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

[echo_2-7 10]

Sgtwilson, how much did it cost to build your rig?

[Ripsaw5165 10]

Brand doesn't matter, only the used processor/gpu. Dont expect good gaming performance from laptops, even if they are rediculously expensive.

Depends on the game. The newer multicore laptops with dedicated videocards (with onboard dedicated GDDR ram) can run plenty of games at high settings well, it depends on the game and what demands it places on the machine. Arma II/OA places a very high demand on the CPU in addition to the videocard due to it being a simulation more so than a game, with high fidelity Artificial Intelligence algorithms processing in parallel with the threading of files, geometry, and textures.

Having said that, in light of the fact more games are being coded to take advantage of multiple cores, if I was buying a laptop today I would not buy less than a quad core, fastest Ghz I could afford.

You can always buy more speed dollar for dollar, euro for euro, etc., in a desktop-- no dispute there. But laptops are no longer automatically lame for game.

[Shift 10]

hi

i've recently bought a laptop specifically to play games and even more specifically arma 2, as i've been a long time fan of OFP and waited for the opportunity to play arma 2 for a long time. So finally i've gathered the cash (1800$) and bought myself an MSI GX660 laptop that employes an i7-720QM CPU (it is quad core, i dont remember the stock speed, its somethng about 1.6ghz i believe, but it can be clocked to 2.8ghz per core by pressing the turbo button on the laptop), 6 gb of DDR3 1000mhz ram and a ATI radeon HD5870 1gb gddr5 GPU, and also a 7200rpm HDD. I have more than 100gb of free space on both of my logic discs... and i was truly devastated when i ran arma 2 and found out it was unplayable with fraps showing between 15 and 20 fps, with freezes and burts of frames, realizing the fact that i blew 1800$ down the pipe... So my question is, can something be done? I suppose that the moBo of that laptop can run 1333mhz ram, if i upgrade to say 6-12gb 1333mhz ram will that make any significant difference? Or maybe i should try overclocking the CPU? My laptop has a separate button that activates a powerfull fan that seems to have good cooling power, judging by the sound it makes :) Also the strange thing that i dont understand is that my fps seem to generally stay the same wether i choose maximum or minimum graphics setup, it maybe changes by some 3-5 fps, so i cant even enjoy the smooth motion at the expence of ugly graphics

[echo_2-7 10]

Try without fraps... It takes up quite a bit of the resources I think.

[bangtail 0]

You can always buy more speed dollar for dollar, euro for euro, etc., in a desktop-- no dispute there. But laptops are no longer automatically lame for game.

Where Arma 2 is concerned they are I'm afraid, you are disadvantaging yourself with a laptop.

You can game on laptops, there is no doubt, I'm just not sure why you would want to unless there is some special circumstance.

[Leon86 13]

hi

i've recently bought a laptop specifically to play games and even more specifically arma 2, as i've been a long time fan of OFP and waited for the opportunity to play arma 2 for a long time. So finally i've gathered the cash (1800$) and bought myself an MSI GX660 laptop that employes an i7-720QM CPU (it is quad core, i dont remember the stock speed, its somethng about 1.6ghz i believe, but it can be clocked to 2.8ghz per core by pressing the turbo button on the laptop), 6 gb of DDR3 1000mhz ram and a ATI radeon HD5870 1gb gddr5 GPU, and also a 7200rpm HDD. I have more than 100gb of free space on both of my logic discs... and i was truly devastated when i ran arma 2 and found out it was unplayable with fraps showing between 15 and 20 fps, with freezes and burts of frames, realizing the fact that i blew 1800$ down the pipe... So my question is, can something be done? I suppose that the moBo of that laptop can run 1333mhz ram, if i upgrade to say 6-12gb 1333mhz ram will that make any significant difference? Or maybe i should try overclocking the CPU? My laptop has a separate button that activates a powerfull fan that seems to have good cooling power, judging by the sound it makes :) Also the strange thing that i dont understand is that my fps seem to generally stay the same wether i choose maximum or minimum graphics setup, it maybe changes by some 3-5 fps, so i cant even enjoy the smooth motion at the expence of ugly graphics

Did you patch arma2 to the latest version? And what settings were you running on exactly (there's a button called advanced settings in case you didn't see it)? And if you start the benchmark 1 scenario, what is your average fps? I'm sure you could get up to about 40fps in that particular benchmark without the game looking too terrible (arma still looks decent on low imo)

The reason we don't recommend gaming laptops is that you can buy a regular pc that's faster in games and a laptop for the price of a "gaming" laptop.

[santafee 10]

My current PC:

E8400 3.00Ghz

HD 4850 ATI 512MB RAM

4 Gigabyte RAM

7200RPM Seagate HDD

Guess i will buy the NvidiaGtx460 1024MB as new graphiccard.

Now my question is, how are those CPU´s? Are they good for ArmaII?

I just dont wanna buy a new motherboard also, so are there good Quadcores for 775 Boards still?

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/info/p603865_Intel-Core-2-Quad-Q8400-2-66GHz-1333MHz-S775-4MB-95W-BOX.html

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/info/p432159_Intel-Core-2-Quad-Q9400-2-66GHz-1333MHz-S775-6MB-95W-BOX.html

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/info/p619364_Intel-Core-i7-860-2-80GHz-2500MT-s-S1156-8MB-95W-BOX.html

Or should i better OC my E8400 with a new cooler?

Edited November 21, 2010 by Himmelsfeuer

[echo_2-7 10]

The only reason for me getting a gaming laptop is that I want something that can run A2 and OA decently well (ok not as well) as a gaming rig when I am away from home for a few days (e.g. sleepovers or even holidays).

[Primarch 10]

The only reason for me getting a gaming laptop is that I want something that can run A2 and OA decently well (ok not as well) as a gaming rig when I am away from home for a few days (e.g. sleepovers or even holidays).

You are not going to run it decently well on a fucking laptop. Stop dreaming and have a break if you're on a holiday.

[Leon86 13]

You are not going to run it decently well on a fucking laptop. Stop dreaming and have a break if you're on a holiday.

Cool it a bit plz. You can run arma 2 on quite a few laptops (some are even sortof affordable) on low settings with low resolution. It'll just be nowhere near the performance of a desktop of comparable price.

[Pvtpile1981 10]

I need a new cpu to play ArmA II at a decent frame rate and normal/high gfx would going from an Intel E6700 @ 3.4 to a Q9550 (hoping to oc to 4 ghz) make a huge dfiference to the way ArmA II ran? System spec below.

Thanx.

Windows XP pro.

Core 2 Duo E6700 Oced to 3.45 ghz

Gigabyte GTX 460 (latest Drivers)

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3LR

Western Digital Black 600 gig HD

Corsair TX650w

Kingston Hyper-X 4GB KIT PC2-8500

[nikiforos 450]

Hello

Im considering upgrading my GFX 275 . Should I go for the GTX 480 or the ATI RADEON 5870?

Would I see big improvement in the performance if I go for a new card?

[larsiano 12]

@Pvtpile1981: Yes this will make a big difference, but for just games a duocore is slightly faster if im right. Maybe a E8600 @ 3.3Ghz can be the better choice. Both are nice CPU's

@Nikiforos: The answer is simple: What you now have is no highend card and the once you mention are. And they are slightly newer then the one you have so apart from it being the fastest chipset ATI and Nvidia offer, the yearly speed upgrades you also have to take in account. Which one of the two you should get is up to you. If i understand correct the chip on the ATI is a bit faster but some people prefer Nvidia. In both cases will you definitely see improvement, But remember these cards demand a certain power availability (500W = nogo) of around a 600W in total!

[nikiforos 450]

Thank you Larsiano ,but I have a last question about my upgrade.

Should I go for a new GFX or should I go for a new processor? An I5 or I7 ?

I cant afford both right now so I want to know what to choose .

[larsiano 12]

Good question, sinds this CPU is quite fast (dont know about the memory bandwith) at around the same speeds of an Intel Q9550 and your current videocard is also not terrible i think both upgrades will take you a good step forward. What i would take in account answering your question if the fact if you plan to give your system another upgrade round next year (like i do every so often)? I run a E8600 + EN285GTX that give me nice performce. For me the next upgrade will be the hole platform to Intel i7 950 (not cheap but great speed upgrade). And next year will probably get a nice GPU like the GTX480 or 580. In you'r case the GPU is the weak link so upgrading that will have most effect, but if your new card is "to fast" the CPU could form the bottleneck in your system (not that it should make any difference) it will still run like a charm. So just consider what you want to spend and look for some nice cards that fit within you're budget

[dale0404 5]

Just to set a benchmark against other machines:

System spec:

Core I5 750 processor 2.67Ghz

Nvidia 460GTX 1GB GPU

4Gig of DDR3 RAM 1333khz

I can run the game with everything on very high / high apart from AA which is at normal. PP is off. Resolution is 1900 x 1200. I get approx 30 fps average.

View distance is at 1600 metres.

Hope that helps people!

Edited November 24, 2010 by dale0404
Added view distance

[doddie 10]

Im pretty new to Arma - fantastic game btw

my current system runs it ok most of the time (specs below) but since im upgrading I want to get better performance.

im selling on my old parts to friend.

current pc....

Quad Q6600 @ 3.3GHz

4GB DDR2

Win 7 x86

Crucial C300 64gb - just for arma co for now. win7 dual boot.

ATI 5850 1GB (gonna keep this until the Radeon 6950 comes out)

new build......

Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3

i5 760 hopefully oc to near 4GHz (aftermarket cooler)

Corsair TX Series 650W (no plans for crossfire/Sli)

ATI 5850 1GB

as for the memory, would it be worth going to 8GB cheaper/slower memory and say use a ramdisk along with the C300

to use up the other 4gb? or change to 64 bit?

my choice of memory is

4gb G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) CAS 7-8-7-24 Timings, 1.5 -1.65v DDR3 PC3-12800C7 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit.

£72.98

or

8GB Kingston HyperX 1600MHz (CL9-9-9-27) Memory Modules (Kit of 2 x 2048MB)

£90

thanks

[raserisk 12]

Used to run this game great, and still can except on islands like recently Lingor and Mana. Kind of got a slap in the face when my year old computer was told that it needed to be upgraded.

GTX 260 X2 SLI Config

I7 920 Quad Core

6GB Ram

Windows 7 Home Premium

This still legit specs nowadays or is it true? I can pretty much run every other game on the max still...

[Pvtpile1981 10]

@Pvtpile1981: Yes this will make a big difference, but for just games a duocore is slightly faster if im right. Maybe a E8600 @ 3.3Ghz can be the better choice. Both are nice CPU's

Really because I can get a E8500 quite cheap compared to a Q9550? I just thought because ArmA utilizes 4 cores the quad would be a better choice.

Has anyone here went from an E8500/E8600 to a quad?

Edited November 24, 2010 by Pvtpile1981

[Leon86 13]

Really because I can get a E8500 quite cheap compared to a Q9550? I just thought because ArmA utilizes 4 cores the quad would be a better choice.

Has anyone here went from an E8500/E8600 to a quad?

I went from a e6750 to a q6600, that's an improvement when there's lots of ai. Both e8500's and q9550 are way overpriced nowadays, sometimes a phenomIIx4 + a motherboard is cheaper. If you want a faster s775 cpu get a secondhand one. Otherwise make due until you can upgrade mobo,ram and cpu. Sandy bridge will be released in january I believe, probably a nice time for an upgrade.

---------- Post added at 08:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:56 PM ----------

Im pretty new to Arma - fantastic game btw

my current system runs it ok most of the time (specs below) but since im upgrading I want to get better performance.

im selling on my old parts to friend.

current pc....

Quad Q6600 @ 3.3GHz

4GB DDR2

Win 7 x86

Crucial C300 64gb - just for arma co for now. win7 dual boot.

ATI 5850 1GB (gonna keep this until the Radeon 6950 comes out)

new build......

Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3

i5 760 hopefully oc to near 4GHz (aftermarket cooler)

Corsair TX Series 650W (no plans for crossfire/Sli)

ATI 5850 1GB

as for the memory, would it be worth going to 8GB cheaper/slower memory and say use a ramdisk along with the C300

to use up the other 4gb? or change to 64 bit?

my choice of memory is

4gb G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) CAS 7-8-7-24 Timings, 1.5 -1.65v DDR3 PC3-12800C7 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit.

£72.98

or

8GB Kingston HyperX 1600MHz (CL9-9-9-27) Memory Modules (Kit of 2 x 2048MB)

£90

thanks

First of all, get win7x64 in any case. There's no reason to get the 32bit version nowadays.

Memory has gotten pretty cheap this month, if you're on a budget get 4GB, that's enough for arma. If you want to run ramdisks get 8 (preferably 2x4GB).

And just get a cheap (low voltage 1.5-165V) kit on the QVL. 1333 will probably be enough for your overclocks. Although there's cheap 1600 kits as well.

[Pvtpile1981 10]

I went from a e6750 to a q6600, that's an improvement when there's lots of ai. Both e8500's and q9550 are way overpriced nowadays, sometimes a phenomIIx4 + a motherboard is cheaper. If you want a faster s775 cpu get a secondhand one. Otherwise make due until you can upgrade mobo,ram and cpu. Sandy bridge will be released in january I believe, probably a nice time for an upgrade.

Ta, I was planning on buying a 2nd hand chip the prices are quite high for the old core 2 duos and quads. Would a PhenomIIx4 run ArmA II stronger than say a Q9550 OCed to 4 ghz? I havn't owned an AMD in a long long time what are they like to OC compared to the Intel chips?

[The Hebrew Hammer 10]

So total PC noob here again, how does a GTX 460 compare with a ATI Radeon HD 5770?

the PC in question:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227179

[Leon86 13]

the 460 is faster.

[The Hebrew Hammer 10]

Okay, last thing I could find:

http://www.amazon.com/CyberpowerPC-Xtreme-Desktop-Windows-Premium/dp/B002QEBK9I/ref=sr_1_9?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1290720510&sr=1-9

* 2.66GHz Intel Core i5 750 LGA 1156 Processor, Intel P55 Chipset Motherboard

* 4GB DDR3 1333 Memory

* 500GB SATA II 3.0 Gb/s 7200rpm Hard Drive, 24X DVDRW Drive

* Nvidia Geforce 9500GT Chipset 1GB PCI-Express Graphics

* Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit

Compared to:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229199

Processor:

Intel Core i5 760(2.80GHz)

Processor Main Features:

64 bit Quad-Core Processor

Memory:

4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333

Hard Drive:

1TB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 7200RPM HDD

Optical Drive 1:

24X DVD±R/±RW Dual Layer Drive

Graphics:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB PCI-Express Graphics Card

Audio:

Sound card - Integrated

[PhillyB 10]

Okay, last thing I could find:

http://www.amazon.com/CyberpowerPC-Xtreme-Desktop-Windows-Premium/dp/B002QEBK9I/ref=sr_1_9?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1290720510&sr=1-9

* 2.66GHz Intel Core i5 750 LGA 1156 Processor, Intel P55 Chipset Motherboard

* 4GB DDR3 1333 Memory

* 500GB SATA II 3.0 Gb/s 7200rpm Hard Drive, 24X DVDRW Drive

* Nvidia Geforce 9500GT Chipset 1GB PCI-Express Graphics

* Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit

Compared to:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229199

Processor:

Intel Core i5 760(2.80GHz)

Processor Main Features:

64 bit Quad-Core Processor

Memory:

4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333

Hard Drive:

1TB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 7200RPM HDD

Optical Drive 1:

24X DVD±R/±RW Dual Layer Drive

Graphics:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB PCI-Express Graphics Card

Audio:

Sound card - Integrated

The latter