Battlefield 3 Benchmarked, GPU and CPU Performance Tested

[Julio Franco]

Read the full article at:
https://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/

Please leave your feedback here.

 

[dividebyzero]

Thanks for the comprehensive review.

Very sharp...both the content and the review layout

 

[Guest]

Ouch! my poor 560ti QQ

 

[Arris]

Wonder if this will push me to upgrade from my 2 x 5850s... hmm.
I mean at 1920x1200 I really find that AA is something I value less than other quality settings. I used to consider it to be of more importance back in the days of ~1024 resolutions.

 

[Stupido]

Arris said:
Wonder if this will push me to upgrade from my 2 x 5850s... hmm.
I mean at 1920x1200 I really find that AA is something I value less than other quality settings. I used to consider it to be of more importance back in the days of ~1024 resolutions.

Well, for some more details/info check the Tom's hardware:
AMD cards and CrossFire scaling

 

[BlindObject]

Nice review. For the record, since you guys didn't include it, I'm playing with a i7 950 at 4ghz and SLI GTX465 (odd set up right?) and I can play at 1080p with High Settings with v-sync on and it NEVER drops below 60fps. No AA, honestly, it doesnt look like I need it. I'm gonna try some ultra settings soon.

 

[stewi0001]

My rig is running smooth, (my internet could be better though...DSL) so if ya wanna buddy up shoot me a PM

 

[Guest]

I'm sorry this is ridiculous marketing rubbish. My specs aren't even on there and I can play the game on medium at 1680 x 1050 with a THREE-YEAR-OLD PC! (Core 2 duo 3.16 GHz, 4GB, GTX 280).

The game looks amazing at this resolution and quality, but more importantly plays fluidly and is joyful.

If you NEED amazing graphics, sure fork out, but if you're like me and you just need to play BF3, stick with what you have.

 

[Burty117]

So my Nvidia EVGA GTX570 Classified Edition will handle this game on ultra at 1920x1080?!
AWESOME! Plus the fact that it will be coupled with an i7 2600K I think this game is going to run very well

Although I do have one question, I noticed that it is recommended to run this game using a 64-bit processor in order to use more RAM, does this game run any different with 8GB of RAM compared to 4GB?

 

[red1776]

So my Nvidia EVGA GTX570 Classified Edition will handle this game on ultra at 1920x1080?!
AWESOME! Plus the fact that it will be coupled with an i7 2600K I think this game is going to run very well

Although I do have one question, I noticed that it is recommended to run this game using a 64-bit processor in order to use more RAM, does this game run any different with 8GB of RAM compared to 4GB?

Hey burty,
this may interest you.
http://www.geeks3d.com/20111025/the-secrets-behind-battlefield-3-and-frostbite-2/#more-8060
They apparently were very sensitive with memory load and streaming, and the use of instancing to mitigate the effects of memory use. It is very interesting. watch all 5 parts if you have time.

 

[Burty117]

red1776 said:

So my Nvidia EVGA GTX570 Classified Edition will handle this game on ultra at 1920x1080?!
AWESOME! Plus the fact that it will be coupled with an i7 2600K I think this game is going to run very well

Although I do have one question, I noticed that it is recommended to run this game using a 64-bit processor in order to use more RAM, does this game run any different with 8GB of RAM compared to 4GB?

Hey burty,
this may interest you.
http://www.geeks3d.com/20111025/the-secrets-behind-battlefield-3-and-frostbite-2/#more-8060
They apparently were very sensitive with memory load and streaming, and the use of instancing to mitigate the effects of memory use. It is very interesting. watch all 5 parts if you have time.

Thanks for the Link Red, will make a good watch while on lunch at work

 

[red1776]

Amd has released CAP 4 that includes BF3 improvements, so maybe they wont suck, or look foolish.

 

[Wagan8r]

Guest said:
I'm sorry this is ridiculous marketing rubbish. My specs aren't even on there and I can play the game on medium at 1680 x 1050 with a THREE-YEAR-OLD PC! (Core 2 duo 3.16 GHz, 4GB, GTX 280).

The game looks amazing at this resolution and quality, but more importantly plays fluidly and is joyful.

If you NEED amazing graphics, sure fork out, but if you're like me and you just need to play BF3, stick with what you have.

It's not marketing rubbish. It's a good performance analysis to let you know what you'll need in terms of recent hardware if you want to be able to play it at high/ultra settings.

I too, don't have a top-of-the-line PC, and can play the game just fine at slightly higher than medium settings with my Core i7 920, 6GB RAM, GTX 260 at 1920x1200. I haven't once had any framerate issues.

However, if you do have an older video card, don't update to the latest NVIDIA drivers (285.65 I think) as it causes some bizzaire stuttery animations when you move your mouse and run/walk. Also, if you have an amBX speaker setup, you'll have to kill the amBXFXgen (or something like that) process or else you will get a DirectX error upon game startup.

 

[Arris]

Well, for some more details/info check the Tom's hardware:
AMD cards and CrossFire scaling

Thanks for the link Stupido. I'll have to grab latest AMD drivers and CAP and see how it performs myself. Hopefully this evening as it took most of my entire lunch break to install! Origin was doing an update when I left it to go back to work

 

[Per Hansson]

Thanks for the article, but it leaves me with one (big) question.
How much of a difference does the MSAA setting at "Ultra" graphics settings actually have visually?
HardOCP had this to say in their performance preview: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/10/25/battlefield_3_preview_performance
All of our testing is at apples-to-apples settings. We set the game to 2560x1600 and set all in-game options to "Ultra" to max it out. Antialiasing Deferred was set to "Off," this is traditional MSAA and that is a huge drain on performance. Instead, we used Antialiasing Post which is FXAA, we set this to "High." We had 16X AF enabled and HBAO enabled.

Looking at single-GPU performance we find the GeForce GTX 580 and Radeon HD 6970 to match exactly for performance. There doesn't seem to be any perceptible differences between the two video cards in terms of performance. We also experienced no stuttering, and completely smooth gameplay on both AMD and NVIDIA video cards. Keep in mind, the Radeon HD 6970 is still much less expensive than GeForce GTX 580, so you get the same performance as GTX 580 for a much lower price in BF3.

 

[DanUK]

Nice review! The game only got release here last night at mindnight. But it took me a whole hour to get through the crap that is origin/EA servers. Eventually got in an hour of gaming between 1 and 2am before deciding to crash out for the night as to avoid being a zombie at work today (kinda failed).

Anyway from what I did see.. wow! The game is beautiful. Still not a fan of the web front end at all however once you're past that and in the game it's just stunning. I'm running an i7 920 with a GTX 580 and 12gb DDR3 ram, so am lucky enough to enjoy some pretty high settings. Might crack them all up to ultra later and see how it copes (runing 1920 x 1200)

 

[yukka]

Running a i7 920 at stock speed, 9gb 1066mhz ddr3, 460gtx. Settings on auto, all looks very smooth and sexy. No ultra for me but the difference between the beta and the release is massive. Very happy.

 

[fimbles]

Phenom 9850 BE, 8 Gb 1066 ddr2, gtx 275 sli

Ultra settings -41 fps avg
High - 58 fps avg

According to nvidia my system would be not be able to even run it.. i smell bs

 

[fimbles]

As a side note, both gpus never push past 85% useage.

 

[red1776]

Phenom 9850 BE, 8 Gb 1066 ddr2, gtx 275 sli

Ultra settings -41 fps avg
High - 58 fps avg

According to nvidia my system would be not be able to even run it.. i smell bs

for one, your cards are not DX 11 capable, and the DX 11 features (tessellation for one) use a lot of horsepower. your GPU's are not rendering any of those.

Minimum requirements for Battlefield 3
OS: Windows Vista or Windows 7
Processor: Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or Althon X2 2.7 GHz
RAM: 2GB
Graphic card: DirectX 10 or 11 compatible Nvidia or AMD ATI card, ATI Radeon 3870 or higher, Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT or higher.
Graphics card memory: 512 MB
Sound card: DirectX compatibl sound card
Hard drive: 15 GB for disc version or 10 GB for digital version

where are you seeing Nvidia saying 2 x GTX 275's wont run BF3?

 

[fimbles]

There is very little tessalation on the flat deck of the aircraft carrier, im pretty sure its limited to the mountain regions, And a few enviromental objects. The videos linked above confirm this.

Even at ultra settings the terrain lod is set to medium at default, After comparing directly with my brothers 580 he and i both agree there is very little diffrence in most levels with just a few obviously tessalated objects.

Im seeing 2 x gtx 275s wont run battlefield 2 on the official nvidia website. Theres a " is your pc ready for bf3" advert. Says im not and reccomends a gtx 460.......

 

[fimbles]

After more research i have found the performance diffrence between dx10 and 11 in BF3 is approximatley 4%.

Adjust my fps accordingly.

 

[red1776]

Well that doesn't make any sense. The system requirements are much less than a pair of 275's.
DX 11 has more than just tessellation. as far as the 4% difference, either your source is incorrect, or the lead developer doesn't know what he is talking about. as long as it's working for you.

 

[princeton]

Why is the 560 Ti not included in the Ultra settings benchmark yet the last gen HD 5870 is?

 

[lawfer]

Great review.

With my single GTX 560 ti I can easily run this game on ultra settings with HBAO/SSAO turned off. I overclocked my core clock up to 1Ghz, my shader clock to 2 Ghz, and my memory clock to 2.2 Ghz. I run this game with everything in ultra and average 43-46 fps on big maps such as Operation Firestorm, and 50+ fps indoors at 1920 x 1080. If I enable HBAO (not OC) it drops to about the same as this benchmark: 37+ outdoors, 45+ indoors. Not too bad for the Ti; at least until I save enough for the 6990, or until Kepler comes out.

And BTW, my OriginID is: ImpureSoldier. Add me on Battlelog.