Arma 2 specs

16 posts / 0 new
Last post
SAS_Master
Regimental Sergeant Major
Regimental Sergeant Major
SAS_Master's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 year 7 months ago
Arma 2 specs

Been looking into getting a real graphics card (and upgrading RAM) for my computer for christmas with trying to play Arma 2: OA on very low/low (at least) in mind. Can anyone recommend something?

Current specs are;
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz
1 GB of RAM (definitely going to try to upgrade this to 2 or 3 gigs)
Integrated graphics card
Windows XP SP3.

With the CPU and RAM I have, am I crazy to even consider running arma?

SAS_Master - Regimental Sergeant Major

GCHQ

"He's trusting you to do your job which is to clear that corner! Nothing else!"

SAS_Magnum
Veteran
Veteran
Offline
Last seen: 10 years 6 months ago

First thing you should do:

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx

Go there and look, what you need to run ARMA smoothly or at least on minimum.

Second thing, as for my personal advice:

Games like ARMA, eats RAM for breakfast, literally... means, 2 gigs still are not enough to enjoy game completely, even on minimal settings.

Also, ARMA requests Intel Core 2.4 GHz or AMD Dual-Core Athlon 2.5 GHz as minimum for CPU.

The thing is, if you get RAM, but still, CPU under minimal requirements - you will have problems.

SAS_Magnum Lance Corporal SAS 22nd Elite Virtual Regiment.

SAS_WIZ
Veteran
Veteran
Offline
Last seen: 2 months 1 week ago

In a word, yes you are crazy trying to game on your current specs. I would go for at least 4gb ram, and spend the rest on the best gfx card you can afford.

Lt_Col WIZ,  VC, MiD (Ret)

CitizenAlias
CitizenAlias's picture
Offline
Last seen: 5 years 7 months ago

From my experience, Arma 2 is more CPU and hard drive intense then it is RAM and GPU intensive, though you'll still need at least 4GB of RAM and a decent mid-range card. The way Arma 2's renderer handles LOD switching and loading assets causes the game to access the hard drive more often rather then try and off load that information to the RAM ahead of time like most games do. Also the scripting and AI are completely dependent on your CPU, so when playing with script heavy mods (like the popular ACE 2 mod) or during large scale mission with many AI, performance will take a dive if you don't have a decent processor.

Honestly, while I am not aware of your financial situation or the prices of hardware where you live, you should seriously consider saving up and just buying or building a new PC. As Magnum said, your CPU is below the requirement and is out of date enough that your motherboard is going to limit your upgrade options to only other Core 2 Duo models which are not in production anymore as far as I'm aware (I personally don't recommend the refurbished models that are available) and that still would barely be enough to play.

They are a multitude of guides available online should you decide to build a new PC or just need reference to the price and tier of hardware you're looking to upgrade to. I recommend Falcon's Guide or the "I need a New PC!" 2012 Neogaf Thread. Their prices are in USD though, so you'll have to look up the prices yourself.

Aliases: ROD5RIG, CitizenAlias

SAS_Master
Regimental Sergeant Major
Regimental Sergeant Major
SAS_Master's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 year 7 months ago

Cheers for the replies guys, think my best option may be to, as Citizen said, save up and build a new PC when I get the cash. It seems to be the most logical option, rather than upgrade this POS.

SAS_Master - Regimental Sergeant Major

GCHQ

"He's trusting you to do your job which is to clear that corner! Nothing else!"

MAVEN
Offline
Last seen: 10 years 6 months ago
a2

Hi there.

Arma 2 is a resource hungry game, but that's not because of the game architecture, but because of lack of performance options, in fact, Arma 2 is such a well optimized game for an open world title with rich ai system.

I agree with everyone that you need a better system, but if you can't play A2 on a better system consider tweaks and performance mods.

Because of some of the tweaks (and because my work policy doesn't allow me to use my powerful workstation for gaming and internet at all) I manage to play A2 with medium settings most of the time and some SP missions such as Flashpoint: Chernarus on high, all that on a 1.7 ghz single core with 1.5 gb ram and an older HD ati card, it's my test system that I use for S4 and A2 specifically (that I also used to play and test Crysis on high with ~25 fps and MOH2010 all on high with 20-30 fps) as well as some app testing etc. Optimization is important whether you got a decent system or not. Check my guides on the forum, you can find them as a sticky, use those. And if that doesn't help, contact me and maybe I can custom modify your A2 cfg files to make it run smoother for you.

Arma 2 OA requires far less computing power, and with tweaking/fps helper mods combo you can run it on highest on your system.

Also note that high-end mods like ACE2, JSRS, CityLife 2 and such will impact your performance greatly.

Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide

Ryan
Offline
Last seen: 10 years 7 months ago

If you lower ARMA's graphics it starts running off your CPU which can be even laggier. Some options like shadows as high gives me more FPS because it runs through my GPU.

http://forums.unitedoperations.net/index.php/topic/14190-fps-boosters/

My idea of CQB is running in with a sword.

SAS_Fluffy
Captain
Captain
SAS_Fluffy's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 days 21 hours ago
Re: Arma 2 specs

Been looking into getting a real graphics card (and upgrading RAM) for my computer for christmas with trying to play Arma 2: OA on very low/low (at least) in mind. Can anyone recommend something?

Current specs are;
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz
1 GB of RAM (definitely going to try to upgrade this to 2 or 3 gigs)
Integrated graphics card
Windows XP SP3.

With the CPU and RAM I have, am I crazy to even consider running arma?

It seems you missed the dual core part guys....meaning he is running two cores at 2.2 each for 4.4 Ghz. He meets the minimum requirement on CPU.

As for RAM, you FOR SURE need some more Blum 3 RAM is extremely cheap nowadays compared to how it used to be. 8 GB RAM here in the US it's only about 80$ for some of the top of the line RAM around here. You need to research your motherboard, or look at the manual if you have it. Match the speed on the motherboard to the speed your RAM can do. Commonly 800, 1066, or 1333 on recent models. Thing here though is your RAM can only run at the speed of the FSB on the CPU. So if you buy faster RAM, lets say at 1333, and the FSB is at 1066, the ram will be bottlenecked at the 1066 speed. Then of course you have to either deal with the slow down, which can sometimes make it even slower, or upgrade the CPU to a better one-provided the mainboard allows. If not, then its deal with the slowness or buy a new CPU AND motherboard, or buy slower RAM. I digress. Point is know what you need.

For gfx card, again you need to check the mb specs, know what interface you support, PCI Express 1.0-4.0 etc. Know the minimum PSU (Power Supply Unit) watt you need. Do you meet the requirement? If you do, great, if not, you need a new one. Cant run it with no power. (Not enough really :P).

If you build your own rig you can handpick everything and its not really a big problem Smile Probably last you longer too. Hope I helped at least a little.

SAS_Capt_Fluffy
Captain

"Let's just wing it" -Fluffy on things we should most definitely not wing
 

SAS_Master
Regimental Sergeant Major
Regimental Sergeant Major
SAS_Master's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 year 7 months ago

Cheers for that info fluffy, definitely given me food for thought, though while my cpu meets the min requirements for A2, it's just a 2.2ghz cpu split between two cores, not 2.2gz on each core.

SAS_Master - Regimental Sergeant Major

GCHQ

"He's trusting you to do your job which is to clear that corner! Nothing else!"

SAS_Fluffy
Captain
Captain
SAS_Fluffy's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 days 21 hours ago

:o 1.1 Ghz/CPU? Well...maybe you dont. I didnt think the Core 2 Duo line went that low on clock speed hmm...what's your model?

SAS_Capt_Fluffy
Captain

"Let's just wing it" -Fluffy on things we should most definitely not wing
 

SAS_Fluffy
Captain
Captain
SAS_Fluffy's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 days 21 hours ago

Before I forget: This is important! Your OS must be x64 or the OS will NOT recognize more than 4 GB of memory. So make sure you got that 64-bit OS. :3 That is all.

SAS_Capt_Fluffy
Captain

"Let's just wing it" -Fluffy on things we should most definitely not wing
 

SAS_Master
Regimental Sergeant Major
Regimental Sergeant Major
SAS_Master's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 year 7 months ago

Model is iirc, the E4500, I think. But I guess it's a moot point considering I should really really get a better *everything* in terms of my PC capabilities. In regards the 64 bit version of XP, more ram is better, yes, but I'm only really considering jamming up to 4 gigs in it.. so the 32 bit version should be acceptable?

SAS_Master - Regimental Sergeant Major

GCHQ

"He's trusting you to do your job which is to clear that corner! Nothing else!"

SAS_Fluffy
Captain
Captain
SAS_Fluffy's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 days 21 hours ago

In retrospect I made an oopsie. You arnt supposed to sum up the cores, which I often do even though its wrong. It still meets the minimum if I recall correctly. Anywho, as for your question, yes, it should be just fine.

SAS_Capt_Fluffy
Captain

"Let's just wing it" -Fluffy on things we should most definitely not wing
 

MAVEN
Offline
Last seen: 10 years 6 months ago
system

Fact: Older CPU's were crafted and therefore compatible with many hardware and had longer life-span thus resulting in a better performance than todays CPU's. Take Pentium D and compare it to Core 2 duo performance wise and you will see the difference. The clock speed doesn't mean a thing, each company has a different measure, perhaps that's why AMD CPU's are still good unlike the new CPU's from 3rd grade companies who make those last for year-two so people spend money again.

A good comparison is Apple's range of processors for iPhone compared to the ones Android phones use, when you compare them you will see that S 3 for example sports a quad core, wtf, and yet Apple's dual core processor kicks it's a** big time...

GPU's nowadays come with strong mini cpus built with them that's why their demand is higher as well as pricing, it may be just a decade or so when GPU's will be strong enough to outpace CPU's and RAM chips respectively.

Another good comparison is PS3 vs Xbox 360, PS3 has better cpu unit as well as GPU's, in fact, they may easily beat next gen Xboxes, the reason why games look better on Xbox is because Xbox hardware architecture is easier to use when games come to play while PS3 ones are complex and rarely who wants to spend years optimizing a game to use all of it's potential resources. The same is for Ivy Bridge, yes it's good, but honestly how many apps/games will use it properly?

Speed, Precision, Experience, Endurance. General System Tweak Guide

SAS_Fluffy
Captain
Captain
SAS_Fluffy's picture
Offline
Last seen: 4 days 21 hours ago

Some Core 2 Duos ARE 2 Pentiums Blum 3 It also has to to with how the program makes use of the CPU. If its a single threaded program, like most games (Although a lot nowadays are moving towards making use of the multithreading capability), Then a 3.0 Ghz Single core will work better than a dual-core 2.2. Likewise if it makes use of the multithreading it has the potential to do twice as much work with the same effort. Simplistic view, not including hyperthreading, busses etc etc.

SAS_Capt_Fluffy
Captain

"Let's just wing it" -Fluffy on things we should most definitely not wing
 

SAS_Master
Regimental Sergeant Major
Regimental Sergeant Major
SAS_Master's picture
Offline
Last seen: 1 year 7 months ago

Ok, so I did a bit more googling and found these specs for my mobo

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/inspd530/en/OM/HTML/appendix.htm

Yes, I do have a prebuilt Dell (specifically the inspiron 530) as my current gaming machine.

As far as I can see, the mobo supports up to 4GB of RAM (running at 667mhz/800mhz. I hope I won't get too much bottlenecking!), up to an intel core 2 quad processor and 1 pci-e 1.0a slot.

This is probably an uphill battle, but I guess I'll see how far this can go. Biggrin

SAS_Master - Regimental Sergeant Major

GCHQ

"He's trusting you to do your job which is to clear that corner! Nothing else!"