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

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

I wish it was that simple. Testing with E08 I get more like 35 FPS @1920x1200 with my 6950 2GB with similar settings.

Any level of AA is murder in my experience. What I said is correct in the context of pre-Operation Arrowhead, when we didn't have the SSAO and the setting responsible for it, thus everything maxed at 1080p with SSAO & AA off. Texture quality at High - the HD 4890 had only 1 GB of VRAM; view distance used to be up-to 4 km in online Warfare.

Why do you suggest V-Sync off? You get terrible tearing like that. Maybe it doesn't bother you but I find it really offputting.

It forces your FPS count to conform to the refresh rate of your screen, and if your system can't hold a steady 60 FPS (Hz), then you will get performance jumps in steps 60-45-30-15. One FPS alterations on the edge of either of these "steps" are the most vicious and are the cause of mouse lag, among other things.

P.S. You need to test your performance in multiplayer on a proper server, not in SP, otherwise it defeats the point by creating arbitrary AI scenarios to drown your system.

Edited September 23, 2012 by Iroquois Pliskin

[Leon86 13]

It forces your FPS count to conform to the refresh rate of your screen, and if your system can't hold a steady 60 FPS (Hz), then you will get performance jumps in steps 60-45-30-15.

actually it's 60-30-20-15, or on a 120hz screen 120-60-40-30-24

[doveman 7]

Any level of AA is murder in my experience. What I said is correct in the context of pre-Operation Arrowhead, when we didn't have the SSAO and the setting responsible for it, thus everything maxed at 1080p with SSAO & AA off. Texture quality at High - the HD 4890 had only 1 GB of VRAM; view distance used to be up-to 4 km in online Warfare.

Fair enough. I don't find AA really causes a problem for me though. I tested going from Normal to High to V.High and it only cost 1 FPS per step. I normally have it on Low though, as with ATOC and SMAA it seems overkill having it any higher. Other games I've tested in there's essentially no cost to having AA on 2x or 4x either, although 8x can be a bit much sometimes.

As for SSAO I think that's enabled by setting PP to Normal or higher isn't it. As shown in the settings above, I normally set that to Low, so I don't think AA or SSAO can be to blame for my low FPS.

It forces your FPS count to conform to the refresh rate of your screen, and if your system can't hold a steady 60 FPS (Hz), then you will get performance jumps in steps 60-45-30-15. One FPS alterations on the edge of either of these "steps" are the most vicious and are the cause of mouse lag, among other things.

P.S. You need to test your performance in multiplayer on a proper server, not in SP, otherwise it defeats the point by creating arbitrary AI scenarios to drown your system.

Yeah, I can see why it would be bad to use V-sync if it will cause jumps in FPS like that. I'm thinking of limiting the FPS to 30 FPS though, to avoid any jumps and eliminate tearing.

As for testing in multiplayer, that would defeat the point of setting it up to be able to play both MP and SP. I tried a SP mission the other day and even near the beginning, as it was flying me in to the LZ, it dropped down to single-digits, which is clearly unplayable.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

As for testing in multiplayer, that would defeat the point of setting it up to be able to play both MP and SP.

Seeing as ArmA II is a game, and I'm here to pew-pew and watch the explosions, I'd rather delegate the AI simulation part to a separate server, while hundreds of units are on my screen, shooting each other. :)

I tried a SP mission the other day and even near the beginning, as it was flying me in to the LZ, it dropped down to single-digits, which is clearly unplayable.

What was your CPU utilisation during the whole sequence? I ask because that HD 4890 that I've mentioned, had been used in conjunction with a Phenom II x2 550 @ 4 GHz - dual core, two threads, flawless in MP, a bit heavy in the single player part of the game, especially Harvest Red WF missions.

---------- Post added at 19:07 ---------- Previous post was at 19:06 ----------

actually it's 60-30-20-15, or on a 120hz screen 120-60-40-30-24

Thanks, I stand corrected. It goes in fractions of 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6 etc.

---------- Post added at 19:15 ---------- Previous post was at 19:07 ----------

Here's a good article on what Nvidia has cooking in terms of improving the VSync buffer problem, http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/16/nvidia_adaptive_vsync_technology_review

[Leon86 13]

I recommend limiting to 63 fps, there's still a bit of tearing but not very noticable, if you limit to 60 or 30 the tearline stays in one place and that's very annoying.

[doveman 7]

I recommend limiting to 63 fps, there's still a bit of tearing but not very noticable, if you limit to 60 or 30 the tearline stays in one place and that's very annoying.

Seeing as I'm running around 35-40 FPS, limiting to 63 FPS isn't going to work for me!

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Seeing as I'm running around 35-40 FPS, limiting to 63 FPS isn't going to work for me!

Disabling Vsync is your only option. Funny thing, it used to be forced ON via ArmA 2 engine back around the release date: no control panel setting or override tool would work - totally unplayable around foliage, mouse lag was horrible.

I'm personally sold on Nvidia's new solution, it alternates between on/off states dynamically, if FPS is lower/higher than the refresh rate. Check out this graph, http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTMzNDU0OTI1NHhBa25NMUFBUzJfMl83X2wuZ2lm

[doveman 7]

Seeing as ArmA II is a game, and I'm here to pew-pew and watch the explosions, I'd rather delegate the AI simulation part to a separate server, while hundreds of units are on my screen, shooting each other. :)

So are you suggesting people who want to play A2 SP need to buy two PC's, one to run the AI and one for the rest? Perhaps BIS should mention that in their Minimum Specs if it's impossible to run SP missions with only one PC.

What was your CPU utilisation during the whole sequence? I ask because that HD 4890 that I've mentioned, had been used in conjunction with a Phenom II x2 550 @ 4 GHz - dual core, two threads, flawless in MP, a bit heavy in the single player part of the game, especially Harvest Red WF missions.

Don't know, wasn't measuring it, I was trying to play a game.

---------- Post added at 21:25 ---------- Previous post was at 21:23 ----------

Disabling Vsync is your only option.

I don't think so. Limiting to 30 FPS is an option.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

So are you suggesting people who want to play A2 SP need to buy two PC's, one to run the AI and one for the rest? Perhaps BIS should mention that in their Minimum Specs if it's impossible to run SP missions with only one PC.

Hehe, perhaps they should. I completed the single player campaign on the rig above with blood, sweat & tears. :)

I don't think so. Limiting to 30 FPS is an option.

Does it work for you, though?

[doveman 7]

Hehe, perhaps they should. I completed the single player campaign on the rig above with blood, sweat & tears. :)

I don't think I had any problems with the OA Campaign, it's just other custom missions that it seems to struggle with.

Does it work for you, though?

I've only tried limiting to 30 FPS for DCS World so far but I don't see why it shouldn't work for ArmA as well.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

I don't think I had any problems with the OA Campaign, it's just other custom missions that it seems to struggle with.

You need to search the forums regarding how ArmA delegates AI simulation on the CPU cores, since 2 cores of the Phenom II x4 is enough to render the gameworld and anything it entails, leaving 2 more for AI. I've been out of the loop myself, so can't help you with this.

---------- Post added at 21:13 ---------- Previous post was at 21:04 ----------

Here's what I found, http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?73537-Answered-ArmA-2-Multicore-CPU-support-flawed-(only-50-CPU-usage-on-quadcore)

The performance could be regarded as two and a half cores loaded at 99% at best, the rest 1.5-2 cores are 0%. Meh.

In a perfect world, all the systems would run in independant threads. So there would be totally independant threads for AI, audio and so on besides the renderer. In that case the renderer could always run at full speed, while the other systems just run on the other available CPU cores. The framerate would only go down, if the other systems actually use up all of "their" CPU cores and the renderer has to sacrifice some of "his" core. I know this is simplified, but otherwise it gets too complicated to explain quickly.

The Real Virtuality engine was obviously not built with multicore-support in mind, at least not when it was started 10 years ago. So I am impressed by the amount of multithreading that BI was able to squeeze in here. At the same time I am curious if there is a simple way to enable even more parallel processing; the fact that performance is capped at 50% CPU usage on a quadcore suggests that there is a small bug somewhere that is limiting the true potential.

Edited September 23, 2012 by Iroquois Pliskin

[doveman 7]

Hmm, I'd try running a dedicated server on the same PC to see if that would help but I don't think it's possible to play SP missions like that.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

Hmm, I'd try running a dedicated server on the same PC to see if that would help but I don't think it's possible to play SP missions like that.

You could play the whole campaign on a LAN "server" - wouldn't make any difference in performance, if it's on the same PC.

[doveman 7]

You could play the whole campaign on a LAN "server" - wouldn't make any difference in performance, if it's on the same PC.

I was going by this post http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?73537-Answered-ArmA-2-Multicore-CPU-support-flawed-(only-50-CPU-usage-on-quadcore)&p=1909113&viewfull=1#post1909113

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

I was going by this post http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?73537-Answered-ArmA-2-Multicore-CPU-support-flawed-(only-50-CPU-usage-on-quadcore)&p=1909113&viewfull=1#post1909113

I've missed it. That's logical, since you'll get your normal CPU utilisation of 50% on the client and 25%+ for the dedicated server AI simulation - it could work, I suppose. :)

Shouldn't have to be the case, though, in order to enjoy the game. :D

[doveman 7]

I've missed it. That's logical, since you'll get your normal CPU utilisation of 50% on the client and 25%+ for the dedicated server AI simulation - it could work, I suppose. :)

Shouldn't have to be the case, though, in order to enjoy the game. :D

Shouldn't be :)

I'll try it sometime anyway. Even with TA2DST it's a pain setting up a profile to use the mods required for the mission (setting up the client is a lot easier via ArmaII Launcher).

[jajs 1]

Do you think this PC will run the game on low settings? - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Dual-Xeon-5-6Ghz-Desktop-Gaming-PC-8GB-Windows-7-x64-Tower-Computer-HDMI-Win7-/110956864719?forcev4exp=true&forceRpt=true

I don't mind running it on very low settings I just want to know if I could get a steady 20fps from it. I have played Arma II: free on my laptop that has family chipset graphics and it could run it, but with very low and around 3-10fps which is terrible.:(

[Gunter Severloh 4020]

These are the specs of that computer:

• CPU: 2 x Intel Xeon Processor 2.8 Ghz - 800MHz FSB - 64-Bit - (1MB L2 cache)
  
• 
  
• RAM: 8 GB (4 x 2 GB) PC2-3200R DDR2-400 ECC
  
• 
  
• Hard Disk Controller: Integrated serial ATA (SATA) controller - RAID 0 & 1
  
• 
  
• Hard Disk Drive: 160GB 7200 rpm SATA2 Hard Drive Installed
  
• 
  
• Graphics Card: XFX (ATI) HD5450 - 1 GB GDDR3 - PCIe - VGA, DVI & HDMI Output (BRAND NEW)
  
• 
  
• Optical Drive: DVD-ROM Optical Drive
  
• 
  
• Audio: AC’97/16-bit stereo full-duplex
  
• 
  
• Network: Integrated Broadcom 5751 10/100/1000 LAN
  
• 
  
• Operating System License: Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit COA (License)
  
• 
  
• Power: 500 watts
  
• 
  
• Expansion Slots: 6 Full-Length slots:
  
• 
  
• 1 x PCI Express (x16) Graphics slot
  
• 1 x PCI Express (x8 mechanically, x4 electrically)
  
• 4 x legacy PCI slots
  

Ports:-

Front:

• Headphone
  
• microphone
  
• 2 x USB 2.0
  
• 1 x IEEE 1394A (requires PCI card to enable functionality)
  
• 
  

Rear:

• 6 x USB 2.0,
  
• 1 x standard serial port,
  
• 1 x parallel port,
  
• 2 x PS/2 keyboard and mouse,
  
• 1 x RJ-45 to integrated Gigabit LAN,
  
• audio In,
  
• audio Out,
  
• 1 x mic in
  
• 
  

Physical information

Dimensions (W x D x H): 16.5 x 45.0 x 44.1 cm

Contents

• HP Dual Xeon 5.6Ghz Desktop Gaming PC 8GB Windows 7 x64 Tower Computer HDMI Win7
  
• New Graphics Documentation/Packaging/Software
  
• Genuine Windows 7 Restore Disk
  
• UK Power Cable
  

I'd say it would work, I'm personally not a fan of ATI graphic cards, but its should be alright, the 500watt power supply is ok it will do the job,

but if you can Id upgrade that to like 700watt, other then that she'll run.

You should be able to run Arma2 on at least med to high settings, if not high settings.

If your looking forward to Arma3 and plan on getting it when it comes out, you may want to spend your money on something a bit better, like a quad core,

Arma3 specs are a bit more demanding then Arma2's. Me personally I would shop around some more but for Arma2 anyways the computer will work.

[Leon86 13]

a 5450 is not a real graphics card.

also it looks like this machine is 2 dualcores on one motherboard, not ideal for games.

[NeMeSiS 11]

Did they just add up the 2 2.8ghz cores to 5.6ghz? That is not how it works. Dont buy that thing, it is crap for gaming.

[Mladja-ArmASerbia 3]

First, sorry if I missed forum to ask.

Well, i plan to buy new graphic card, since my radeon hd 2600 pro sucks in arma. Textures are fucked, models etc.....

I am plan to buy Radeon HD 4350 512mb DDR2, PCI-E , so it will be good to run arma on low or normal, without post process, vsyns, AA. Well, doesn't matter that options will be on very low or low, just want to play normaly, with good textures, models etc...

With ati 2600 my houses are mostly in one color, or men models are totally black. When i get into village game starts to lag, sometimes he will exit, an my graphic will be restarted. Everything is on very low, even an resolution and 3d, on 50%

Other Specs:

Win XP SP3

1gb RAM

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual core processor 4000+ 2.1 ghz

Thanks in advance.

Edited September 30, 2012 by mladjaSRB

[Leon86 13]

First, sorry if I missed forum to ask.

Well, i plan to buy new graphic card, since my radeon hd 2600 pro sucks in arma. Textures are fucked, models etc.....

I am plan to buy Radeon HD 4350 512mb DDR2, PCI-E , so it will be good to run arma on low or normal, without post process, vsyns, AA. Well, doesn't matter that options will be on very low or low, just want to play normaly, with good textures, models etc...

With ati 2600 my houses are mostly in one color, or men models are totally black. When i get into village game starts to lag, sometimes he will exit, an my graphic will be restarted. Everything is on very low, even an resolution and 3d, on 50%

Other Specs:

Win XP SP3

1gb RAM

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual core processor 4000+ 2.1 ghz

Thanks in advance.

I wouldn't buy that, it's actually even slower than your current 2600. a 2 GHz athlon64 is pretty slow too.

[froggyluv 2133]

If anyone wants my Nvidia 460 ( I have 2 but one overheats) that just sit in my closet collecting dust -pay postage and its yours. PM of course :)

[Mladja-ArmASerbia 3]

I wouldn't buy that, it's actually even slower than your current 2600. a 2 GHz athlon64 is pretty slow too.

Can you recommend me some good graphic card for ArmA 2 OA for that configuration?

What about this graphic card VTX 3D Radeon HD5450 Silent 1GB?

Well, i am know i am annoying but i just want to play arma 2 on good details. And you best know what graphic is good for game.

Other Specs:

Win XP SP3

1gb RAM

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual core processor 4000+ 2.11 ghz

Power supply unit is 435w.

Edited October 1, 2012 by mladjaSRB

[Leon86 13]

just checking, but is your computer using pci-e or agp?