads=7 -malloc=tbb4malloc_bi -maxMem=8192

Video options:

Texture - high
Objects - high
Terrain - high
Shadow - high
Particles - standard
cloud - high
PIP - disabled
HDR - low
Dynamic Lights - high

Overall visibility - 1600
Object visibility -1105
Shadow visibility - 100

Resolution - 1024x768 (although I tend to prefer 1920x1080)
Vsync - disabled

Bloom; Radial blur; Rotation blur; Depth of field = all set to 100
SSAO - Standard
Caustics - Enabled
FSAA - 2x
ATOC - all trees and grass
PPAA - SMAA Ultra
ANISO. filtering - ultra

I've reaped some slight FPS gains with the above settings, but not enough for my liking, so I'm still experimenting. Also, note that I've used default low settings and saw *no* improvement. I definitely saw an improvement with just changing the visibility and vsync settings (as well as the launch settings).

My current gaming rig is an Alienware M17x R3 (notebook):

i7 2760QM ~ Nvidia GeForce GTX 580M ~ 8GB RAM @ 1600MHz ~ 1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED ~ 2 x 750GB 7,2000RPM HDD (RAID 0)

The comment in quotes...that's a joke, right? This game should not require OC'ing (especially to 4GHz). From my understanding (I've been reading a LOT of people's experiences with A3 on their rigs and I've seen a LOT of people getting 50+ FPS with lower grade hardware than mine. IMO, *any* i7 should run the game at standard to high settings. As well, it shouldn't take a 700-series GTX to run this game, especially since it is more CPU-dependent than GPU-dependent. Some people are running the game on GTX 400-series cards. Huge amounts of RAM isn't a requirement (the game should take roughly 2GB to run). And, I'm seeing a lot of people insisting that A3 needs an SSD drive (as in, it's a requirement)...I highly doubt that's the case. Unless you're running deep into virtual memory/swap (that shouldn't be happening anyways), an SSD isn't a requirement, and you'll only see benefits when starting the game and loading missions...it's not going to help you after the mission commences.

I'm probably preaching to the preacher in saying all that, but because of the quoted text, I had a WTF moment. It's pretty common knowledge that the A3 FPS issue relates more to server-side issues (at least for MP) and heavy scripting. Telling people that they need to overclock or that 2.6Ghz on an i5/i7 isn't enough...that's BS. People running 4-5yr old CPUs and vid cards...yeah, they might have a system that's struggling. i5s might even struggle a bit, but i7s in stock configuration should be fine unless someone has all the CPU-relevant settings maxed out.

Edited by unixfool

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-noSplash -cpuCount=8 -exThreads=7 -malloc=tbb4malloc_bi -maxMem=8192

Most of the command line switches are auto-detected and configured by the game. You should't even bother with them in Arma 3.

SSAO - Standard
ATOC - all trees and grass

Those two are quite heavy on GPU.

i7 2760QM ~ Nvidia GeForce GTX 580M ~ 8GB RAM @ 1600MHz ~ 1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED ~ 2 x 750GB 7,2000RPM HDD (RAID 0)

Have you tried using something like MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision with the built-in On-screen display server? Essentially a tool that will let you display all kind of hardware related (and not just FPS) stuff on-screen in the game. Configure it to display GPU/CPU usage and see where your bottleneck is (use another HWiNFO tool to configure display of per core CPU usage). If your GPU is at 99% - then you need to lower some GPU related settings. If one of your CPU cores are at ~70% - then you are already CPU bottlenecked. Another possible thing that is happening is that your notebook is overheating and the CPU is downclocking itself (make sure it's actually running at that 3.5 Ghz turbo mode).

And, I'm seeing a lot of people insisting that A3 needs an SSD drive (as in, it's a requirement)...I highly doubt that's the case. Unless you're running deep into virtual memory/swap (that shouldn't be happening anyways), an SSD isn't a requirement, and you'll only see benefits when starting the game and loading missions...it's not going to help you after the mission commences.

Arma maps are streamed. You can't really load the entire Altis under 32-bit 2 GB memory limit. SSDs are very very useful for Arma.

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CPU, MOBO and RAM look pretty cool. I'd change the GPU to Nvidia GTX 760 though (get Gigabyte model if you can, it's cheap, reliable, super quiet and factory overclocked, eg. MSI is another neat choice) for better bang for buck. I'd change also SSD – OCZ is probably the only SSD manufacturer nowadays that you should avoid really, they have a lot of issues in their SSDs. Samsung, Crucial and Kingston (excluding the V300 120GB model because of high risk of getting model with broken firmware). Samsung 840 is nice choice for example, but if you decide to go with 256 GB model, then Kingston V300 is probably the most cost-effective choice.

BTW – make sure you get a quality PSU. Bad PSU can pretty much cook every part of the PC, so getting a bad one might potentially cost you a price of new PC... Eg. XFX and some models of Super Flower and Seasonic are good ones. There are differences between models, so make sure you're getting a good one by googling for a while before purchasing anything.

First of all thanks for helping out. This is proving to be a bit more complicated than I thought it would be :D.

You recommended the GTX 760, I have heard that the GTX 670 would have a bit better performance though. Which would you recommend out of those?

Also I have a Corsair 550w PSU wonder if its gonna be enough for these beasts or should I get something like a 650w PSU.

About the SSD, well I personally dont know all that much about them and the differences in between brands. I just got recommended to go with the OCZ Vertex 4 as people told me its a good and pretty cheap SSD.

---------- Post added at 10:37 ---------- Previous post was at 10:33 ----------

Also I've been shown this benchmark where you can see a slightly better score for the 670 compared to the 760. http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

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Cpu count 8 lol. This is for physical cores isnt it,not threads? Anyway if u have hyperthreading enabled in bios turn it off.

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