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

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1 hour ago, Groove_C said:

@SpartanOfficial oh man... you got "scammed", like really.

Skylake X CPUs (i9-9920X) were "dead" even before arrival, you can read about it everywhere and check a video of any solid youtuber, because of really huge price, low frequency, very very low cache (mesh) frequency, heat and expensive X299 mainboards that are useless for gaming.

 

Intel dumped their Skylake X CPUs to sites/shops that build complete/finished/ready to use PCs, to get rid of them how they could, since nobody wants them.

They also paid a lot of youtubers to advertise these CPUs, but a lot of famous youtubers gently refused, to preserve their image.

 

CPUs with same or even higher number of cores/threads + higher core and cache frequency cost much much less.

Even AMD R9 3950X with 16/32 cores/threads costs less than this i9-9920X with "only" 12/24 cores/threads and low frequency.

 

Buying a much much cheaper i9-9900K (8/16 C/T) or R9 3900X (12/24 C/T), cooler, with much cheaper mainboard and also much higher all cores core and cache frequency, would have been a much better idea.

 

Because a price of 800€ only for the CPU (i9-9920X) with like 4 GHz frequency + much much lower than that cache (mesh) frequency + ~300€ for entry level X299 mainboard...

 

+ you have like the most expensive GPU (RTX 2080 Ti), but almost cheapest possible RAM (DDR4 2666 MHz)...

+ you play Arma in windowed mod

 

All of this are the reasons of really terrible performance you're reporting.

 

I suppose you can't return it anymore or exchange it.

You will have to OC the CPU as much as possible and RAM as well.

But with 2666 MHz RAM I think you can forget about OC.

I wouldn't have bought anything lower than 3200 MHz 16-18-18.

But since you have bought a RTX 2080 Ti and a 800€ CPU, you could have bought much better RAM then as well.

No comments...

 

It's not that this CPU is really bad, but it certainly isn't good at all for the price it costs (800€) and it's not for gaming, like at all.

Since even if you could OC it past 4.5 GHz, it wouldn't have helped much, since the cache (mesh) can't go much higher than 3.0 GHz, whereas on an i7-9700K or i9-9900K the cache can attain almost 5.0 GHz and the core frequency can go past 5.0 GHz.

And it has already 165 W TDP stock, no OC 🤦‍♂️

Noted. Can't change it now. I thought at the time i9 would be very good but clearly not. I don't have great PC knowledge. I'll look into replacing the ram with >3.5k MHz DDR4 as that can easily be replaced and sorted. I'll speak PCSpecialist to ensure I am not forfeiting warranty by doing that. What do you mean,"And it has already 165 W TDP stock, no OC 🤦‍♂️".

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12 hours ago, SpartanOfficial said:

 What do you mean,"And it has already 165 W TDP stock, no OC 🤦‍♂️".

 

TDP mean the thermal design power wich is approximately the power the CPU produces as heat.

And 165W is really much for a CPU. And it will get even higher when you decide to overclock it.

Even if you might be able to cool it OK with your cooling device now, you might not be able to get much more power out of you CPU when overclocking, because it will overheat to fast.

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3 hours ago, HaseDesTodes said:

 

TDP mean the thermal design power wich is approximately the power the CPU produces as heat.

And 165W is really much for a CPU. And it will get even higher when you decide to overclock it.

Even if you might be able to cool it OK with your cooling device now, you might not be able to get much more power out of you CPU when overclocking, because it will overheat to fast.

Thank you for the explanation. Overclocking isn't something I am really interested in doing, though.  

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Hey guys. I've been playing Arma since 2014 mostly KoTH. Unfortunatelly my pc struggles to perform at more than 22 FPS at this mode.

I would be very grateful for any advice what can I change in my setup to get better performance for max 300 dollars.

My current setup:

Intel Core  i5-3350P

Sapphire Radeon R9 280

8 GB GOODRAM 2133MHz

1 TB HDD drive

Main Board MSI B75MA-E33

 

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52 minutes ago, eryk0wski said:

Hey guys. I've been playing Arma since 2014 mostly KoTH. Unfortunatelly my pc struggles to perform at more than 22 FPS at this mode.

I would be very grateful for any advice what can I change in my setup to get better performance for max 300 dollars.

My current setup:

Intel Core  i5-3350P

Sapphire Radeon R9 280

8 GB GOODRAM 2133MHz

1 TB HDD drive

Main Board MSI B75MA-E33

 

 

300USD isn't really a budget to work with, but i'd say you might try something like:

CPU 

AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (95€ ~ 105USD)

Mainboard

MSI B450-A Pro Max (90€~100USD)

RAM

Kingston HyperX Fury RGB DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR4-3200, CL16-18-18 (HX432C16FB3AK2/16) (90€~100USD)

 

no idea how the prices are in the US, but this should give you some improvement.

 

if you asked me, if i made that upgrade, i'd say no.

to little gains from your setup, to justify the amount of money spent.

imo, you might want to spend at least 100USD more and get an AMD Ryzen R5 3600 (170€~190USD).

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11 hours ago, HaseDesTodes said:

 

300USD isn't really a budget to work with, but i'd say you might try something like:

CPU 

AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (95€ ~ 105USD)

Mainboard

MSI B450-A Pro Max (90€~100USD)

RAM

Kingston HyperX Fury RGB DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR4-3200, CL16-18-18 (HX432C16FB3AK2/16) (90€~100USD)

 

no idea how the prices are in the US, but this should give you some improvement.

 

if you asked me, if i made that upgrade, i'd say no.

to little gains from your setup, to justify the amount of money spent.

imo, you might want to spend at least 100USD more and get an AMD Ryzen R5 3600 (170€~190USD).

Thanks for the reply.

I'm wondering if the AMD cpu will be good for Arma, because I heard that Intel CPUs are much better for Arma,

also what do you propose to change if I had those 100-200 more. I think I might be able to save that in upcoming months.

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Based upon my own quest for  "Minimum Recommended" requirements in order to be able to play Arma3.

I will suggest today in APEX Standard :

CPU : Ryzen R5 1600AF
MoBo : B450
RAM : 16 GB (2x8GB) 3200 MHz
GPU : RX 570 -if available- or GTX 1650
SSD : 500 Go SATA (Windows+Arma3)

You can get a look at what to expect here Jouer à Arma3 avec un AMD R5 1600 AF : Armaverse Scout

Warning about this test :

- all in French [but with nice pictures] , it's a story about my own experience, no less, no more.

- using a RX 5700 has only has a marginal effect on the end result. As soon as the graphics card can displaythe game in Very High graphic quality, the level of the graphics card does not matter.

- so far have only tested with success Corsair Vengeance LPX and G.Skill FlareX [G.Skill AEGIS not recommended!].

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1 hour ago, oldbear said:

Based upon my own quest for  "Minimum Recommended" requirements in order to be able to play Arma3.

I will suggest today in APEX Standard :

CPU : Ryzen R5 1600AF
MoBo : B450
RAM : 16 GB (2x8GB) 3000 MHz
GPU : RX 570 -if available- or GTX 1650
SSD : 500 Go SATA (Windows+Arma3)

You can get a look at what to expect here Jouer à Arma3 avec un AMD R5 1600 AF : Armaverse Scout

Warning about this test :

- all in French [but with nice pictures] , it's a story about my own experience, no less, no more.

- using a RX 5700 has only has a marginal effect on the end result. As soon as the graphics card can displaythe game in Very High graphic quality, the level of the graphics card does not matter.

- so far have only tested with success Corsair Vengeance LPX and G.Skill FlareX [G.Skill AEGIS not recommended!].

I think im opting towards R5 1600AF. Curiously. How much would I have to spend on CPU to get 50ish some 60ish FPS? I think I could pass the RAM, because Arma doesnt drain that match and just put some more money on CPU.

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9 hours ago, eryk0wski said:

I think im opting towards R5 1600AF. Curiously. How much would I have to spend on CPU to get 50ish some 60ish FPS? I think I could pass the RAM, because Arma doesnt drain that match and just put some more money on CPU.

About $200-300+ depends on today's prices, on my current cpu i spent $340 on an intel kaby lake i7700k and thats what i get is 50+-120fps.

And no Ram is important, ram at 3200mhz or better has shown to improve loading times, and eliminate stuttering in the game,

my ram is 32gb clocked to 3600mhz and i see a big difference.

 

I suggest not short changing yourself spending little money based on a budget when you can just get recommended parts by waiting and saving for it and then get them when your ready,

it will actually cost you more to buy something cheaper now that may work ok then to wait and upgrade again. Just a thought.

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In 1-2-3 months you will 100% have more money.

So you will have to look much less on what you can cut down the costs.

 

It's almost always the same. One morning somebody wakes up and thinks he badly needs a ne PC right now and starts to see on what he can cut down the costs.

And this way this person effectively cuts down the costs and needs to upgrade once again much much sooner = waste of money.

 

Should be at least 3200 MHz 16-18-18. Better would be 3200 MHz 14-14-14.

 

It's like the guy in BI Discord yesterday who has bought a new PC with i7-8700K and a RTX 2080, but only 2666 MHz RAM and he can't even OC the CPU or upgrade RAM, since the mainboard is OEM HP mainboard with almost no optiopns in the BIOS and bad power delivery for the CPU.

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12 hours ago, eryk0wski said:

Thanks for the reply.

I'm wondering if the AMD cpu will be good for Arma, because I heard that Intel CPUs are much better for Arma,

also what do you propose to change if I had those 100-200 more. I think I might be able to save that in upcoming months.

 

While that was certainly true some years ago, this is no longer the case.

Since AMD brought out the Zen architecture they have not only closed the performance gap, they also offer more cores for a lower price. (cores don't really help much for max fps in Arma, but the fps drops usually are rarer)

with the latest version of the Zen architecture (Zen2) used in the Ryzen 3XXX CPUs AMD pulled ahead in terms of performance per clock.

now Intels only advantage is their higher maximum clock, so they still have (afaik) the fastest CPUs for Arma, but below that you can pick a Ryzen, especially for a budget gaming PC.

 

In my last post i have already mentioned, a possible change: the R5 3600 instead of the R5 1600.

It is faster (higher clock+architecture gains) and less picky when it comes to RAM. I don't have benchmark values, but judging by clock and architecture gains, i'd say, it's around 25% faster.

 

What you certainly should get soon(ish), is a SSD.

Having Windows and ARMA on an SSD greatly reduces stuttering in game and the general system performance.

Those aren't really expensive anymore, so you might want to get one with 240GB or more.

Without doing much research i'd recommend the Patriot P200 512GB, SATA (P200S512G25). It costs around 65€-70€ around here and the specifications look fine to me.

 

As the others already mentioned, you shouldn't skimp on RAM. ARMA can fill more than 8GB, so 16GB should be the minimum to go with.

While the RAM clock is an important parameter, the timings are more important imo.

RAM clock (e.g. 3600MHz): higher is better.

RAM timing (e.g. 16-18-18): lower is better. the first number is the "CL-Timing", you can take it as an indicator for the timings.

with 3200MHz Ram you shouldn't go slower than CL16, with 3600MHz not slower than CL18.

Since the budget is rather limited, i don't think you can go for anything better than 3200MHz CL16. Maybe 3466, or even 3600 CL16 is in reach.

 

 

Whenever you chose a Mainboard you should select the RAM accordingly to ensure compatibility. Mainboard manufacturers provide lists for each board, where they publish what RAM they have confirmed to work properly with that board. you can find those "qualified vendor lists" (QVL) on the manufacturers' websites.

 

I did that already, and the combination

MSI B450-A Pro Max  +Kingston HyperX Fury RGB DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR4-3200, CL16-18-18

is supposed to work.

But in case you can't get one or both of those, or manage to find better RAM that fits in the budget, you should check any new combination again.

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Must bee at least an AMD R5 3600 to have some reservs so you don't need to upgrade again very soon.

Motherboard should be a B550 chipset (will be released in few months).

3200 MHz 16-18-18 RAM is fine, for you.

By the time B550 chipset motherboards will be released, you will have slightly more money for a rather good PC.

 

11 hours ago, eryk0wski said:

I think I could pass the RAM, because Arma doesnt drain that match and just put some more money on CPU.

Arma can easily go past 16 GB of RAM (if you didn't know) and RAM frequency and timings are very very important, in Arma.

Arma can reach almost 20 GB RAM usage, 30 GB or more paging file and more than 8 GB GPU usage.

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In fact Ryzen R5 1600 AF is technically a R5 2600 unable to match  the 3.9 GHz Boost and therefore limited to 3.6 GHz.

So being based on Zen+ it's less picky than the original R5 1600 when it comes to RAM.

It's working OK on a B450 MoBo using Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200 C16 or G.Skill FlareX 3200 C14.

Be advised that, despite what is said in benchmarks, you can't get a proof of a real difference whatever the timing.

I believe that the 2% variation is lost in the 5% variations of the test environment.

 

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13 minutes ago, oldbear said:

In fact Ryzen R5 1600 AF is a 3.6 GHz R5 2600.

12 threads is good, but single core performance is not very good, especially for Arma, where you need it most.

R5 3600 should be.

He won't die in 2-3 months time, but additional $$$ will make him able to buy a R5 3600.

Waste money to "enjoy" Arma in sub 30 FPS, whereas he wants to have around 60 FPS...

It's ok when you have sub 30 FPS, because you have and old PC, but making a new one to have sub 30 FPS right from the start...

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@eryk0wski since you've already been playing so many years with such low performance, I understand it's not enjoyable, but my advise is to wait just 2-3 months more, and come back here for suggestions, once you have slightly more $$$, to build a PC you will be able to use for several years without to feel the need for an upgrade. Maybe just the GPU, at some point.

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Well, we know nothing about the future.

While the immediate consequences of the pandemic on our daily lives are obvious, the more distant economic consequences are difficult to pin down.

What is certain is that these events are going to have a considerable impact on our gaming hardware environment.

This is why, once again, I will give my "here and now" advice.

 

On a budget a ...

CPU : Ryzen R5 1600AF
MoBo : B450
RAM : 16 GB (2x8GB) 3200 MHz

... combo a quite good in order to play and enjoy the game.

 

Since the start of the discussion here, I had set the R5 1600AF back on the bench table and done some tests ...

cdf8c5tl.jpg

... with a GTX 970 and a GTX 670 instead of the RX 5700.

 

Unsurprisingly, the results with the GTX 970 are of the same level.

The results with the GTX 670 are not so good for the graphic quality, but that hardly changes anything for the FPS level.

In general, it is possible to play on average in a zone just above the 30, in fact between 25 and 50 FPS in MP, which I was able to check on our dedicated Clan server.

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3 hours ago, oldbear said:

CPU : Ryzen R5 1600AF
MoBo : B450
RAM : 16 GB (2x8GB) 3200 MHz

... a quite good combo in order to play and enjoy the game.


In general, it is possible to play on average in a zone just above the 30, in fact between 25 and 50 FPS in MP, which I was able to check on our dedicated Clan server.

Your results aren't representative/realistic, because your clan server/mission(s) is not a King of the Hill mission (100 players) or Evolution PvE mission (dozens of players and hundreds of bots).

I have up to 120 FPS with my 5.0 GHz i7 and GTX 1070 Ti OC.

But on King of the Hill servers or Evolution PvE, it often goes down to sub 30 FPS.

On a R5 1600AF it will be even less with its low 3.6 GHz frequency.

 

And this is vanilla A3. If you play on modded King of the Hill or Evolution PvE...

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Whatever your beliefs, these results show that it is possible to play Arma3 in 2020 on a limited budget 😎

 

So I confirm my "Minimum Recommended" requirements in order to be able to play Arma3 in APEX Standard :

CPU : Ryzen R5 1600AF
MoBo : B450
RAM : 16 GB (2x8GB) 3200 MHz
GPU : RX 570 -if available- or GTX 1650
SSD : 500 Go SATA (Windows+Arma3)

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19 minutes ago, oldbear said:

Whatever your beliefs, these results show that it is possible to play Arma3 in 2020 on a limited budget 😎

No beliefs, but facts. Pay 300€ to still stay under 30 FPS, even if higher than his 22 FPS, it's a waste of money, for me.

 

3 hours ago, oldbear said:

Well, we know nothing about the future.

While the immediate consequences of the pandemic on our daily lives are obvious, the more distant economic consequences are difficult to pin down.

What is certain is that these events are going to have a considerable impact on our gaming hardware environment.

It's normal that prices sooner or later will increase and stocks will be much lower than usually.

But what's the point in wasting 300€ (and for him I think it's a lot of money) to have like 5 FPS more and still under 30 FPS? I see no reason to do so.

 

It's like advising somebody to buy something +- bad (for Arma), because hardware prices will increase in the near feature.

So better have a bad PC (for Arma), even if not as bad as the current one?

 

Sure, 12 threads @ 3.6 GHz from 2019 is better than 4 threads @ 3.2 GHz from 2012.

I don't say that R5 1600AF isn't a good CPU for the money and for most of games, but you know how Arma is "optimized".

The problem is Arma itself. But it's still a problem nonetheless.

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What I am saying is that if you want to play Arma3, by "play", I mean run and enjoy it you must not go under the Ryzen R5 1600AF level.

This CPU is nearly at the R5 2600 level running at 3.6 GHz in game with 3.7 GHz Max Boost in fact.

As I am playing the 2 CPUs, I can say that playing Arma3 on a R5 1600AF is like playing it on an i7 4790, from my point of view, it's great !

Please stop your mantra about "sub 30 FPS".

 

For the practical question of purchases, there is a question of opportunity, the R5 1600AF is interesting at 100 € / 110 $.

Beyond, it is better to look towards the R5 2600.

The price of the R5 3600, a much more interesting processor from the point of the game on Arma3 has clearly gone up here in France, last week, with a minimum at 182 €.

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27 minutes ago, oldbear said:

The price of the R5 3600, a much more interesting processor from the point of the game on Arma3 has clearly gone up here in France, last week, with a minimum at 182 €.

Here in Australia the price of SSD's, CPU's, RAM and GPU's have all started to go up in price at least where I usually get my PC parts from and I'm pretty sure the stocks will start to run out also.

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4 hours ago, oldbear said:

As I am playing the 2 CPUs, I can say that playing Arma3 on a R5 1600AF is like playing it on an i7 4790, from my point of view, it's great !

Please stop your mantra about "sub 30 FPS".

 

The price of the R5 3600, a much more interesting processor from the point of the game on Arma3 has clearly gone up here in France, last week, with a minimum at 182 €.

Then join a well known A3 server/mission and then we will talk.

Saying that FPS is great while playing on lighter mission for not that many players and certainly not heavely AI populated makes not much sense to me.

 

In Germany R5 3600 costs 170-180€.

 

You say a R5 1600AF is on level of an i7-4790. But the guy would buy it now. You wanna tell me then that an i7-4790 (R5 1600AF) will deliver good performance for next 3-5 years (time a normal person would try to keep its PC)?

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Groove has facts. Everyone else has opinions.

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28 minutes ago, Tankbuster said:

Groove has facts. Everyone else has opinions.

Sarcasm off.

 

One simply needs to join a heavely populated server and go to a village where everybody is shooting and destroying stuff to have a good idea of client hardware capability.

That's it.

If I launch my own mission with some bots and test harware on it with me being the only player or maybe 2-3 friends with me, it's not representative of anything.

 

When on our public servers there are maybe 10-15 players, client FPS is much better than when there are 30-90 players.

So when playing on a server with not many bots and players (+ no mods), one can think (falsely) that one has good hardware, until one joins another server with a lot of bots and players and a lot of action.

Then you hear those palyers saying that this server is shitty, because on the other FPS is better. So it's "apparently" 100% not a fault of their hardware.

Then when such a player says bad thing about the server and as response hears from other players also present there but with much better hardware and they don't have 23 FPS like him, but much much more... this player can't believe them.

Betetr to think server hardware is weak than own hardware. Good excuse to calm yourself.

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Thanks guys for the very advanced help. After a long thought I decided not to upgrade.

The prices will lover in few months and spending so much money to get maybe 8 fps more seems very unreasonable.

I hope in few month  I will be able to buy some better quality CPU, RAM, Motherboard and SSD and after many years I will be able to take the game into the next level.

Once again I would like to thank you for the help and very reasonable advices, and wish you wonderfull time.

 

 

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