kylebisme

In regard to your receiver, the page you linked hardly gives any information, and I'm not finding anywhere else to confirm if it supports multichannel analog input or not, but I'm guessing it doesn't. As for DTS Connect, Creative isn't the only one who makes cards that support it, Auzentech and Asus make other notable options.

Sounds like you are using a digital coaxial or optical connection between your computer's sound device and your receiver, eh? That will only allow stereo output at most for uncompressed sound. To get surround sound though such a connection you'd need a sound device which supports DDL or DTS Connect, or if your receiver supports multichannel analog input you can get uncompressed surround sound though those.

If it didn't show the the tearing I wouldn't have posted it, but perhaps it is happening too quick for you to notice, in which case pausing the video at the rights spots should allow you to see it. Tearing is when the top portion of the refresh and the bottom portion(s) are from different frames, resulting in a horizontally disjointed image. Here is a small picture example I googled which has circles around where the tears are most obvious. As for what ArmA2 is using for a depth buffer, I can't rightly say for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is a 32bit z-buffer, as even that isn't enough to avoid z-fighting with extreme view distances.

Nor should tripe buffering have any effect on z-fighting. If they were using a 16bit z-buffer the z-fighting would be far worse than it is. Also, for refrence sake; this is screen tearing.

Resolution scaling options are in your videocard's driver control panel. There is no need to run ArmA2 at a lower though, you can just run 1080p screen resolutions and lower the rendering resolution lower separately.

Nah, dual channel works fine with 4 sticks.

ArmaII needs jetpacks! Jetpacks make every game better. :p Seriously though, improved mobility would be nice. It would be great if we could traverse a proper obstacle course comparable to a fully loaded solder in real life, and pick lighter kits for yet better freedom of movement.

Resolution is all GPU. If you can run the game well at a low resolution, then a faster GPU will get it running well at a higher ones.

ArmA2 is very CPU heavy, but how much CPU you need really depends on what framerate you want. Can you lower the graphics settings and get the framerate you want with your current GPU? If so, then a faster card will allow you to get the same framerate at higher settings. However, if you aren't pleased with the way the game runs at even the lowest settings, then you should look into getting a faster CPU too.

Sure, and people sit much closer to them than they generally do TVs as well, which evens things out in the long run, For example, a 50" 1080p TV at 6.5' the same fidelity as a 23" 1080p monitor at 3'.

Does any game get a notable benift from Hyperthreading? I've been leaving it off.

Turning antialiasing down or better yet off would likely help the most of anything you could do settings wise. lowering the visiablity would help too.

Sure, "playable", but if BIS would put a few weeks into making a collection of missions that play well, and host a few official servers in various locations to give everyone a good place to play them, I'd bet multilayer would catch on a whole lot better than it otherwise is. As it stands, I can only ever find around a dozen servers with green pings, and they are generally hosting some custom coop nonsense and the occasional goofy thrown-together CTF map. At this point I can count the number of decent games I've found on one hand.

Even though all four cores aren't being fully utilised, overclocking the CPU would or getting a faster one would help, as would more GPU if you want to turn the graphics settings up. As for graphics, at least if your 9800GT is a 1GB model, adding a second would be the best bang for the buck.

From what I've seen the C2Qs do a good bit better: http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,687620/ArmA-2-tested-Benchmarks-with-18-CPUs/Practice/ I don't see why they wouldn't either as the game spreads across all for cores on my Ci7.