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Does Arma 2 run faster with NVIDIA or AMD cards?

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I'm not a fanboy of either graphics card company, but in the event that I build a new computer I will want to get the best performance in Arma2 specifically for the same money.

So when we are talking about graphics cards of equal price, which companys' cards run better in Arma 2. (More performance/$$$$)

Sometimes, it seems like it depends on the company's graphics card drivers.

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It is very unlikely you would get a precise answer, since i think no one has 2 similar cards from 2 different makers to try out...

From my experience, my AMD 6970 works better with A2, but i can only compare it with the other gfx card i own (nVidia 460 GTX) which is no match for the AMD one. If i had a 570/580 things might be differently.

Anyways, nvidia drivers have always been better than AMD's for some reason. Best bang for the buck is the around the 560TI/6950

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I've only ever played it on a 580 and a 4850X2. So obviously the Nvidia card was faster for me. I don't think I've ever seen any decent recent benchmarks though. It'd be an interesting answer to find.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you plan on doing SLI/crossfire, specially with the 6xxx series, ATI's driver team has really been rocking on scalability. In most cases, 2 580's vs 2 6970's are an even match, despite a large price difference and Nvidia's single GPU dominance. And the gap widens even further in ATI's favor the more cards you add.

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I upgraded from a nvidia 260GTX OCX (BFG) to an ATI 5850 which was meant to be twice as fast as a 275GTX so I was shocked when the benchmarks for the 5850 were MUCH lower than my 260GTX. I sent it back to the shop (overclockers.co.uk) and bought x2 MSI GeForce GTX 460 HAWK "Super-OC" 1024MB GDDR5 instead - best decision I ever made - will never switch to ATI ever again.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-099-MS

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I upgraded from a nvidia 260GTX OCX (BFG) to an ATI 5850 which was meant to be twice as fast as a 275GTX so I was shocked when the benchmarks for the 5850 were MUCH lower than my 260GTX. I sent it back to the shop (overclockers.co.uk) and bought x2 MSI GeForce GTX 460 HAWK "Super-OC" 1024MB GDDR5 instead - best decision I ever made - will never switch to ATI ever again.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-099-MS

The card must have been defective or something. A mate of mine runs Arma2 just fine on an ATI 5850, with higher settings than I could pull off with my old GTX 285.

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The card must have been defective or something. A mate of mine runs Arma2 just fine on an ATI 5850, with higher settings than I could pull off with my old GTX 285.

Probably was defective as it couldnt even push 125fps solid on COD4.

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It all depends on what card vs what card you are comparing. I have a 560ti and the AMD competition is the 6950 (I believe). The 6950 wins some benchmarks and the 560 wins some benchmarks. The are usually neck in neck as well so they are pretty much even matched.

So then it comes down to how much can you pay for each (sometimes there are sales) also what about warranties, etc.

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HD6950 or 560i, with both youre not making a mistake and the price should decide.

Also for both you already get a load of non reference design cards which sometimes even cost less with better cooling etc.

Didnt try the 560i yet but had the 460 for a while and it already ran A2 pretty good on mid to high settings, currently i use the Asus 6950DCUII and i can max out A2 settings with it plus it cost the same as a ref design card and has a awesome ( yet huge with 3 slots ) cooler plus the posibility to flash the card.

If you plan to flash it -even a technical idiot like me can do that- then just flash the shaders and keep the rest as it is, i have my doubts that the card can run as a fake 6970 forever without problems.

On the graphical side on both cards the game looked similar to me yet the Nvidia is definatly a good bit better when it comes to AA which looks lot grainier on my HD6950 than it looked on my GTX460.

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The nvidia gtx560 and ati 6870 cost and perform about equally when tested on a buch of games. As for arma, I saw a benchmark where the gtx560Ti was about 30% faster (but its also 30% more expensive) than a hd6870, in most games this difference is smaller so I guess nvidia performs slightly better on nvidia gpu's that particular price/performance point.

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FYI, Crossfire is not advisable for ArmA 2. I tested it again recently using 2 6970s and the 580s were killing it.

AMD makes great hardware but their drivers leave something to be desired tbh (to be fair, they have improved but not anywhere near enough).

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I have the Sapphire HD5850 2Gb Toxic, which will run the game on the very high settings provided you do not want huge battles, it can easily handle upto around 200 ai with average fps around 25-35, however I recently OC the card using their built-in Auto Tuner which took it from stock 765 & 1125 to 880 & 1280, quite an increase and the same 200ai mission runs at around 10-15 fps faster. I run a Windows7 64bit and have turned the visual settings of Windows to performance rather than windows being visibly attractive just to see if this would do anything, well I was really surprised it did not really add anything to the fps but the game runs really smooth now without those occasional annoying stutters, I can only conclude that it made a performance difference cpu side. I tend to mission smaller skirmishes of around max 80ai or so and the card runs the game great with average 40-50fps, it did very well on stock values, but its that little bit smoother with a little higher fps now its been OC'd..

(quoting the lad that built my Arma2 PC and will be building my Arma3 PC in 2012, if its on time)-'Of course the marry between your cpu and the gpu can make a big difference, you could get a great card but if the cpu does not like it then your in for lower fps etc'..I told him what I was going to want to make missions of ai wise etc, and he kept the price down to a sensible level.

I would be thinking Arma3 as its not too far away, build for that and you won't have much trouble with Arma2..

My settings: (just to give you an idea)

Standard Overall Quality Setting: Very High

Advanced Settings: (left to right)

Tex: Very High

Terr: Very High

Postpro: Disabled (just don’t like the effect)

Vid Mem: Default (or VH)

Objects: Very High

Interface: Small

AF: Normal

Shadow: Very High

Ratio: 16:9 (my res is 1920x1080)

AA: Normal

HDR: Normal

V Sync: Enabled (monitor is 60hz so possibly holds the average fps back a little)

Edited: 07/11/2011, V sync now disabled, wow the difference in fps... nough said..;)

Edited by HR4 Elite
Change in settings

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FYI, Crossfire is not advisable for ArmA 2. I tested it again recently using 2 6970s and the 580s were killing it.

AMD makes great hardware but their drivers leave something to be desired tbh (to be fair, they have improved but not anywhere near enough).

Bad info here... Something must have been wrong with your AMD setup.

The 6970s CrossFired run great. Game runs perfectly smooth with absolutely no stutters or pauses. Tried some 3GB 580s and they were indeed very fast but had major micro-stutters and sometimes stalled / slowed requiring the infamous need to "shift - flush" after 30-40 minutes. Nvidia cards seem to have had this problem since the first ArmA release - I know from first hand frustration (remember the ALT-TAB thing?). AMD hasn't had this issue since around the release of their VPU feature - not sure if this is a factor or was a coincidence.

AMD 6970s work very well with ArmA:OA, ArmA 2 and Armed Assault, and so does the 5870 or 6970 CrossFire setup.

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No, no bad info here - only my first hand experience with every card AMD and Nvidia has on offer (590 and 6990 were both pants JFTR).

I said the 580s easily beat the 6970s and I didnt have any 'micro stuttering' or 'stalling' so I submit that your Nvidia setup had 'something wrong with it'.

I didn't notice stuttering or stalling on either setup but the 580s were considerably faster and more efficient in ArmA 2.

SLI is a better and more proven technology than Crossfire, and while CF has improved significantly, it is still not consistently on par (or better) imho.

Edited by BangTail

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Does Arma 2 run faster with NVIDIA or AMD cards?

Yes, Intel and Matrox aren't capable of runnin ArmA 2 decently.

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Here are some infos from a benchmark on the French Hardware.fr site

IMG0030779.gif

Conclusions :

Les Radeon HD 6900 ne sont pas à la fête et terminent ici derrière la Radeon HD 6870. Etrangement, la Radeon HD 6950 1 Go est 10% plus performante que la version 2 Go et talonne la Radeon HD 6970.

If, by mistake, you are not French speaker : "AMD 6870 is working better than AMD 6900" ( I agree with that for I have a 6970 and my son a 6870 :o), "AMD 6950 1 Go performed 10% better than 2 Go version" ( that is always confirmed in all tests with card featuring "too much" memory like on the GTX 580 3Go vs 1.5Go)

Nvidia 560Ti and 570 cards seems to get slightly better performance in Arma2, Nvidia 580 1.5 Go been probably the better performer ATM.

Edited by Old Bear

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The 6870s were fairly decent performers. I had a couple for a short time when they were first released.

There is no such thing as 'too much memory' if you run at 2560+ and I really don't notice the cards I have now being any faster or slower than the 1.5GB 580s I had previously. There is probaby a slight speed adavantage in favor of the 1.5GB cards due to memory latency but as I said, I don't notice it.

Edited by BangTail

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Due to the memory chips overproduction many card makers are "offering" cards with extra memory but as on Point of View GeForce GTX 550 Ti 4 Go,

those extra 4 Go using a 128 bits interface in lieu of the vanilla 192 bits one, it's only a commercial thingy, not related to any performance jump :mad:

Speaking about GTX 580 3Go vs 1.5Go performance here is the link to a benchmark. Alas no Arma 2 results in benchmark from this site ... they found the results too much CPU related...

Edited by Old Bear

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Yeah, those results are right along side with my experience :)

Edited by BangTail

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No, no bad info here - only my first hand experience with every card AMD and Nvidia has on offer (590 and 6990 were both pants JFTR).

I said the 580s easily beat the 6970s and I didnt have any 'micro stuttering' or 'stalling' so I submit that your Nvidia setup had 'something wrong with it'.

I didn't notice stuttering or stalling on either setup but the 580s were considerably faster and more efficient.

SLI is a better and more proven technology than Crossfire, and while CF has improved significantly, it is still not consistently on par (or better) imho.

This is an overgeneralizing statement when instead it should be applied to one game. Not only that, it's just plain false, and borderline fanboism.

For the 6xxx series, crossfire has consistently scaled better than Nvidia in a majority of games.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/05/19/quadgpu_performance_review_nvidia_vs_amd

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/04/28/nvidia_geforce_3way_sli_radeon_trifire_review/

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/03/21/amd_radeon_hd_6990_video_card_followup_review/6

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/03/24/asus_geforce_gtx_590_video_card_review/9

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crossfire-sli-3-way-scaling,2865.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6990-antilles-crossfire,2878.html

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/04/28/nvidia_geforce_3way_sli_radeon_trifire_review/

And no, I didn't just search for all of these just for this post. :P I used some of them in a post a long while back, so they were pretty accessible.

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This is an overgeneralizing statement when instead it should be applied to one game. Not only that, it's just plain false, and borderline fanboism.

For the 6xxx series, crossfire has consistently scaled better than Nvidia in a majority of games.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/05/19/quadgpu_performance_review_nvidia_vs_amd

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/04/28/nvidia_geforce_3way_sli_radeon_trifire_review/

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/03/21/amd_radeon_hd_6990_video_card_followup_review/6

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/03/24/asus_geforce_gtx_590_video_card_review/9

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crossfire-sli-3-way-scaling,2865.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6990-antilles-crossfire,2878.html

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/04/28/nvidia_geforce_3way_sli_radeon_trifire_review/

And no, I didn't just search for all of these just for this post. :P I used some of them in a post a long while back, so they were pretty accessible.

No fanboyism, no falsehoods, just my own firsthand experience with flagship cards from both camps (SLI and CF) side by side. The 580s were a little faster in most games I tested, with Crysis Warhead being a notable exception.

To be honest, there really wasn't much in it except where ArmA 2 was concerned.

I was very objective in my response, giving AMD credit for much improved drivers, although they still have a ways to go.

If AMD were actually better, they'd be in my boxes - as they were when Nvidia screwed up the 480 launch or in the heady days of the 9700 (an excellent card).

I won't bother posting links because there are sites that say Nvidia is better and sites that say AMD is better. I know what I have seen with my own eyes.

I dont have time for brand loyalty or fanboys so don't bother replying to my posts if you're going to resort to the usual humdrum zealotry.

My opinions are from my own 'hands on' experience, not regurgitations from tech websites. I would never knowingly offer any advice that I did not know to be true and equally, I try to refrain from giving advice on hardware that I don't have experience with.

I buy what is best, PERIOD. Performance is all I care about.

Edited by BangTail

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It very depends on settings and resolution.

If you read test carefully you can see that different card show different result on different setting - can be 1 card faster and in other setting other card fast.

here tests I use to choose graphic card for me and my customers

http://www.ixbt.com/video3/i0711-video.shtml

I'm pretty sure you not understand russian - but fps here and setting all in english(in the middle of tests).

All you need to do need compare cards which cost the same.

For my experience ATI cheaper same speed but nvidia gives better quality picture and burns much more often.

Edited by kotov12345

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AMD is almost always cheaper and that is a big selling point.

Nvidia owns way more of the video card market than AMD when it comes to gamers so they can still afford to charge a premium.

Nvidia does offer some benefits like PhysX and 3D as well as better drivers IMHO.

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Almost twice as many Nvidia users according to the Steam survey.

I've owned many AMD cards and have had mostly good experiences with them. The problem for me is not the hardware - it's the drivers.

Edited by BangTail

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