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Arma 3 Available For Linux In A Beta

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Arma 3 is now downloadable and playable on Linux, but be warned it's early days for the port, and the port may not graduate to official status.

You can find more information on their official port page here. This page will detail limitations and such, and is an important read.

Early reports are encouraging though, with one user noting they are getting a solid 60FPS at 1440p resolution on a 970.

I ordered a copy to play around with, as I was too impatient to wait to see if we could get a key. During my livestream of it I played over an hour, and everything pretty much worked as expected. I was able to get a good solid framerate, and most importantly smooth gameplay on Very High settings on my Nvidia 970.

The game is very CPU heavy, so it's really not for lower-end users, please remember that. It's a hog even on Windows.

Find Arma 3 on Steam, but only buy it if you're prepare to lose access to it on Linux if it doesn't get promoted to stable in future. I hope it works out for both VP and the Arma developers, as it would be a great game to have officially on Linux.

Specifications
MINIMUM
OS - Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS 64-bit or Mint 17.1 64-bit or similar Linux distribution
PROCESSOR - Intel Core i5 2.8 GHz or AMD FX 8350 4 GHz
GRAPHICS - OpenGL 4.1 compliant graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 or AMD HD 7850)
GPU MEMORY - 1 GB
RAM - 4 GB
HARD DRIVE - 15 GB free space

Thanks to a regular Arma 3 player, I was linked to this benchmark mission pack. It gives you two levels to run, and gives you an average at the end. You need to extract them into the Missions folder inside the Arma 3 install directory. From there you can select from from the Scenarios section.

Benchmark #1 Very High preset
Intel i5 4670K, Nvidia 970 (352.41), 16GB DDR3

Resolution: 1920x1080
Sampling: 100 per cent
View Distance: 2000
Object view distance: 1286
Shadow: 100
Bloom: 0
Radial blur: 0
Rotation blur: 0
Depth of field & Sharpen filter set to 100 (default)
Vsync disabled.
FSAA 4X.

Stratis: Average: 67FPS
Altis: Average: 68FPS

Benchmark #2 Very High preset
Intel i5 4670K, Nvidia 970 (352.41), 16GB DDR3

Resolution: 1920x1080
Sampling: 100 per cent
View Distance: 2579
Object view distance: 1547
Shadow: 100
Bloom: 0
Radial blur: 0
Rotation blur: 0
Depth of field & Sharpen filter set to 100 (default)
Vsync disabled.
FSAA 6X.

Stratis: Average: 58FPS
Altis: Average: 59FPS

I will be very interested to see your results. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Action, FPS, Steam
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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49 comments
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MayeulC Aug 31, 2015
Quoting: SamsaiThe game requires GL4.1 minimum so I was not able to run tests on Mesa.
Mesa 11 + latest llvm (maybe even 3.7) should give you opengl 4.1, IIRC.
I'm quite sure there's a ppa or something like that (I am not using ubuntu, so I can't really tell you, sorry).
Since it's not gpu-bound in most cases, there's hope it could perform well on RadeonSI.

Anyway, glad to hear it performs well. However, I'd be interested in knowing what they meant by a beta "just to test how it performs" (or so, I can't remember the phrasing). Would they have considered a native port, or would they simply have abandoned the idea ?
Liam Dawe Aug 31, 2015
Updated to add in benchmarks.
BabaoWhisky Aug 31, 2015
I had a dream :
- VP ported The Witcher 2
- VP port Arma 3 to OpenGL 4.1 from Directx 11 with (actually) very good performance
- VP will use this experience to port to Linux The Witcher 3
sleort Aug 31, 2015
This game is totally playable with my AMD Fury X setup.

On Ultra I get around 35fps - I know its not 60fps, but this shooter is much more slow-phased than traditional FPS-games.
I also ave yet to encounter any graphical glitches. This is actually a VERY good port right now(I bought it on windows when it was in alpha, and have played it some times in the final version).
Back then I got 40fps with crossfire 7970Ghz - on very high though. So for me the port seems quite good.

My specs
AMD Fury X
AMD 8350@4ghz (not overclocked atm)
16GB ram @ 1600mhz
1920x1200 monitor
Software:
ElementaryOS (= ubuntu 14.04)
fglrx 15.7
Magbed Aug 31, 2015
Running flawlessly for me as well on my 680 GTX about 30-40 frames on Ultra settings.
mao_dze_dun Sep 1, 2015
Considering it's badly optimized in Windows, uses a wrapper and the port is technically in alpha stage - this is some very impressive performance. I think my prediction eOn might save Linux gaming might just come true. There seems to be very little performance difference with Windows. Good job VP.
BabaoWhisky Sep 1, 2015
Benchmark #3 Very High preset
Intel I7 4720HQ, Nvidia 970M (352.41), 16GB DDR3, Debian Jessie 64-bits

Resolution: 1920x1080
Sampling: 100 per cent
View Distance: 3000
Object view distance: 1287
Shadow: 100
Bloom: 0
Radial blur: 0
Rotation blur: 0
Depth of field & Sharpen filter set to 100 (default)
Vsync disabled.
FSAA 4X.

Stratis: Average: 54FPS
Altis: Average: 54FPS
TheRiddick Sep 1, 2015
Game runs pretty damn good for me, maybe better then Windows. I get consistent 52fps with below spec/settings
GTX980 @ 3840x2160 (100% 3d render)
5500m View distance
BLUR OFF
SMAA Ultra
Most settings on High or Very High

The only issue I see atm is the Texture resolution is fixed on LOW, and I would like to run that at HIGH if possible in future. Might make a bug report about it. VERY happy with this port release! We should all be giving a standing applause for EON!


Last edited by TheRiddick on 1 September 2015 at 8:12 am UTC
burnall Sep 1, 2015
Quoting: TheRiddickGame runs pretty damn good for me, maybe better then Windows. I get consistent 52fps with below spec/settings
GTX980 @ 3840x2160 (100% 3d render)
5500m View distance
BLUR OFF
SMAA Ultra
Most settings on High or Very High

The only issue I see atm is the Texture resolution is fixed on LOW, and I would like to run that at HIGH if possible in future. Might make a bug report about it. VERY happy with this port release! We should all be giving a standing applause for EON!

Wow, 4K and on high settings, that would be very impressive even for a native port compared to native version on Windows.

Has anyone yet tried how it works on AMD cards? I'm AMD user of hd 7870 and would like to get feedback how it works on similar cards.


Last edited by burnall on 1 September 2015 at 8:37 am UTC
evergreen Sep 1, 2015
I had a dream... Now I live it!!
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