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

[shx 11]

Is there a reason for you to got SLI or Crossfire?

For me: 2 cards == 2x monitors. Dual R9 290 provide support for twelve displays, R9 295x2 five. Also, dual card setups can use (at least combined with high-end CPU and board) 32 instead of 16 PCIe lanes. ((some server-market multi-GPU cards use vendor specific 32x slots, though))

[...] yet the game still isn' t as fluid as i thought that it would be.

Just to clarify: Even with a ideal rig, ARMA 3 will barely hit the 59 Hz refresh rate for IPS panels on higher settings.

I don't know if this benefit will be seen if running from an SSD but hey I don't have one so can't comment!

Good NVMe-based SSDs will even beat a RAMdisk for gaming purposes (provided they've got a decent number of PCIe lanes to work with).

You don't think that by going up to a true quad core with 8mb cache it will improve matters?

Xeon-based rigs are actually quite good at CPU-heavy games, due to their tendency to have large L-caches.

[...] with a slower gpu (1Gb quadro2000 3D workstation card)

If that's stock hardware, that's up to 15% improvement for having the board tailored to the hardware on it. Workstation/Server graphics hardware is quite bad at DirectX stuff though, probably takes the custom board factor right back.

[...] 1st gen i7/xeon [...]

If you're relying on overclocking, don't go for a Xeon - most don't even work, and the few which do are buggy. Consumer CPUs with open multiplier are reasonably tested to work fine with non-stock multipliers, Xeons not.

A 1st gen i7 probably wouldn't change that much, dual socket xeons will.

--

As a general note, cause some are talking about optimizing CPU clock:

CPU clocks are - if at all - comparable within the same manufacturer and generation.

As soon as you switch either the manufacturer (AMD is years behind), or the generation (eg comparing Haswell to Haswell-E), clock speeds tell you exactly nothing about which CPU will do a predefined job faster.

[Comrade_Comski 10]

Here are my specs:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTS 450

CPU: Pentium Dual-Core CPU E5200 2.5GHz

RAM: 4 GB

Would I be able to run this game, and if so at about what frame rate?

[forteh 11]

Xeon-based rigs are actually quite good at CPU-heavy games, due to their tendency to have large L-caches.

The i5 750 has the same cache as the first gen xeons I was looking at but overclock better due to higher multipliers.

If that's stock hardware, that's up to 15% improvement for having the board tailored to the hardware on it. Workstation/Server graphics hardware is quite bad at DirectX stuff though, probably takes the custom board factor right back.

The 4770k at work is moderately overclocked to 4.2 on a bog standard asus board, no specialised hardware at all. Even with the gpu bottleneck it's faster.

If you're relying on overclocking, don't go for a Xeon - most don't even work, and the few which do are buggy. Consumer CPUs with open multiplier are reasonably tested to work fine with non-stock multipliers, Xeons not.

A 1st gen i7 probably wouldn't change that much, dual socket xeons will.

I have no issue overclocking locked multiplier, my i3 has a 63% overclock and in theory as long as heat doesn't get to high the i5 750 I have coming should hit the same as it has the same multiplier and the bclk is stable. For all intents and purposes it's a non HT i7 ( I don't need more than 4 threads and HT adds a tonne of heat).

Here are my specs:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTS 450

CPU: Pentium Dual-Core CPU E5200 2.5GHz

RAM: 4 GB

Would I be able to run this game, and if so at about what frame rate?

It would run, but very, very badly :(

CPU isn't up to it and I reckon you'll struggle to get more than 15 fps. At stock 2.93ghz (dual core i3 with hyperthreading) I get about 20 fps, at 4.62ghz I get 40+ in the same situation.

Even with a significant overclock I don't think you'll really get it payable I'm afraid :(

[Tsark 12]

Just to clarify: Even with a ideal rig, ARMA 3 will barely hit the 59 Hz refresh rate for IPS panels on higher settings.

Wrong choice of word on my part, i should' ve said "yet the game still isn' t as fluid as i hoped it would be." :)

[forteh 11]

Spec'd this out a month ago and will hopefully be ordering it soon.

Should work well, no?

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=19687974

---------- Post added at 20:39 ---------- Previous post was at 20:34 ----------

Hm, power supply seems to have disappeared. 700w something or other. :p

That should be ok but a couple of pointers, I would get faster ram (2100Mhz) and set the ram divider to make use of the faster frequency during the overclock. Slower ram has been proven to be a bottleneck in arma3 and there has been a good increase in fps when going from 1600 - 2100Mhz ram (providing the gpu can keep up).

Ideally you will need to be pushing the cpu over 4Ghz, to do that you're likely going to need a bigger cooler.

With 16Gb ram, you can afford to set an 8Gb ramdisk and copy the majority of the addons folder onto it and create symbolic links (google for how to set up a ramdisk for arma - I used one from arma2, it's the same principle). Having the addons on the ramdisk makes loading and streaming very smooth and gets around the bottleneck of the slow HDD without needing to use an SSD.

Other than the ram speed, lack of cooler and perhaps a faster second hand gpu might server you better it looks good :)

edit: I am assuming you will be overclocking it of course! :D

[shx 11]

Should work well, no?

Yes. Definitely not the best rig out there, but a decent use of 800$.

Personally, I'd recommend to leave the optical drive out (unless you've got a specific use for it), it's a dying technology (both to flash and the internet).

Ideally you will need to be pushing the cpu over 4Ghz, to do that you're likely going to need a bigger cooler.

That's non-K CPU, so no overclocking beyond the TurboBoost clock.

[...] I would get faster ram (2100Mhz) and set the ram divider to make use of the faster frequency during the overclock.

Same thing as above, overclocking with fixed multipliers isn't that effective. ((especially with RAM clocks above 1600 Mhz: Where the slots are located on your board, and how they're connected to the CPU is generally more important than the next clock speed iteration.))

[forteh 11]

Do the later generations of core chips overclock differently to the 1st gen? My i3 530 is multiplier locked and is overclocked from 2.93 to 4.62 perfectly stable by increasing the bclk from 133 to 220. Overclocking locked cpus is certainly very feasible, just easier if you have a locked multiplier cpu. Did intel lock down the adjustable bus multipliers/dividers that were on the 1st gen core chipsets? Granted not all motherboards will overclock the bclk a huge distance but the gigabye h55m-ud2h I have seems super stable, I can run my bclk and ram at 225/1800Mhz without issue, my cpu can't hack the 4.725Ghz though :D

Going from 1333Mhz to 1700+Mhz gave me another 4-5 fps for the same cpu core speed, that was a 10% increase for nothing!

Tonight I will hopefully be swapping my i3 530 for the i5 750 which came through the post earlier, hoping to get it running at the same 4.62Ghz (heat allowing it should hopefully do it straight away) and will see how much difference 4 physical cores (over 2 physical + 2 HT) + 8MB L3 cache (vs 4MB) makes. Even if it doesn't make that much difference in arma it will certainly make solidworks run a little better :)

[infiltrator_2k 29]

I've just purchased a new board, card, CPU, and some RAM, not to mention a new chassis, PSU and AIO loop cooler. The spec is in my sig below (ignore the old stuff). I was trying to get as much bang as possible for my buck. I done some homework and read a fair few reviews and benchmark tests on the hardware I've gone for and I was wondering what kind of settings I should expect to be able to use @1920x1200 with a decent FPS rate. Will I manage a truly maxed out Arma configuration? I'm not able to build the machine until the weekend as I'm away working so I can't test it myself :(

I'd also like to know how I did. Was the hardware a good choice for a single card configuration? I ask this because a lot of you fellow system builders will know that there's nothing worst than purchasing components only to later discover that you could have got better for my money. The only real choice I was limited on was the chassis as the tower has to sit in an office and there's height and width constraints. Still, not a bad chassis.

This is my first major upgrade since July 2009.. needless to say I'm eagerly anticipating getting home to build this rig.

[shx 11]

Do the later generations of core chips overclock differently to the 1st gen?

Yep. For Haswell and Haswell-E chips you're basically limited to the stuff TurboBoost already does automatically (provided the cooling is good enough) - unless you own a K-variant.

[...] 2 HT [...]

Hyperthreading is for servers and marketing. On a non-server rig, you won't profit from it in any significant way - HT improves performance for multi-core capable workloads near full usage.

Was the hardware a good choice for a single card configuration?

I'd call it a solid build. nVidia/AMD, Haswell/Haswell-E, Air/Water cooling and SSD/HDD manufacturer are more a personal preference question, than a good/bad one. As for the video card, a GTX 780 is definitely enough for ARMA 3, w/o really expensive tricks to pull more single core performance on your CPU.

[forteh 11]

Yep. For Haswell and Haswell-E chips you're basically limited to the stuff TurboBoost already does automatically (provided the cooling is good enough) - unless you own a K-variant.

Well that sucks, shows how far out of the loop I am on hardware :D

So it was only the 1st get core i3/i5/i7 processors that had unlocked busses that allowed the massive bclk without bumping the frequency of the rest of the system?

Hyperthreading is for servers and marketing. On a non-server rig, you won't profit from it in any significant way - HT improves performance for multi-core capable workloads near full usage.

Arma3 does actually make use of the hyperthreading on my i3, typicall core 1 is about 80%, 2 is 5-15%, 3 is 60-70% and 4 is pretty much idle.

Unfortunately the i5 750 I bought off ebay turned out to be DOA so have sent it back and hoping to pick up another one shortly. If I can't get one within my tiny budget then I will look at a xeon 3430 and have to put up with the slower processor, should still be able to push it to 4.05Ghz with my current ram though.

New i5 750 purchased, now the horrible wait for it to be delivered :(

Edited November 13, 2014 by forteh

[Groove_C 267]

@forteh

i5-750 can't do more than 3.8 - 4.0 GHz before hitting voltage limit.

MAX voltage for i5-750 is 1.4 V with LLC disabled or 1.35 V with LLC enabled (LLC - Load Line Calibration - adds another 0.050 V to the voltage shown).

Edited November 14, 2014 by Groove_C

[forteh 11]

@forteh

i5-750 can't do more than 3.8 - 4.0 GHz before hitting voltage limit.

MAX voltage for i5-750 is 1.4 V with LLC disabled or 1.35 V with LLC enabled (LLC - Load Line Calibration - adds another 0.050 V to the voltage shown).

Thanks for the info, I will bear it in mind when I get the processor in and setting up the overclock.

My bclk and ram is good for 220 & 1800mhz so hopefully the chip shouldn't get bottlenecked as I up the multiplier.

[forteh 11]

New i5 750 fitted and running quite happily at 4ghz with 1.375v, only done a quick torture test in prime95 so far and it's stable so far. I will refine voltage and stability tests when it isn't 1am! Currently it peaks at 68°C on full load which I'm more than happy with.

Run the altis benchmark through a couple of times and have seen an average fps increase from 34 to 43, that's including bumping view distance from 2km/1500 objects to 3km/2000 objects. Once I start tweaking the overclock I should hopefully be able to get the ram frequency back up and perhaps see a further improvement.

Unfortunately the i5 just doesn't like the 2x4Gb + 2x2Gb ram setup I had before so I have had to resort to 8Gb which in turn has meant that I have to turn off the ramdisk, this has increased initial load times and occasional microstutter when flying quickly but it's not the end of the world :)

[Zbyszko 10]

Guys, I'm still running a first gen i7-920, overclocked to 3.8GHz with a couple of GTX670s in SLI. Was thinking of keeping the graphics cards and SSDs and upgrading CPU/mobo/RAM to the 4790k or the new 5820k but I found this CPU comparo and it looks like I'll only gain 5 FPS for my effort and $600 to $800 dependent on what upgrade parts I buy. Are those benchmarks really accurate? If the game is CPU dependent, then I would be expecting much more than a 5 FPS improvement. Any advice?

[pr0ph3tswe 1]

Guys, I'm still running a first gen i7-920, overclocked to 3.8GHz with a couple of GTX670s in SLI. Was thinking of keeping the graphics cards and SSDs and upgrading CPU/mobo/RAM to the 4790k or the new 5820k but I found this CPU comparo and it looks like I'll only gain 5 FPS for my effort and $600 to $800 dependent on what upgrade parts I buy. Are those benchmarks really accurate? If the game is CPU dependent, then I would be expecting much more than a 5 FPS improvement. Any advice?

4790k will give you more fps in arma due to clock speeds over the 5820k unless the cache makes up for it i think, also keep in mind 4790k is clocked 500mhz higher by default without boost over 4770k so you'll see another few fps there

[forteh 11]

Before doing a full upgrade have you considered putting a xeon in there? See here :)

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18618052

[Zbyszko 10]

Before doing a full upgrade have you considered putting a xeon in there? See here :)

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18618052

Hmm, I have no idea about Xeon CPUs... I thought that they were clock-locked and pretty much strictly for servers. Never seen them benchmarked for gaming. I don't know what the performance hierarchy looks like. Will have to research this.... Let me know if you have any additional advice!

[R3vo 2652]

Hmm, I have no idea about Xeon CPUs... I thought that they were clock-locked and pretty much strictly for servers. Never seen them benchmarked for gaming. I don't know what the performance hierarchy looks like. Will have to research this.... Let me know if you have any additional advice!

Maybe that helps ;)

[forteh 11]

As per above, they are pretty much the same as an i7 (architecture for achitecture), however if you get a xeon x5650 and compare it to your i7 920 you will see that it has more cores, more cache, faster qpi, more ram capacity (probably limited by your board though), less power and far more heat overhead. Xeon chips are binned for stability as well so often withstand a higher overclock.

See here for a comparison of the two.

If your cooling and board supports it and your ram has enough capacity for overclocking you could theoretically get a reasonable incremental upgrade for not a lot of money. There is certainly plenty of support on the ocuk forums for getting overclocks to work!

Realistically speaking looking at usage within arma I can't say what sort of improvement you will get in fps over the 920, however improving memory speed (bandwidth) helps considerably - the x5650 has faster qpi than a 4770k and runs faster ram than your 920 by default.

If I were in your position I would say go for it, if it turns out to not make a measurable difference then you make the jump with the expensive upgrade and sell your old board and cpus to recoup costs :)

edit: all of the above is assuming you have an x58 board of course!

Edited November 26, 2014 by forteh

[Zbyszko 10]

Maybe that helps ;)

Yes, thank you!

See here for a comparison of the two.

....

If I were in your position I would say go for it, if it turns out to not make a measurable difference then you make the jump with the expensive upgrade and sell your old board and cpus to recoup costs :)

edit: all of the above is assuming you have an x58 board of course!

This was also very helpful and I certainly am willing to give this a try. Although I do have a x58 board, Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P to be exact, one problem might be is that that CPU is not listed as being supported by the mobo manufacturer:

http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=2986

But it is listed as supporting it here:

http://www.pc-specs.com/cpu/Intel/Xeon/Xeon_Processor_X5650_/2111/Compatible_Motherboards

Google pointed me to an old thread which gives some support to the info on the Gigabyte site (not compatible):

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1547036&highlight=ga+ex58+ud4p

...but another thread showed that an L5639 was able to boot up with a later,F11, BIOS version.

Not sure which I should believe. I'd be willing to throw a $100 at this for one of the "newer" chips (X5670) but if it's a crapshoot, then I'm not so sure.

[crabs 10]

I have a amd fx-8350 4ghz cpu, and amd diamond r9 270x gpu, 8gb ram. can I run it?

[oldbear 390]

@ user8 : of course you can not only run but enjoy playing Arma3 on a "FX-8350/R9 270x/8gb" based rig.

Not the best combo, but enjoyable at a medium level (even if the "R9 270x" is allowing "Ultra" video quality) due to the "FX-8350" limitations Arma* wise.

@ Zbyszko : you can also have a look here on this comparative test made at "i7-5960x" release occasion on French "Comptoir du Hardware" site

Edited December 5, 2014 by OldBear

[Zbyszko 10]

@ Zbyszko : you can also have a look here on this comparative test made at "i7-5960x" release occasion on French "Comptoir du Hardware" site

Interesting - I thought Arma 3 only used 4 threads but yet I see an improvement with increasing number of cores.... perhaps it's due to the difference between 1 thread per core vs 2 threads per core? I wonder what would happen to performance if I turned hyperthreading off on the 4 core i920 I'm currently using.... might have to try that. BTW, I should be receiving the Xeon x5670 tomorrow. 1. I hope it works in the motherboard I have (it should from some emails I've exchanged), 2. I hope I can overclock it to 4GHz or quicker (that I'm more worried about). Have a good weekend.

...actually when I look at it closely more cores doesn't always equal better performance. Should have looked closer at the data first.

[LSD_Timewarp82 21]

If they had overclocked the 5960X it to ~3500Mhz-3700Mhz it would have better frames as the 4790K. As i tested a 5960X for a customers pc i managed it to overclock the Cpu to 4400Mhz (Watercooled) but the increasement was so minimal, a casual Gamer wouldnt reckognize it. 3-4 Frames more than the 4790K with 4Ghz

[shx 11]

If they had overclocked the 5960X it to ~3500Mhz-3700Mhz it would have better frames as the 4790K.

Not really noticeable - the additional frames you got, are probably DDR4-induced. The only significant improvement (apart from DDR4 support) the Haswell Refresh brought was VT-d for unlocked chips.

I hope it works in the motherboard I have (it should from some emails I've exchanged)

Since there are a couple of Westmere-EP/Gulftown CPUs on the official list, the X5670 will work (unless Gigabyte blocked it intentionally).

Interesting - I thought Arma 3 only used 4 threads but yet I see an improvement with increasing number of cores [...]

First of all, Arma 3 isn't the only thing requiring CPU cycles while you play - having more cores than the game uses, offloads IO, idle stuff sitting in your tray, etc to different cores, freeing up cycles for the game.