Battlefield: Bad Company 2 GPU Performance In-depth

I was thinking that new Crysis 2 will set new parameters in benchmarking tools and testing, but this is going to "hurt" our GPU performance. It's a good game and I think this part will not dissapoint us. Thanks for the review.

Those CPU scaling results make for some interesting reading - at 1920x1200 you pretty much get a 30% boost in performance for a 30% overclock on the default frequency. But mind you it is using 2x 5870's which most of us can only dream about...

"Like many first person shooters the CPU doesn't play a huge role in this game's performance, therefore a decent dual-core processor should be enough to power even the latest graphics cards at full speed."

I disagree. Countless tests and benchmarks have been made by users comparing dual-cores to quad-cores and it's pretty obvious. Dual-cores suffer in this game.

They don't recommend a quad-core for nothing.

Interesting article. The CPU scaling was definitely nice to see for those who OC their CPU's and although I don't play this game yet, know how the different GPU's perform is very helpful when it comes time to upgrade.

How can you conclude that a dual core CPU should be fine without even having tested with one?

It would have been very interesting to perform a shoot-out between a dual-core and quad-core CPU with a high end graphics card, there is much debate around this on forums be no reliable answers.

I agree with previous comments and I expected to see dual-core / quad-core benchmarking included in this article to settle it,

Okay guys I will add dual-core vs. quad-core asap. However just so we are clear I said that you would be fine with a decent dual-core and you will be, I have disabled all but 2 cores on the Core i7 and the game runs much the same but I will get some performance numbers.

wow aren't you guys easily pleased.

Good to finally see a performance review on something that actually taxes out a modern GPU.

I have a 8800 Ultra with a Q9550 4GB~1066ram and gaming on a 24". Will I be able to run on high settings? I think my 8800Ultra is on par with GTX 260.

I agree, I just got a 5870 and haven't had any graphic intensive games that used the full potential of the card. The bad thing is that there are a bunch of awesome games coming out this month (FFXIII tomorrow). And I am still trying to finish Dawn of War 2 before the expansion comes out on Thursday.

Why no 295 tested surely better to see the speed than a 285?

Ian

Okay for those that were concerned about the dual vs. quad battle here is a little more info before I get some sleep.

The game does appear to use all four cores when available. Here we used a standard Core i7 920 processor at 2.66GHz for this test, please note HyperThreading has been disabled and a single Radeon HD 5850 graphics card was used. As you can see none of the cores are working very hard.

http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/255/images/quad.png

Here is the same Core i7 920 processor with two cores disabled as well as HyperThreading. As you can see neither core is maxed out but the CPU utilization is much higher.

http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/255/images/dual.png

So again in conclusion a decent dual core processor such as a Core 2 Duo E8xxx or Phenom II X2 should be enough to get the most out of your graphics card in this game. While it is quad-core optimized the game is not demanding enough on the CPU to warrant it based on what I have seen so far. Still quad-core processors are ideal but not entirely necessary.

Finally the Radeon HD 5850 produced the same average frame rate with 2 cores enabled as it did with all 4. I admit more testing needs to be done with real actual dual-core processors and I promise I will do my best to collect more data for you guys. Also thanks for all the feedback so far its great!

Thanks for the added information Steve. That was really nice of you to go back and check on this on the request of the site users.

This games looks very promising. I'm considering buying it. I am not sure whether or not I would buy it for my PC though. I'm afraid it would be to demanding.

Bad Company 2's GPU performance looks really promising to its users. The graphics are very clear essential for an enjoyable gaming experience. The visuals presented here proves it. This article is written in in-depth approach yet it is easier to understand since words are not very technical and the images almost presents everything.

The game looks good and promising. Graphics looks good and can't wait to get my hands on that game. I'm looking forward to buying it along with upgrading my PC.

Been playing it on Medium settings so far on my PC
Running a GTX260 and it looks really good, going to try a higher setting and see if my System can handle it fine

i played the Beta of the game it was awesome .
i bought the game for my PC .... i have to be fair the Campaign sucks ! .... cause the AI is too stupid and the story is not good ... normal ..... and there is too many mistakes in it ..... the MW2 is way better campaign .... in the story and in the AI ......
In the Multiplayers side the BadCompany2 ROCKS !!!! it's just awesome and so much fun ..... unlike the MW2 multiplayers ... cause it's sucks in the servers problems ... full of cheaters .......
and the graphics is not that much great :S not as just i expected ..... i mean how the weapons looks is not cool .... the BattleField 2 was better ....
but the gameplay is so much realistic .... u really feel that u r in a war zone ... u need to stick with ur squad mates .. u can't hide in a building ... cause they will make it collapse on ur head .... ur not Rambo like in MW2 and u can have a sniper and an assault rifle !! every kit has a purpose and u should know how to use it ...
i say what i have
i am waiting for the BattleField3

I see, this is good for gaming, has been a while since something pushed our hardware. Have an ATI Radeon HD2600XT with 256 DDR3 and it has worked with every game I've had.