Kevlar2007

Sorry, but I don't know which is better for ARMA and I doubt anybody knows it with certainty, you can try to see in other threads. For me generally your first configuration you posted is top notch I think you should keep it like that, only don't be disappointed when ARMA is not performing like you have expected.

Your comp configuration is great and state of the art, as I myself also have Alienware Comp I must admit they make very good quality comps with very high prises, but quality costs. There are many performance and compatibility problems with Arma engine itself so I only wanted to save you from disappointment I and many other had with the game, if you want to see what is going on look trough the troubleshooting part of the forums and make a search. There is no one that can recommend anything because the problems are sort of random, there are many people with low spec comps that apparently have no problems and other with high specs comps like yours that have not, because of that I wish you could be one of the lucky guys that can play this game on full.

@Dannyllnl69: I hope it is good for Arma. But I have read many posts from people having trouble with NVIDIA 8800 GFX Card and ARMA, I really hope you want became one of them and don't expect to run it on highest settings even with that hardware.

Simple answer is well known in the service and support industry: If someone has a bad experience with a product (be it a perceived or actual bad experience), the average person will tell 10-12 other people. If the same person has a good experience with a product, he will tell two or three. (Needless to say these are average figures from statistical research). Human nature (and modern social tendancies) lead to your average man in the street being quicker to complain than to praise, so if you have two threads as we do here, one for positive and one for negative feedback, the negative one will always be the longer of the two, even if the number of unhappy customers are in the minority. Those that are happy with the product are too busy enjoying their purchase, those that are not enjoying their purchase have more time available to complain about it. All that being said there are problems that need to be addressed in ArmA. The devs know this (as evidenced by the bug tracking that's going on), and are working on it (as evidenced by the fact we're now up to a beta of version 1.07). How loudly certain community members will complain will depend on how badly they are personally effected by these problems. Personally, although my rig can hardly run it, I'm enjoying ArmA immensely. There are things I'd like to see that would enhance the experience, but nothing that I feel is vital to making the game playable. Despite your good expertise, I think that there are many people that are ignoring the reality and accepting everything that they get only not to be disappointed or frustrated and play good optimists(like you), saying it is not performing good but I am lovin it, or I can only play with 20 FPS on 800x600 but it still awesome or it is BIS they will solve everything although they didn't solve even all annoyances from good old OFP. On the other hand there are people that don't lie to themselves and expect to get decent game for which they have paid for and they are expressing it on the forum(like me).

I must say that I am very disappointed with ARMA. I have it now for more then 6 Months and I still can't play it with decent FPS (constant 25 FPS and above). Most things that I find wrong and disappointing was already mentioned in recent posts and I second that. ARMA is for me dumbed down OFP with better graphic but this graphics make it not playable but graphics is the least important for me. It gives me only frustration and not fun contrary to OFP which gave me more fun then frustration. As a sequel of OFP I have expected that ARMA will be better OFP with most annoyances from OFP solved but in contrary ARMA is it current state worser than last versions of OFP with old and new bugs and features that can't be used because of performance issues. I also feel betrayed by BIS cause I paid them for the game I can't play properly and only do BETA testing for them for months. I won't buy any new game from BIS in the future because I don't trust them any more. There is almost no communication with customers and all this patching is taking so long and giving almost no progress and even introducing new bugs. I have no hope that important issues will be addressed in near future which will be necessary to make ARMA a true sequel of OFP, so I consider this game as complete failure.

I must admit the Arma is the worst game I ever bought in last time. All games I had before were also buggy but they were playable. Arma is first game I must still wait to be made playable for more then a month. Sure it has great potential but still most things that were made new in Arma in comparison to OFP is graphic and other things that could bring real change in gameplay and make a leap ahead are left over. I think BIS made to many things for eyecandy and concentrate on wrong things, even a old OFP bugs are reintroduced and game is made unplayable for most midrange systems. There are many things that could lead to this but most are to be traced to wrong developers decisions, incompetence, lack of testing and proper QM. What left is big frustration and endless waiting for patches and disappointment. Sorry for wining around but please bring the new patch out BIS so I can finally play the damn game as it should be played, please.

Yeah! It is just cool to spam you, still vista is peace of crap!

yeah flamebaiting forever! thank you!

you are self to blame if u are stupid enough to install useless peace of crap system like vista on your pc.

Rights, privileges, EULA what so ever! Person who buys the game is the customer and it should get the working product, anything else doesn't matter for me. I am not talking to BIS but to Forum/Thread audience!

And stuff like some people are posting here also doesn't help anybody but they have the same right like them to state my opinion, come on, get real. I already have stated my opinion and I have right to do it.

I only say I deserve to complain and to report bugs because I am the customer and customer is the king.

Oh man you live on some planet zorg or somethin! I have bougth the game and I deserve to get functional game and that gives me the right to report bugs and await quick solution of them so I can properly put on use what I have paid for. Everything else is some stupid, surreal b**t talk of idiots!

This is very good summary and it would be good to make this thread to a sticky.

It can be, I don't know only guessing like everybody else. It could also be that ArmaMark is not so reliable source of information. But if you are so sure than it is up to you, I am not so sure if it is only people hardware/settings/system, there are many people that tried everything on the page and which know what they do and still they are not able to solve their performance problems and that is what makes me doubt on Hardware/System issues. I admit that some people have some expectations regarding FPS, I myself think that constant FPS of 25 and above is ok and on this settings arma is playable. Instead of starting all the argumentations all the time there are other threads in the forum which people can use to see what they can do to try to improve arma performance for start people should look in following thread, also if you have some performance tips then post them in this thread it is more effective and we don't need to repeat ourselves here all the time : Hardware Issues: Tips/Tricks/Solutions and also try search in the forum itself there are many troubleshooting tips around the forum also.

If people that can't play arma on their rigs but can play all other state of the art games without problems than it also can't be their hardware/system whatsoever issue. If they only have problems with arma than it is more probably that arma has issues not a Hardware.

Just wait for the patch and forget everything else because it wont help you, people have tried everything and there are issues with many different systems that can't be traced anywhere but in the Software and only BIS can solve it. But still if you want to just go on and discuss everything for uncountable amount of times that is still not helping anyone.

I am running everything on lowest setting, shadows are therefor disabled, still getting this 7 FPS when using scopes and zooming in foliage areas like forests. Catalyst settings are all on performance and no adaptive AA or anything what could slow it down. I already tried many drivers for Ati I managed to get better overall performance, but this FPS drop remains.

Yeah, it is my observation too.

I agree! Some separate setting would be better because we could get better visual settings trough it. I get only big FPS drops if I look in directions of the trees or bushes so I could set them to less quality leaving everything else on greater quality, but I am not sure if it is possible. My FPS drop to 7 if I zoom or look on foliage trough the scopes I am not sure if this problem has the same source but you should check this matter also. @Jack-UK: now you beat me!

I hope you will get better performance, but I am not sure because some people claim they have performance problems with such cards. Perhaps it is only false expectations of big FPS I don't know but my friend tested Arma Demo and has in some already mentioned areas drops of FPS to 20 FPS regardless the settings. For me I would be happy to have 25 FPS constantly at least on very low settings.

The most likely explanation is the scene is pixel shader limited. The bushes are very dense, and they are very demanding on pixel shaders (high overdraw, alpha testing used, which reduces possibilities of early z). When you move 2x closer to the bush with no LOD switching, the number of pixels rendered grows 4x. Some solution on our side could be deleting the finest LODs from bush models (or, with the same affect achieved with less drastic means, preventing them to be used). Perhaps you could add some sort of Foliage quality settings in preferences so the people can adjust them to the level their Hardware can handle them.

@Suma: I agree, I can't imagine that HDD should have such an impact especially in static scenes. some questions: Why many people have this FPS drop near some type of bushes and in the forests? For me it makes the game unplayable in forests and near foliage but in the cities I get almost constant 25 FPS with very low settings. Is BIS working on this problem to improve the performance and solve problems with foliage? Thank you for your replay!

If the HDD makes so much impact on FPS (which I can't believe) than BIS should consider to redesign the Arma engine not to be so HDD demanding because it must not be so. Also BIS can't await of all of all the customers to buy whiskeys type of HDD. If BIS can't redesign the engine and all of this what whiskey says is true than Arma is the first game which is designed to run on WhiskeyBullets type of HDD. PS: Now moderators give Whiskey please also one WL I think he deserves one too for 20 Pages of arguing I got mine only for 3 pages.

I have tried catalyst 5.8 drivers and it seems that they improve overall performance. Now I have overall better performance on my card. What is remaining is massive FPS drop in forests and near bushes but in the cities I have FPS around 25. So if BIS solves remaining performance problems it should run good on my rig at least in very low settings. My specs P4 3.2GHz HT, 2048MB RAM, R9800XT 256MB, Windows XP Pro.