Report: HD5870 & ArmA 2

[[frl]myke 14]

Well, this is no bug/error report, more some first impressions with ATI/AMD's new High-end Graphic Card HD5870 and is meant as some sort of help for people that would like to upgrade theyr Graphic Card. I thought in this section the most people will see it but if it's completely wrong here so please move it.

Ok, to topic. First of all, ArmA 2 is and remains heavily CPU depending. If you had to lower Object Details and/or Terrain Details as well as viewdistance to achieve playable FPS, this GPU will not help you.

If you have already maxed out these settings but AA, AF, Shadow Details, Post processing and 3D performance still at normal settings (or even below), this GPU is definately for you.

With the HD5870 i was able to change all settings listed above to absolute maximum without any noticeable change of FPS. So changing 3D resolution from 100% up to 200% just lowered the FPS by one frame, but this could also be a rounding error. Same goes for AA, AF, Shadow quality and Post processing. Switching from off to max all together affected the FPS by 0-1 frames.

So, the HD5870 can massively improve picture quality if the CPU can handle the rest. The fan control is well done, absolutely quiet in 2D mode and hardly noticeable in 3D mode (namely playing ArmA 2).

If your CPU is fast enough (AMD/Intel Quadcores above 3.5GHz), this card is for you.

:EDIT:

Ok, i've made 2 ArmAmark runs, once with 100% 3D Resolution and once with 200%.

Info's about my rig:

AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.5GHz

4 GB Ram

Gigabyte GA-MA790X-DS4 Motherboard

Asus HD5870/1GB

First the settings (ignore the viewdistance on this screen, ArmAmark does alter it by itself).

ArmAmark results @ 100% 3D resolution:

And ArmAmark result @ 200% 3D Resolution:

I've run each test twice and the result screens are taken from after the second run each.

Edited October 7, 2009 by [FRL]Myke

[jumpinghubert 49]

Hi,

can you make 2 demo benchmarks, first with 100% 3D-res and all @veryhigh, the second with 200% 3D-res and all @veryhigh? You can integrate the island from the demo and the benchmark mission into the addon folder of arma2.

the results you can post here http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=87320&page=5

Thx

Edited October 7, 2009 by JumpingHubert

[telejunky 0]

in general you are right, but i think a 5850 will improve my system as well. The 4850 has to fight with large Battles, dense gras and antialiasing together with my PII 945. But you are right. I would also like to have a faster cpu but my mobo only supports 95W cpus and i already spent too much money on my machine^^I hope a future Patch will unleash the power of our systems :) *hope cough*

[[frl]myke 14]

@JumpingHubert

will do asap and post results.

@telejunky

of course the 5850 is a good choice as well. But i don't own a 5850 so i could just guess. On the 5870 i have some practical experiences now which i share for others which are in the process about thinking of a GPU upgrade.

From what i've seen from different Hardwaresites, the 5850 is head to head with the GTX285 so i guess that ArmA 2 performance will also be similar with those 2 GPU's.

[liquidpinky 11]

What is the draw distance and resolution set at? These being the most important factors.

Also, is this game really CPU dependant, my QX9650 sits at under 50% load most of the time during play no matter what my GFX settings are?

[Relemar 10]

thanks myke, we love you

[liquidpinky 11]

Cheers for the update, seems pretty impressive so far.

BTW, guess I wasn't pushing the CPU enough, raised some settings and managed to push it to over 75% now.

[jumpinghubert 49]

thx myke. But the armamark isn´t as good as the benchmark from the arma2-demo. It would be nice to bench it. You have only to download this package: http://armed-assault.de/downloads/arma2-demo-island--missions.html

can you test with 4000m view distance? then you can get landscape and objectdetail to veryhigh.

[scruffy 21]

And if you try Eyefinity with 3 monitors, please post your results ;)

[Dwarden 1125]

what about add also anti-aliasing ? :)

[kklownboy 43]

what about add also anti-aliasing ? :)

Be tuff with only one card in ARMA2. Be nice to know if it doesnt break AA using the SSAA option.

[[frl]myke 14]

@JumpingHubert

Rgr that, will do. And then with AA maxed out...forgot to set it there, my bad.

@Scruffy

Sure i can do some tests with Eyefinity, i'll PM my Postal Address where you can send the 2 additional Monitors. ;)

[[frl]myke 14]

Ok, i've made some more benchmark sessions as requested with the Benchmark mission from the demo version. I forgot to take screens but as there is only shown average FPS at the end, i guess you can live with.

For all tests i had Viewdistance 4097 meters.

Test 1:

All very high, 3D Resolution 200%

Average FPS: 14

Test 2:

PP off, AA off, Terrain & Object detail normal, 3D Resolution 200%

Average FPS: 28

Test 3:

All very high, 3D Resolution 100%

Average FPS: 28

Test 4:

PP off, AA off, Terrain & Object detail normal, 3D Resolution 100%

Average FPS: 30

While the quality drop in the fourth test run is well visible since AA is off, subjectively i couldn't see a significant difference in quality between test 2 and 3.

Also i've tested in the editor how the different settings changed the FPS shown by FRAPS. This isn't pretty accurate, i know that pretty well but it showed me that from now on the CPU is limiting and not the GPU.

By changing GPU related settings (Texture detail, Shadow detail, AA, AF, 3D Res., Post processing), the changes in FPS were absolutely minimal, most of the time even staying stable. Significant changes i could only produce by changing CPU related settings like viewdistance, terrain detail and object detail.

I can't test it but from what i could see i would guess a single HD5870 with a Intel Core I7 @~4GHz should allow very high settings with high viewdistance and 200% 3D Resolution. It hurts me to say that as i'm AMD Fan but i'm affraid with actual AMD CPU high settings (in VD, Terrain & object detail) is max to reach.

Edited October 11, 2009 by [FRL]Myke

[jumpinghubert 49]

thx for testing!

[kklownboy 43]

...

I can't test it but from what i could see i would guess a single HD5870 with a Intel Core I7 @~4GHz should allow very high settings with high viewdistance and 200% 3D Resolution. It hurts me to say that as i'm AMD Fan but i'm affraid with actual AMD CPU high settings (in VD, Terrain & object detail) is max to reach.

Get another card you will be near double your frames.

[[frl]myke 14]

Get another card you will be near double your frames.

I doubt that on my system since the CPU is bottlenecking. Another card would just allow to max out AA while on 200% 3D Resolution and this is absolutely not worth the price of a second HD5870.

Also for myself, the game runs smooth enough with quite good quality.

[code34 248]

hello,

i got too a 5870 and i play at 1920 reso with a i5@3.8ghz

A lot of parameters sucks the performance and don't really improve the visual experience, so i configure as this:

- aa and af at normal

- memory card and texture very high

- shadow high

- ground normal (no other choice with my visibility)

- post rending : low

visibility : 10 000

i have around 40 fps on tchernarus with thoses setting (depending the missions).

The game often crash to the desktop with this visibility.

2 crash yesterday

2 crash 2 days ago,

I reproduce the bug in thoses conditions in MP GAME, go into forest, and turn around quickly. Image slow down, finaly freeze and game back to the desktop. The process disappear from application bar but run into the task bar of windows 7.

Edited October 13, 2009 by code34

[liquidpinky 11]

hello,

i got too a 5870 and i play at 1920 reso with a i5@3.8ghz

A lot of parameters sucks the performance and don't really improve the visual experience, so i configure as this:

- aa and af at normal

- memory card and texture very high

- shadow high

- ground normal (no other choice with my visibility)

- post rending : low

visibility : 10 000

i have around 40 fps on tchernarus with thoses setting (depending the missions).

The game often crash to the desktop with this visibility.

2 crash yesterday

2 crash 2 days ago,

I reproduce the bug in thoses conditions in MP GAME, go into forest, and turn around quickly. Image slow down, finaly freeze and game back to the desktop. The process disappear from application bar but run into the task bar of windows 7.

Try these settings:

Visibility- 3000 to 4000, 10000 is not really going to do much more than overload your GPU and most vehicles and object only appear within the 3000 mark unless you use mods.

Texture- high

Memory- high or normal, this setting really reduces crashes a lot and doesn't affect performance much at all. Changing this from default and very high really reduced crashes to almost nil.

Anisotropic Filtering- high or highest as this does make a difference on lower textures.

Anti Aliasing- low or off, not really needed on 1920 res and is a performance dropper.

terrain detail- low or lowest

object detail- normal

shadows- very high

post process- low or disabled.

You will probably run 60fps or higher, until you try some MP games or busy missions, then it will half.

That is my setup for virtually zero crashes and solid 30fps performance for MP playing.

[Helmut_AUT 0]

I have an AMD Phenom II 965 on order (3.4 Ghz) and the HD5870. As long as FSAA works nice, and the overall performance is good, I'm a happy camper. There is however one guy at simHQ already posting about texture problems with his card, but as long as it isn't universal...

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2878841.html#Post2878841

And yes, in general I think unless you are running fast or overclocked i7, you're better off stabilizing at 25 to 30 constant frames and squeezing every little bit of image quality out of the card. From the benchmarks I've seen, you won't get much more framerates from normal Intel Quadcores or AMDs once heavy AI kicks in.

[code34 248]

Try these settings:

Visibility- 3000 to 4000, 10000 is not really going to do much more than overload your GPU and most vehicles and object only appear within the 3000 mark unless you use mods.

Texture- high

Memory- high or normal, this setting really reduces crashes a lot and doesn't affect performance much at all. Changing this from default and very high really reduced crashes to almost nil.

Anisotropic Filtering- high or highest as this does make a difference on lower textures.

Anti Aliasing- low or off, not really needed on 1920 res and is a performance dropper.

terrain detail- low or lowest

object detail- normal

shadows- very high

post process- low or disabled.

You will probably run 60fps or higher, until you try some MP games or busy missions, then it will half.

That is my setup for virtually zero crashes and solid 30fps performance for MP playing.

I like to play with this visibility !!! This is the problem ;)

i will try your settings to see but if it's a hardware issue i want to know how to solve it. For my think, it's a bug. The graphic card is not overclocked. A friend that uses the 4890 vaporx encountered the same problem with a 10000 visibility with a low resolution.

Edited October 13, 2009 by code34

[[frl]myke 14]

Only because the slider can be pushed up to 10'000 meters it doesn't mean you have to. Actually there is no CPU around (be it Intel or AMD) which could handle this and viewdistance is CPU related, not GPU.

With max quality settings you can play smotthly with up to 4000m which is IMHO more than enough.

Maybe CPU's Post-PhenomII/I7 are able to handle 10'000 meters.

[zaira 10]

Only because the slider can be pushed up to 10'000 meters it doesn't mean you have to. Actually there is no CPU around (be it Intel or AMD) which could handle this and viewdistance is CPU related, not GPU.

With max quality settings you can play smotthly with up to 4000m which is IMHO more than enough.

Maybe CPU's Post-PhenomII/I7 are able to handle 10'000 meters.

M8 you are totaly right, i dont think there is even a point in more than 4000m, and no cpu today can play fixed 60fps, with this setings...

Maybe gulftown (6 core 32nm nehalem)...

[770fs 10]

i have HD5870 too

i dont know

but with you can do more OC its will be beter =]

i have i7 920 3.66Ghz OC

and its works very good

sometimes its get stock becuase my Hard driver =_+ i need to do RAID

[Rak 0]

I can run everything at highest(low AA) with 1500m viewdistance(rest is not needed imo) with a 5850, i5 750 and 4gb DDR3. Everything at stock speeds.

[santafee 10]

This might be a bit OT but i have to ask.

Im playing Arma on E8400 3.00 not overclocked and HD4850,

would say its middle class still. Im fine with the results at all

Im running it smooth with VeryHigh on textures,video memory + AF, no AA.

Objects,Scenery and Shadows are high.Viewdistance 2000.

My questions is, do you guys with the superrigs still have that terrible annoying textures popping up? Still with the Betapatch[they reduced it a bit] there is that flickering and popup of textures for me. I guess its a streaming problem isnt it?