Building a PC for Epoch.

[JackScythe]

I realise, that system requirements will change after official release in comparison to alpha. 

 

Could anyone tell me what are the recommended system requirements to get minimum 25 FPS in current aplha build? This would help me in building my new PC specifically for Epoch Mod.

 

Developers have been adding more and more stuff into the game. Getting 60 fps on HD6870, like in case of Breaking Point sounds impossible. But is i5 2300 and gtx 560 (official Arma 3 system requirements) enough to get minimum 25 FPS for now?

 

Should I invest in core i7?

[Axle]

Your CPU might be a little weak, My wife uses the I52500k @ stock settings and a GTX 560ti 2gb and runs the game flawlessly. If anything I'd step up your CPU first then your GPU.

[f3cuk]

I realise, that system requirements will change after official release in comparison to alpha. 

 

Could anyone tell me what are the recommended system requirements to get minimum 25 FPS in current aplha build? This would help me in building my new PC specifically for Epoch Mod.

 

Developers have been adding more and more stuff into the game. Getting 60 fps on HD7870, like in case of Breaking Point sounds impossible. But is i5 2300 and gtx 560 (official Arma 3 system requirements) enough to get minimum 25 FPS for now?

 

Should I invest in core i7?

 

Nope, like most applications ARMA does not utilize the benefits of HyperTreading. To be honest, all depends on budget but i'm pretty sure with a low budget you can put together a decent system which should push acceptable framerates at all times. People often get mislead by the Intel trick that makes you believe i7 > i5 > i3 > Pentium, but that's just marketing. The latest generation Haswell Pentium CPU's are much faster (on single core performance) then the 2nd and 3th generation i5 processors. Which basically means that you can build a pretty solid ARMA (Epoch) gaming machine with a $40 dollar CPU like the G3258.

In fact that $40 CPU will possibly give you better performance then the i5 you currently have cause ARMA seems unable to really utilize more then 2 cores cause - afaik - it only uses 2 threads and that G3258 is about 50% faster on single core performance then the i5 2300.

 

If you got money to spend and really want the best possible framerates i'd go for something like the 4690K, watercool that and OC it to 4.5Ghz+.

[JackScythe]

Your CPU might be a little weak, My wife uses the I52500k @ stock settings and a GTX 560ti 2gb and runs the game flawlessly. If anything I'd step up your CPU first then your GPU.

 

Thank you for your answer. I love Epoch Mod Aplha because of the enormous content. It is impressive, that Core i5 2500k and GTX 560ti can run this Mod flawlessy with hundreds of chickens, snakes, NPC-s, cars on Altis. I haven't expected such a good result considering Altis Life FPS drops.

 

Looks like mods are the only way to improve multiplayer framerate of A3 for now. Breaking Point mod runs so much better than Altis Life / Wasteland missions (even 40-60FPS vs 20FPS). People on forums say, that the performance is better because there are less objects on the map, but Breaking Point uses its own "boosted client" - it may be the main reason of performance boost. I have also seen on BP website, that they use "optimized servers". Do these servers really make any difference?

 

If you got money to spend and really want the best possible framerates i'd go for something like the 4690K, watercool that and OC it to 4.5Ghz+.

 

In A3 single player  there is no difference in FPS between i7 4770k and i5 3470. Is Epoch Mod enough CPU intensive to justify buying a CPU like  i7 4770k?

 

 

[B_Dubz TwitchTv]

I have 2 back up computers. One uses an i5 2500k and the other uses an AMD 8350 pile driver. Both using a geforce 560ti/radeon 6950 run the game easily. 

My main rig has a i7 3770k with 2 680's.

The weaker rigs is good enough to run A3.

Shockingly, A3 performs better than A2 on all 3 of my systems.

[f3cuk]

In A3 single player  there is no difference in FPS between i7 4770k and i5 3470. Is Epoch Mod enough CPU intensive to justify buying a CPU like  i7 4770k?

 

Like i said, the only real difference between the i7 and i5 is that it has HyperTreading which allows it to create 4 extra threads. Don't buy it solely for ARMA cause it won't use them.

That being said, ARMA is already extremely CPU dependent single player (mainly because of the AI and rendering). Add some multiplayer to that (which is also CPU intensive) and you know you need a strong CPU to get the best out of the game. I agree with Axle when he says step up your CPU first, but i really wouldnt go higher then the i5 (the i5 4690K is the fastest i5 currently on the market).

If you want I'd be willing to do some research for you if you can provide me with information like what you are willing to spend and if there is any parts you already own.

[Smok3]

i5 4690K <This. And at least 8 gigs of RAM. 2133 is sweet spot for FPS gains. And get a AIO watercooler and OC that CPU to 4.5ghz :)

[f3cuk]

I know, but last i've checked adding the hypertreading paramater doesn't improve performance. Might be that they made improvements on that part though, haven't played ARMA 3 lately.

[Creep]

Currently Iam stuck to AMD processors (AM3+ Socket though) is there a good one which isnt that expensive (<100€)?

[f3cuk]

I think the FX-6300 are good value (sell for ~€ 85 euro). If you have a decent board and some proper cooling you should be able to OC to 4Ghz+ :)

[frunction]

I have 4930k, three 780 GTX Ti, watercooled, etc. and Arma 3 Engine still runs fairly bad.  I find FPS has more to do with the server hosting the game than my machine.

[fayt]

If your going as cheap as possible you could go with the G3258. Thats the unlocked dual core Pentium. Its only 70$ and with a solid 20-40$ cpu cooler you can reach 4.5 overclock NP. You can get a B85 or even H81 motherboard that are 40-90$ to overclock it. (not all boards can overclock) I would go with a solid z97 that way you can upgrade a year later to the unlocked broadwell cpu's that are 14nm. 

[f3cuk]

Didn't know the G3258 was unlocked! Yeez that's a lot of CPU power for only a few bucks. Combine that with a decent cooling solution, a small SSD, some other cheap parts and I'm pretty sure you can build your own dedi box that outperforms 95% of the current epoch servers pc that runs Epoch (Arma 2/3) perfectly.

Something like would run any epoch server ARMA perfectly

• Intel Pentium G3258 Boxed € 56,93
• Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 € 74,95
• MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti € 131,04
• Cooler Master N300 (KKN1, closed) € 30,50
• Cooler Master Seidon 120V € 35,80
• Crucial CT51264BA160BJ € 34,42
• be quiet! System Power 7 350W € 34,85
• Crucial MX100 128GB € 58,49

Total € 456,98 (inc. vat)
(P.s. There are hardly any H81 / B85 boards that are unlocked, more important however is that their components are often not build to be OC'd (including weak mosfet cooling) so it's not really safe to OC them either)
 

Edit: Oops not talking servers. Changed the post a little.

 

Edit 2: Hmm learned that the anniversary editions don't need a Z87 board(!)

[cring0]

I have 4930k, three 780 GTX Ti, watercooled, etc. and Arma 3 Engine still runs fairly bad.  I find FPS has more to do with the server hosting the game than my machine.

Well yeah, that's often the case too.  On Arma 2, as long as the server runs well I usually pull over 60fps.  On the two Arma 3 Epoch servers I've played on, however, it's been sitting at about 30fps.  Some of that may be due to how I have my video settings, I haven't looked into optimizing it for Arma 3 yet.

 

I'm running an i5 4670k at stock 3.4GHz and a GTX 660(forgot I added specs to sig XD).  I used to run an AMD Phenom II 3GHz 4x and it was bad lol, like 10-15pfs on Arma 2 Epoch.

[Richie]

If you're in the UK then look at Fresh Tech for a cheap machine.

[Generalray]

I got an i5 2500k and an hd6870 i oc my cpu to 3.9 ghz and get 60 fps most of the time on medium to low settings 

[Nex]

70-100 solid fps just about everywhere in Altis Epoch. This mod is very optimized.

 

I7-4790k

Z97 Sabertooth Mark I

gtx 770 superclocked

16gb corsair vengeance

H100i liquid cpu cooler

2tb sshd

250gb evo ssd

750watt psu

[RimBlock]

If your going as cheap as possible you could go with the G3258. Thats the unlocked dual core Pentium. Its only 70$ and with a solid 20-40$ cpu cooler you can reach 4.5 overclock NP. You can get a B85 or even H81 motherboard that are 40-90$ to overclock it. (not all boards can overclock) I would go with a solid z97 that way you can upgrade a year later to the unlocked broadwell cpu's that are 14nm. 

 

 

Didn't know the G3258 was unlocked! Yeez that's a lot of CPU power for only a few bucks. Combine that with a decent cooling solution, a small SSD, some other cheap parts and I'm pretty sure you can build your own dedi box that outperforms 95% of the current epoch servers pc that runs Epoch (Arma 2/3) perfectly.

Something like would run any epoch server ARMA perfectly

• Intel Pentium G3258 Boxed € 56,93
• Gigabyte GA-Z97P-D3 € 74,95
• MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti € 131,04
• Cooler Master N300 (KKN1, closed) € 30,50
• Cooler Master Seidon 120V € 35,80
• Crucial CT51264BA160BJ € 34,42
• be quiet! System Power 7 350W € 34,85
• Crucial MX100 128GB € 58,49

Total € 456,98 (inc. vat)

(P.s. There are hardly any H81 / B85 boards that are unlocked, more important however is that their components are often not build to be OC'd (including weak mosfet cooling) so it's not really safe to OC them either)

 

Edit: Oops not talking servers. Changed the post a little.

 

This is where I was looking for a test server.  The G3258 AE seems to have popped up at just the right time.  My only concern is that it is dual core only.  This would mean that the OS and ARMA would have to share ;) .

 

As for playing, both myself and my son have i5-2400s (Sandy) and for the most part the game plays fine.  Mine was a bit jerky on A3 but then I am also playing on a Radeon 7950 @ 2560 x 1440 (27" IPS Dell monitor).

 

I recently upgraded my HTPC to an i3-3240 (3.4GHz 2 core no HT) with a Radeon R7-265 (IIRC) and it plays fine at 1920x1080 over our projector.

 

If I was not so bothered by price, I would probably be looking at a E5-1620v3 Xeon (3.5GHz, 4c8t, max 768GB DDR4 4 channel up to 2133 ECC, 40 PCIe lanes) which is pitched around $294 (tray only).  Only just out so no real reviews out there but should match with a X99 board and they are being listed all over the place now.

[f3cuk]

If you only use it as a server then the dual core will do perfect, no need to worry about that. Your OS will hardly use any CPU power and neither will MYSQL, furthermore ARMA has dual thread support but it is hardly utilized, this is why you don't really see a decent performance increase when using a second core. At best both cores will use ~60% of total power so there is always enough headroom to run other stuff like your OS.

 

If i had to build dedicated server right now, this is probably what i'd come up with.

• Intel Pentium G3258
  OC to 4Ghz+ - € 56,93
• ASRock H81M-ITX
  Turns out you dont need for the anniversary edition CPU's(!) - € 55,50
• Cooler Master Elite 110
  Beautiful little case :) - € 35,50
• Cooler Master Seidon 120V
  Some decent watercooling - € 35,80
• Crucial Ballistix Tactical 8GB
  Dual channel for best performance - € 67,85
• be quiet! System Power 7 300W
  You won't need more, really good efficiency this one - € 29,75
• Crucial MX100 128GB
  SSD because a lot of file operations - € 58,49

Total € 339,82

 

Guaranteed incredible performance :)

[rexsaysausages]

i'm running an amd fx6300 stock speed, 650ti boost (2gig), and a cheap as chips gigabyte 78lmt-usb3 motherboard and i get at least 30fps everywhere at 1366x764 on high settings.

[JackScythe]

I have found some interesting videos. After watching them I don't even consider anything below AMD FX6300 as my CPU for Arma 3 Epoch OPEN BETA. Have a look:

 

Wasteland on Phenom II X4 955, R 260x

 

Wasteland on FX 6300, R 260x

 

Wasteland on FX 6350, GTX 770

 

Wasteland on i5 3570, GTX 770 OC

Kiory123 mentioned on twitch chat, that GTX 770 makes almost no diffence in Arma 3 Epoch on his rig (AMD 8350 CPU) in comparison with GTX 560 Ti (which is very similar in performance to R 260x).

 

Conclusion: If you are building a PC for A3 Epoch and you don't have a powerful Intel CPU, don't even consider GTX 770. 

 

Intel Pentium G3258

OC to 4Ghz+ - € 56,93

 

This Pentium is a very creepy CPU. Like one of those creepy girlfriends. One day she will give you a decent BJ after a joyful trip to a Disney World. Another day she will piss into your glass of whisky, because she hates going to the zoo and you were supposed to know it.

 

It performs fantastic in A3 singleplayer, and extremely poorly in in Far Cry 3. Has anyone tested this CPU in Arma 3 Multiplayer?