Request for a "Minimum" requirements update

[Brisse 78]

Oh for f*** sake. And here I thought you might be more reasonable than all the other hardcore Arma fans that will defend the games performance issues to their death.

For every argument you give, and can think of one or more counter arguments, such as:

 

"Phenom II x4 980 there have been no real improvements"

Just plain wrong. True, gaming performance hasn't changed much in titles with few threads, but multi threaded games has seen large improvements. Also, I don't just play games on my rig. One example is video encoding. I can encode 1080p video at more than 100fps with my FX-8350, which is competitive with mid to high end Skylake processors.Try that with a Phenom II X4 (which I did own many years ago by the way). I bet it doesn't even achieve half of that speed.

 

"The cause being choices being made by AMD in processors architecture"

Poor choices for gaming perhaps, but they have actually been really competitive in productivity tasks, especially if you consider the performance per $, with the AMD processors beating out Intel CPU's costing twice, sometimes tripple the money.

 

"Here is a display of average benchmarks results of 8 games : Crysis 3, Arma3, X-Plane 10, F1 2013, Watch Dogs, Total War : Rome 2, Company of Heroes, Anno 2070 :"

Think about this for a second: All of those games are perfectly playable and enjoyable on my rig, unlike Arma 3. That pretty much invalidates the point you were trying to make.

 

"You are not the only player lured to AMD based "Gamer" rigs by marketing sirens' song"

I am perfectly happy with my current PC, thank you very much. Also, it isn't just built for gaming. It's supposed to be able to do anything I need it to do, which includes several productivity tasks. I don't build my PC's based on what the marketing campaigns tell me. I build them based on real world performance per dollar, efficiency, sound and heat output, features, quality, stability etc... Also: I will not ever let Arma 3 influence my choices when it comes to picking PC parts, because it isn't representative of any other software besides itself. One should only do that if Arma 3 is the only thing you do with your PC. That will never be the case for me, so Arma 3 is completely irrelevant when I pick parts.

 

"Some game must be played at a high level of FPS, it's not Arma* case."

The criteria I posted were specifically meant for Arma 3. If I had been talking about CSGO I would have said "stable 144fps minimum, no stuttering".

 

"Arma* is a "slow" game, infantry based with a tactical orientation mostly fought in short range firing exchange or CQB fight."

That is definitely not an excuse for poor performance. Quite the opposite actually. I can't even begin to think about how many times I've spotted an enemy in my peripheral view, and try to move my cross-hair over him, and instead of being met with reliable, consistent, and predictable response from the game, I'm met with huge stuttering. When the stuttering stops, I'm already dead. Arma 3 is no different than any other shooter in this regard. It's just that some players have gotten used to putting up excuses for issues that shouldn't exists. The stuttering definitely hurts game-play in Arma 3. Not just infantry game-play, but also things such as driving a vehicle. Stuttering has actually made me crash vehicles, leading to the destruction of the vehicle, and injured or killed passengers. Stuff like that is among the most frustrating things you can stumble upon in gaming.

 

"Over 30 FPS, the game is quite playable."

It could have been, but the thing is, Arma 3 doesn't just plague us with low frame-rates. It combines low frame-rate with very irregular rendering times for each individual frame, making everything so much worse. It's what I mean when I say stuttering.

[oldbear 390]

LOL, cool down your rockets, sonny.

 

Of course, I am a big, old, dedicated Arma Fan, so what's wrong ?

Yes, I enjoy playing this game and that the reason why I am asking BI to go for a needed Arma 3 hardware requirements "Aggiornamento" because, as I have said in my initial post describing the situation is "unfair" ATM from my point of view.

I was using this strong word in purpose, not to help a lost crusade under the AMD FX/APU mourners banner, but to allow people to go play my most preferred game with the right playing tools.

 

About AMD takink a wrong turn, you can read this October 24, 2011 review :  Analyzing Bulldozer: Why AMD’s chip is so disappointing

So you can't say you don't know ...

 

I am waiting eagerly the RX 480 release, I am also waiting Zen based CPUs  with hopes.

Hopes for people without much £/$€ to get playable Arma* rigs.

[Valken 622]

Interesting analysis.

 

I was wondering have you ever compared the dual cores overclocked clock to clock - EG 4 GHZ vs each other and then to a quad core also at the same speed? I suspect a highly overclocked dual core may actually be enough for ARMA 3 so long as the memory controllers are the same and coupled with  fast enough ram.

 

It would be interesting to see if a 5 GHZ dual core would outperform a 4.5 quad core for the same generation - Haswell to Haswell, Skylake to Skylake.

 

Also, regarding the new visual upgrades, the water is shader heavy or appears to be so. Thus older gpus with less shader modules will perform less.  

 

Resolution, AA and actual pixel pushing is usually down to ROPs while geometry and textures are down to TMUs.  Thus you usually see Nvidia pushing ahead vs AMD in higher resolutions until you become shader limited which is when AMD cards with more shader units pull ahead. Most Nvidia cards have more ROPs and TMUs where as AMD balances towards shaders and rightly so since all the lighting and effects are shader based.

 

But Tanoa is all texture, geometry and shader heavy.

 

Exceptions would be a 980 Ti or 390/Fury for example in that is a monster of a GPU. I bet highend GPU owners will push Tanoa fine so long as their CPU can keep up.

[oldbear 390]

Well ... I am not a big fan of OC and here it's not really my concern.

I don't intend to discuss about the best challenger between Haswell and Skylake

Even if I had an idea about the effects of a small amount of eDRAM on Broadwell ...

 

My concern is about "Minimum"

 

My own knowledge is limited by the data I can collect from the equipment I own now .. or I had tested in the recent past.

I think that Bohemia Interactive has collected a large data base about how the game is behaving on a lot of different PCs.

 

Here and now, what I am just looking for is an update of the "Minimum" requirements

[I give up 152]

Interesting analysis.

 

I was wondering have you ever compared the dual cores overclocked clock to clock - EG 4 GHZ vs each other and then to a quad core also at the same speed? I suspect a highly overclocked dual core may actually be enough for ARMA 3 so long as the memory controllers are the same and coupled with  fast enough ram.

 

It would be interesting to see if a 5 GHZ dual core would outperform a 4.5 quad core for the same generation - Haswell to Haswell, Skylake to Skylake.

 

Also, regarding the new visual upgrades, the water is shader heavy or appears to be so. Thus older gpus with less shader modules will perform less.  

 

Resolution, AA and actual pixel pushing is usually down to ROPs while geometry and textures are down to TMUs.  Thus you usually see Nvidia pushing ahead vs AMD in higher resolutions until you become shader limited which is when AMD cards with more shader units pull ahead. Most Nvidia cards have more ROPs and TMUs where as AMD balances towards shaders and rightly so since all the lighting and effects are shader based.

 

But Tanoa is all texture, geometry and shader heavy.

 

Exceptions would be a 980 Ti or 390/Fury for example in that is a monster of a GPU. I bet highend GPU owners will push Tanoa fine so long as their CPU can keep up.

I can answer to that.

I made the test with an i7.

1 core at 4.5 Ghz and 4 core at 1.66 Ghz.

By far the 4 core at 1.66 Ghz perform better than one core at 4.5 Ghz.

Also most of time people makes some confusion between cores and cpu's.

A quadcore does not mean that we have 4 cpu's, means that your cpu is spreading the work in four ways.

Is like that you have a 100 Kilo guy working alone and then you get four 25 Kilo guys, obviously you still have 100 Kilo in total , but just because they are working in parallel the job gets done quickly.

[oldbear 390]

You have said "confusion" ...

 

In fact it's not working that way IRL due to tasks hierarchy and the needed tasks scheduling ...

 

While the electrician is making hole in the wall to lay the cables, the plasterer and the painter are doing nothing.

The painter must wait the plaster is dry to do his job and the boss is howling that nothing will be ready on time.

 

Back to CPUs and Arma*

 

The tasks are not just cut in 2,4,6 or 8 equal parts ...

Each job is different and is having it's own schedule

There are a lot of waiting states, loops and so on

 

Have a look at the way it looks on Arma2

 

 

 

Source : Dev Blog : Real Virtuality Going Multicore November 23, 2009

[pd3 25]

@oldbear

It's funny that you mentioned the disparity between the Pentium 4s of old versus comparable AMDs, I remember those days, and I didn't experience much of an issue with OFP, however comparing other games, specifically Morrowind performance on my machine and to that of a comparable AMD processor of a friend's, I had absolutely game-wrecking stuttering whereas he had none at all. It was extremely frustrating as my graphics card, processor and ram were not inexpensive.

It does seem as if the tables have turned, and I think my next build will have to be intel and nvidia.

Also, thanks for all the info, I'm glad I've hung on to 1.58, I just don't think based on how I play the game would be playable with a 10-20 FPS drop, and the sorts of missions I play are at the absolute minimum threshold of what I would consider enjoyable, so "scaling them down" - simply isn't an option.

[oldbear 390]

@ pd3 : ... I didn't see where is the problem.

1° Using BiTools and Tom's 'way-around', I am testing on the same rig 3 versions :

- Apex Preview (because I have purchased APEX of course)

- 1.60 (Main)

- 1.58(Legacy)

 

2° With last "preview" version, the FPS drop has been limited, you can disable "Water reflexions" and the only item pulling hard on the FPS left in the AA&PP" section is FSAA ... just as it was before.

 

3° I believe that there will be an opportunity to give AMD a chance if RX 480 is as good as it seems to be [at the cost of a GTX 1080, you can get a nice playable Arma3  complete platform !]

 

4° On the CPU front ... only smoke, vapor and paper launch on the AMD side, so in order to stay "Zen", you can go for a nice i3-6320 ... probably the best friend for Arma* player on a budget.

[I give up 152]

With any decent Intel quad core, you should not have issues with game. Forget AMD in matters of cpus for A3, the game really needs cpu and these do not have juice enough.

But first look a bit where the things start, because without it (no matters your hardware) you will be unsatisfied. 

 

Memory. 

There are 2 ways to improve the game performance that direclty will have influence in cpu and gpu operations.

1. If you have ram enough (at least 16 GB) just disable pagefile on your system operative. This will force the game to use ram (physical memory) in exclusive for memory load and management. The HDD will be used only for the game load, at start. This will bring huge benefits iin matters of cpu and gpu utilization since the timing needed  for memory operations is reduced. Just make sure that you have a decent ram (frequency/latency balanced).

2. If you dont have ram enough and you need pagefile, then make sure that you have  the fastest HDD that you can (SSD or above). In this case the HDD (or at least part of it) will be used to load and manage memory, means that your HDD is continously feeding your cpu and gpu. Still no matter the HDD, in this situation, your cpu and gpu will perform worse, since the waiting times will be considerably increased, (usually called as cpu bottleneck and consequently gpu).

 

For graphics, maybe can be a good move to wait for Nvidia 1070 and then compare prices with RX 480. Everything points that both will be very similar. 

And from mine experience with both (AMD and Nvidia) in this game, I can say without doubts that for A3, Nvidia always has been the best option.

[oldbear 390]

@ bratwurste : your answer is off topic, my concern is about "Minimal" requirements, not "Recommended" ones.

 

So ATM, in this line of research, from my own experience, the Minimum requirement for Arma3 could be a Pentium G4500/Nvidia GTX 750 combo.

I have not the money to test the AMD counterpart such as AMD Athlon X4 880K/AMD R7 265, so on this point it's a question mark.

 

I am not convinced by the switch from 8 Go to 16 Go.

The maximum I had in game [when I had switched from 8 Go to 16 Go] was a 2/4 FPS variation, more or less lost in game FPS variations due to the context and AIs.

After having done some tests with and without pagefile, I went back to pagefile usage.

Some Images processing softwares are not working without pagefile and I don't want to open the hood each time I am using Photoshop after Arma.

Having both OS and Steam Library on the same SSD seems a working solution ...

 

As far as I has experienced, "small" AMD/ATI GPU are working well.

R7-250 and HD 7770 are good for the job with Crimsom drivers.

Of course, I had depressing gaming experiences with some high level Saphire cards [... dead or burnt now], but we all know that AMD was either pushing too hard its "big" GPU and/or not releasing the best drivers.

We will see in the future how the upcoming RX 450 will do.

[I give up 152]

Well mate, my concerns are in "Recommended" and not in "Minimal".

For "Minimum" requirements, that's ok, Its the minimum that you need to run the game, no matters how it will run.

Now, recomended, it is obvious that the recomended ones are not according to what is needed to run the game decently.

But, looking at games in Steam and the hardware requirements, I would say that A3 is inside average.

[oldbear 390]

From my point of view, when you are saying ... "For "Minimum" requirements, that's ok, Its the minimum that you need to run the game, no matters how it will run." ... you are wrong.

It's else a huge misunderstanding else a false statement, and nothing metaphysical about it.

Of course Arma3 can "run" on Core2Duo E6600/HD 4870 or Athlon II x2 250/GTS 450 rigs but under 20 FPS on "Low" Arma3 is unplayable on MP and you can't play the full Campaign.

That's why I am telling the situation "unfair", no ethics involved, only a crude assessment.

What a player expect from a game is to be "playable" not only "run-able".

 

An other way to say it is to say that the official "Recommended" requirements were in fact the minimum to play the game.

I am using the past because with "Visual Update" release, a new load have been added on the GPU.

As far as I had experienced with my own R7-250, an entry level GPU will bottleneck the CPU unless you cut off all the sexy Visual effects and all the AA&PP section making the game still playable but ugly.

[I give up 152]

Ok mate.

Got your point,

[oldbear 390]

Well, I will not give up ...

Here are some updated requirements new suggestions :

 

MINIMUM

PROCESSOR: Intel Core i3 3240 or AMD FX-6350
GRAPHICS: GeForce GT 740 or AMD HD 7750
GPU MEMORY: 2 GB
RAM: 8 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB free space
OS: Windows10 64bit

RECOMMENDED

PROCESSOR: Quad core CPU Intel Core i5 3570K
GRAPHICS: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7850 or better
GPU MEMORY: 2 GB
RAM: 8 GB
HARD DRIVE: 25 GB free space
OS: Windows10 64bit

 

[oldbear 390]

Now after as the opportunity to bring in a 'Splendid' update of official Requirements for Arma3 has been missed but due to official requirements update, I had to change this thread name, so now  it became Request for a "Minimum" requirements update

 

So even if we don't get an official requirements 'Splendid' update, I must recognize that the released "aggiornamento" is welcome.
Even if no move has been made for minimum CPUs level and some inconsistencies persist it is a rather good new.

Here are the updated official requirements for Arma3 :

MINIMUM

OS Windows 7 SP1 64-bit
PROCESSOR Intel Dual-Core 2.4 GHz / AMD Dual-Core Athlon 2.5 GHz
GRAPHICS NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT/ AMD Radeon HD 5670 / Intel HD Graphics 4000 with 512 MB VRAM
DirectX® 10
RAM 4 GB
HARD DRIVE 20 GB free space
AUDIO DirectX® compatible on-board
OTHER Internet connection and free Steam account to activate
Dual Layer compatible when installing from DVD

RECOMMENDED

OS Windows 7 / 8 / 10 64-bit
PROCESSOR Intel Core i5-4460 / AMD FX 4300
GRAPHICS NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 / AMD Radeon HD 7800 Series with 2 GB VRAM
DirectX® 11
RAM 6 GB
HARD DRIVE 25 GB free space, SSD / Hybrid HDD / SSHD storage
AUDIO DirectX® compatible soundcard
OTHER Internet connection and free Steam account to activate

 

Comments : 

* Even if disabling the sexiest "Visual Update" parameters in order to gain some performances is possible, it's still NOT possible to play with a Core2 Duo E6600 or un Athlon II x2 250 based rig even if I must admit the game is running with such CPUs.
* The "Intel Core i5-4460 / AMD FX 4300" part is the kind of inconsistency I am speaking of.
The Intel Core i5-4460 is a rather good CPU, the kind "you must have" in order to play.
The AMD FX 4300 is more or less on par with an i3 2120 for general purpose usage, it can be a rather good candidate for "playable minimum", but here Arma3 gaming wise, it's out of place.

 

Edit 2016/07/30 : post defragmentation

[oldbear 390]

Updated suggested "Minimum" requirements.

Based upon what I have read and learned from my own experience.

 

MINIMUM

 

OS Windows 7/8.1/10 64-bit
PROCESSOR Intel Pentium 2 cores/4 threads 3.5 GHz / AMD Ryzen3 4 cores 3.1/3.4 GHz
GRAPHICS NVIDIA GT 1030 / AMD RX550
DirectX ® 11
RAM 8 GB
HARD DRIVE 25 GB free space, SSD / Hybrid HDD / SSHD storage
AUDIO DirectX ® compatible on-board
OTHER Internet connection and free Steam account to activate

[oldbear 390]

Updated suggested "Minimum" requirements in "APEX Standard"

 

Based upon what I had post on JeuxVideo.com Arma3 Forums [edit 16 January 2020]

 

A Recommended Minimum config to the "APEX Standard" must allow playing at a good level of FPS, regularly above 30 FPS with a graphic quality in "Very High" and a visibility of 3000 to 3500m.
This level of performance can be achieved in 1080p with a config based upon ...

 

CPU: Ryzen R5 2600 /i3 9100
RAM: 16 GB (2x8 GB) 3000 MHz
Graphics card: RX 570 / GTX 1650
SSD: 500 GB (Windows + Arma3)

 

Of course it's a bit more than the "Minimum" allowing to run the game over 20 FPS based on ...

 

OS Windows 10 64-bit
PROCESSOR Intel Pentium Gold G5400 / AMD Ryzen3 1300X
GRAPHICS NVIDIA GT 1030 / AMD RX550
RAM 8 GB
HARD DRIVE 50 GB free space, SSD / Hybrid HDD / SSHD storage

 

From my point of view, this game must be played over 30 FPS in order to be enjoyable !