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

[Valken 622]

Did your regional temperature go up? If so, Check your PSU if the fan is working, and if you are not sure, open your case and put a fan next to it. 

 

If it is stable,  it is heat related somewhere else.

 

Then point the fan at different parts, such as the PSU, motherboard VRM heatsinks, motherboard chipset, and so on until you find a problem or none.

 

Last thing if not power or heat related, your HDD or SDD is going bad... it happens but more rare for SSD.

 

It can completely lockup your system for no reason. Probably HDD more than SSD. 

[Smart Games 76]

@Gunter Severloh sometimes some tasks challenge your PC more than you think!

 

For example i tried to run my (i3 9350kf @5ghz) @1,285 V. 

30 min of AIDA64, CPU at 100% usage, no problems.

Then i started a game and Netflix to relax. Everything fine...?

NO, when i opened a ingame shop and it had to load some items, my PC froze. Same thing as you described.

 

Changed my Cpu Voltage to 1.296V and everything is fine now.

 

Maybe your CPU config wasn`t as stable as you thought? Good luck to find it out, maybe I was a help!

[Gunter Severloh 4052]

1 hour ago, Valken said:

Did your regional temperature go up?

No, its like 33-40 degrees F here (USA) outside.

1 hour ago, Valken said:

Check your PSU if the fan is working

I opened my case up, it needed a dusting so did that, hour later as i ended up taking the fan off the block heatsink i got cleaned the fan and block out.

Everything is dusted, actually looking for a blower to buy to do the dusting not with the compressed air in a can, but anyways looked at everything

and i had a rear fan not spinning, check the plug, gave it a little nudge and it started spinning.

 

Theres plenty of ventilation in my case, i have a huge fan, top, front, and side, plus one on CPU/heatsink block, and one on the back panel right behind the heatsink,

so i dont think its overheating in respects, however i did notice at least it seems like the fans aren't getting enough power? Idk

i never had a problem with this, my PSU is a 1000watt so theres plenty of power but the thing acts weak, even the fans all turn like they dont have

enough power or something, maybe i need to adjust my power settings?

Unless im just misunderstanding how fast fans are supposed to be spinning, i mean their all on and you can feel cool air throughout the case.

 

     If you need to get an idea of what my computer looks like i recorded a video of it the same month i finished building it back in Oct 2017,

however whats in the video is two SDDs and an HDD, which is not my setup currently.   Also my voice is a bit deeper now 😄

I currently have 4 SSDs and no HDD anymore.   One SSD the OS is on, and then i have one dedicated to video, and another to my games, the 4th SSD is a 1TB

which i havent used yet so nothing on it, heres the vid of my setup:

 

1 hour ago, Smart Games said:

NO, when i opened a ingame shop and it had to load some items, my PC froze. Same thing as you described. 

Ya, i was doing that, i was back and forth between the game loading mods, loading maps, to the forum here, and on utube as i was researching

something, and i had steam chat going as well because i was chatting with a friend too, im wondering if i just exceeded what my cpu/ram could handle in a small amount of time.

    My ram is overclocked to its maximum as far as i understand, its default i think was like 2800mhz, but its meant to clock up to 3600 which is where its at.

1 hour ago, Smart Games said:

Maybe your CPU config wasn`t as stable as you thought? Good luck to find it out, maybe I was a help!

Ya very possible i just put to much strain on it, and really in my previous post i mentioned that it happened twice, well i was doing the same thing twice

so that might be very well what happened, and yes good points.

 

[Valken 622]

You may have not enough voltage to your CPU and RAM if you have OC'ed it. 

 

When I OC, I do test with Prime95 for stability and WATCH the temperatures when you do this. 

 

My CPU goes up to 100C but I am using an older Corsair H50. For normal gaming,  it gets up to 70 which is fine.

It gets hot, but stable due to voltages, which increases heat ... never ending cycle...

 

Your CPU handles heat way better now as it can OC with less voltages.

 

You can safely bump RAM voltage by 0.05 for Samsung B-dies if you are OCing and tightening the timings... they have been tested up to 2.x voltages but I would not run it like that for daily use. Normal is between 1.35-1.65. Try to keep it as low as possible for stability and heat. Have a fan or air blowing over the RAM heat sinks to help stability.

 

Remember to run different tests. CPU, RAM and GPU to test for stability.

 

Lastly, if you any M2 NVME drives, they get HOT on full read and writes... make sure to have the MB heatsinks for it installed or a thirdparty. Known issue with high speed NVME drives.

 

[oldbear 390]

Well ...

Here, using a browser, while the game is still running, is one of the causes of the concerns encountered.

We must always remember that behind appearances, it is an old engine converted to multi-core but completely allergic to multithreading.

In my opinion, here, the game engine cannot handle interruptions.

 

 

[Tankbuster 1744]

I've had problems in the past -tabbing in and out of the game. So much so that for a long time, I ran the game windowed, but for some time now, perhaps as far back as 1.96, the game has been stable when I'm alt-tabbing in and out of the game in full screen.

tdlr. It used to break if you alt-tabbed it seems better now

[Gunter Severloh 4052]

Hey guys, asking for a friend who gets some micro stuttering on one of my missions even though i dont,

his specs are the following:

 

i7 4770k overclocked to 4ghz

Ram DDr3 1600mhz

Gpu Nvidia 1080

 

I explained that his lower cpu and mainly ram is the issue, can you guys enlighten us on this issue and as to

what cpu and ram would be ideal?

[Tankbuster 1744]

3 hours ago, Gunter Severloh said:

Hey guys, asking for a friend who gets some micro stuttering on one of my missions even though i dont,

his specs are the following:

 

i7 4770k overclocked to 4ghz

Ram DDr3 1600mhz

Gpu Nvidia 1080

 

I explained that his lower cpu and mainly ram is the issue, can you guys enlighten us on this issue and as to

what cpu and ram would be ideal?

Is he running a HDD or some sort of SSD? For overall smoothness, not necessarily, framerate, often the storage on a system is to blame.

 

Your friend is at the end of the line for socket 1150. There's one chip that is slightly better, the 4790K, which routinely overclock to 4.7 GHz, given half decent cooling and if that's all he can afford, that's the way forward for him. Don't expect massive gains though.

If there's more in the budget, he's looking at a switch to AMD because right now, they are top of the gaming pile, not because they are much faster in Arma, but because they are so much cheaper than the equivalent performing Intel part. Self build AMD PCs with care though, the RAM and motherboard needs to be chosen carefully. If you friend is in the US with you, you're looking at around $1000, perhaps a bit less if you can pick up parts opportunistically as they come on special offer. The existing GTX 1080 could stay in service if required - that'll save a few quid.

There are new Intel CPUs coming and leaked info show they are good, but they don't show how much they will cost.

[Gunter Severloh 4052]

Hes in Australia, upgrading isn't an option for him right now, hes on an SSD, and really just wanted to confirm that his lower CPU and low ram is to blame for the mission.

Although he just said he was playing it in SP and not MP lan where it is meant to be played but i blame the low ram, and speed.

[oldbear 390]

Well ... from my point of view, the Intel Core i7-4770K is still a good asset, running @ 4GHz, it's OK.

I think that the causes of stuttering are to be found either in the use of the hard disk or in the RAM and the management of the memory.

The use of an SSD for Windows 64 bits and Arma3 is now mandatory, and your friend has done the right thing

For the memory, there are several aspects, it is better to have 16 GB of RAM a little faster than the average but especially that this RAM is exclusively used by Arma3 in game.

It is very important to deactivate at startup the applications which run in the background in the  startup  tab of the  task manager  of windows

 

You must disable all !

In your friend case, no other software or application should run during the game apart from Arma3 and the communication software.

 

[Valken 622]

Also RAM speed. I had a DDR3-1600 kit, still have it in a box, but once I upgraded to DDR3-2400CL10, I gained more minimum FPS. It runs very good now on SSD with a 1060 GTX.

 

It matters to ARMA and some CPU intensive games more than a GPU upgrade, but that your friend has a good GPU. Just bad memory performance holding back the full potential of the CPU.

[Hostilian 11]

On 12/6/2020 at 5:43 AM, Gunter Severloh said:

Hey guys, asking for a friend who gets some micro stuttering on one of my missions even though i dont,

his specs are the following:

 

i7 4770k overclocked to 4ghz

Ram DDr3 1600mhz

Gpu Nvidia 1080

 

I had my old 3770k running at a stable 4.7GHz. I'd say the 4770k could go a good bit higher. I'd also consider delidding it to lower the temperature.

My previous board didn't have an NVMe adapter on board, but I was able to get a PCIE NVME adapter (relatively cheap) and - with a suitable NVMe drive  (Samsung Evo in my case) - was getting up to 3000MB/sec (read) on that. A big improvement over SSD.

Yep, RAM overclocking is definitely worthwhile. I overclocked mine to 2400 (or so, can't remember) and noticed an improvement.

 

The biggest gain is from upgrading to a DDR4 based platform though (I went to a 8700k a couple of years back, which I have at 5GHz all cores).

I needed to as I'm running a 3440x1440 monitor - it needs the extra grunt.

 

#H

[rowdied 44]

Thinking of upgrading my older Asus 32" VA32AQ WQHD 1440p 5ms IPS 60 hz for this LG 32GK650F-B 32" QHD 144 hz ?

 

What difference would I see in Arma 3 using a 1080ti and i7 -6700k @ 4.2 with 16bg ddr 4 3200mhz ram?

 

I play with resolution of 2560 x 1440p setting on high view distance of 100,000 with objects set to 3000 and average around 40-80 fps is sp and 20-60 fps in mp. Of course this depends upon the mission etc...

 

I don't experience any real motion blur or that much lag. Old eyes maybe lol, but I heard it can make a world of difference in just how smooth games can play.

 

I am thinking of upgrading my vd next spring when stores have stock of the 3080 or 6900xt.

 

Or should I stay with this monitor and wait for the vd instead?

 

I can get the monitor for a great deal now and I am tempted to buy it.

 

thanks

 

 

[Mckennitt 0]

17 hours ago, rowdied said:

Thinking of upgrading my older Asus 32" VA32AQ WQHD 1440p 5ms IPS 60 hz for this LG 32GK650F-B 32" QHD 144 hz ?

 

What difference would I see in Arma 3 using a 1080ti and i7 -6700k @ 4.2 with 16bg ddr 4 3200mhz ram?

 

I play with resolution of 2560 x 1440p setting on high view distance of 100,000 with objects set to 3000 and average around 40-80 fps is sp and 20-60 fps in mp. Of course this depends upon the mission etc...

 

I don't experience any real motion blur or that much lag. Old eyes maybe lol, but I heard it can make a world of difference in just how smooth games can play.

 

I am thinking of upgrading my vd next spring when stores have stock of the 3080 or 6900xt.

 

Or should I stay with this monitor and wait for the vd instead?

 

I can get the monitor for a great deal now and I am tempted to buy it.

 

thanks

 

 

A few years ago I upgraded from a 1080p 60 hz to a 1440p 27' 144 hz gsync, and it has been the best thing i've done last years. Of course, not only for Arma, because in another games the jump is amazing. I think you have too much view distance, that limits yor fps and you could'nt take advantage of 144 hz

[Groove_C 267]

So 11th gen Intel CPUs will have PCI-E 4.0 only from the CPU, 4x (20 lanes in total).

Chipset will be PCI-E 3.0. Same as AMD B550 boards.

[Groove_C 267]

i7-11700K and even more so i9-11900K outperform any of Ryzen 5000 in single-thread and outperform R7 5800X in multi-thread, since all are 8 cores and 16 threads, and this is despite same 16 BM L3 cache.
No need for a lot of L3 cache. AMD needs it only to compensate for chiplets design and slow Infinity Fabric.

PCI-E 4.0 is supported only by the CPU (16 + 4 PCI-E 4.0 lanes), so PCI-E 4.0 is only for one M.2 slot, like on AMD B550 boards.
But this is more than enough for most average users, for Windows and games.

Chipset PCI-E 3.0 with 4000 speed is more than enough for ordinary files like pics, movies or gameplay recordings.

The only question is the price.

Intel can also be overclocked, unlike AMD, where a high boost is only for one or a couple of cores, and when load on all cores, the frequency is immediately significantly lower.
And if you manually OC all AMD cores, then the frequency does not reach the one to which individual cores can boost.

On Intel, by default, the frequency with load on all cores is also lower, but all Intel cores can be OC'ed not only to the default maximum frequency of one core, but even higher!

And RAM can go higher than 3800-4000 MHz and there is no shitty Infinity Fabric and monolithic die design is simply better - lower latencies and more efficient Intel ring bus.

Power draw in Windows and games is more than fine.

Of course, it's "only" 16 threads, but for most users and games it's way more than enough.
Even recording/streaming or compiling/rendering is more than just fine on 16 threads.

It's just that now that there are 24 and 32 threads for us mortals, it leads most people to believe that 16 threads is not much/enough, which is of course not the case at all + it makes a lot of people spend more money than they would have otherwise and drives prices up, be it AMD or Intel.

I was already pissed that all cores frequency on Ryzen 5000 CPUs (when OC'ed) can't reach default single core frequency, not even talking about all cores going higher than single core default frequency, like Intel CPUs always could and still do, when OC'ed.

Finally with good OC and RAM it will be possible to reach 60 FPS min in YAAB 1080p standard.

Just that for the moment i9 will not be more cores, but only higher frequency vs. i7, something like i7-2700K/4790K were vs. i7-2600K/4770K.
Well, it's not only higher stock frequency. It means that i9 will need lower or same voltage for higher frequency than i7 for lower frequency at higher voltage = lower temp and power draw = i9 slightly better chip for much more money (milking).

So basically Intel IPC is slightly higher than AMD, since in synthetics i7-11700K @ 5.0 GHz stock single core boost is 8% better than ~5.0 GHz stock single core boost R9 5950X.
On R7 5800X 4.8 GHz all cores stress test stable is not always possible vs. Intel no problem all cores reaching single core boost of 5.0 GHz and even more, like 5.1 or 5.2 GHz.

 

i9-11900K will of course have higher than 5.0 GHz single core boost of i7-11700K.

 

Arma will approve!

Oh... and imagine all cores scores and performance of Intel, when you OC it to 5.1-5.2 GHz vs. R7 5800X "only" 4.8 GHz all cores and slightly lower IPC than Intel at same frequency.

[buttockhat 0]

Hello everyone,

 

I posted something similar in the part of the forum intended for new players (I'm new to Arma 3 but I've been playing the other games in the series going back to OFP). I'm reposting part of it here for more opinions and because it's clearly the more appropriate location for it:

 

Is anyone more technical-minded, or perhaps with a similar set-up, able to tell me if the following is suitable for both SP and MP play? (I realize that this meets the recommended requirements, but I also know that performance is unpredictable):

 

Intel Core i5-10300H CPU with 16 GB of RAM.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (Mobile).

 

Thank you in advance for any advice.

[Groove_C 267]

i7-11700K: 16 threads | 4.6 GHz all cores boost | 5.0 GHz single core | 16 MB L3 cache
i9-11900K: 16 threads | 4.8 GHz all cores boost | 5.3 GHz single core | 16 MB L3 cache

Kinda like i9-10900K and i9-10850K.

Intel shouldn't have used i9 designation this time around.
Should have been both i7, since same number of threads.

[oldbear 390]

@buttockhat ... I will not change the content of my previous answer

 

A laptop based upon ... Intel Core i5-10300H CPU with 16 GB of RAM and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (Mobile), is OK.

You just need to add an SSD of sufficient size for Windows 10 64, Arma3 and the essential addons and mods that will be added.

In this hypothesis I would say that a TLC SSD of 500 GB is the minimum, one of 1TB is good (or 500 GB x 2) everything depends on the nature of the available slots

 

I will just add that Arma3 being still a CPU dependent game, you need a laptop built with the game in mind, meaning it must feature an efficient CPU/GPU cooling system.

In game, the processor will be used intensively and continuously and therefore go up to the highest frequency authorized by the laptop manufacturer which is not necessarily equal to the 4.50 GHz Turbo Max  official specifications' frequency.

 

 

[buttockhat 0]

@oldbear thank you very much

[Gunter Severloh 4052]

Hey fellas, have a request for you computer arma experts, theres a thread

https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/232277-cant-drive-in-first-person-view-due-to-death-animation-bug/

i have been helping Bandit here with trying to find the cause of this death animation bug he gets when he and

or AI enter almost any vehicle, he owns all the dlcs.

    After clearing his cache, uninstalling the game, ect,. the issue still persists, he had recently contacted BI too whom told him what to do

but even that didn't change anything, my last thoughts on this is for him to wipe the drive but then im doubting that will fix anything.

 

     In the back of my mind im thinking its a hardware issue, like a bad gpu driver, or something with the cpu, idk

Im not familiar with his specs nor have the know how on what to tell him, so this is why im asking you guys as you would know better,

so im wondering if any of you who know computers well could review the thread and look at his specs and

maybe give some insights or ideas of what coulld possibly be going on and or what else he could try or test,

it may be something i havent thought of or he hadn't tried yet, idk

 

I'd hate to give up on him, and let him just deal with playing the game like that, he has a video that shows clearly whats happening

im rather perplexed as to whats causing the issue considering hes just in the editor with some vehicles and 1 AI under his command,

no mods, no scripts.

[Aaron236 0]

Hey guys/gals

 

I have a:

 

R5 2600 OC.. 4GHz

16GB ADATA XPG DDR4 Running at 3000mhz

RTX 2070 Super

Game is currently installed on a HDD, but have a SSD + M.2 installed too

 

I have been having issues running inside of city's  or looking at them on multiplayer, frames dropping below 30 fps, may I add this server is modded, but not heavily modded and is running on altis. I can't seem to get the game above 60 fps, only time it will surpass 60 fps is when flying over water. Surely with a system like this, running at 1080p should alow me to play above 60 fps, I use the auto detect graphics option, with the exception of turning all bloom and blur settings off, all the other settings are usually maxed out, now changing the graphics settings lower does pretty much nothing at all, view distance for me stays at 1.8km with objects and 1.2km, changing these lower doesn't seem to make a big difference either. VSYNC is also disabled, I changed my launching parameters too in the launcher, enabling multi core and inputing 6 cores with hyperthreading enabled.

 

I hear people in game with lesser specs then my system getting better frame rates inside of city's.

 

If anyone else has anymore useful tips that would be appreciated.

 

P.S I have watched countless YouTube videos on how to improve arma, but don't seem to see anyone optimising settings for my build.

 

TIA

Aaron

 

[Tankbuster 1744]

The game is as optimised as it can be - we're using an old game engine here. I wouldn't bother with hyperthreading and core counting and such like, they'll make no difference.You won't get more than 60 FPS in a complex mission in city areas - that's just how it is.

 

But ask yourself, do you need more than 60 FPS? If you're used to Call of Warface: Elite Edition or Sniper Twitchshooter Warfare Remastered with the bunnyhop mod, then yes, 30 FPS is going to feel odd, but this isn't those games. Arma3 tests your tactical planning, your spatial awareness of your team , your teamwork, your communications skills, your ability to let someone else take the shot, your patience, your ability and willingness to wait, prone, for that one fella to come back around on patrol so your can brass him up from 1500m away. It doesn't test your ability to hold the third person aimpoint on a ghosted outline that is behind a wall, while leaping sideways and doing 3 magazine changes.

 

Oh... I might have got a bit carried away there. 🙂 Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Sniper Twitchshooter 11 as much as the next fella, but A3 is different. To use a horrible phrase my boss uses and makes me want to kill her, 'manage your expectations'.

[Aaron236 0]

7 hours ago, Tankbuster said:

The game is as optimised as it can be - we're using an old game engine here. I wouldn't bother with hyperthreading and core counting and such like, they'll make no difference.You won't get more than 60 FPS in a complex mission in city areas - that's just how it is.

 

But ask yourself, do you need more than 60 FPS? If you're used to Call of Warface: Elite Edition or Sniper Twitchshooter Warfare Remastered with the bunnyhop mod, then yes, 30 FPS is going to feel odd, but this isn't those games. Arma3 tests your tactical planning, your spatial awareness of your team , your teamwork, your communications skills, your ability to let someone else take the shot, your patience, your ability and willingness to wait, prone, for that one fella to come back around on patrol so your can brass him up from 1500m away. It doesn't test your ability to hold the third person aimpoint on a ghosted outline that is behind a wall, while leaping sideways and doing 3 magazine changes.

 

Oh... I might have got a bit carried away there. 🙂 Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Sniper Twitchshooter 11 as much as the next fella, but A3 is different. To use a horrible phrase my boss uses and makes me want to kill her, 'manage your expectations'.

Thanks for the reply, I never really play any of the bunny hopping games, I play a lot of arma 2, and recently acquired arma 3.

 

I understand that the game has a lot to render in game with view distances, and other textures, but would slapping the game on my m.2 nvme make any difference? Will that maybe help with fps increase in towns? 

 

I just feel like there is something that I could do to increase or optimize the game slightly better.

 

I love the play style of arma series, even going back to 2001 when cold war crisis was released, I picked that game up as soon as it came out and love the attention to detail tactics and don't have a problem with sitting in a Bush for 15 minutes waiting for the other player to get in patient 😀 

 

 

[Tankbuster 1744]

It seems I did you a disservice, accusing you of being a bunnyhopper 🙂 Apologies.

 

An M.2 won't really help with FPS, but it will help with overall smoothness and loading times of both textures and missions. I'd recommend one.