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Battlefield 3 Performance: 30+ Graphics Cards Tested
New submitter wesbascas writes "Have you ever wanted to play a new PC game, but weren't sure where your PC falls between the minimum and recommended system requirements? I don't have a whole lot of time to game these days and with new hardware perpetually coming out and component vendors often tweaking their model numbering schemes, knowing exactly what kind of experience I'm buying for $60 can be difficult. Luckily, somebody benchmarked Battlefield 3's campaign on a wide range of hardware configurations and detail settings. If you've purchased a system in the past few years you should be in luck. The video cards tested start with the AMD Radeon HD 4670 and Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT, and go up to the brand new Radeon HD 6990 and GeForce GTX 590. I hate it that my aging Radeon HD 4870 isn't going to cut it at 1080p, but am glad that I found out before buying the game."
If you're curious about the game itself, here's a detailed review from Eurogamer and a briefer one from Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
I've got a Savage 4 and that's not even in the list. How is this "review" supposed to be useful to anyone?
If this is a bigger slashvertisement for Tom's Hardware, or Battlefield 3. Meanwhile, there are much broader testing services such as Can You Run It? that will give you data on one page instead of thirty and on a much wider variety of games than Battlefield $$$.
Better yet, before reading this article, read some user reviews for the game and realize ou don't care if your machine can run it, because the majority of people think itsterrible and EAs origin software is spyware.
For reference, I really liked Battlefield 2: Bad Company, and even Battlefield 1942 (playing both on a PS3).
The graphics look great, that is not a problem. But to me it seems like too much action happens at too far a distance - I am often killed in multiplayer by people I never see. I'm used to sniper kills from previous games, thats fine every once in a while but it sure feels in this game like almost every kill is a sniper kill, and that's juts not fun - when I die repeatedly for 10 minutes without ever seeing a single enemy I get pissed off and don't feel like playing.
Even the single player game has this issue, with barley visible enemies hammering me from a distance.
It's not even like I am one of those idiots that runs around like Rambo trying to take out everyone myself. I take cover when I can and even know how to crouch. I join squads, work in a support role and still I seem to die at the drop of a hat.
Yes I probably suck at FPS players compared to many other people since I don't play often (in part why I like to play on a console, where I feel like the best players are limited somewhat by the controls). But I never had this degree of problem with other FPS games and I'm just not sure I can maintain interest enough to play this game casually at all.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm really disappointed in Battlefield 3. They could have taken a little more time making the single player decent. I can't keep up with all the super players online, so the SP campaign means at least as much to me as MP. At best, I'm going to be cannon fodder for online teams and more likely I'll just play a few times and decide it's not worth going back. Very often, online multiplayer just brings out the worst of cyberspace behavior and that might turn off older gamers like me. I'm more interested in having fun and a challenge than rubbing some noob's face in it and then teabagging him. And what's up with all the gay stuff among multiplayer gamers, anyway? "Hey look, me and maxihk52 are doing 69! How cool is THAT?!"
I understand that the companies are putting all the work into the multiplayer, but still, there must be other gamers like me who will mostly play the single campaigns. All they're doing by short-changing the single players is making them wonder why they should lay out another $60 just to get the same amount of entertainment as two movies back to back. An increasingly important part of any game review is how long is the single player campaign. If Driver:San Francisco is going to be 60 hours of fun and Rage is going to be 5 hours of fun, guess which one I'm going to buy and which I'm going to look for a REL0ADED demo.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I like this game really is, however, but a lot of requirements
It's a huge disappointment. Sure it's gorgeous, but they have made it Battlefield Bad Company clone as they do nothing to facilitate team play which is why BF2 was so fantastic (especially on teamplay servers). Sure BF2 wasn't always a team play game, but it happened if you fell into the right group of folks.
In BF3, the squad system is hidden, the squads are smaller, there is no squad leader, no squad based VOIP, no squad way points, no intrasquad commands, and no commander. I played on teamplay BF3 servers, made no difference.
I want my money back. I won't ever pre-order a game again.
the squad system is hidden
I'm not sure what you are talking about, the squad system is right there, it's not hard to get into one or switch to another one.
there is no squad leader, no squad way points, no intrasquad commands
There is a squad leader it has a star next to their name. They can order what to defend and or what to attack, so yes there are intrasquad commands. way points are gone unfortunately, but I don't think anyone was using them.
no squad based VOIP
There is squad based VOIP.
and no commander
The commander abilities are now spread over the several classes. This is better as sometimes the commander wouldn't do anything.
I played on teamplay BF3 servers, made no difference.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean with teamplay servers.. if you are talking about "team deadmatch" then you probably want to stay away from it. Team deadmatch has only one objective, kill the other team. This is usually easier accomplished by doing the run and gun type of play.
Sure BF2 wasn't always a team play game, but it happened if you fell into the right group of folks.
Same with BF3, if you want team play you need the right group of players. This has been a problem with the BF franchise since the BF1942 days and I doubt it's going away ever...
That's all nice information, but what I really need to know is what hardware setup and software would allow me to run this game and the spyware it comes with in a virtual machine, so it can not spy out my pc?
Or will I be forced to pirate this? I was going to buy but I guess that won't happen anytime soon now.
I'm in a clan and it makes gaming so much better. I posted this to the clan site
figured with this thread I could get even more use out of it.
----
"When I first started playing BF3 I started in
campaign mode to set my controllers (didn't work).
Graphics BF3 Vs COD4
Here's the Heli scene (BF3 and COD4) - both at the very
start where you would want to show off your artwork.
BF3 - Not full screen
http://i44.tinypic.com/xf2dz9.jpg
COD4 - Full Screen (1680X1050)
http://i41.tinypic.com/m4n0g.jpg
http://i44.tinypic.com/24d1p1l.jpg (to show what map)
Also consider your view point and which
required more work (Animation over water, while raining)."
FWIW
GTX-570, i7-950, Asus P6X58D, 6Gigs of ram, no pagefile.sys
Wish they'd show CF 5770s.. Debating whether or not to buy a second 5770 on the cheap or just upgrade to a newer card
Where is the squad based VOIP? I see no VOIP in the game. Just the shitty browser communicator
I see the squads, but they are awkward to use. There is no ordering by the squad leader, it's just crap
Teamplay and tactical gamer are the places for "team games" versus frag fest.
Once again we see that the top tier Nvidia is priced wayyyy over the top Radeon, but performs way worse.
I don't understand why there's so much brand fanboyism with computers. This would obviously indicate that it makes sense to buy Radeon if you want your money's worth, since this holds true down to the lower performance cards as well. It's basically been this way for years. Yet, oppositely, Intel has been blowing away AMD's processors for a while now, so you get your money's worth by buying in that direction for that particular product. It just makes sense.
Besides, after the way Nvidia shit all over their loyal fans with that GPU debacle, I'll have a hard time trusting them again, as should anyone else. There are still video cards and laptops floating around out there, particularly on Ebay, which are just waiting to die on some unsuspecting second-hand consumer. I'm always having to warn people about buying anything used with Nvidia products in them until they do their research. Not everyone I know was so lucky though, because I still have a perfectly good laptop laying here with just a dead Nvidia graphics chipset in it, which they gave to me out of disgust when it died immediately after their warranty period expired.
Brand loyalty doesn't do you any good if you're in second place. Or worse, when you're stuck with dead equipment. Look at benchmarks, do some research, and buy what's best for the price. That's the point of PCs vs Apple: we can put any brand of product in it for any aspect of operation to achieve the best performance at a good price. It's silly to do anything otherwise.
There is no major nail in coffin situation for pc games any more as they are ports of software to run on 6+ year old, cheaply made game consoles, even if your system does suck, drop the resolution and effects a bit and your good to go.
My dual core AMD system with a 9600GT cost less than 200 bucks 3 years ago, and I can still run these games with just an occasional jitter at higher resolutions than the console (not much higher but still), but yet every game release there is some doofy benchmark telling us something that has not changed for over a half decade.
Read the text between the graphs for answers to your questions.
Perhaps you need to learn to not run out in the open and use proper tactics when assaulting a point.
I don't do that - I am running cover to cover, or sometimes slowly advancing mostly under cover, generally trying to move with other players to take a point. Again, I have played BF:BC2 - what I didn't mention was only on hard mode, where shots do more damage and you cannot see where attackers are located (I liked the challenge of figuring out sniper positions). Although I was not the greatest player I was able to be fairly successful in a lot of rounds. But nothing works in BF:BC3, cover or no, slow or no, and I sure as hell am not running out in the open.
It does help to play on a squad that has the ability to communicate with each other.
Like I said, I'm a pretty casual player - I agree that actually being able to talk to squad members would make you a pretty powerful force simply because you could actually cover each other and know that someone looking in a different direction could warn you before an attack from that direction. But I just don't have the time to have a dedicated group I could play with like that, my playing times are way too random for anyone to tolerate so I've never even tried to find partners figuring it would not be fair to them.
It just feels like BF3 is meant only for the more hardcore FPS players and has lost the feeling of fun I enjoyed with all the other variants. It's too serious now, requires too much of a time investment to get to the point I feel like it might be fun again.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So not getting it.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
and tried it out on my hardware.
runs fine, single player is so so.
did the beta, wasn't too bad. Probably buy it after xmas when the prices come down.
Seriously, you want to know if it runs, download the fucking game and try it. If it doesn't, don't waste your money. If it does, then you can safely buy it if you want.
Be seeing you...
I wish they had tested the integrated graphics on both Intel and AMD, if only to prove "nope, you still can't do that!" But I had hoped AMD's Radeon graphics were getting close?
i5-750 and it's replacement, the i5-2500k both scream when paired with a GTX 460 1GB or above. I am seeing in the 50-70s at "medium", 40-50s at "high" and high 20s-mid30s at "ultra". the i5-750 stays around 93% through pretty much all of the various multiplayer maps for me. the i5-2500k is about 25% more CPU
moox. for a new generation.
I appreciate your long missive about realism, though it is not really realism I am looking for - I feel like BF3 has gone too far in that direction, and is now in kind of an "uncanny valley" for realistic use of weapons, where neither you nor I am at all happy with what they are doing.
They have tried to address some of the things you've pointed out. If you shoot in the direction of the enemy, their vision blurs to simulate the effects of suppressive fire. A sniper needs to go prone and use a bipod to get really good accuracy in shooting. Actually those changes I am fine with, it's more other things I am disliking... but again the movement towards greater realism I think is taking away BF from what fans are used to, or at least what this fan is used to... someone else makes Modern Warfare already, people can just play that if they want to play that game. I never did.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
you also gave up
1. better control interface. this is a killer for me. I don't even bother with fps on a console. after years of quake, it's like returning to the dark ages.
2. lower latency display with higher resolution and sharper image. graphics heavy games like battlefield3 aren't even 720p on consoles. the output is scaled to 720 by the console, then refiltered again by the tv before display. most hdtvs have horrible latency as well. that coupled with the joypad interface makes the whole game akin to driving drunk compared with kb/mouse. without any gfx upgrades, titles will look better on a pc monitor and gfx card.
3. proper pc titles come with map and mod making utilities, dedicated server binaries that give players the ability to setup and control the game any way they want outside of the vendor's portal, and minimal whitelist style drm at the worst. These things add value to the game to give it longer staying power, and thus mor time for people like yourself to become skilled. consoles cater to the here today gone tomorrow attitude that publishers foster to increase their profits. yes, battlefield 3 fails here.
> without any gfx upgrades, titles will look better on a pc monitor and gfx card
The price tag that comes with this is too high. PS3 games look pretty good on my big screen tv, I don't really care about it being "true" 720p or any other specific format. We're not talking about Wii video quality here.
> consoles cater to the here today gone tomorrow attitude that publishers foster to increase their profits
I have played the GTA and Fallout series a lot on a console, still do. Good games are good games. Also I find it easier to play for a long time when I am seated in my big couch in front of my big tv, not on a desk chair with a "tiny" 24 inch monitor.
This being said, my best gaming experience was many, many years ago when a friend hooked up a VGA projector on his PC and we were playing Tie Fighter with the screen being an entire wall.
lucm, indeed.
This game has very little of the elements that make Battlefield 2 fans so loyal. I have no clue what marketing "genius" came up with the idea to call a Bad Company sequel the long awaited Battlefield 3 and thought we'd be dumb enough to swallow the bait.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Ordering isn't "crap" once you get used to it. You just need to function like an actual squad leader, stand a bit back and issue orders like attack, defend and so on.
Takes a while to get used to, but becomes easier once you learn, like most things in the game. Lack of proper in-game voice (for PUGs) is pretty annoying though.
The price tag that comes with this is too high.
ok. you get what you pay for. However, it's not required to buy the highest end hw to play games. the games I like to play require me to see detail on screen, so the size is less important than image quality and low latency.. in fact the larger screen would force me to pan my eyes more often, slowing response. in addtion, unlike crts, modern hdtvs add a ton of lag making time sensitive gameplay (like fighting/driving) a pain in the ass. fps is out of the question. it's ok if you're messing around at a party, but if you really want to do your best, it's annoying. double that if your tv's timing is different from your buddies.' perfect your timing on one and play on the other, see what happens. I know many play that way and do well, but that's because the games are slowed down and paced to make up for it. Compared with traditional pc shooters, gameplay is still like driving a car with a pair of tweezers...and rubberbands
I have played the GTA and Fallout series a lot on a console, still do. Good games are good games. Also I find it easier to play for a long time when I am seated in my big couch in front of my big tv, not on a desk chair with a "tiny" 24 inch monitor.
good compared with what exactly? certainly not the games that lasted for years due to flexible community expandability. I had fun with fallout3 but I wouldn't have bothered with a clunky joypad if that's all I had. inferior controls lead to inferior mechanics. add the ergonomics of a kb/mouse and the couch/tv/controller thing of the 80s and early 90s is painful for all but the simplest games. I am disappointed that the industry decided to backslide rather than move forward to even better interfaces. rather than make newer more challenging stuff, they moved towards games anyone can win... those 'achievements' embedded in every game now are a prime example of this mentality. another would be regen health.
to each their own, but I've largely stopped playing simply because there aren't many good games coming out nowadays.. today's top titles last maybe 5-10hrs at the most and cost $60. they're too easy. the multiplayer ones are hobbled by horrible portals designed simply to keep the players hooked on the vendor in order to keep playing.. that way the vendor can pull the plug if their old product starts to threaten their newest cash cow. it also prevents other threats like community mods and content.
For those that are interested in a closer look behind the scenes of the Frostbite 2 engine DICE recently held a 1 hour talk about the inner workings of the graphics in BF3. It's pretty amazing what can be done with DX 11 these days.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
For some reason, god only knows what it is, ATI cards hated Simcity 3000. I cant even really explain this. the fastest mode, the one where you go because yuo dont want to watch each building construct peice by peice, is easily 100x slower than on an Nvidia card. of course, i wont be buying any new ones based on this. it just pisses me off.
WTF are you talking about? The most effective people are the people with the best squad cohesiveness.
What I want to see is a special vehicle talk so you can talk to the driver even if you are not in their squad.
There is no ordering by the squad leader, it's just crap
While it is clumsy, there are squad leader commands in Battlefield 3. Specifically, the squad leader taps "q" while pointing his cross-hair at the point he'd like his squad to attack or defend. In the 3d representation of the point's location in space, there will then be a box around the point on all the squad members' screens.
Operation Metro should only be a Rush map.
A-GREED. Operation Metro does not work at all well for Conquest. It's way, way too linear -- there are very few ways to flank once you get into the subway tunnel.
I'm really looking forward to the Back to Karkand pack -- the maps there are built for Conquest and will be a nice bit of BF2 nostalgia.
The controller is fine for FPS games and HDTVs have the same amount of lag that PC monitors do.
Achievements are just a continuation of what have been in games from the very beginning - a high score. Which titles last only 5-10hrs at the most? That's nonsense.
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
The controller is fine for FPS games and HDTVs have the same amount of lag that PC monitors do.
Um... no. No, and also, no. If you think a controller is fine for FPS gaming, you are not very good at FPS games. This is a fact, not an opinion. The controller does not offer the precision that a KB/Mouse offers, plain and simple. The best console player in the world of any given FPS game will get schooled by an average PC KB/Mouse player. The speed and precision just aren't there with a controller.
Anyone who has progressed beyond just sitting down to a quick game of deathmatch to something resembling competitive play will tell you straight out that a controller is a joke for serious play. The fact that you think an controller is fine for FPS indicates you've not progressed beyond the occasional game with your friends on a Saturday night, therefore, you aren't really qualified to make a judgement call as to whether or not a controller is "fine for FPS."
Many HDTVs introduce a lot more lag than a monitor, so your argument there is also false. Although, many PC monitors do have quite a bit of lag. Again, if you're buying a monitor for gaming, you should make sure you get one with low latency.
Um... no. No, and also, no. If you think a controller is fine for FPS gaming, you are not very good at FPS games. This is a fact, not an opinion. The controller does not offer the precision that a KB/Mouse offers, plain and simple.
I didn't mention anything about precision, I just said that a controller is fine for playing FPS games. Because they are. I can flick between playing BF3 and Halo Reach without any difficulty at all.
Anyone who has progressed beyond just sitting down to a quick game of deathmatch to something resembling competitive play will tell you straight out that a controller is a joke for serious play. The fact that you think an controller is fine for FPS indicates you've not progressed beyond the occasional game with your friends on a Saturday night, therefore, you aren't really qualified to make a judgement call as to whether or not a controller is "fine for FPS."
I have been playing PC and console FPS games since Doom. I would play Doom, Duke Nukem 3D and Quake for hours on the college network.
Many HDTVs introduce a lot more lag than a monitor, so your argument there is also false. Although, many PC monitors do have quite a bit of lag. Again, if you're buying a monitor for gaming, you should make sure you get one with low latency.
So you say that some monitors have high latency and some HDTVs have high latency. How is my argument false?
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
with every BF game I play there is a breaking period where I have to relearn the visual cues that tell me a bad guy is in my field of view.
I played again last night, and things were much better. For whatever reason, I was able to see people, I didn't get insta-killed (well not without reason like spawning on a squad member in a firefight with a tank). I was able to hold my own, and my scores were reasonable.
So, I guess I was just too tired or something the first play through, because I can do about as well as I ever did it seems.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Dude, do you think perhaps that you might just be bad at the game?
I thought about that, but generally I have been pretty good (not great, but pretty good) at every FPS I have tried... I saw no reason why I should suddenly be so impossibly bad at this when I was fine with others.
As it turns out, I actually was fine when I played last night. I don't know what went so horribly wrong the first few hours I played, but suddenly I am seeing the enemy just fine (especially when you equip flashlights, thanks for that guys) and managed to stay near the top most rounds of play.
It might be that your not used to the maps yet
That's something of an issue, but I can usually work around it. I was playing the mine level (forget the name) last night, guarding a flag at the north entrance - A helicopter crashed near by and I was ready to take out the paratrooper when he grabbed the tank I had no idea spawned there and took me out. But I did manage to respawn and take him out with an RPG before the flag was lost, so even not knowing the map I was able to do OK... certainly knowing the tactical points on a map is a huge benefit, but I'm used to being handicapped in that regard as I don't play often enough to learn the maps nearly as well as dedicated players.
I had a much better time so in the end I think you are right, I just needed a bit more time with the thing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I am still using Windows XP Pro. SP3. :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The point of the commander was not the commander abilities, but issuing commands to coordinate the team. Without a game mechanic for this, it only happens in prearranged clan matches.
For great justice.
It is false because of these two statements:
[quote]The controller is fine for FPS[/quote]
It's not "fine" for FPS gaming. It may be "adequate", "marginally acceptable," or possibly even "workable." But it is not "fine." Fine implies that does everything required of it, and being as it has almost no precision, it falls short in that area (as well as others, but you only need one area to be less than "fine")
[quote]games and HDTVs have the same amount of lag that PC monitors do.[/quote]
HDTVs do not have the same amount of lag that PC monitors do. SOME HDTVs may have the same amount of lag as some monitors, but I have yet to see an HDTV that has the same or less lag than the best monitors for gaming. I'm not saying they don't exist, I've just never heard of nor seen them.