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Help Getting ARMA 2 to run on Notebook; underpowered

M

moomoofarm7

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 14, 2008
Messages
82
I'm trying to run ARMA 2 on a Toshiba Satellite L355-S7900 and it just isn't running at a playable rate. But I feel like it should be able to at least run it on minimum settings.

The specs of the notebook:

Intel® Pentium® Processor T3400 Dual Core
Windows Vista® Home Premium (SP1, 32-bit)
3GB DDR2 800mhz
17" LCD
Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M - Key problem
128MB-1342MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory

Do you think reverting back to XP or moving to a 64 bit OS might make a big difference? Vista might be too intensive for this PC.

This is my second PC, and I bought a second copy of ARMA 2 so I could play co-op with my cousin but its just not running it.

Any suggestions?
 
It doesn't matter what OS you have, that GPU is usless for gaming on anything released in the past few years. You might want to try UT2004 or something.
 
changing OS is not going to have a noticeable impact. while it's true ARMA runs better on XP/Win7 in comparison to Vista, you're significantly underpowered to begin with and it will not be noticeable. i recommend reading this thread and see if it nets you any performance gains.

FWIW, i quit playing it because i could not get it to run at acceptable framerates (to me) on my aging Q6600/5770 rig.
 
I have a Core i7 and a GTX 480, and this game still runs like crap. I gave up on it. A complete waste of money.
 
Thanks for the input.

I'm gonna try the optimization link from Porter and hopefully I can at least get it going at 640x480
 
WhiteZero said:
At that point... whats the point?
Click to expand...

To be able to play it. Games aren't always about looks you know, if the OP really wants to play the game for gameplay then he won't give a shit about how it looks as long as it runs.
 
I'm waiting for the Arma II expansion because it's supposed to bring a lot of performance and engine tweaks/improvements/optimizations that also will apply to the original game if you have it installed.
 
Samson4EiT said:
To be able to play it. Games aren't always about looks you know, if the OP really wants to play the game for gameplay then he won't give a shit about how it looks as long as it runs.
Click to expand...

Unless it's something like Doom or Kings Quest, I'd call it unplayable at 640x480.
Especially a FPS, being able to make out details is essential to gameplay.

Sorry, but graphics DO have their place in gameplay.
 
Now I'm trying to get the original ARMA to run, but it's still going slow. Doesn't this notebook at least meet minimum specs?
 
ARMA1 ran better, but i still had slowdowns on my rig. i got framerates that i could tolerate enough to play through the whole game. i would expect your notebook to struggle with it as well. damn fun game BTW.
 
Minimum requirements for ARMA 1:
# nVidia Geforce FX with 128 MB RAM & Pixel Shader 2.0 or better
# ATI Radeon 9500 with 128 MB of RAM & Pixel Shader 2.0 or better

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_System_Requirements

Um.. nope those are still both significantly better than the Intel integrated (which is really really sad considering how old they are). The 4500M doesn't even come close to the min requirements of ARMA2.
 
This game slays even hardcore rigs, so you're not going to be able to play on a low specd laptop at all, irrelevent of OS.

For what its worth ArmaII at least the demo ran very badly and didn't really show off a lot in the graphics department, so must have been badly optimised. There's numerous games that both look better and run better.
 
ArmA2 is incredibly hardware-intensive. Primarily CPU, followed closely by GPU. It's not that it's poorly optimized (though it could use some work), but it's more that the game has a MASSIVE scale and TONS of stuff going on at once.

In conclusion, your laptop's CPU and GPU are grossly underpowered for this game. I'm surprised it even runs at all, TBH.
 
Wait, why are you playing on your second PC? Why not on your primary PC? Doesn't Arma 2 have online co-op?

Or did you mean that's the second PC you've ever owned?

In any case, if you're really dead set on gaming on that laptop, you could theoretically upgrade the CPU to most socket P Merom based C2D CPUs. Possibly even socket P Penryn based C2D CPUs.

As for the GPU, if you have some cash to spend, you could do what this guy did for a GPU upgrade:
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1522180

$85 + shipping for the PCI-E to Express card adapter
$50 for a Corsair 400CX 400W PSU
$160 to $300 for any HD 5xxx video card

And you'll be set.
 
What he explained is that he is trying to let his friend play on the laptop for co-op. The 4500 is just useless for gaming though without doing something like the external video card (and then for his case he'd probably be better off building a cheap second system for guests).
 
I'm sorry to say this game won't even play well on certain good systems, with those specs its a futile fight. I have a friend who has a better specked MacBook and he gave up on trying to run it.

Anyone try to run it yet on an i7 980x yet?
 
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