Hardware Battlefield 3 Performance Analysis

We test 16 DirectX 11 GPUs in BF3, and find out the best way to increase your frame rates.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2011/11/10/battlefield-3-technical-analysis/1

 

What happened to the scores from the 768MB 460? Its listed in the test kit but no results?

 

*Fixed - thanks for the spot!*

Great article though. I've been playing BF3 just about every day since it came out (having finished the singleplayer on release day, I've stuck to multiplayer and a bit of co-op), and it's brilliant. Well done DICE.

 

Looks like my MSI 6950 2GB purchase is going to be well used. *prays for the shaders to be unlockable*

 

I did exactly the same as recommended - stuck it all to Ultra, then dropped AA to 2x - this means my GTX 580 puts out a solid frame rate at 1920x1200 (boo, 1080p tests!).

 

Sorry, shouldn't have been!

 

Great article guys - much appreciated! I love this sort of analysis as it really helps me to get the most out of each game, fps-wise.

Now if only those stubborn gits at EA would release it on Steam, I'd jump right in... (grumbles annoyingly as he goes back to World of Tanks)...

 

First page under anti-aliasing, "[Little difference between] lone and ultra."

 

BF3 is a great game. Runs fine on my HD5870 on medium settings.

Wish they would hurry up and patch the annoying hard coded Q commorose key bug.

Anyone know when they are putting a patch out?

 

Eesh, sucks to be an AMD user. AA is one of those things that really improves the visuals.

On the other hand nvidia cards, my 560Ti included, are occasionally having the screen flash green - swings and roundabouts. Does anyone know what that's about?

 

My ATI 5770 seems to run it fine @1280 1024 on mostly high, and in some cases ultra. I've turned off AA and HBAO SSAO, lowered AF, and it seems to be smooth.

However, I still get occasional flashes of colour, so it's not just nvidia getting it.

 

thanks for the comparison screenshots!

Low preset vs High preset, seems like High players get disadvantage of dust in their face it's so unfair.

 

Hmmm starting to wonder whether I need to upgrade from a core 2 (qx9650) to I-series for now. I was holding out for the 680 or equivalent + sandy/ivy bridge in the new year but might just try the graphics upgrade first and see how the rig performs.

 

Would like to see multiplayer figures as this is basically a multiplayer game. In a 64 player game I bet gpu performance is quite a bit lower, and as I understand it cpu performance matters then too.

 

I'm running a pretty old Radeon Mobility 4650 HD (1 gig). The game automatically sets the game to medium and high settings but the framerate is near unplayable. I drop it down to low for multiplayer with a few tweaks and it runs very smooth with a good framerate. BF3 Low graphics seems to be the same as Bad Company 2 on high.

On singleplayer though the game is pretty much unplayable for me. Even on the lowest of settings the game can be really jumpy. Normally during the level intros (like the one for the jet level when you are walking and talking to the pilot) are ridiculously jumpy and the audio crackles a lot. however once i'm in the air and actually playing the level it runs OK but not great with little to no skipping.

Luckily for me so far the singleplayer is absolute rubbish so i don't feel like I'm missing too much. For me buying this game was never about the amazing graphics as I knew I was never going to get Ultra settings on my laptop, thankfully the multiplayer is brilliant.

It's also nice knowing that the game won't date too fast...at least not for me as I'll be keeping my laptop for a while...when I buy a new one in a couple of years it's going to be pretty nice re-loading the game and playing it on higher settings.

 

HD5870 lives!! Hell of a card... hell of a card...

 

I've been amazed so far to be honest how well the game runs @ high on my 460 at 1920x1200. MSAA turned off but post AA on max. Apart from the odd random crash which I don't think is attributed to anything graphics related, I'm getting bare minimum 35fps.

AF is only 8x and SSAO is off though, might have to have a play with these boosted.

Unfortunately I can't attribute my frequent shocking in-game performance to the game not running well!

 

They must have made some serious changes to the Frostbite engine since Bad Company 2, because that game goes from being ultra smooth with 4 CPU cores to almost unplayable with 2 CPU cores on my unlocked Phenom II 550.

...this pleases me, as i first thought, when i heard about BF3, i'd need to upgrade to a Phenom II 6 core to get a really smooth experience,but now i just need to upgrade my Gfx card..

So that's a nice £150 saved......)

 

No they don't.

Just turn MSAA 4x off and they are faster than the nVidia ones. AMD cards are FASTER than nVidia cards in this game, I game with everything on Ultra, only MSAA disabled and framerate is 60-70 fps most of the time with my dual 6950s (unlocked).

Just enable Anti-Aliasing Post to Ultra which looks exactly the same as MSAA 4x from experience with no performance hit and you are good to go.

 

I was also suprised by how well the game runs at 3560x1920 (Portrait Eyefinity) on my single HD6970. At a mixture of high and medium settings I can achieve between 30 and 45fps consistantly on most maps / single player missions. Interestingly my minimums hold up really well so despite the relatively low framerate the game still feels smooth to me (or at least smooth enough to play well).

Landscape Eyefinity (59xx x 1080 with Bezel correction) is a no go for me. The performance is oddly worse than the higher-pixel-count Portrait Eyefinity, and the side monitors - which I know are for peripheral vision only - are horribly stretched. I also can't use this setup for normal productivity software as the setup is too wide so I am always having to move my head.

I am also messing around with a PLP setup (middle monitor in landscape mode for 1080p gaming and side monitors in Portrait for Chrome / productivity etc) and the performance at 1080p is fantastic as long as I don't go near the MSAA option.

With an agressive fan profile and fiddling with the voltages (1.065v for HD6950 clocks and 1.11v for HD6970 clocks) my HD6970 is also basically silent in normal use (for those who don't know the card doesn't switch to the normal 2D clocks when using multi monitors).