Hardware Battlefield 3 Performance Analysis

Currently playing on medium settings at 1080p with a C2Q Q9400 overclocked to 3.2GHz and a GTX 260+

Plays well. Don't know what all the fuss was.

 

After reading this in the conclusion:

"
We’ve also been able to put some performance rumours to rest. As the identical results of the HD 6950 2GB and 1GB show, simply throwing more graphics memory at BF3 doesn't improve performance. Instead, it gobbles up extra GPU resources and higher clock speeds, which would explain the reports of BF3 pushing graphics cards so hard. It certainly makes overclocking your GPU worth considering, though, especially as all the results in this article are based on the cards running at their stock clock speeds. When you consider that a GTX 560 Ti 1GB will happily accept an 80MHz (10 per cent) core frequency overclock, it’s well worth seeing what you can squeeze out of it. "


It really makes me wonder if BitTech is monitoring system resource usage. I get 1300Mb-1480Mb VRAM usage between loading and playing, without over 1Gb of VRAM my card would be experiencing constant hiccups. I find it hard to believe that Bit-Tech missed this when they based a lot of the conclusion around it. I know multiple guys that had SLI 560s that traded up to a GTX 580 3Gb due to frame drop with only 1Gb VRAM @ 1920x1080+

One thing people need to keep in mind is your computer won't show a game using 1.4Gb if you only have a 1Gb card. The only thing you know is you have a problem with game performance which can come from multiple things.

 

Good question and one I'd like a definitive answer to. From what I understand, the 4890 pitches over a 5770 but under a 6850. At 1920x1080, I'm going to be looking at high with 0xaa giving 30ish fps.

As an aside: have we witnessed the quiet, unlamented death of physX in 2011?

 

yeah, the ingame graph shows cpu use spiking up occasionally and its always above gpu usage, guess i need a quad core

 

Exactly, and insufficient VRAM is not a problem that would necessarily show up in a benchmark either. It may not manifest itself as a dip in average or (even minimum) frame rates on a short benchmark. Rather it would highlight itself as infrequent (but annoying) stutters as textures are swapped out - for example when moving from one part of the game world to another.

 

Where are the AMD CPU's in this test? Would be interesting to see how the AMD CPU:s compare to Intel in this test. Not a biggy but it would be nice if it was included! At least for us AMD users.

 

Out of interest what would my 4870x2 be akin to?

i don't plan on upgrading it any time soon can still play most things on high...

 

Just a question, the depth for the GPU's is most fantastic shows up a lot, I am sure that people can tweak their levels to boost performance accordingly - I'd love to know the effect an overclocked CPU would have on framerates - lets say the current testbed overclocked to 4ghz.... do we see a measureable improvement?

 

High settings, id imagine somewhere around a gtx470 as i know its a bit more powerful than a gtx 460.

 

Strange then that with my gtx460 the game sets itself to high, and I haven't really noticed any lag (1680x1050). Don't think i'll upgrade just yet.

 

OC that 460 and you'l have high pre-set with 2 x AA @ 1920 x 1080, i know I did.

 

I've got eveything on Ultra, 4xMSAA, Post AA all the way up, and it runs smoothly.

Constantly saying we need dual GPU isn't rue, just buy an overclockable card: My 580 is up to 940MHz, with the memory and shader oc'd too. My frame rate never drops below 50, which to my eyes is pretty smooth, and certainly doesn't hinder me from getting decent scores in.

Anyone want to join me in a game, I'm Black_bart_blues (any iron maiden fans will notice my naming pattern

 

Also, anybody noticed how the game looks much better post-patch?

 

Not played post patch yet (skyrim got me hooked) but interesting that it looks better as it looks pretty good anyway!

 

I've not really noticed.

 

My 5850 manages pretty well on a custom setting that amounts to High. I'm certainly getting well over 25fps minimum.

Has anyone tested how much the Field of View affects performance?