Will my PC Run this? What CPU/GPU to get? What settings? System Specifications.

[Leon86]

My graphics card is still very good (i think), but someone on a different forum said to forget the new mobo/CPU etc and just upgrade to the new 6990 GPU for raw graphics power.

crossfire and arma 2 is often a world of hurt.

An i5-2500K with a decent s1155 P67 mobo and (at least 4GB) ram will be a great upgrade. It'll allow for greater viewdistance and keeping up performance with loads of ai in the area.

A bigger gpu will get you more performance with "eyecandy-settings" all kinds of motion blurrs and stuff. But an 5870 is still a pretty good card for arma as long as you dont crossfire them. An expensive gpu upgrade (gtx 580) will get you a gpu that's about 40% faster? dunno, it's a guess. Anyway, upgrade the cpu first.

[BangTail]

Further to what Leon said, dual GPU cards (6990) can be even more problematic than CF/SLI (2 or more separate cards), and not just with ArmA.

[Flattermann]

guys are right, i'd recommend upgrading your mobo+cpu too. 2.5 GHz barely meet the recommended hardware, an i5 2500 k or not k will give you at least 1.0-1.2 GHz more on each core and will greatly improve performance. I suppose you'll be able to play everything (apart from AA and PP) on "High" settings afterwards.

If you're 100 percent sure you're not going to overclock even with bios-integrated overclocking software for your motherboard go for the 2500 with a H67 board. That might cost you ~180€ altogether.

IDK if changing to win7 64bit would bring considerably better performance...

[cartier90]

My ARMA2 experience is fine. I keep my VD low and other settings to normal and am happy with the 35 plus FPS I usually get.

I have a I7 920 at stock speed and 4GB RAM. The card is a GTS250 - not awful, but notgreat either. What kind of performance upgrade could I expect with a mid range to upper range (£200 card ) ? - my BIOS is locked so cannot overclock and dont really want to upgrade what I think is still a decent processor....thanks.



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[ForthRight]

Thank you very much for all the replies. :-)

I'm going to get the new CPU and motherboard instead of the 6990.

One particular point that stood out was about the 6990 being a dual-GPU card - i actually hadn't thought about that. If ATI crossfire is bad for Arma 2 i'd expect that card to cause the same kind of problems, and since Arma 2 is my main reason for upgrading it could be very bad.

Thanks again.

[BangTail]

I've had problems with every "multi" GPU card I've owned (from both camps). I avoid them like the plague now. Better to use 2 or more single GPU cards for SLI/CF. Apart from anything else, if one card dies, you can still use the other one while you wait for a replacement

Where ArmA 2 is concerned, I'd avoid Crossfire at all costs.

[Leon86]

My ARMA2 experience is fine. I keep my VD low and other settings to normal and am happy with the 35 plus FPS I usually get.

I have a I7 920 at stock speed and 4GB RAM. The card is a GTS250 - not awful, but notgreat either. What kind of performance upgrade could I expect with a mid range to upper range (£200 card ) ? - my BIOS is locked so cannot overclock and dont really want to upgrade what I think is still a decent processor....thanks.
.

You'll be able to run on higher resolution or with higher aa and postprocessing making the game look better. It'll also improve performance when there's a lot of smoke (very gpu heavy).

[Herr anfsim]

hi. I have just ordered a laptop with the following specs: INTEL Core i7 i7-2720QM/ 2.2GHz 6M , 2 X SAMSUNG 4GB DDR3 PC1060 1333MHz SO-DIMM CL9 (M471B5273BH1-CH9), GeForce GT540 2GB. How do you think it wil run OA?

edit: is it right that the cpu is, by far, the most important component in order to run arma2 smoothly?

[Leon86]

hi. I have just ordered a laptop with the following specs: INTEL Core i7 i7-2720QM/ 2.2GHz 6M , 2 X SAMSUNG 4GB DDR3 PC1060 1333MHz SO-DIMM CL9 (M471B5273BH1-CH9), GeForce GT540 2GB. How do you think it wil run OA?

edit: is it right that the cpu is, by far, the most important component in order to run arma2 smoothly?

the cpu and gpu are both important. How well something will run is dependant on settings and the scenario.

[EDcase]

In simplest terms:
CPU handles AI
GPU handles viewdistance, eye candy etc.
Its more complicated than that of couse as they also affect each other but thats an easy way to think about it.
If you play online the server handles most of the AI so your CPU can be less powerful.

Herr anfsim: Your laptop should be able to run Arma OK, but on low to med gfx settings and not too many AI to get good fps (30ish)