Best windows for Arma 2: XP / Vista / Seven ?

[subtee 0]

I posted this some while ago in the Arma Mark -thread:

So i decided to test windows XP vs Vista.

Formatted my whole drive and started clean.

Created partitions for both operating systems and arma 2.

Installed latest updates and drivers.

Installed arma 2 and updated straight to 1.02.

I used the same settings as in my earlier arma mark test.

Here is the result:

Windows XP (32)

OFP Mark is

First run: 3718.97

Second run: 4306.27

With -maxmem2047= command

First Run: 3707.75

Second Run: 4486.07

Windows Vista (64)

OFP Mark Is

First Run: 2828.05

Second Run: 3243.66

With -maxmem2047= command

OFP Mark Is

First Run: 2966

Second Run: 3642.79

Also tested the first singleplayer mission,

XP seems to do better with Arma 2, more fps and the feel is more responsive because of that.

Now that i have overclocked my cpu more.

I get 5529.54 in XP

and

4400 or something in Vista (cant remember the exact number)

So for me XP definetly works better.

[flake 10]

will try XP next. win7 was a waste of effort

[Albert 10]

In a lot of cases, switching to Windows XP (or starting Arma 2 with -winxp) has fixed it, but switching from Vista to 7 may not help since it's the same directx 10 core behind each build. (I say "may not" because it depends if it's direct x or something else that's causing the problem)

On a side note to that, the game runs a lot better under Windows XP, but then again, what doesn't (being that windows xp runs DX 9, so it looks worse)

I'd like to know the settings everyone is running on (most important being the resolution)

If you're running a 2.4GHz CPU and an 8800GT then you should expect about 20-26 fps average at 1280x1024, if you're running a higher resolution then expect lower (18-22 maybe) This being because the CPU and 8800gt are older and have trouble keeping up now days (mainly the speed of the CPU)

Here's a good link of some results while running under 1280x1024 that may help

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,687620/ArmA-2-tested-Benchmarks-with-18-CPUs/Practice/

I should mention that I've had some complaints saying that an 8800gt and q6600 (it's a common setup) should be able to run the game fine, but keep in mind that they are both older examples of hardware and I'd be very surprised if they didn't struggle with Arma 2.

My spec. is:

HIS 3870 X2 1GB

Intel Quad Q6600 2.4GHz

Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 4GB RAM

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB hard drive

Vista 64-bit

Game resolution is 1152x864.

Texture detail and video memory can only be set to their lowest setting otherwise extremely slow, blurred motion occurs when moving the mouse to look around or moving. All the rest of my settings are at their highest and hardly affect the game performance. It's just when turning up the texture and video memory options. Could the Catalyst 9.6 driver also be the cause?

I have a Windows Experience Index base score of 5.9 for all components except RAM memory operations being at 5.7.

Edited July 15, 2009 by Albert

[Proton 11]

As I just bought the retail version of Windows 7 Pro, I decided to give it a try. Using the 64-bit version, i7 920, gigabyte EX58, NVidia GTX 295, 6GB RAM, ArmA is 1.04. Used Very High settings on everything, except for AA being normal and Terrain Detail varying between Normal and VH depending on the view distance.

In about 2 hours of play I had run into a series of CTDs, namely, Bug #3657 and Bug #2440. Tried all suggested fixes in other threads, like -winxp, HT off, but no change.

The game runs fine on the same hardware with XP64 and without CTDs since 1.02.

My conclusion is that with similar hardware you have to still avoid Windows 7. Probably individual experience varies with components. Quite annoying as I cannot upgrade because of this.

FPS was about the same, 15-30 on average. I believe Windows 7 handled swapping the huge textures better. On XP it is quite common that loading the textures takes a lot of time, and you can see buildings "popping up" as the game loads all textures. In Win7 it was more fluent and I never saw such artifacts. What I know about D3D9Ex in Win7, probably the textures were swapped into the extra RAM I have and thats why the entire texturing experience felt smoother. So Win7 has the potential to become better than XP, but BIS still has to fix all the bugs first. They all seem to be related to memory management.

[shataan 1]

I just did a fresh win 7 64 bit install. Was using RAID 0 on win xp 32 bit, but Asus doesn`t seem to have a RAID 0 driver for win 7 yet for my Crosshair III mobo. aarrgghh Anyways, ARMA 2 is running nicely even without RAID 0 , all vis settings maxed, no AA/AF, 1680x1050, 120 hz(I will still be installing RAID 0 tho when a driver arrives).

Kinda surprsied.

[Leon86 13]

I just did a fresh win 7 64 bit install. Was using RAID 0 on win xp 32 bit, but Asus doesn`t seem to have a RAID 0 driver for win 7 yet for my Crosshair III mobo. aarrgghh Anyways, ARMA 2 is running nicely even without RAID 0 , all vis settings maxed, no AA/AF, 1680x1050, 120 hz(I will still be installing RAID 0 tho when a driver arrives).

Kinda surprsied.

try spreading the files from the addons folder to multiple addons folders on different hard drives. Because arma 2 is mostly requesting lots of really small files that might work better than raid

ontopic: if you want to do an os installation just for arma2 then go with xp. If you dont then go for windows 7 x64, it's much nicer then xp for everything else. It starts faster, looks nicer, has search in the start menu, has a proper browser etc. At least that's my opinion.

Edited October 25, 2009 by Leon86

[-bsm--sniper 10]

Hi all,

after several test i can confirm that Windows XP 32b is absolutely more fast than Windows 7 64b with Arma2 (and seems to be only with arma 2!!).

Same hardware, same driver version but opposite performance.

I can't believe that i can set many video settings on high with windows xp while with windows 7 many of them must be set on normal or low (or deactivated).

In particular, i have the same in game perfomance experience with this settings:

Windows 7 64b, Arma 2 1.04 with latest beta, forceware 195.62

Texture Detail: Normal

Video Memory: Default

Anisotropic Filtering: High

Antialiasing: None (unplayble with low)

Terrain detail: Low

Object detail: Normal

Shadow detail: Very High

Postprocess Effects: Disabled

3D resolution 1680X1050

Windows XP, Arma 2 1.04 with latest beta, forceware 195.62:

Texture Detail: Normal

Video Memory: Default

Anisotropic Filtering: Very High

Antialiasing: Low (incredibly i can set antialias!)

Terrain detail: Normal

Object detail: High

Shadow detail: Very High

Postprocess Effects: Disabled

3D resolution 1680X1050

So, my advice is to use Windows XP over any other OS without any doubt.

For information, this is my rig:

XFX 790I P09

Intel E8500 E0 @4,35Ghz 458x9,5 1,26v RS

2X2 GB OCZ Platinum EB PC12800 1833 mhz 8-8-8-24 1,90v

LC Power METATRON 700W ATX 2.2

2xSPARKLE 8800GTS 512MB 770/1900/2250@SLI (nvidia 195.63)

2xWD640GB BLACK EDITION RAID0

SAMSUNG 226BW

[InFireBaptize 0]

windows xp has less process/services running in the background than vista/7.

Fresh install of windows xp uses less RAM than vista/7.

I agree with above poster but i switched to 7 because i like the GUI.

[Colt45_GTO 10]

XP works well here, can't comment on vista/7 due to the fact i never owned them. i have run everything on max with AA and PP dissabled.

win XP 2005 media edition

ASUS M2N-SLi Delux 570 nvidia chipset

AMD Athlon II X4 620 2600mhz

2042mb ddr2 667mhz

Nvidia GTX 260

340 gb SATA 7200 HDD

[celery 8]

Has anyone thought of using Win7 32 bit? The 64 bit version is known to have compatibility issues and the only people who can get something out of it are media editors.

[-bsm--sniper 10]

i have a dual boot and i really love Windows 7, ten steps ahead of Vista and XP... the strange thing was that any game run very well on Windows 7 except Arma2!

I don't think that the problem are the process/services that run in background because on my rig Windows 7 is more faster than Windows XP on all conditions.

I don't understand this strange behavior...

Edited December 3, 2009 by [bsm]-sniper

[InFireBaptize 0]

-sniper;1504270']i have a dual boot and i really love Windows 7' date=' ten steps ahead of Vista and XP... the strange thing was that any game run very well on Windows 7 except Arma2!

I don't think that the problem are the process/services that run in background because on my rig Windows 7 is more faster than Windows XP on all conditions.

I don't understand this strange behavior...[/quote']

i have tried both xp/7 64bit, not much difference in arma2 at least not significant! in fact i like arma2 on 7 more than xp, i thought the picture is crispier in 7 than xp, there could be something that you need to update to make compatible with 7? have you defraged your drive! have you moved your pagefile to separate drive away from arma2 and set pagefile min=max!

---------- Post added at 02:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:16 PM ----------

Has anyone thought of using Win7 32 bit? The 64 bit version is known to have compatibility issues and the only people who can get something out of it are media editors.

never had such thing! i have 4GB RAM so 64bit is the way to go. You might run into driver signature problems when installing third party drivers but even then there is a way to do it.

[-bsm--sniper 10]

i have tried both xp/7 64bit, not much difference in arma2 at least not significant! in fact i like arma2 on 7 more than xp, i thought the picture is crispier in 7 than xp, there could be something that you need to update to make compatible with 7? have you defraged your drive! have you moved your pagefile to separate drive away from arma2 and set pagefile min=max!

Yes, my hard disk was defragmented by perfectdisk 10 and my paging file was on a separate drive.

Actually my raid 0 has 2 partitons with XP and 7 on each partition.

I repeat, same hardware and same drivers but arma 2 on xp 32b was extremely fast with higher details than Windows 7 64b.

Other games like COH and Crysis were perfect on both OS

Edited December 3, 2009 by [bsm]-sniper

[InFireBaptize 0]

oh, now you're talking 32 vs. 64 bit. I never ran 32bit so i can't comment on that. By the way what is your RAID 0 STRIP? so everything is on the same logical drive! why not put windows on regular drive and the game on RAID 0!

[-bsm--sniper 10]

my comparison was between windows 7 64b vs windows xp 32b.

I have a raid 0 with 64KB of stripe size with a separate drive for the paging file, never had one problem with this configuration, i want more speed for all applications and games.

However the problem isn't the hard disk performance but the true graphic power from the two graphics card..... maybe the SLI don't work very well in Windows 7 with Arma 2.

This can be the real problem, SLI and Windows 7 with certain games can cause low performance issue, don't understand why but that is it.

Effectively, in Windows 7 i don't notice any great performance boost in arma 2 between 1 vga and 2 vga in sli even if the game profile in the nvidia control panel was exactly the same.

This is a big mistery... sli works very well in Windows 7 with other games but not in Arma2, who is the guilty?

Microsoft with WDM1.1 and the Directx11??

Nvidia Drivers??

Arma 2 Graphic engine??

bohhhhhhh

Edited December 3, 2009 by [bsm]-sniper

[Lonestar 11]

As far as i know and according to this test done by a french computer website: http://www.lesnumeriques.com/article-847-6375-93.html

It depends on the hardware you use with ArmA 2:

• Low end rig
  

• High end rig
  

Conclusion: for low end computers XP 32 runs ArmA 2 best. And for high end computers Seven does a better job.

Computers used:

• low end: - Intel Pentium E2220
  - ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe
  - 2 Go DDR3 Corsair CM3X-1333C9DHX
  - ATI Radeon HD 4770
  
• (vey) high end: -Intel Core i7 975 XE
  - Intel DX58SO
  - 6 Go DDR3 Corsair TR3X-1600C8 Dominator
  - PNY GeForce GTX 295
  

Edited December 4, 2009 by Lonestar
website linked exists in english as well

[-bsm--sniper 10]

yes but i want to see the difference, in both low and high rig, between 32bit os and 64 bit.

[Lonestar 11]

You are asking too much :p

The difference between 32 bit and 64 bit as far as games are concerned is very minor if we talk about performance on the same computer.

I think that if the game is 64bit compatible then it will run better on a high end rig with a 64bit os.

Actually it depends on the hardware you have.



64bit will only make the difference if you have a high end computer

and the diagrams posted above show it.

Edited December 3, 2009 by Lonestar

[-bsm--sniper 10]

hmm, i continue to don't understand.....

from the benchmark a low end rig with xp 32bit has the same performance than a high end rig with 7 64! so, where are the advantages?

I think that the high end rig maybe score more than 40 fps with xp 32 bit

do you agree?

[InFireBaptize 0]

-sniper;1507373']hmm' date=' i continue to don't understand.....

from the benchmark a low end rig with xp 32bit has the same performance than a high end rig with 7 64! so, where are the advantages?

I think that the high end rig maybe score more than 40 fps with xp 32 bit

do you agree?[/quote']

ok i once ran xp64, vista 64 and 7 64.

I can't really tell if i noticed that much difference between xp and 7 when playing arma2 but i liked xp because it used less RAM and less processes/services running in the background. Vista was horrible running arma2 becaue of micro stutters all over the place, i say horrible because no one would want to play arma2 that stutters!

Edited December 7, 2009 by InFireBaptize

[Lonestar 11]

-sniper;1507373']hmm' date=' i continue to don't understand.....

from the benchmark a low end rig with xp 32bit has the same performance than a high end rig with 7 64! so, where are the advantages?

I think that the high end rig maybe score more than 40 fps with xp 32 bit

do you agree?[/quote']

It is written on the web page: http://www.digitalversus.com/article-858-6531-93.html

We use the built-in game test so as to evaluate the average number of frames per second. On the entry-level machine, the graphics settings are set on high and anisotropic filters and antialiasing are put on low. On the second machine we put the graphics settings on very high and the texturing filters on normal.

Try to run the game at high level with a low end rig and windows seven, you are going to understand ;)

[celery 8]

It is written on the web page: http://www.digitalversus.com/article-858-6531-93.html

The test is worthless because it doesn't have both 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems on the same hardware. It's like comparing a slow car on asphalt and a fast one in cross country, the comparison is simply useless because you don't know how they perform on the same surface, let alone how the surface affects them.

[Lonestar 11]

Worthless No, Incomplete Yes

They didn't test both 32bit and 64bit on the same PC because the result difference would have been too slight.

[-bsm--sniper 10]

The test is worthless because it doesn't have both 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems on the same hardware. It's like comparing a slow car on asphalt and a fast one in cross country, the comparison is simply useless because you don't know how they perform on the same surface, let alone how the surface affects them.

i agree with celery, it's the same thing that i try to say (my bad english don't help me :)).

The comparison must be done with same hardware, same drivers version (if possible), same arma 2 settings but with different OS (xp, vista and 7) on both 32bit and 64bit.

The two benchmarks are incomparable because arma 2 has strange behavior when using both low or high settings with some graphic settings like shadows, video memory, ecc.

My experience is that Arma 2 with my rig works very well with xp 32b and very bad with 7 64b (and both with same drivers version)

[-bsm--sniper 10]

Hi guys,

after bis released 1.05 patch i have decided to do some internal arma 2 benchmarks to demonstrate that Windows XP works very much better than Windows 7 with Arma 2 Engine.

These are the results:

Windows 7 64b:

Benchmark 1: 32fps

Benchmark 2: 16fps

Windows XP 32b:

Benchmark 1: 59fps

Benchmark 2: 20fps

RIG in sign