ARMA 2 FPS Badly Fragged using 9800gtx+, TrackIr + AMD x2 4400

[panzereich 10]

First, please forgive me, first post and I have problem I have never encountered before, in any other game.

My frames in single player mode are shot.

First, my specs:

AMD 4400 x2

2 gig ram

9800gtx+ (Using a 42 inch LCD Samsung)

72gig Raptor 10K

XFI - Platinum

TrackIR

1920 x 1080:

Armoury and I get great frames. 45 - 60 fps. FRAPS.

Single Player with Squad. 10 - 25 fps. FRAPS.

Campaign in the third mission with the city. 7 - 15 fps. FRAPS.

WTF? So I set everything in graphics to very low to test. No change in FPS. I try resolution at something really crappy and still. NO CHANGE AT ALL.I have played with the config file and tried turning some settings up. No change. Turn them all down. No change.

This has to be a CPU bottleneck right? Man, never before happened to me. All other games run fine. I guess it is the intense AI and the massive landscapes.

This is so friggin irritating.

I play COD4 at 1920 x 1080 everything maxed. Empire total war, similar. Crisis ran well for me.

This shits me. Sorry Bohemia, but really for christ's sake. I payed up front in advance for this and I cannot play the campaign for the life of me.

So just some advice please people. Do I shelve this game and wait for them to fix it, or is my computer really just an old piece of %^*#?

Let me just tell all you guys that using TrackIr at these frames is like a living hell. It makes me physically sick I swear. Vomit and keyboards do not go well together. So unless you get good fps, ditch the TrackIr.

When the frames go up above 35, TrackIR is actually really good. Especially in the aircraft. But I'm not getting better frames.

In the end, after reading other posts, I am starting to think buying a better CPU is not going to do Jack. Any suggestions? Bohemia? Specs do say I need a faster CPU.

[Bulldogs 10]

Most people who have reported the problem have a pretty low CPU (by today's standards)

There also seems to be lower performance on AMD based CPU's in the campaign (there's a lot of variables to calculate in the campaign)

An upgrade to CPU should help, but keep in mind that due to the engine of the game, duel core's seem to outperform quad cores in most circumstances of Arma 2

[panzereich 10]

Thanxs for the validation on my points. Does anyone know any other ways to improve this CPU bottleneck. Is it going to help me by turning all my shite like AVG etc off? Checking the affinity, it says core 0 and core 1, so I assume it is using both cores. Anyone else with a x2 4400 who's game is actually running ok in campaign?

[shadylurker 0]

Dont go upgrading so fast, I have a quad core intel over clocked to 3.33ghz and i have the same problem as you. let BI fix their stuff....

[bangtail 0]

Thanxs for the validation on my points. Does anyone know any other ways to improve this CPU bottleneck. Is it going to help me by turning all my shite like AVG etc off? Checking the affinity, it says core 0 and core 1, so I assume it is using both cores. Anyone else with a x2 4400 who's game is actually running ok in campaign?

I hate to say it bud but that CPU is almost 5 years old and you are trying to play @ 1920 x 1080?

You need to upgrade to get acceptable performance. There isn't really any way around that tbh.

Eth

[panzereich 10]

Hey, that's good news for me Shady. Thanks for your feedback. I may hold off on that CPU upgrade for a bit.

---------- Post added at 03:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:07 PM ----------

Hey Eth. I am saying that resolution is not affecting my fps at all. Neither are any of the graphic options. Up high or down low. 7-15 fps in the third mission with the city.

But I can see your point that maybe my CPU is a bit old now. I want to validate this by getting feedback. Shady just said his Intel Quad Core has the same issues. I don't want to upgrade unless I am sure the x2 is the problem.

I can see that having an old cpu is going to kill the game regardless of resolution, but 7 - 15 fps on the lowest wide screen resolution I could find in the game? I'm getting 45 + fps in the armoury mode with most things on high.

[bangtail 0]

Hey, that's good news for me Shady. Thanks for your feedback. I may hold off on that CPU upgrade for a bit.

---------- Post added at 03:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:07 PM ----------

Hey Eth. I am saying that resolution is not affecting my fps at all. Neither are any of the graphic options. Up high or down low. 7-15 fps in the third mission with the city.

But I can see your point that maybe my CPU is a bit old now. I want to validate this by getting feedback. Shady just said his Intel Quad Core has the same issues. I don't want to upgrade unless I am sure the x2 is the problem.

I can see that having an old cpu is going to kill the game regardless of resolution, but 7 - 15 fps on the lowest wide screen resolution I could find in the game? I'm getting 45 + fps in the armoury mode with most things on high.

Yah, Im not sure about that.

I've been playing online all night with a couple of friends and I never went below 35 FPS. A lot of the "problems" people are having are down to themselves (not all of them mind you) but when I see people with systems OC'd to umpteen Gigahertz and multi GPU cards etc etc and then the owner admits in the next breath that he is "not technically savvy", I know squarely where the problem lies.

Again, that's not to say that the game doesn't have issues, but it's not as bad as some on these forums make it out to be.

I would definitely go ahead and upgrade. It's not just for A2 either, it will help across the board.

Eth

Edited July 3, 2009 by BangTail

[FlunkyMonkey 10]

I hate to say it bud but that CPU is almost 5 years old and you are trying to play @ 1920 x 1080?

You need to upgrade to get acceptable performance. There isn't really any way around that tbh.

Eth

I seriously don't recommend upgrading based of ArmA II. If other games run fine, then your in good shape.

[mr_centipede 31]

reducing view distance also helps reducing the cpu load.. the demo manual told me that... the fillrate (3d resolution) on the other hand, dependent on vid card

[f2k sel 164]

His CPU does meet the optimal requirements for this game, but I think trying to run TrackIR and at that resolution isn't going to help.

The OP needs to run the Arma2mark and set his system up as required, that will give him a benchmark to test things agains and a comparrison with others with similar specs.

I think the bit that winds me up is that I bought my 2xcores 4800+ 2.4MHz about 3 years back and you wait all this time for a game that uses more cores only to find out that it's now to slow. In effect I've never really use it apart from about 3 games.

I never expected my CPU to really run this game and just bought it for the editing side until I get a new rig. That would be fine apart from the endless Crash and freezes.

[Helmut_AUT 0]

Panzer, the problem is that the "Optimal Requirements" as written on the box are plain optimistic, if not straight out lies.

I run an AMD 5000+, and I get below 20 FPS in the included WARFARE missions. Independent from graphic settings, it's obviously the CPU that causes the bottleneck. I did in fact test within the editor, and the difference between just me on an empty map, and me on the same map with 10 AI Groups is the difference between 35 and 25 FPS. No changes in rendering or where I look, the AI out of sight.

Some of the included content uses much more than 10 AI groups so obviously frames plumet.

So basically, BIS sold a game with an "Optimum CPU" requirement of a 4400+ Dual core, but has included missions which need a CPU less than a year old (as per the PCgamer benchmarks) to run at better than 20 FPS.

Look at those graphs: The first CPUs to get 25 FPS (minimum I would call playable) is the Phenom II X4955BE and the Intel C2Q9650. Wiki says that Intel has been released late summer last year, that AMD in this year. Anything older will not give you 25 FPS when the AI gets heavy.

I seriously doubt BIS wants to cut the potential market for their game down to people with systems less than a year old. The average gamer - not enthusiast - upgrades every three years, so they would be only looking at one third of the potential market.

Conclusion: They need to optimize CPU usage. A lot. As long as other modern games run fine on the same systems, there's no reason why A2 should be allowed to run like shite.

[bangtail 0]

Panzer, the problem is that the "Optimal Requirements" as written on the box are plain optimistic, if not straight out lies.

I run an AMD 5000+, and I get below 20 FPS in the included WARFARE missions. Independent from graphic settings, it's obviously the CPU that causes the bottleneck. I did in fact test within the editor, and the difference between just me on an empty map, and me on the same map with 10 AI Groups is the difference between 35 and 25 FPS. No changes in rendering or where I look, the AI out of sight.

Some of the included content uses much more than 10 AI groups so obviously frames plumet.

So basically, BIS sold a game with an "Optimum CPU" requirement of a 4400+ Dual core, but has included missions which need a CPU less than a year old (as per the PCgamer benchmarks) to run at better than 20 FPS.

Look at those graphs: The first CPUs to get 25 FPS (minimum I would call playable) is the Phenom II X4955BE and the Intel C2Q9650. Wiki says that Intel has been released late summer last year, that AMD in this year. Anything older will not give you 25 FPS when the AI gets heavy.

I seriously doubt BIS wants to cut the potential market for their game down to people with systems less than a year old. The average gamer - not enthusiast - upgrades every three years, so they would be only looking at one third of the potential market.

Conclusion: They need to optimize CPU usage. A lot. As long as other modern games run fine on the same systems, there's no reason why A2 should be allowed to run like shite.

Do you really expect an almost 5 year old CPU to run new games at more than the absolute minimum ?

You're the same guy who thinks the 9600 GT should be running the game at 1920 x 1080 right?

Seriously bud, your assumptions about the PC gaming industry and PC gamers in general are just flat out wrong.

3 years between upgrades? That doesn't apply to most gamers, maybe your average PC user, but not PC gamers. I know this for a fact through a very large client list of gamers (some of whom have been with me since 1995). Not ONE of them has ever waited 3 years. The slowest upgrader does a full upgrade every 1.5 years (and that's with bits and pieces in between).

The more comitted guys/girls are fully upgrading every 9-12 months. Now I'm not suggesting you have to upgrade every 9-12 months to get A2 running properly but by the same token at 3+ years, you are really playing a game of when and not if your hardware is going to start having problems keeping up.

It seems you live in some kind of PC "la la land". Basically, because you don't like to upgrade for whatever reason, it seems to have become your mandate to try and convince other people not to.

Bottom line 9600 GT is a budget video card and the AMD X2 4400 is a very old CPU. There is only so much you can expect from either of these.

I think we had this discussion before so Im not going to get into it again.

Part of my business is building and selling gaming PCs, so before you start posting links that do not refer to gamers but PC users in general (like you did last time) think twice.

Regards,

Eth

Edited July 3, 2009 by BangTail

[-=seany=- 5]

It seems you live in some kind of PC "la la land".

If he lives in PC "la la land", then where are the people who came up with the minimum specs living? riddle me that.

What where they again?

AMD Athlon 3200+ (SINGLE CORE)

1GB ram

Geforce 7800 256mb

lmao, to me that is the biggest blunder BIS have made. The OP of this thread clearly has hardware 3 generations, at least, better than this and they cant run the game in a playable state at lowest settings. I think that's a reason to complain. I do agree that some people are probably trying to run the game at settings too high for their hardware, but most I feel are not.

There are machines out there that could run Arma1 at normal details in a fully playable condition, including full (25 players+) Evolution multiplayer missions. And now, even running Arma2 at its lowest settings (which look atrocious unsurprisingly), they cant play the campaign or a single mission without it turning into a slide show. Arma2 does look better than Arma1....but not that much better. Shouldn't we have at least been able to turn down the settings to match that of Arma1? And even if we couldn't, just print the friggin' proper system requirements on the box!!

I think BIS have none to blame but themselves for all these poor performance threads, and you can expect a whole lot more as Joe Soap on the high street goes into Game, looks at the minimum requirements and says, "I can run that easily"...good luck.

Edited July 3, 2009 by -=seany=-

[bangtail 0]

If he lives in PC "la la land", then where are the people who came up with the minimum specs living? riddle me that.

What where they again?

AMD Athlon 3200+ (SINGLE CORE)

1GB ram

Geforce 7800 256mb

lmao, to me that is the biggest blunder BIS have made. The OP of this thread clearly has hardware 3 generations, at least, better than this and they cant run the game in a playable state at lowest settings. I think that's a reason to complain. I do agree that some people are probably trying to run the game at settings too high for their hardware, but most I feel are not.

There are machines out there that could run Arma1 at normal details in a fully playable condition, including full (25 players+) Evolution multiplayer missions. And now, even running Arma2 at its lowest settings (which look atrocious unsurprisingly), they cant play the campaign or a single mission without it turning into a slide show. Arma2 does look better than Arma1....but not that much better. Shouldn't we have at least been able to turn down the settings to match that of Arma1?

I think BIS have none to blame but themselves for all these poor performance threads, and you can expect a whole lot more as Joe Soap on the high street goes into Game, looks at the minimum requirements and says, "I can run that easily"...good luck.

Minimum spec means the absolute minimum that will play the game with everything on low at the lowest res.

So that's all settings low/disabled at 640 x 480 with no AA/AF.

The problem is that a lot of people with min spec PCs are trying to run at 1920 x 1080 etc.

[rasdenfasden 12]

Usually it's not the game but some weird thing done with the graphics card. I myself run arma 2 BETTER than 1 even in full missions and my PC is not really that good. The easiest way to get it running nicely (for me at least) is to make sure all stuff like Anti aliasing are determined by the application or else you might be running something mad like 8x AA and you don't even know it. Arma 2 is simply bigger and more detailed than any other game on the market, you can't expect it to run perfectly on anything short of a crazy PC.

Also, your resolution is insanely overambitious. Put that the hell down.

[-=seany=- 5]

Minimum spec means the absolute minimum that will play the game with everything on low at the lowest res.

So that's all settings low/disabled at 640 x 480 with no AA/AF.

The problem is that a lot of people with min spec PCs are trying to run at 1920 x 1080 etc.

...And in the OP's first post:

WTF? So I set everything in graphics to very low to test. No change in FPS. I try resolution at something really crappy and still. NO CHANGE AT ALL.I have played with the config file and tried turning some settings up. No change. Turn them all down. No change.

3 generations better hardware than minimum spec, all lowest settings, unplayable, no change in frame rate: CPU violated by something that is not optimized.

[bangtail 0]

...And in the OP's first post:

3 generations better hardware than minimum spec, all lowest settings, unplayable, no change in frame rate: CPU violated by something that is not optimized.

AMD X2 4400? It's almost 5 years old. No point in continuing this discussion. You continue to live in your world where you can play new games @ 1920 x 1080 on 5 year old hardware. I'll continue to live in reality.

Regards,

Eth

[Alex72 1]

If he lives in PC "la la land", then where are the people who came up with the minimum specs living? riddle me that.

The guys adding the minimal/optimal specs ususally live in la-la land. Ive posted about it before and minimal is to get the game to just start - thats it. Optimal is to get it to run but most of the times just on normal and with not that good performance.

Now i dont know why they do that, but i guess it has something to do with that all systems are so different that its almost impossible to say what optimal is. But optimal doesnt mean perfect FPS and everything on full. It most of the times mean to be able to run it decent. At least in my experience i always had to go above to really enjoy a game.

The OP's CPU is real old we can all agree to that. I had the 3800+ X2 up til some moths ago and changed to 6000+ X2 (cheapest of all X2 3ghz afaik. some 80Euro). The reports from people are varied. My friend that has a Q2.66 intel with 9800GT 512MB, 4GB 800mhz RAM plays on HIGH and he is real happy as performance is good. Im on 6000+ X2, 8800GTS 320MB, 2GB 800mhz RAM and im happy - but at 1024x768 res wich is a bitch. But still i can play with good FPS. All settings to normal excepts AF high, PP off, AA off (sometimes on. depends), PF 100%.

Things cost money and it hurts to upgrade. But that CPU i would upgrade if i was you. You wont upgrade it just for ARMA2 as its so old that other newer and older games you play will feel good as well. What CPU you should buy i dont know mate. What i do know is that BIS definatelly is looking at the performance and they will optimize it more. They did in their older games so i dont think there is any change now. But if i were you i would upgrade that CPU of yours since your videocard will feel good about it too. Play better together so to speak. If i was you and i had money i would go for some good quad. If i had tight budget (and i do lol) i would go for some AMD. Either X2 3ghz or Phenom Quad wich seem to be rather "cheap". Or an older Core2Duo E8xx series. It is expensive these days though to keep up. Too expensive if you ask me...

but again guys, minimum means to get the game to start and nothing more. Playability will be aweful. Optimal so far in my experience have been "playable", but not to the point where i cheer and jump of joy. Always had me buy better gear to go beyond optimal to really enjoy the game. Also ofcourse optimal is not exactlly the truth for everyone as all PC's are different depending on how good the gear is (overheated, faults, defragged or not, running tons of programs in the background, viruses, heavy anti-virus progs etc etc). So some have super gear but take bad care of their systems wich leads to slowdowns. But im just giving my view how it has been for me through the years of gaming. And my PC has been clean and running as it should do ever since i graduated hardware/OS (1995).

I hope you and others get ARMA2 to run smooth so you can start enjoy the game. :)

Alex

[bangtail 0]

The guys adding the minimal/optimal specs ususally live in la-la land. Ive posted about it before and minimal is to get the game to just start - thats it. Optimal is to get it to run but most of the times just on normal and with not that good performance.

Now i dont know why they do that, but i guess it has something to do with that all systems are so different that its almost impossible to say what optimal is. But optimal doesnt mean perfect FPS and everything on full. It most of the times mean to be able to run it decent. At least in my experience i always had to go above to really enjoy a game.

The OP's CPU is real old we can all agree to that. I had the 3800+ X2 up til some moths ago and changed to 6000+ X2 (cheapest of all X2 3ghz afaik. some 80Euro). The reports from people are varied. My friend that has a Q2.66 intel with 9800GT 512MB, 4GB 800mhz RAM plays on HIGH and he is real happy as performance is good. Im on 6000+ X2, 8800GTS 320MB, 2GB 800mhz RAM and im happy - but at 1024x768 res wich is a bitch. But still i can play with good FPS. All settings to normal excepts AF high, PP off, AA off (sometimes on. depends), PF 100%.

Things cost money and it hurts to upgrade. But that CPU i would upgrade if i was you. You wont upgrade it just for ARMA2 as its so old that other newer and older games you play will feel good as well. What CPU you should buy i dont know mate. What i do know is that BIS definatelly is looking at the performance and they will optimize it more. They did in their older games so i dont think there is any change now. But if i were you i would upgrade that CPU of yours since your videocard will feel good about it too. Play better together so to speak. If i was you and i had money i would go for some good quad. If i had tight budget (and i do lol) i would go for some AMD. Either X2 3ghz or Phenom Quad wich seem to be rather "cheap". Or an older Core2Duo E8xx series. It is expensive these days though to keep up. Too expensive if you ask me...

but again guys, minimum means to get the game to start and nothing more. Playability will be aweful. Optimal so far in my experience have been "playable", but not to the point where i cheer and jump of joy. Always had me buy better gear to go beyond optimal to really enjoy the game. Also ofcourse optimal is not exactlly the truth for everyone as all PC's are different depending on how good the gear is (overheated, faults, defragged or not, running tons of programs in the background, viruses, heavy anti-virus progs etc etc). So some have super gear but take bad care of their systems wich leads to slowdowns. But im just giving my view how it has been for me through the years of gaming. And my PC has been clean and running as it should do ever since i graduated hardware/OS (1995).

I hope you and others get ARMA2 to run smooth so you can start enjoy the game. :)

Alex

Just wanted to add that I'm not trying to be an a$$hole or in any way trying to belittle people, but you really have to understand that what I have said and what Alex has said is more to help than to hurt.

Obviously, not everyone can afford to buy ridiculous PCs but at the same time, you really have to be aware that PC gaming is not console gaming and the upgrade curve is significantly higher/faster.

You can still buy an awesome machine for very little these days if you shop around.

Edited July 3, 2009 by BangTail

[bushlurker 45]

I wouldn't even READ the "requirements" if I were you... All this furore over performance may be new to people new to BIS games... not so to those of us who have been around for a while...

Here's a brief rundown of the last decade or so....

BIS release OFP - I have a P3 - beyond optimal requirements - game runs like a pig...

BIS issue patches for 2 solid years - game runs a little better...

P4's - a twinkle in an intel devs eye at the time of OFP release - are introduced - I buy one, plus a graphics card that didn't exist at the time of the OFP release - suddenly OFP is running WELL...

BIS continue to release patches...

I find that if I drop graphics settings I can now run fairly sizable mods as well...

Arma is released - it won't run AT ALL on my p4/GT5700...

I upgrade again - to - at the time - a badass AMD6000+ and a 8800GTS...

Arma 1 runs - like a pig... BIS start issuing a years worth of patches (they're getting faster at this now)...

However - I discover that finally - FINALLY - like 5 years after its release - on equipment 3 generations beyond what existed when the game was released - I can run OFP on full belt with just about any addon I want and keep FPS above 30...

Another year passes - more BIS patches.... looking not bad - Arma is running much better...

Just when I'm thinking "i7's and GT280's an stuff didn't exist when Arma 1 was released - I bet I could run it properly on a "generations beyond" rig like that... Arma 2 is released....

Surprise, surprise... it runs like a pig and BIS start issuing patches.....

Sound familiar??

There will be more patches - nothing surer... and they WILL improve things for most, if not all current machines... but if past performance is anything to go by, then to run Arma2 full on at decent res and FPS requires a machine that is at least 18months away, plus multiple patches which will be issued over the next year or so...

B

[echo1 0]

I'm playing ArmA 2 on a simillar enough spec (9600GT, Athlon X2 @ ~2.7GHz, 4GB) and it runs great at 1600x1200 with good graphics and ~2km view distance. That said, you can't expect to run the game on a CPU that just about meets recommended specs, and a graphics card that's somewhat below recommend specs and expect to be able to run at really high resolutions. Just turn the res down and play the game...

I play COD4 at 1920 x 1080 everything maxed. Empire total war, similar. Crisis ran well for me.

You are comparing a fresh off the shelf game to an RTS (always use much less system resources than an FPS) and two two-year old shooter games that use much smaller environments that ArmA II. Not a fair test.

Panzer, the problem is that the "Optimal Requirements" as written on the box are plain optimistic, if not straight out lies.

I have yet to see a recommended requirements list on the back of any game that represents what you need to run the game at really high res at full settings. Publishers give a spec that will let the game run at decent FPS at decent graphical settings. Based on my experience, and the experience of others I know, this is true. If publishers were to put a spec down of what's required to play the thing at full blast on 1900x1200 or 2560x1600, people would think that that is what's required to make the game run half way decently and they won't buy it. It's as simple as that.

Edited July 3, 2009 by echo1

[bangtail 0]

You are comparing a fresh off the shelf game to an RTS (always use much less system resources than an FPS) and two two-year old shooter games that use much smaller environments that ArmA II. Not a fair test.

Time to start ignoring these Crysis comparisons. They denote a severe lack of technical savvy.

Eth

[jaundiced 10]

Yah, Im not sure about that.

I've been playing online all night with a couple of friends and I never went below 35 FPS. A lot of the "problems" people are having are down to themselves (not all of them mind you) but when I see people with systems OC'd to umpteen Gigahertz and multi GPU cards etc etc and then the owner admits in the next breath that he is "not technically savvy", I know squarely where the problem lies.

Again, that's not to say that the game doesn't have issues, but it's not as bad as some on these forums make it out to be.

I would definitely go ahead and upgrade. It's not just for A2 either, it will help across the board.

Eth

you are absolutely missing the point and giving dishonest advice based on the posters situation.

he is describing what myself and many others are experiencing where settings and 3D resolution bear no impact on performance - obviously an issue with the software, and not hardware. quite ironic given your shot at people who aren't 'tech savvy'.

OP this is currently being labeled an AI scripting loop error by some people - try running armory and see if your performance is drastically better, or editor. if it is, then you're experiencing what many people with fine systems are.

it is possible you may need an upgrade, but you do meet the sys reqs - and i would definitely. repeat DEFINITELY wait on the next patch before you go spending money as some less astute posters are so eager to suggest.

cheers.

and ethne, if you don't experience these issues on what ******* grounds are you claiming 'it's not as bad as some people make it sound'. for them, and myself, it obviously is. one of the most useless things to do in a troubleshooting forum is to repeatedly say things are fine just because they are for you. if they are indeed fine for you - why are you here?

[bangtail 0]

you are absolutely missing the point and giving dishonest advice based on the posters situation.

he is describing what myself and many others are experiencing where settings and 3D resolution bear no impact on performance - obviously an issue with the software, and not hardware. quite ironic given your shot at people who aren't 'tech savvy'.

OP this is currently being labeled an AI scripting loop error by some people - try running armory and see if your performance is drastically better, or editor. if it is, then you're experiencing what many people with fine systems are.

it is possible you may need an upgrade, but you do meet the sys reqs - and i would definitely. repeat DEFINITELY wait on the next patch before you go spending money as some less astute posters are so eager to suggest.

cheers.

and ethne, if you don't experience these issues on what ******* grounds are you claiming 'it's not as bad as some people make it sound'. for them, and myself, it obviously is. one of the most useless things to do in a troubleshooting forum is to repeatedly say things are fine just because they are for you. if they are indeed fine for you - why are you here?

I post my experiences and settings in the hope that it will help others get the game going.

According to you, it's fine for people to scream and yell that A2 sucks but I can't post my positive experiences?

Whatever!

Less astute? Listen up, The AMDx2 4400 is dated. I'm not suggesting he upgrades for A2, I'm suggesting he updates a very old CPU for general performance.

Eth

PS : As for dishonest advice, I wouldn't make a suggestion like that unless I was clear in my conviction. If anyone walked into my office today and told me they were a gamer with an AMD x2 4400 (regardless of whether A2 was mentioned or not), I would counsel them to upgrade their CPU.

Read Alex's post on "minimum spec" Sparky.

PPS : I experienced issues under Win7/Vista 64 Bit and the only one I absolutely couldn't get rid of was the inexplicable FPS drops (due to CPU spikes) in built up areas. This forced me to revert to XP 64. I never said the game was perfect but it runs perfectly (performance wise) under XP 64 and the Vista problems will be ironed out in short order.

Edited July 3, 2009 by BangTail

[jaundiced 10]

don't think you'll be able to pull me down to you lvl ethne ;) thx, and have a great day.