Groove_C

On my GTX 580 3GB, it comes easily over 2 GB VRAM (comes to 2.7 GB and than no higher) when playing MP on our russian ArmA2.ru PvE server! Mission: Evolution Free For All: Red 1.05g hard (30 slots) with 70+ AI and 10+ armor/vehicles and likely 10 helis/jets. View: 5000 m Res: 1680x1050 3D 100% Textures: very high VRAM default AA: high aToC: 0 AF: very high Terrain: very low (no grass) Objects: very high Shadows: very high HDR: normal (8 bit) Postprocess: very low V-Sync: on nVidia Control pannel: AA: application AF: application AA transparency: custom (2xSGSSAA via nVidia Inspector) Mipmap: allow Quality: very high Frames: 3 Tripple buffering V-Sync: application

I've read all the posts above and I'm wondering how some people come to say that Real Virtuality 3 engine don't make usage of more than 2 threads without any proof of that!!! :391: Shame on you!!! Some of you here should google a little bit befor posting such observations that would confuse or misslead other people reading this sh*t!!! :936: I'm playing games based on this engine since 2001 (OFP) and this are the only games I've ever played (OFP/Arma/ArmA2). Those are my prefered and that's why I'm at least following all the log changes applied through all the patches out there. And I can tell you that BIS guys have always done their best to optimize the engine as much as possible depending on ressources (people/time) availble! Don't forget that such studios like those working on BF 3 or CoD MW 3 have hundreds of people working on those arcade FPS shooters and are not even 1 millimeter close to what have been acheaved by such small Bohemia Interactive Studios in sense of game envirement scale and scripting (actions/scenarios) possibilities and perspectives!!! !!! !!! Here you can take a look on the latest test using GTX 580 @ default to see how Real Virtuality 3 engine scales on more cores and more frequency! @640x480 10.000 m view distance http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/prozessoren/2011/test-intel-sandy-bridge-e/41/#abschnitt_arma_2_operation_arrowhead @1680x1050 10.000 m view distance http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/prozessoren/2011/test-intel-sandy-bridge-e/49/#abschnitt_arma_2_operation_arrowhead

From what I've heard, ArmA III will have physics and sound calculated by the CPU like in Battlefield 3! And you will get more envirment... like snakes, dogs etc. also calculated by the CPU. So 6 cores it must be!!! Or 4 cores @ 100 % load )))

ArmA II is at the moment the most CPU hungry game and server full with lots of AI I never have more than 55% load with my i5 @ 4 GHz which means that you won't see any (significant) benefits with 6 cores. I also prefer a single powerfull chip to a dual chip PCB or SLI. The rison is... consumption, efficience and micro-stuttering due to sincronization between both chips and not very good load balance between both chips. I don't think GTX 6xx will double the performance, but will certainly bring at least 30 % more compared to GTX 580. So GTX 580 over GTX 560 Ti SLI! Even if with GTX 560 Ti SLI gives more than one GTX 580!

Yes, I did! And I can tell you that I don't see visible improvement @ 125/150 %. Just @ 200%! But it's unplayble @ 200 %. Especially if you have a lot of smoke FPS drops under 10 @ 200 %! P.S. - look in RAMDISK thread for my post.

I really don't get it?! Why setting a RADISK on your RAM? I agree that you will get LOD switching and stuttering for the first time you will see an object to be drawn on your screen. Once cashed in VRAM and fourther in RAM you won't see LOD switching or stuttering for objects already cashed/seen again. Once cashed in VRAM and fourther in RAM your RAMDISK stuff gets useless! Because textures are loaded in VRAM (GPU). Once available VRAM filled up, the rest of textures are stored in RAM! If the GPU don't have enough VRAM, it handles your RAM like virtual VRAM. IF your RAM is nearly full, it handles yours HDD/SSD like virtual RAM. So, you don't necessery need 24/32 GB RAM to make RAMDISK to put the whole installation folder on it! In my case, I just turn off HDD/SSD Windows pagingfile to avoid information storage on HDD/SSD handled like virtual RAM. So everything remains in my RAM. Once my GTX 580 3 GB VRAM is filled up (2.7 GB) I see my RAM space getting smaller and smaller till I get Windows 7 x64 complaining about Low on memory with my 8 GB RAM after a couple of hours playing on PvE EVOLUTION on 30 slots server with a lot of AI ground/air units! Just go for 16 GB RAM and what don't feet in your VRAM will be sotred in RAM. And don't forget to switch off Windows pagingfile to avoid usage of your HDD/SSD like virtual RAM! But be sure to get 16 GB RAM, because with my 8 GB RAM Windows complains about "low on memory" after a few hours of playing. Or if you don't have enough money, reactive or make pagingfile bigger. But don't wonder if you get LOD swithing and stuttering again!

Nope! Just Windows Aero! No Firefox or Windows Mediaplayer @ movie! It's just because to take all 10 cities we sometimes need 6-16 hours depending on how good players are organized or skilled. And we play on the whole Chernarus island. And the most of the time I play at least 4 hours. Sometimes 10 hours. Once I've even played 41 hours ))) So if you think well enough, you have 8.5 GB original ArmA II addons folder with textures. And if you fly all over the whole island at maybe 20-150 meters altitude with heli and all those trees, bushes, barriers, houses, hangars, walls and lakes will be seen/drawn/reproduced, they will be cached in VRAM. Everything you have seen is always cached in VRAM unless seen twise or more the same object. And don't forget that your VRAM gets filled up in time and depending how many objects were drawn/seen! So you have to paly more than a few hours and you have to visit several villages, cities and forests. P.S. - nice rig! You will finally get enough GHz and cores to feed your GTX 580 duo and enough RAM to make a RAM disk ))) ---------- Post added at 05:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:16 AM ---------- Oh... just one thing more! I have also used nVidia Inspector (utility for oveclock and advanced/hidden image quality settings) to activate a hidden option in nVidia drivers but possible to use via third party tools tow polish the whole image (not just polygons) I use 2xSGSSAA which polishes the whole image! http://postimage.org/image/9pso3gw3b/full/ More satisfying visual effect than MSAA an less hungry than SSAA! Look for my nVidia Control Pannel Settings http://postimage.org/image/g27tdaz5j/full/ http://postimage.org/image/4y73zrfbf/full/ i7-3960k vs. i7-2600k/i5-2500k 3DMark 2011 http://media.bestofmicro.com/Z/Z/314927/original/3d%20mark%207%20combined.png Battlefield 3 SLI vs. Single http://media.bestofmicro.com/0/A/314938/original/battlefield%203%201680.png ArmA2 OA GTX 580 1.5 GB ASUS 772 MHz @ stock @640x480 1.56, 10 km view, everything maxed out! Average and minimum FPS. With Turbo, with SMT (Hyper-Threading) and without. http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/prozessoren/2011/test-intel-sandy-bridge-e/41/#abschnitt_arma_2_operation_arrowhead @ 1680x1050 http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/prozessoren/2011/test-intel-sandy-bridge-e/49/#abschnitt_arma_2_operation_arrowhead

Hi! I'm new here. I will try to help you guys in this thread choosing the right hardware for ArmA II and the best you can get for your money. I'm admin on a russian ArmA2 server "ArmA2.ru" (3rd in Game Tracker chart) I spend the most of time playing on our PvE server with 30 slots alomst always full. It's an EVO mission we always play. The amount of AI ground vehicles, soldiers and airstrykes (helis + jets) directly depends on howmuch players are connected to the server. You have to blow up the radio tower in the city/village and clean it out of enemy AI (ground + air) befor you get a new city/village to attack. We always choose 10 cities and bad weather conditions and the setting for the cities is that the next city to attack is far away from the current instead of default setting "closest". And I can tell you that my GTX 580 with 3 GB VRAM is always @ 2.7 GB VRAM usage and @ 99% load. 1680x1050 3D 100% View 5 km Textures very high VRAM default AF very high (16x) AA high (4xMSAA) Terain very high Objects very high Shadows off HDR normal (8x) Postprocessing off AToC 7 CPU @ constant 50-55 %. Sometimes it jumps to 60 % (20-30 AI soliders, 8 helis and jets and 10-15 armor vehicles inside village) As you can see i have my VRAM set @ default. Because if I set it @ very high it doesn't fully load my GPU and it doesn't use more than 1.2-1.3 GB of my VRAM. (mesured with Afterburner!) low/normal = MSAA 2x high/very high = MSAA 4x 5 = MSAA 4x + CSAA 8x (nVidia 8x) 6 = MSAA 8x (nVidia 8xQ) 7 = MSAA 4x + CSAA 16x (nVidia 16x) 8 = MSAA 8x + CSAA 16x (nVidia 16xQ) My Antialiasing level is also set @ high (MSAA 4x), because everything higher won't give you visible difference (tested!) but you will have more VRAM used and less FPS! I turned off the shadows, because they look very edgy even @ very high and flicker on sand bags if you get closer to them or if get back. I would have left them switched on if they were polished well enough even with less FPS in forests! So I get a little bit more FPS but not a very good in-game atmosphere. I also switched off possprocessing because white objects (pilots helmets/windows or doors frames and mirrors) were blinding me unnaturally and the whole image was washed off.