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

[rusticbob 10]

My second post to this forum, deals in the next subject as to my purchasing ArmA 3 or not...

I built this PC about 5 years ago to play my other favorite sim, MS Flight Simulator 10. Which at the time was one of the most resource hungary games on the market. Now looking at ArmA 3, will thesse specs work?

CPU = Core 2 Duo E7200 2.53 Ghz

GPU = Diamond Radeon HD4870 1 GB DDR5

RAM = 4 GB Corsair Twin 2x 4096 Dual Channel, PC8500 DDR2 1066Mhz

Need to upgrade OS to Win7 or 8, maybe add another 4 GB ram and an SSD. I am expecting this to be in the minimum area of the requirements. I can live with that while I plan my next system some wheres down the road. Not in the near future but somewhere down there...

All opinions gracefully considered and appreciated.

[oldbear 390]

@ Rusticbob : Computer Capable? yes and no !

The hardware configuration matches Minimal official specifications for the games. But ...

With such rig even after having upgrade your OS to the needed Windows 7-64bits, you will be able to play Arma3 in Single Player but Multi Player will be out of reach.

I will add that in SP, you are going to miss the lighting effects making this game beautiful even in "Low" because HD4870 is not DX11 capable.

So with this PC you can play on SP an Arma3 missing some of it's magic and you can't play MP unless you are a 10 FPS fan.

[RipGroove 10]

Am new and don't have ARMA yet, have asked about my spec in the 'Will my PC run ARMA' thread and have learned that ARMA is CPU intensive and that my FX8350 might not be up to it. So as a follow on to that, does anyone here actually use an FX8350? If so how does it run?

Rest of spec:

OS: Windows 8.1

Mobo: MSI 990FXA-GD80

CPU: AMD FX8350 (8-Core) 4.3 GHz

GPU: EVGA 780 Classified 3GB

RAM: 16GB Corsair

PSU: Corsair TX750

I can max out Battlefield 4 and still maintain 120fps @ 1080p. Obviously BF4 is a big budget title and compared to ARMA is well optimised etc so not a great comparison.

I'm all about gameplay over graphics but BF4 has spoiled me with destruction and shininess.

So, can anyone actually confirm what sort of graphics settings at what FPS I should see in ARMA3?

[marcai 1]

I do! I actually bought it a few months ago when Arma went into Beta to try adn help with my FPS issues. To some extent it worked, as I went from an average of 20fps whilst flying to 25-50, depending on the surrounding terrain. I usually average about 35-40fps when I have my view distance at 3.5k, object at 1.5k and most settings at mid-ultra, although. It might not be as smooth as I'd like or be consistent (occasionally dips to 20 or so), but it definitely runs well enough to play.

[spanishsurfer 58]

I run with an 8350, singleplayer fps is 40-50 with high/ultra settings with viewdistance at 4000m, object at 3500m. Same settings on multiplayer are about 30fps when you're on a good server.

[Jedo 10]

@OldBear Thanks, I'll try the CPU count thing. I remember using it for Arma 2 in the beginning but I thought we were way beyond that now. So far I don't see a difference.

Not sure how park control works, but will try that too.

[SteveJA 12]

Hello OFP/ARMA Veterans.

Like many here, i've been hooked to these damn games since OFP all the way to ARMA 2. After "Livng the dream" for around 15 months, i'm finally in a position where owning a desktop is practical again. So after much, Techreport, Bit Tec and god knows what else surfing, i've chucked together the PC below.

[TABLE]

[TR]

[TD]Processor[/TD]

[TD]4770k[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Motherboard[/TD]

[TD]ASUS Z87-PRO Intel Z87[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]RAM[/TD]

[TD]G.Skill TridentX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200 2400MHz[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]GPU[/TD]

[TD]GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 770 WINDFORCE 3X OC 2GB GDDR5[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]HD SSD[/TD]

[TD]Samsung 840 Evo Basic 250GB Solid State Hard Drive 2.5" [/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]HD[/TD]

[TD]Western Digital Caviar Green 1tb[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Case[/TD]

[TD]Antec Three Hundred Case - Black - No Psu[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Optical drive[/TD]

[TD]Samsung 224DB[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Powersupply[/TD]

[TD]Corsair TX750M[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

If anyone can spot anything that's nonsensical or can offer any suggestions, it would be much appreciated.

[JarmenKeLL 0]

I do.

FX 8350

GTX 670 Reference 4 gb

16gb ram

Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3

And i got similiar fps rates with those people up there.(at highest settings with aa)

[obeyyourcapner 10]

Runnin' an AMD ocho core (Jackhammer or Bulldozer?? Something like that) with 16 gb DDR3 ram and a 250gb SSD, but I have onboard video... Do I stand a chance? If you are wondering why I have onboard video, it's because I shunned PC games for awhile (back in 2003) as I was tired of upgrading my pc everytime a new game came out. Then I went to college and had no money to continually upgrade said PC, and then gaming community on the PC was stabbed to death by Electronic Arts. But now I am no longer a poor college student and wish to play ARMA3 but do not with to purchase a new power supply to handle a new video card....so thats my story.

Is Novalogic still around? Used to play me some IBS Miggie F16

-Cap

[RipGroove 10]

Cool, think I'll give it a go then.

Those are obviously low fps figures where PC gaming is concerned (although from searching and reading they seem average to ARMA3), so does 30fps feel OK on ARMA because I know if my other games dropped to 30fps they'd be clunky and slow and it would drive me mad! (Usually I see over 120fps).

[Leon86 13]

30 fps cpu limited is usually more playable than gpu limited (because of the way amd and nvidia configure the drivers, maximizing average fps but creating extra input lag).

30 - 40 fps in arma I find playable, but I do have graphics set pretty low (so the gpu finishes a frame quicker, lower latency) and I play it on my crt screen (also low latency).

[Bee8190 10]

My second post to this forum, deals in the next subject as to my purchasing ArmA 3 or not...

I built this PC about 5 years ago to play my other favorite sim, MS Flight Simulator 10. Which at the time was one of the most resource hungary games on the market. Now looking at ArmA 3, will thesse specs work?

CPU = Core 2 Duo E7200 2.53 Ghz

GPU = Diamond Radeon HD4870 1 GB DDR5

RAM = 4 GB Corsair Twin 2x 4096 Dual Channel, PC8500 DDR2 1066Mhz

Need to upgrade OS to Win7 or 8, maybe add another 4 GB ram and an SSD. I am expecting this to be in the minimum area of the requirements. I can live with that while I plan my next system some wheres down the road. Not in the near future but somewhere down there...

All opinions gracefully considered and appreciated.

I don't believe you will see the improvement you are hoping for or maybe even expecting, sorry to say. SSD nor another 4Gb of ram will not bring enough noticeable performance for the money spend. Your best route at this point would be sourcing used, high clock

( say 3.1Ghz ) intel core i3 processor and compatible M. board.

I wouldn't worry about S/H CPU s it will either work or it simply doesn't.

Hello OFP/ARMA Veterans.

Like many here, i've been hooked to these damn games since OFP all the way to ARMA 2. After "Livng the dream" for around 15 months, i'm finally in a position where owning a desktop is practical again. So after much, Techreport, Bit Tec and god knows what else surfing, i've chucked together the PC below.

[TABLE]

[TR]

[TD]Processor[/TD]

[TD]4770k[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Motherboard[/TD]

[TD]ASUS Z87-PRO Intel Z87[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]RAM[/TD]

[TD]G.Skill TridentX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200 2400MHz[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]GPU[/TD]

[TD]GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 770 WINDFORCE 3X OC 2GB GDDR5[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]HD SSD[/TD]

[TD]Samsung 840 Evo Basic 250GB Solid State Hard Drive 2.5" [/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]HD[/TD]

[TD]Western Digital Caviar Green 1tb[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Case[/TD]

[TD]Antec Three Hundred Case - Black - No Psu[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Optical drive[/TD]

[TD]Samsung 224DB[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Powersupply[/TD]

[TD]Corsair TX750M[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

If anyone can spot anything that's nonsensical or can offer any suggestions, it would be much appreciated.

Just to throw in another option:

You could easily get away with socket 1155 and 3570K as the gain per clock compared to haswell is simply minimal, IRL applications. This option would however make sense only if you can find motherboard and cpu of said socket for ~100 quid less. My reasoning behind is you would not receive 100 quid more performance by going with socket 1150 ( 47XX ) Furthermore DDR 4 is due to be out sometimes next year which I imagine many will want to upgrade to sooner rather than later ( not such a thing as future proofing )

However if the latest is more desired the above specs look great. The i7 bring literally no benefits to a purely gaming machine whatsoever but I presume the i7 was chosen for work / addon related tasks?

Either way - unless you plan to SLI, 550W power supply is more than enough for the above spec rig and would leave enough headroom for overclocking too.

I personally would go for the Pro version of the sammy SSD and Caviar blue , instead of the green line. I am sure the antec case is much improved case since their previous model, the 300 but having owned the 300 I would never buy another antec case again but I appreciate it may work out for you.

Edited December 19, 2013 by Bee8190

[RipGroove 10]

30 fps cpu limited is usually more playable than gpu limited (because of the way amd and nvidia configure the drivers, maximizing average fps but creating extra input lag).

30 - 40 fps in arma I find playable, but I do have graphics set pretty low (so the gpu finishes a frame quicker, lower latency) and I play it on my crt screen (also low latency).

That makes sense, thanks :-)

[SteveJA 12]

Just to throw in another option:

You could easily get away with socket 1155 and 3570K as the gain per clock compared to haswell is simply minimal, IRL applications. This option would however make sense only if you can find motherboard and cpu of said socket for ~100 quid less. My reasoning behind is you would not receive 100 quid more performance by going with socket 1150 ( 47XX ) Furthermore DDR 4 is due to be out sometimes next year which I imagine many will want to upgrade to sooner rather than later ( not such a thing as future proofing )

However if the latest is more desired the above specs look great. The i7 bring literally no benefits to a purely gaming machine whatsoever but I presume the i7 was chosen for work / addon related tasks?

Either way - unless you plan to SLI, 550W power supply is more than enough for the above spec rig and would leave enough headroom for overclocking too.

I personally would go for the Pro version of the sammy SSD and Caviar blue , instead of the green line. I am sure the antec case is much improved case since their previous model, the 300 but having owned the 300 I would never buy another antec case again but I appreciate it may work out for you.

Hello Bee

Thank you very much for spending the time to reply to my post. Unfortunately i have just reserved the entire spec O_o. However i am sure that i should be able to make small changes on pickup.

With regards to the Processor & Motherboard setup, while i do have a little knowledge on the matter, i am far from a subject expert. Due to the fact most of my knowledge is gained in the months leading up to eventual purchase, it can be easy to overlook older competitive options. Ultimately (and perhaps because i have now ordered it) It shall make the PC more attractive when it comes to selling. In this regard i can also add that since i have a fairly reliable base to sell too, the i7 is easier to shift to someone not looking for a pure gaming PC. I would be a liar to say the PC's main purpose is not gaming however, on top of the reasons above, i am happier knowing i have the freedom to utilize Hyper-threading in the future (Who knows i might just be the creator of the next DayX??)

I am interested to hear your recommendation on the size of the power supply. As I've already mentioned most of my knowledge comes from review sites and comparing figures (AKA not real experience.) Since i had no idea how to work out PSU requirement, i saw that the minimum recommended power supply for the 770 was 600w and i suppose i kinda just put it to bed . Perhaps this recommendation is overly safe or takes into consideration something else? Here's where i found it

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/nvidiageforcegraphicscards/nvidiagtx770series/gv-n770oc-2gd.html

The Antec case was brought purely from reviews and, having had no issues in the past, have just stuck with them out of familiarity more than anything else.

I hope i haven't highlighted myself as a complete tech nub and some of the above actually makes sense.

Thanks again for the reply.

Edit i have managed to change the WD Hdd from green to blue. Again that was a casualty of nativity thanks for the pick up there.

[Leon86 13]

Nvidia and amd usually recommend overkill psu's because a lot of brands pretty much lie about capacity and they don't know the rest of the system. Also, old psu's cant deliver all their power at 12V (which is what the cpu and gpu use, and they use the most by far)

the 770 uses about 230W, 4770K uses about 70W, rest of the system probably 20W, even a modern 400W psu by a good brand should be fine, modern 500W should be very safe, 650W will even allow for sli.

Edited December 19, 2013 by Leon86

[SteveJA 12]

Hello Leon

Thanks for the reply. As i'm sure you're aware i'm still leaning and really appreciate the help. I shall do my best to change my order when i pick it up tomorrow and get a more sensible PSU.

[rusticbob 10]

@ Rusticbob : Computer Capable? yes and no !

The hardware configuration matches Minimal official specifications for the games. But ...

With such rig even after having upgrade your OS to the needed Windows 7-64bits, you will be able to play Arma3 in Single Player but Multi Player will be out of reach.

I will add that in SP, you are going to miss the lighting effects making this game beautiful even in "Low" because HD4870 is not DX11 capable.

So with this PC you can play on SP an Arma3 missing some of it's magic and you can't play MP unless you are a 10 FPS fan.

Thanks Oldbear! I had a feeling that was going to e the case as I have read on this forum about many FPS woes even with beyond recommended systems. I will stick to my x-box for a while. Can't swing the hardware upgrade just yet. Arma 3 looks like a great game and community. Again thank for the help!

Rustic

[Leon86 13]

Overkill psu will still work fine of course, but it might be nice to change it to a lower wattage 80+ gold corsair if they have them, saves a bit of power in the long run. Corsair has a solid rep for build quality (only use good quality oems like seasonic) and very long warranties so you might want to stick with them.

[spanishsurfer 58]

I have a 1000w Corsair PSU and it's been rock solid for years. I wouldn't buy any other brand.

[siR_miLLs 10]

Here is my can i run it... Can someone tell me what piece i should replace?

https://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/1510927_10153601319075524_2070104219_n.jpg

I figure i will upgrade once more before i buy a whole new computer.

Right now I have all the settings on low with 800x600 res with about 7 to 12 frames. Help.

Edited December 20, 2013 by siR_miLLs

[bull_a 44]

Here is my can i run it... Can someone tell me what piece i should replace?

https://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/1510927_10153601319075524_2070104219_n.jpg

I figure i will upgrade once more before i buy a whole new computer... if i can.

You can clearly see which parts need replacing, it says on the test. However I would get an entire new rig, as this seems to be an 'older' one. Arma is very CPU intensive and the new engine also draws quite a bit on the GFX card and RAM so those are the main ones. But like I said, getting a new rig is probably the best way to approach this

[siR_miLLs 10]

Whats the next best thing to buying a whole new computer?

---------- Post added at 03:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 PM ----------

gfx card or ram?

[Fonzie 2]

Whats the next best thing to buying a whole new computer?

---------- Post added at 03:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 PM ----------

gfx card or ram?

For Arma, CPU.

[concinnity 10]

I hate to break it to you, but if you're getting an average of 10 fps with the graphics bottomed out at 800 x 600, there is no single upgrade that is going to make the game playable.

Edited December 21, 2013 by concinnity

[chammy 7]

I wonder if anyone can offer some quick advice here. I'm rebuilding after being down for almost 2 years. Its why I havent completed any projects on CSM3 at all even for ArmA2. Anyways, I want to replace both CPU and GPU. I have a GTX285 with Intel Quad Core Q8200 x64 with WIn7 which runs about 2.4GHz or so. Will I be ok changing my CPU to my line up of what I can afford: i5 3350p, 3470k, 4670k, or i3 3320, or 4130?. The only thing if I change my CPU I will have to upgrade my MOBO. I have the Gigabyte EP43. This setup is for both ArmA2 and 3. Or should I just change my GPU and my line up would be GTX650ti, 7850, 7770, or 7790 until I can afford another CPU? Or vice versa just change my CPU and use my existing GPU for as long as I can?. Any suggestions?