Hardware advice needed

[Morbid Jester 0]

... is it worth it for ARMA?

I am running XP Pro SP3, E8500 at stock speeds 2 GB of RAM and a GeForce 8800 GTS 640 (G80).

The trip down ATI lane with a 4870 was not successful, since it did not boost my frames in FSX and gave me bluescreens and/or inferior performance to the GTS in ARMA.:wall:

So the backup plan (GTX 260) comes into play. What are your thoughts? Will it perform better in ARMA tahn the 8800? I expect the card to give me only minor problems in FSX (1-3 frames less according to Tomshardware, which would be -tolerable)

Thanks in advance for your comments.

[Tha_Man 0]

The GTX260 is a very powerful GPU, IMO. Quite a bit more powerful than a 8800GTS 640, so I'm not sure where you found that your fps in FSX will decrease. You might have confused it with a 8800GTS 512 (G92 core) perhaps, but _still_ the GTX260 should be faster! The AMD 4870 should be able to perform likewise, did you try a clean Windows install when switching to it?

But that aside: you will surely not lose any performance in Arma when switching to a GTX260 I believe! Although most of its performance gain is probably in growing textures and FSAA/AF operations.

(but I don't believe this is what this forum is intended for...)

[desertjedi 3]

I use both an E8500 and a GTX 260.

Given Arma's use of only one core, it's need for a very powerful cpu and its seemingly poor usage of SLI, I think the above combo is fantastic for ArmA.  It would probably do well for ArmA 2 as well.

The GTX 260 would be a nice upgrade from a GTS (640). It's so powerful that it may be actually be held back from a stock-clocked E8500.

Both my cpu and video card are overclocked. The E8500 is at 4.2Ghz. When I got that cpu, my 3Dmark06 score went from 12,500 to 17,300. The 12,500 was from an E2180 running at the same speed as a stock E8500.

Given the power of the GTX 260, you might actually find that clocking your E8500 higher actually gives you better frame rates - especially with many AI around.

The above combo gives me nutty-high frame rates with all video options set to Very High but having AI present always pulls it down.

[Morbid Jester 0]

Thanks for the quick response!

The info about the "inferior" performance came from Toms Hardware (they use FSX for Benchmarks) and some folks over at AVSIM that reported similar results.

The GTS 512 with the G92 core performs about as good as my GTS 640 in FSX and better in other Apps. Again, according to TH and AVSIM.

The Radeon seemed to have a memory problem with all driver revisions from 8.6 through 8.10. As for the "clean Windows"

argument: nope. but I know how to get rid of those pesky driver remains such problems can be attributed to. No avail.

The card performed great in other Apps (FSX was ok, not stellar) such as Call of Duty or Crysis, I had tested that on my machine. It did not play well with ARMA. So it had to go.

[LT.Schaffer 0]

Get the GTX260 for sure

Mine Works Flawless in ArmA

Core 2 Quad 9450&Evga GTX 260 Combo here

[desertjedi 3]

There seems to be a "vibe" on this forum that Arma has troubles with the 4870. I had no clue whether I should get an HD4870 or a GTX 260 but what I read here kicked me over to the Nvidia side. I also wasn't too impressed with ATI letting the 4870 idle at 70c in order to keep the card quiet. But that's all "adjustable" now - thankfully.

Then again, there is some problem with Arma and the 8800s you see posted here too. I never ran into any problem with my 8800GTS 512.

Arma kicks some serious butt with a GTX 260.  

[LT.Schaffer 0]

Arma kicks some serious butt with a GTX 260.  

Yes It Does

[Morbid Jester 0]

There seems to be a "vibe" on this forum that Arma has troubles with the 4870. I had no clue whether I should get an HD4870 or a GTX 260 but what I read here kicked me over to the Nvidia side. I also wasn't too impressed with ATI letting the 4870 idle at 70c in order to keep the card quiet. But that's all "adjustable" now - thankfully.

Then again, there is some problem with Arma and the 8800s you see posted here too. I never ran into any problem with my 8800GTS 512.

Arma kicks some serious butt with a GTX 260.  

My 8800GTS 640 (G80) ran circles around the 4870 for some reason. So no probs with an 8800 Nvidia card on my end either.

Just for the record: I'm not knocking ATI/AMD here. It may or may not be down to my system.

If it wasn't for ARMA, I would not have considered an upgrade at all.

So all in all it looks like: "Sell Radeon on EBay, get GTX260 when the money from the Radeon rolls in."

I'd venture I'll get some money back out of the 4870. It isn't a bad card at all. It just didn't work for me...

[Deadfast 43]

...wasn't too impressed with ATI letting the 4870 idle at 70c in order to keep the card quiet. But that's all "adjustable" now - thankfully...

Always has been.

You just had to play a little with CCC's config (or use other SW).

[twisted 127]

i have 4870 and Arma runs really smooth. previous video card was Nvidia 8800 GTS 320MB and Arma ran pretty damn ok on that. 4870 is a big improvement but not as great as i would have thought.

[desertjedi 3]

Quote[/b] ]Always has been. You just had to play a little with CCC's config

Not at release. Once the "tweak" made the rounds on the forums, it was good to go.

Quote[/b] ](or use other SW).

Not at release. People had to wait for Tray Tools to support it.

[kklownboy 43]

uh.. that's what he said?  with the config. But since you DONT own a ati card you know how the profile system works? And for your earlier Crossfire fud, i am running CFX @ 2048x1536 max/high.  4870x2's. Game runs great. And my GX2 ran fine with the newer Drivers.

  I wouldn't buy a card with less than 1gig of RAM for this game. Makes a difference.

A 260 would be a fine card, a 280 even better.

[Deadfast 43]

...

You buy HW the day it gets released?

I don't so neither is really relevant.

[mrcash2009 0]

Just gone from BFG OC 8800 GTS 640MB > BFG OC Maxcore GTX260 896MB and im not complaining one bit  

Im sure it would run even sweeter with proper dual core support too, but Im now happy that Arma2 will run well and things for the future at least.

OFF TOPIC: Had a blast on Crysis demo 1400x960 16:9 8x AA 16x AF and it ran as smooth with some fps hits (but nothing at all unplayable) all setting highest around 30-40 FPS, and with other card that was 1280/960 some setting to medium with only 2x AA and 4xAF which was still jittering and slide-show ish when firing on occasion anbd in vehicles and using the motion blurr.

[LtCmdrBoon 0]

the best gpu for fsx is the 9800gx2

it beats the 280 even

here is a video i made of fsx running ~100fps

arma can be tricked into running in SLI mode also which helps.... but atm arma won't work with the nvidia 180.43 beta drivers