Will my PC Run this? What CPU/GPU to get? What settings? System Specifications.

[bangtail 0]

TBH, the SLI should make a difference with a 3.8 ghz i7.

What driver are you using and have you used cpucount/disabled hyperthreading?

[SeaVee 10]

drivers 197.13

What is CPU count and how/why disable hyper-threading?

The benchmark FPS are ALOT lower (by about half) vs what I get in my regular single player gaming.

Edited March 29, 2010 by SeaVee

[bangtail 0]

drivers 197.15

What is CPU count and how/why disable multi-threading?

A2 doesn't like it on the i7 because of the virtual cores.

Add this to your command line

-cpucount=4

So, for example :

 C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\arma2.exe -cpucount=4 

That works for me but some people actually have to disable it in the BIOS for it to work.

[Litos 10]

See my prior post (6th above).

Just ran a bunch of benchmarks (vanilla Arma2 patched to 1.05 no mods) on my rig with SLI on/off, Physix On/OFF, vsunc forced ON/OFF. No material differences in FPS (22-23 in Benchmark 1 and 24-25 in Benchmark 2) on the following settings so at least with these visual settings the game appears to be CPU-limited on my rig versus GPU-limited.

In "regular" single player gaming I get consistently lows in the low-mid 40 FPS and about 85% of the time between 55-60 (with Vsync on which I prefer).

<screen>

My rig:

i7 920 overclocked to 3.8GHZ

2GB Corsair Dominator DDR3

WinXP32

GTX260 SLI (driver 197.13)

ASROCK X58 motherboard

Corsair HX850W PSU

Creative Audigy 2ZS (mobo sound disabled)

42" LCD 1920X1080 @60Hz

TIR5

Voice Activated Commands (VAC)

Had TIR5 and VAC running while benchmarking too.

Alright, I just gave those settings a shot.

I set everything to being the same except I turned off antialiasing and my resolution is 1600x900.

On the carrier intro scene (in the default ArmA 2 menu), I get about 55-75 FPS. I'd say these are the settings I'd want to run on so that my videos actually LOOK GOOD, well, except the view distance, I'd probably want to pop that up a bit, especially for the video that features a plane flying about.

Also I heard that my CPU is pretty overclockable, in fact it can be gotten to as far as 3.4 GHz on the stock heatsink, "easily", according to the Newegg reviews.

Also someone mentioned reinstalling windows, no I am not going to do that, just saying in advance. Oh and yes I defragged my hard drives.

Here are my full specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @2.83 GHz (I'm thinking of getting this fan to overclock it with, and I already have 6 fans in my case by the way)

4GB DDR2 RAM

GTX 260

MSI P7N SLI Platinum motherboard

NZXT Temptest case

And a bunch of shitty hard drives. (My OS is running on a faster SATA drive, thankfully). My games (including ArmA 2) are installed on a separate IDE HD, and I record to another IDE HD.

So let's see: Someone mentioned that my GTX and processor should be "fine" on medium settings depending on the resolution.

That certainly doesn't sound too convincing because as far as I know the GTX is still pretty powerful, and ArmA 2 itself is more CPU dependent than GPU - which is why I got the Q9550, and am planning to overclock it.

It also doesn't sound convincing how someone mentioned that getting a new HD wouldn't improve my FPS too much. Then what will? Maybe a combination of overclocking the processor and getting a new HD? Because that seems like the only real option that seems to make sense. What do you guys think?

And thanks to everyone again.

Edited March 29, 2010 by Litos

[SeaVee 10]

On the carrier intro scene (in the default ArmA 2 menu), I get about 55-75 FPS.

What kind of FPS do you get when running the Benchmarks 1 and 2?

You can find the benchmarks in the Single Player>>>Scenarios menu - scroll down near the bottom. Run one and then the other.

It will launch a game sequence of about a minute and a half and at the end show your avg. FPS.

The FPS of the aircraft carrier in the opening menu is not really at all indicative of in-game FPS.

The benchmarks are not necessarily either as they are extremely intensive scenes that in a regular game-play you are unlikely to encounter -ever or certainly not with any regularity. The benchmarks however do give a good indication of how the PC will perform in very demanding (from a PC resource standpoint) scenes. If you get decent FPS there you should get much better FPS in most actual gameplay situations, assuming you kept the same video options. These are also useful for tweaking the various video options, then re-running the benchmarks seeing which options have the biggest impacts on your FPS.

Edited March 29, 2010 by SeaVee

[Litos 10]

Ah right, those were the benchmarks you were talking about.

Alright, I was running on these settings:

They seem alright to me, with the exception of view distance, which is kind of crap when I want to make some high up shots.

The first benchmark was alright, at 25 fps average. The second was a disaster, at 11 FPS.

*sigh* Right now I still blame my hard drives. And I guess my not-yet-overclocked CPU.

[Leon86 13]

It's making more sense now, I run on the same viewdistance only I have:

terrain on very low

shadows off

objects detail normal

and I'm still cpu limited in cities with my q6600 at 3.2 ghz.

I also put postprocessing off and anti-aliasing off but that's only for the gpu, your gpu is much faster (I have an 8800gtx) and you run at a much lower resolution so that should be fine.

Edit: I just ran the benchmarks myself with the same settings for terrain object and shadow detail:

bench1: 38 fps

bench2: 17 fps (it's always a bit of a disaster, that's how it's meant to be)

Edited March 29, 2010 by Leon86

[Litos 10]

Well there seems to be no other factor that can cause this problem except the CPU's current speed, which will be changed as I said, and the fact that I'm using old hard drives.

Unless DDR2 RAM could pose a problem? Should be fine though...

[Leon86 13]

Well there seems to be no other factor that can cause this problem except the CPU's current speed, which will be changed as I said, and the fact that I'm using old hard drives.

Unless DDR2 RAM could pose a problem? Should be fine though...

I run ddr2 as well, my cpu is a q6600. If you want to isolate the problem you could change a few settings and see if the situation improves.

A good way to see if the videocard is having a hard time is to put antialiasing on high and running the benchmark. Then turn it off and run the benchmark again. If the fps stay the same you are not gpu limited (at least in that particular benchmark)

edit:

I "copied" your settings and I still got 28 fps in benchmark one, so I doubt it's the videocard. My processor is not loaded 100% during the benchmark so I doubt your processor is the problem.

If it really is the harddisk, copy the "AddOns" folder to your fast OS harddrive and add -mod=C:\ to your shortcut so it becomes something like: "wereveritis\ArmA 2\arma2.exe" -mod=C:\ the game will then start looking for folders called AddOns in C:\ and load files from there.

Edited March 29, 2010 by Leon86

[Litos 10]

Ah, thanks very much for that tip. I just tried it.

With antialiasing on my average FPS was 23, with antialiasing off the fps was 25. I was testing on Benchmark 1.

That proves that I'm not GPU limited, I think. Well it adds even more evidence, that is.

[Ilhan Boscov 10]

Hello users, a bit of spam ahead. I've been looking on gaming computer websites and have found a computer to my liking. Could someone please take a look, tell me what they think? How well will it play (Most amount of AI i can have... view distance... graphics settings..)? Thanks in advance. I'm not good at this side of gaming/computing know-how as guessed.

__________________________________________________________________________

-Choice of Quiet Coolermaster Cosmos Black Silver 1000 OR

Thermaltake Armor Black Stylish Gaming Case

-Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz CPU

-Akasa Nero AK-967 Heatsink & CPU Fan

-Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R Motherboard

-Dual (2) PCI Express Graphics Cards in Crossfire Mode

-Two ATI HD4890 1GB PCI Express Graphics Cards

-6GB (3 x 2GB) Crucial PC10600 1333MHz DDR3 Ram

-1000GB 7200rpm SATA II Hard Drive

-Lite-on Blu Ray / DVD / CD Rom Reader

-Quiet Sony / NEC SATA 24x Dual Layer DVD +/- Rewriter

-Choice of Windows 7 Home Premium OR Windows Vista Home Premium OR Windows XP Home

-Internal Memory Card Reader

-Nero Essentials, Cyberlink Power DVD & OpenOffice

-Quiet Xilence 800W Dual PCI-E PSU

-2 Years Return To Base Warranty

-Also known as Corei7 / 920XFire / i7920XFire / Finance

[Leon86 13]

-Two ATI HD4890 1GB PCI Express Graphics Cards

Maybe you'll want a directx11 graphics card. Look for 5770's or a single 5850 or 5870, or two of those if you have that much money to spend.

Cpu is still one of the fastest you can get for a reasonable price, this is a high-end system that will run the game fine, dont expect to max out the graphics, no existing pc can do that and still get a good framerate.

Edited March 29, 2010 by Leon86

[Ilhan Boscov 10]

Right, thanks. I would have assumed two 4890s are better, so that's good to know... Thanks for the information.

Edited March 29, 2010 by Ilhan Boscov

[Litos 10]

So can anyone confirm that my problem persists in my hard drive? Or, to be more correct, the combination of my hard drive and my not-yet-overclocked processor. I just want to know so that I can go ahead and buy a heatsink fan and a new hard drive.

[bangtail 0]

So can anyone confirm that my problem persists in my hard drive? Or, to be more correct, the combination of my hard drive and my not-yet-overclocked processor. I just want to know so that I can go ahead and buy a heatsink fan and a new hard drive.

Yes the hard disks are going to be a problem but I would also turn the texture detail down to normal.

Edited March 30, 2010 by BangTail
Clarity

[Rhammstein 10]

So can anyone confirm that my problem persists in my hard drive? Or, to be more correct, the combination of my hard drive and my not-yet-overclocked processor. I just want to know so that I can go ahead and buy a heatsink fan and a new hard drive.

Dude you shouldn't have any issues, if so it's because you're running the game on that IDE drive.

My second rig runs the game perfectly, maxed out (No AA, everything else maxed) never below 60fps and always very much higher, not the PC in my sig, my second rig, specs: It's an HP Elite with a 850w Psu and 4890 Psu

AMD Phenom II 925 2.8Ghz 2MB L2, 6MB L3(This Cpu isn't too much quicker than your Intel Quad)

AMD 785 Chipset

8GB DDR3 Dual Channel Ram

XFX Radeon HD 4890 (Much more powerful than a GTX 260 tho...)

1TB good hard drive, but nothing crazy like RAID or SSD.

I mention my second 925 rig because it more closely resembles about the performance of your rig, except for your HDD issues and a weaker Gpu, and slightly weaker Cpu.

You should be able to run the game perfectly, because this rig I mention runs it absolutely perfect, incredible really. Graphics entirely maxed accept I don't use antialiasing on this rig in Arma 2. Anyways I spend most of my time on my main rig in my sig.

Windows 7 Pro 64bit seemed to help, and of course keeping the HDD healthy. Your Gpu is enough for the game, so is your Cpu, anyone that says otherwise, well, I very much disagree. If you're having issues, it's your HDD or drivers, most likely that fugly HDD. Do you have enough space to install Arma2 onto your better drive, with your OS? If so, I'd try that, and then you'll know, you'll see a difference or you won't. But your specs should run medium perfectly regardless. Hell I played on medium with playable frame rate on an Athlon64 X2 6400+ 3.2Ghz dual core/4GB 800mhz/4890....

Edited March 30, 2010 by Rhammstein

[Quincey 10]

Good morning gentlemen, I stand before you with a question.

Within a few weeks I am completely upgrading my computer, and I was asking myself if any of you could give me an idea of what sort of performance increase I would be able to see in ArmA2.

Current setup

Motherboard: ASUS P5Q-E

Processor: Intel C2Q Q9550 2.83 Ghz (OCed to run at 3.83 Ghz)

Graphics card: Evga GeForce 260 GTX

RAM: 2x2 GB DDR2

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar 250 GB 7.200 RPM

New setup

Motherboard: ASUS P6T

Processor: Intel i7 930 (with after market cooler to overclock)

Graphics card: Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon HD5870

RAM: OCZ Gold 3x2 GB DDR3 1600 triple kit

Hard Drive: 2x 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 in Raid0 setup

The upgrade is mainly to play ArmA2 even better and to be able to use Fraps without suffering too much of an FPS hit. The resolution I run is 1920x1080.

Thank you and best regards,

Quincey.

[bangtail 0]

Good morning gentlemen, I stand before you with a question.

Within a few weeks I am completely upgrading my computer, and I was asking myself if any of you could give me an idea of what sort of performance increase I would be able to see in ArmA2.

Current setup

Motherboard: ASUS P5Q-E

Processor: Intel C2Q Q9550 2.83 Ghz (OCed to run at 3.83 Ghz)

Graphics card: Evga GeForce 260 GTX

RAM: 2x2 GB DDR2

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar 250 GB 7.200 RPM

New setup

Motherboard: ASUS P6T

Processor: Intel i7 930 (with after market cooler to overclock)

Graphics card: Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon HD5870

RAM: OCZ Gold 3x2 GB DDR3 1600 triple kit

Hard Drive: 2x 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 in Raid0 setup

The upgrade is mainly to play ArmA2 even better and to be able to use Fraps without suffering too much of an FPS hit. The resolution I run is 1920x1080.

Thank you and best regards,

Quincey.

Significant.

It will run A2 (and everything else) very well :)

[Quincey 10]

What's the major reason for that increase? Is it because the graphics card is (much) more powerful?

[bangtail 0]

What's the major reason for that increase? Is it because the graphics card is (much) more powerful?

Yes, it's the most significant part (performance wise) but the system is newer and more powerful in general.

Edited March 30, 2010 by BangTail

[Quincey 10]

Marvellous, thank you for your swift response. I was under the impression ArmA2 was more CPU reliant.

[bangtail 0]

Marvellous, thank you for your swift response. I was under the impression ArmA2 was more CPU reliant.

You're welcome, happy to help :)

It is, but that's not to say that a more powerful GPU doesn't help.

The difference in CPUs (9xxx Quad and i7 Quad) is usually fairly negligible in games (clock for clock) unless you are talking specifically about certain RTS style games.

Edited March 30, 2010 by BangTail

[Quincey 10]

Certain RTS style games? Such as?

[bangtail 0]

Certain RTS style games? Such as?

Off the top of my head I know Supreme Commander benefits from the i7 and I'm pretty sure TW and CoH do as well.

[Quincey 10]

Fantastic. Once again thank you for your help.