Alienware M17x...

[Sintacks 10]

I have an Alienware M17x with a QX9600, 8GB of DDR 1333, Dual NVidia GTX 280M's w/SLI and 500GB 7200RPM Raid 1.

Why can I only get 20FPS in Arma2? I have done EVERYTHING over the past 2 weeks to try and get it running better. It's the only game that doesn't perform well on my machine. Is 20FPS all I will get? Anyone have a similar machine?

[sidhellfire 0]

Post your settings for gods sake.

[cannonouscrash 12]

Sintacs, I've never had anything good to say about playing 'Heavy' games on a laptop. from what i can tell your CPU is a qx9300 @2.53ghz, Which is alright.

Like most pc games, depending on the cash situation, if you want good fps, then you're probably going to have to lose some of the graphical detail.

The best way to get a good fps is a good few hours of tweaking and restarting, tweaking and restarting.

There are also mods in the community that increase fps, Dont ask me where to get them as i have trouble getting them myself

[-DirTyDeeDs--Ziggy- 0]

CPU clock and HDD have a great effect on Arma2 performance , unlike most games. I find both of those areas lacking strength in your 'system'

a serious gamer would neither buy Alienware nor play Arma2 on a laptop. ;)

[Sintacks 10]

I am a very serious gamer. I also have desktop machine at home:

Intel Core i7 940

Intel X25-M SSD

12GB Corsair Dominator

3xWD Velociraptors

2xEVGA Nvidia GTX 280s

ASUS Rampage II MB.

Being the serious gamer that I am, I wanted to be able take Arma 2 with me when I'm not at home like at my parents place or something. Hmmm perhaps I'm more serious than you though lol.

It's not really a laptop. It's a portable desktop basically and can chew up any game.

[RavoC 10]

a serious gamer would neither buy Alienware nor play Arma2 on a laptop. ;)

Laptop is nice. but Alienware is.. doubtful, but this arma on laptop statement is true..:butbut:

[Sintacks 10]

Sintacs, I've never had anything good to say about playing 'Heavy' games on a laptop. from what i can tell your CPU is a qx9300 @2.53ghz, Which is alright.

Like most pc games, depending on the cash situation, if you want good fps, then you're probably going to have to lose some of the graphical detail.

The best way to get a good fps is a good few hours of tweaking and restarting, tweaking and restarting.

There are also mods in the community that increase fps, Dont ask me where to get them as i have trouble getting them myself

Well this machine isn't really a laptop.. it's a portable desktop specifially built for gaming. Trust me, it chews up any game at the max settings. Even Crysis.

---------- Post added at 10:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:49 AM ----------

Post your settings for gods sake.

Arma 2 settings:

Everything=Very High

1920x1200

---------- Post added at 10:51 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:50 AM ----------

Laptop is nice. but Alienware is.. doubtful, but this arma on laptop statement is true..:butbut:

it's only for when I'm not at home :)

[cannonouscrash 12]

Sintacs, lower your settings, it will increase the FPS, lower the view distance, it will help alot, id recommend between 2000-3500m

[Sintacks 10]

CannonousCrash: Yeh I was hoping I wouldn't have to lower them too much. I love the eyecandy in Arma 2. It's spectacular.

[cannonouscrash 12]

its true that arma is lovely to look at when all the settings are high and you have the right resolution.

If you want everything maxed out, get yourself a desktop with wheels, or get a better laptop.

Isnt having 12 Gb of ram a waste? Doesnt it actually hinder overclocking?

I run a q9650, 4gb of 1066mhz ddr2 ram, and one gtx260, And my FPS is just fine, on an eye candy map with 50+ players.

i have no problems with specs and run everything on high except view distance

Edited May 6, 2010 by CannonousCrash

[Sintacks 10]

its true that arma is lovely to look at when all the settings are high and you have the right resolution.

If you want everything maxed out, get yourself a desktop with wheels, or get a better laptop.

Isnt having 12 Gb of ram a waste? Doesnt it actually hinder overclocking?

I run a q9650, 4gb of 1066mhz ddr2 ram, and one gtx260, And my FPS is just fine, on an eye candy map with 50+ players.

i have no problems with specs and run everything on high except view distance

Ok kool Maybe I'll install it on my desktop machine at home and see if there is any difference. I didnt know everyone hated Alienware lol. I think it's a fantastic machine. It's not exactly small or light, but chews up anything I install on it.

---------- Post added at 12:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:26 AM ----------

Laptop is nice. but Alienware is.. doubtful, but this arma on laptop statement is true..:butbut:

I shouldn't have mentioned the word "Alienware". I should have just mentioned my specs lol. It's still a PC even if it has cool lights and a backlit keyboard and desktop components stuffed into a smaller form factor. It kicks ass regardless.

[cannonouscrash 12]

Its not so much that we 'hate' alienware, it wasnt a few years ago when i would go on their site, Configure the worlds greatest computer and then shit myself when i saw the price tag of...

I dont want to offend you, but you say you're a serious gamer, Yet dont have ArmA installed on your desktop, And more to the point, You must be the first 'serious gamer' to have ever bought a pc from alienware.

You should see a massive difference playing arma 2 on your desktop

[Sintacks 10]

Its not so much that we 'hate' alienware, it wasnt a few years ago when i would go on their site, Configure the worlds greatest computer and then shit myself when i saw the price tag of...

I dont want to offend you, but you say you're a serious gamer, Yet dont have ArmA installed on your desktop, And more to the point, You must be the first 'serious gamer' to have ever bought a pc from alienware.

You should see a massive difference playing arma 2 on your desktop

Yeh Alienware machines aren't cheap that's for sure, but that doesn't make them any less comparable. I don't have Arma installed on my desktop cos I just bought it from Steam 2 days ago when I was at my parents place. Arma isn't the only game that makes you a serious gamer. I have OFP, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Mass Effect 1 and 2 installed on my desktop AND my Alienware machine and they all run smokin fast at Max settings and rez.

[sidhellfire 0]

View distance is vital. Keep it around 3km max and you should be fine. Also object detail really helps. Keep fill rate equal or lower than your resolution. You'll find out that lowering some settings does not hurt quality of picture noticeably.

BTW. PC's for games are powerful, but PC's for simulations, under certain circumstances, do not exist.

[Deadfast 43]

I have OFP, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Mass Effect 1 and 2 installed on my desktop AND my Alienware machine and they all run smokin fast at Max settings and rez.

None of these games are anywhere as resource heavy as ARMA 2 is.

As to why everyone dislikes Alienware so much... it's not because they sell bad products, not at all, they do sell some nice stuff. They do, however, rip you the hell off.

[Sintacks 10]

View distance is vital. Keep it around 3km max and you should be fine. Also object detail really helps. Keep fill rate equal or lower than your resolution. You'll find out that lowering some settings does not hurt quality of picture noticeably.

BTW. PC's for games are powerful, but PC's for simulations, under certain circumstances, do not exist.

Sounds do-able. Thanks for the tips.

---------- Post added at 03:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:22 PM ----------

None of these games are anywhere as resource heavy as ARMA 2 is.

As to why everyone dislikes Alienware so much... it's not because they sell bad products, not at all, they do sell some nice stuff. They do, however, rip you the hell off.

Yeh I guess I'm learning that the hard way, despite the fact that I am WAY over the minimum requirements for Arma 2 on both of my machines.

[MavericK96 0]

Arma 2 settings:

Everything=Very High

1920x1200

This is your problem right here. Even on my rig I can get some drops into the 20s if there's a huge battle going on around a large city. I think your resolution is killing you more than anything on that laptop. Try using a lower one (1680x1050 maybe?) and see if that helps.

You have to realize that those GTX 280Ms are not equivalent to the desktop GTX 280s. They're actually a lot closer to a desktop GTX 250/9800 GTX+.

[Sintacks 10]

Gotcha. I thought I should lower it a bit. Will try that and thanks for the tips man. The only thing I am perplexed about is that when I'm playing OFP, all maxxed out or Fallout 3, my GPU fans kick in and they're definitely not that quiet. When I'm playing Arma 2 all maxed out, the fans are barely on. It makes me think that my GPUs aren't getting utilized. I love Arma 2 even though I'm still a newbie, it's my type of game. Nice and methodical and tactical. I really wanna play but it's hard when I'm only gettin 20FPS.

---------- Post added at 10:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:02 PM ----------

I just wanted to ne clear that I am talking about low fps in the campaign missions. I haven't tried the multiplayer yet. I saw some ppl in here are saying that the campaign missions are low fps no matter what.

Edited May 7, 2010 by Sintacks

[MavericK96 0]

Yeah, there is a lot going on AI-wise in the campaign missions, so that's not all that unsual.

And yes, regarding GPU usage, ArmA2 seems to only use about 50%-ish of my GPUs when playing. It's mostly a fast CPU that helps a lot in this game, due to all the AI scripting going on. Though even then my CPU cores never hit above 75-80% utilization, but it's definitely a lot more CPU-intensive than GPU.

[[frl]myke 14]

On your machine, lower the settings that are CPU dependant as they are:

- Terrain detail

- Object detail

- Viewdistance

I would bet the the CPU does limit in your system. Also keep shadow detail on high or very high or disabled. On high and very high the shadows are calculated on the GPU, anything lower will move it to CPU calculation.

It seems your GPU's have enough reserve to handle the other settings on very high.

Do experiment with 3D resolution aswell, turning AA completely off. Personally i think a high 3d res looks better than high AA.

You might also experiment with a Ramdisk, use search function to find relevant threads in this forum.

[MavericK96 0]

For whatever reason, setting AA to Very High for me is very little performance hit versus Low or Normal, but setting AA to Disabled and cranking the 3D Resolution kills my framerate, even at 133%, especially 150% and above. It's unplayable at 200%, but it's completely smooth and playable with AA at Very High.

[old_painless 182]

Sintacks, FYI here is an article about gaming Arma2 on an Alienware - could be relevant for you

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2967804/Review_Alienware_M11x_Gaming_L.html

-OP

[MavericK96 0]

His specs seem to be a lot better than that M11x (quad vs. low-speed dual core, SLI vs. single GPU, etc.) so hopefully he should be getting significantly better performance.

That said, I don't think it's realistic to expect even his laptop to get good framerates with everything at Very High @ 1920x1200.

[old_painless 182]

That's probably right. Is it at all possible to actually run Arma2 with 20+ fps consistently on 1920x1200 - is that hardware built yet?

[domokun 515]

Sintacks: you should be able to run A2 @ 1920x1200 smoothly.

You just have to be smart, i.e. don't ram everything to "max".

Deadfast is right, your CPU is prolly bottle-nbecking your system.

Try these settings

For you this means:

a) set Interface to 1920x1200

b) set Fillrate to 100%

c) start with a VD of 2400 or more (3600?)

d) set Texture to High

e) set Mem to High/vHigh

f) set Anio to High/vHigh

g) set AA to Dis/Low

h) set Terrain to Normal

i) set Object to Norm/High

g) set Shadows to High/VHigh

h) set PP to Low/High

i) set Interface to vSml/Small

j) install the 70100 beta patch

bold = recommended settings

Let us know how you get on.

Please appreciate that A2's campaign is notoriouly slow due to the high amount of scripting it uses.