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

[Bee8190 10]

I know that usually when it comes to hardware, the most of the time people recommend the top of the class, and so you did. BUT I already said i am NOT willing to put more than 350-400EUs. As expected the 780TI will fit between the current 780 and the Titan, which is well out of my price range at 650$ ~ 600EUs (normal US to EU conversion)

You misunderstood. What I was trying to say is that with more HW coming down the road, already released cards will have to come down in price. Maybe not by a lot but If there is to be 780 Ti version, nice cards like evga 770 4Gb or 7970 Ghz card editions will get even more accessible money wise, not to mention potential variety of free games

[PuFu 4591]

You misunderstood. What I was trying to say is that with more HW coming down the road, already released cards will have to come down in price. Maybe not by a lot but If there is to be 780 Ti version, nice cards like evga 770 4Gb or 7970 Ghz card editions will get even more accessible money wise, not to mention potential variety of free games

Ahh, fair point.

Truth be told, my options are the GTX770 (4g version would be lovely), but mainly the R9280x (which is the 7970GHz edition, but with dx11.2 support and mantle support). Waiting on the 31st to see 290 reviews.

[roni 11]

I'm not nvidia fanboy, but anything from amd for Arma 3 is just stupid... just look at the benchmarks, and then at prices. 660Ti, 670, 680, 760, 770 and 780[gtx] are the best for choices for arma3.

[Leon86 13]

AMD graphics cards are fine for arma 3, just dont try crossfire.

You can have a 7970 GE for 260,- eu. thats a great deal. I've seen 7950's for 170,-. great price/performance.

[oldbear 390]

Based upon my own experience, AMD cards are the best choice from entry to mid level.

I have build a rig with "Core2Quad 9400/HD7750", quite playable in "Standard" in Solo.

I am testing the game on a regular basis on "Athlon II x2 250/HD 7770", enjoyable in "Standard/High" in Solo.

I am experiencing the game on "i5 2500/HD 7870" quite enjoyable in "Ultra" in Solo.

When I switch from "Athlon II x2 250/GS450" to "Athlon II x2 250/HD 7770", the performance jump has been impressive, too bad the HD 7770 will disappears with the new R7/R9 brand.

For the high end GPU, my previous experience with HD6970 and what I gather as informations around me, on my game team and on various forums I discuss the subject is that the gameplay experience with high end Nvidia cards is better, being more smooth, more stable.

I am playing every days on "i7 3770/GTX 670 OC" and the feeling is quite good.

[tpM 478]

Hey guys,

In the foreseeable future I'm going to move a lot (foreign country, cities, etc) so I decided to buy an 'Arma 3 ready' laptop. I have 650£ available for this noble objective, but I'm not sure if its even possible to have such computer this "cheap". I mean, I would need a quad core CPU + ~8 GB RAM and a decent video card in a laptop.

I've been also thinking about throwing an AMD APU + a good RAM into a Mini-ITX case, and pair it up with a portable monitor, but not sure if it would work out as I'd like it to.

Any tips or recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

[oldbear 390]

@tpM : please no AMD APU, it will better to get an i5 (even a small one...over 2.5 Ghz of course) and a decent GPU but I believe you can only find such a laptop around 1 000£.

For a mini-itx case + screen, the budget will be the same ... ASRock M8 Mini-ITX : http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/asrock-m8-mini-itx-gaming-pc,3627.html and what about the screen ?

[SFsoldier 10]

I have at the moment an AMD Phenom II X4 965 with Radeon 6870. Runs Arma 2 and 3 quite well with the distance set on 900m, not far I know but it's OK for infantry combat.

Thinking of upgrading to i5 4670K and GTX 760 2GB which should be a good setup for Arma 2 and 3.

[bangtail 0]

Ahh, fair point.

Truth be told, my options are the GTX770 (4g version would be lovely), but mainly the R9280x (which is the 7970GHz edition, but with dx11.2 support and mantle support). Waiting on the 31st to see 290 reviews.

The 290 is very close to the 290X if leaks are to be believed.

I haven't seen any talk on thermals (which are a huge problem on the 290X) or noise.

Almost died laughing:

Seriously:

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/61505-amd-radeon-r9-290x/?page=11

If the 290 runs cooler and quieter than the 290X then it may well be a good choice because the 290X seems like it was rushed out as AMD haven't had an answer for Titan or the 780 in months.

I think it would have been better if they had allowed custom cooling out of the gate as 95c on one card is terribad (worse than the hot running 480, which in it's defence, was 35% faster on average than the 5870 at the time, the 290x is basically trading blows with an almost 9 month old card).

Since the 290 is going to be substantially cheaper, it may well be the way to go :)

http://s15.postimg.org/bm1sns417/AMD_Radeon_R9_290_Gaming_Performance_581x620.png

Leaked I know but probably accurate ;)

Edited October 27, 2013 by BangTail

[PuFu 4591]

cheers bangtail. yeah i have seen the temp issues as well, wondered myself just as well why on earth all the 280x have custom cooling, while the 290/290x have only the stock option available.

[bangtail 0]

Custom cooled versions of the 290 should be available in November.

Nothing has been confirmed for the 290X.

Plus the 290X (hopefully not the 290) has a cooler (due to the backfin) that expels air into the case - seriously bad design choice there.

You might find this interesting (the whole thing is good, but it starts at the relevant bit):

Edited October 27, 2013 by BangTail

[Jacob1029 10]

Hopefully mine will run it no problem!

[colinm478 1]

I'm worried mine wont work. I have:

i7 4770k

nvidia Titan

16 gb ram

[roni 11]

Stop trolling please

[fabio_chavez 103]

on RAM:

when comparing ram performance of 2400mhz and above, what are the crucial specs to seek to buy?

regarding arma specific requirements, is it desireable for example to choose DDR3-2666 CL11 over a DDR3-2400 that has timings of CL10 or CL9 etc etc

also whats more important to allok at in context to what arma requires, latency, read or write speed?

how do i generally know whats ultimately better in that kind of narrow range of affordable high clock ram?

p.s. please refuse to disabuse about how obsolete fast ram allegedly is, except for maybe, when the argument adresses aspects, explicitly relevant to the question, thank you.

Edited October 28, 2013 by Fabio_Chavez

[ving 10]

hi, considering purchase.

sys specs are:

w3520 2.67ghz

physical mem: 12gb

gtx 550 ti with latest driver

win7 ultimate sp1

what sort of quality am i likely to get? what sort of frame rate?

I currently play bf3 but find it a bit too arcady.

[oldbear 390]

@ ving : "what sort of quality am i likely to get? what sort of frame rate?" Difficult to answer because of Intel Xeon W3520 :confused:

- CPU : the CPU is a good one and I am wondering about large L3 cache impact on Arma3 performances. There are not too much infos about Intel Xeon W3520 behavior in-game and not many comparisons with more up to date CPUs, but I have found this one : http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Xeon-W3520-vs-Intel-Core-i5-3330

- RAM : 12 Go is OK

- OS : Win 7 64 is OK

- GPU : From my point of view, the only flaw in this rig is the GTX 550Ti. Have a look at some bench on Arma2 here :

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/03/15/nvidia-geforce-gtx-550-ti-1gb-review/8

It will depend on the kind of monitor you want to pull ! A GPU over GTX 660 will be more on par with the other pieces of hardware Arma3 wise.

- PSU : ?

- HDD : ?

- Monitor : ?

The game will be quite playable on a 1680x1050 monitor , but don't expect too high performances because Arma3 is of course "CPU dependent" but it's also quite "GPU demanding". You will have to do a lot of tweaking to stay well over the 30 FPS limit.

[ving 10]

Thanks OB. figured the gpu might be a bit weak but if I can get by on med settings i'll be fine. Just using a genetic monitor 1440x900. Hdd I'd pretty standard too.

I just played the alpha and that went ok.I assume the full game will play better.

[valence mike 11]

I'm hoping to run ArmA III decently but I'm not too sure about my configuration.

CPU: AMD A8-3870K Black Edition 3.00 GHz

RAM: 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz

GPU: VTX AMD HD 7750 1GB GDDR5

SSD: Corsair Force Series 3 (120 GB)

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

I would like to play at 1280x1024, will it be possible?

Thanks for the help.

[PuFu 4591]

Custom cooled versions of the 290 should be available in November.

Nothing has been confirmed for the 290X.

Plus the 290X (hopefully not the 290) has a cooler (due to the backfin) that expels air into the case - seriously bad design choice there.

You might find this interesting (the whole thing is good, but it starts at the relevant bit):

Right, seems i might as well wait a bit more for AMD to stick their never settle bundle, and see where the prices go from there for 280x and the the GTX770. I already said i am really not willing to spend the price for the 290X and the 780TI just for kicks and giggles.

[oldbear 390]

@ Valence Mike : this config is just around the "Recommended" specs but in fact a bit under. From my point of view the A8-3870K is not a good plan Arma3 wise, have look at this Arma2 bench :

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/878-8/cpu-f1-2011-crysis-2-arma-ii.html

The HD 7750 is quite a good card, I have done tests with Arma3 Alpha and a Core 2 quad 9400 and played on "Standard" with 25/30 FPS on a 1280 x 768 monitor ... and more around 25 FPS on 1680x1050 monitor.

The game will be playable decently only in Solo, the MP will be an other story :(

Playing with an average 25 FPS in Solo means that in MP you will have to play this game at a not very enjoyable 15/20 FPS!

There is not much room for enhancements, the only way being up to upgrade RAM amount and speed, but due to the "dust bin fire pretext" the RAM price is a bit high at the moment and buy 8 Go of Ripjaws X DDR3-2133 CAS 9 if the mother board support it "ça risque d'être du fric foutu en l'air".

[bangtail 0]

Right, seems i might as well wait a bit more for AMD to stick their never settle bundle, and see where the prices go from there for 280x and the the GTX770. I already said i am really not willing to spend the price for the 290X and the 780TI just for kicks and giggles.

Nvidia has just slashed 770/780 prices which is a good thing.

http://hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/61677-nvidia-takes-axe-geforce-gtx-780-gtx-770-pricing/

Thankfully, since AMD are back in the race, Nvidia can no longer maintain their extortionate pricing :D

The 780Ti looks to be a minor speed bump but until Maxwell, I don't think we are going to see any major jumps in performance (Ti is supposedly ~5% faster than Titan but still 3GB).

Edited October 28, 2013 by BangTail

[valence mike 11]

@ Valence Mike : this config is just around the "Recommended" specs but in fact a bit under. From my point of view the A8-3870K is not a good plan Arma3 wise, have look at this Arma2 bench :

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/878-8/cpu-f1-2011-crysis-2-arma-ii.html

The HD 7750 is quite a good card, I have done tests with Arma3 Alpha and a Core 2 quad 9400 and played on "Standard" with 25/30 FPS on a 1280 x 768 monitor ... and more around 25 FPS on 1680x1050 monitor.

The game will be playable decently only in Solo, the MP will be an other story :(

Playing with an average 25 FPS in Solo means that in MP you will have to play this game at a not very enjoyable 15/20 FPS!

There is not much room for enhancements, the only way being up to upgrade RAM amount and speed, but due to the "dust bin fire pretext" the RAM price is a bit high at the moment and buy 8 Go of Ripjaws X DDR3-2133 CAS 9 if the mother board support it "ça risque d'être du fric foutu en l'air".

Well in that case I guess ArmA 3 is out of question. I don't wanna run a game at 20 FPS and I don't have the money for an upgrade so I guess I'll have to stick with ArmA 2. Merci quand même Vieil Ours!

[roni 11]

Anybody test is there any difference in fps/fluency between runing arma 3 with 4 and 8gb ram?

[oldbear 390]

I am doing some work around "minimum" specs for Arma3 ATM, so I can say is that the game is not really playable with only 2 Go ram on a Athlon II x2 250/GTS 450 rig.

I am working on a low end rig based upon Athlon II x2 250. This rig wasn't built for game but built on purpose to host archives and work in progress for terrain/map making. The initial intent was to build a NAS, but I failed. Some items such as a 8 Go FlashCard and the 2 x 2 To HD are there because of this intend. Nevertheless, it seems interesting to used it as an experimental test ground for the low end area. So I have added re-used Intel SSD to host Arma3 and added the GTS 450.

Since Alpha, I had tested various video cards from GTS 450 to HD 6870 and RAM amount from 2 Go to 8 Go. I had the "feeling" the game was getting more FPS when I switch to 4 Go but no metric proof nor screenshots.

At the moment, with Athlon II x2 250/HD 7770/8 Go, the results are not so bad in SP but the results in MP are not too convincing.

But to build a real review, I must have more metrics, screenshots and so on. I am going to downgrade it in order to explore the "minimum" specs border.