Playing Arma 2 CO on a MacBook Pro 2011 - And liking it!

[RoME]

Hello.

I did a quick search and found out that no one is actually playing Arma 2 on a Macbook Pro Bootcamp. And i guess it is just logical as arma is a really demanding game.

But i still would like some advice from you guys who know your way around Arma 2.
In order to play smoothly, at around 30 fps, i need to play at 1024x800 and everything deactivated or on very low. Memory being on default. To me It seems to be really low value and i am surprised i cant get a tad bit higher quality from the game.



Here are my specs:

-Mac os Lion with last updates.
-Bootcamp : Windows 7 64bits Home basic on a 160 GB partition.
-A Core i7-2860QM@2,50Ghz
-8 Gb ram
-HD radeon 6770M 1gb
-Oh and here are my launcher parameters for the beta = -nosplash -cpuCount=2 -exThreads=7 %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9


Any idea on how i could improve the perfs?

• Should i buy some more ram?

• Should i do a ramdisk? I'm not sure of that as i read somewhere that it wasnt really a big booster anymore with the last beta patches.

• Would a SSD bring significant perfs boost?

I know i am limited by the laptop aspect, but in any case i wanted to get your opinion on that as i dont have other choice at the moment.

Thank you.

[Leon86]

I think the problem is the gpu.

You can test this. If you turn on antialiasing, do you get lower fps? if so you're gpu limited. In that case there's not much you can do, except overclock the gpu, but I dont think that's a good idea.

1024x800 seems a bit low though, are you sure you're actually using the 6770m gpu? you have to download the driver manually and then you probably have to tell the laptop to use the dedicated gpu.

[RoME]

Thank you Leon for you answer.

When i turn on antialiasing i get lower fps indeed. But isn't that the case for everybody?


I indeed download the catalyst control center 12.1.
But how would i know which card i am using while i am in the bootcamp windows?

O gosh, i thought the 6770M wasn't so bad. :/

[Leon86]

and you're sure you're using the 6770m??? your screen is hooked up to the intel graphics chip in the cpu, so you have to tell the laptop to start the game with the faster dedicated gpu, probably with right mouse button and then run with gpu or something.

the 6770m is pretty good for a laptop, you should be able to run 1280x720 with reasonable performance if you turn off all the advanced stuff.

[RoME]

I have not yet found a way to tell wich gpu im on when i am in the windows environments.
I'm still looking but no luck at the moment.
Bootcamp isnt so popular after all.


EDIT: hmmm i'll try to run 'dxdiag' command when on windows to see wich card is recognized.

[domokun]

RoME: try these proven tweaks:
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthrea...66#post2081466
Although they are not Mac-specific, most of the tweaks can be applied.
Let us know how you get on

[Leon86]

I have not yet found a way to tell wich gpu im on when i am in the windows environments.
I'm still looking but no luck at the moment.
Bootcamp isnt so popular after all.


EDIT: hmmm i'll try to run 'dxdiag' command when on windows to see wich card is recognized.

install msi afterburner, you'll be able to log the gpu loads of all gpu's in the system when gaming.

[Stillglade]

I run DayZ on a 17inch early 2011 MacBook Pro in Windows XP from BootCamp. I have the draw distance up all the way and everything on Medium or High and run at native resolution 1920x1200. After about 4 hours of play I notice the machine gets really hot though and starts to get laggy. But the first 4 hours or so work great.

[RoME]

I run DayZ on a 17inch early 2011 MacBook Pro in Windows XP from BootCamp. I have the draw distance up all the way and everything on Medium or High and run at native resolution 1920x1200. After about 4 hours of play I notice the machine gets really hot though and starts to get laggy. But the first 4 hours or so work great.

What are your proc and graphic cards?

[Leon86]

Made sure that 6770m is doing something? I still think your intel gpu is doing everything, crippling performance.