Battlefield 3 at 2560x1440 High or Ultra - which card?

[Marine-RX179]

You know.... BF3 it almost doesn't matter if you have a i7 920 at 2.67 (like I also currently have) or at 4Ghz, look it up! "BF3 cpu scaling" in google for example.

Isn't it the case that you have to manually enable SLI? Every time I install a new NVIDIA driver I have to re-enable SLI...
Also maybe you should check the temperature of both cards, maybe they get to hot and throttle back?

Just a few thoughts

You do realise most BF3 performance varys HUGELY depending the multiplayer map and the size or the server? It is not a simple case of "one size fit all" by just looking at 1 or 2 benchmark.

There's a bench which show the 7970 has higher frame rate on the overclocked 2600K than at stock.

 

[barjoysee]

Very interesting circumstance with your thoughts on SLI GTX 580's. I've just built a machine here at work for a guy with an EVGA SR-2 with 2 x overclocked Xeons @ 4.2Ghz along with 2 x EVGA GTX 580 3GB Ultra Classified @ 900Mhz, and didn't have any problems - buttery smooth. You sure you're not having issues with SLI or drivers or something? Sure you're actually using both cards in the game? I was getting consistent 65FPS @ 2560x1600 with everything maxed out - HBAO, 4xMSAA, 16x post processing, ambient occlusion, everything Ultra etc.

Intersting you Mention the SR2 as im going to be upgrading the board soon also was looking at the new Asus Rog SBE but the pics of the SR3 are very tempting if I win the lottery lol.
I'm on 296.10 drivers and SLI is enabled. I'll pop it back to ultra when I get in and see what its dropping to..

I'm pretty certain that the odd dips here and there on the frame rate is more to do with your i7 920 at stock speed. Have you even check what GPU usage are your two GTX580 3GB is at when the frame rate dipped? You do realise high-end graphic setup require fast CPU to improve scaling right?

At 2560x1600 I believe though I could be wrong that i'm more GPU limmited...as I said even at 4Ghz it still didn't help with low dips...I think GPU usage was around 95% + on each GPU will check again though !

I can't claim to have tested FPS scientifically in all conditions but I tend to be quite sensitive to frame rate dropping (which is how I know even a O/C 7970 on it's own wasn't enough). Checking from time to time with Afterburner doing the FPS display I've not noticed it drop under 60fps and usually it's 80+. This is on 7970s with a very mild O/C to 1000/5700 on stock volts.

If I get a chance I'll do a run through some maps, keep an eye on the FPS and let you know. FWIW I would expect two 680s to possibly be even quicker as BF3 seems to generally perform a little better on nvidia. Having said that I've not dabbled with SLi for years so no idea if there's any potential challenges with it, I went crossfire just because (for me anyway) generally speaking it's just worked (with a couple of driver version release fubars).

You could probably get away with dual 7950s just fine with a little overclock and save a chunk of cash

Thanks for the info Athanor looks like your getting spot on performance from the 7970's I'll post some pics with GPU usage and memory usage with frame rates when I get in. As I said on default Ultra settings Memory usage was 2150Mb so I do wonder about 2Gb on the nvidia's when using high post and aa

 

[DamoTourettes]

Look at disabling hyperthreading on your i7. Apparently there were issues with it which might be proving problematic. I also think your i7 @ stock might be part of the problem with the 580's - a 4Ghz OC might fix that.

 

[Vir]

You do realise most BF3 performance varys HUGELY depending the multiplayer map and the size or the server? It is not a simple case of "one size fit all" by just looking at 1 or 2 benchmark.

There's a bench which show the 7970 has higher frame rate on the overclocked 2600K than at stock.

I do realise that but what does that have to do with CPU scaling?

I mean same scenario you get things like this:

There was actually another one with a i7 920 from 2.0 ghz to 4.5ghz I think... the frames just stayed about the same, maybe 1fps difference :/ now I can't find it anymore, think it was on tomshardware on anandtech

 

[barjoysee]

found that screenie I was on about...from before:

Thats:
GPU 1 44c
GPU 2 46c
Mem1 2069 Mb
Mem2 2069Mb
D3D11 17.4 fps

that was on last drivers and yes its from death cam and not first person but I have a screen going up the hill and it was showing 20 fps I'll pop it back to ultra default tonight and see what it drops to on caspian.

 

[Marine-RX179]

found that screenie I was on about...from before:

Thats:
GPU 1 44c
GPU 2 46c
Mem1 2069 Mb
Mem2 2069Mb
D3D11 17.4 fps

that was on last drivers and yes its from death cam and not first person but I have a screen going up the hill and it was showing 20 fps I'll pop it back to ultra default tonight and see what it drops to on caspian.

You should add GPU usage to your OSD as well (if EVGA Precision has it)...that way you would know whether or not you GPU is actually at max usage when your frame rate drop to that low. And judging from the GPU temps being only at 45C~, I do have to wonder.

 

[Rroff]

You should add GPU usage to your OSD as well (if EVGA Precision has it)...that way you would know whether or not you GPU is actually at max usage when your frame rate drop to that low. And judging from the GPU temps being only at 45C~, I do have to wonder.

His sig would seem to hint his GPUs might be watercooled

 

[Marine-RX179]

His sig would seem to hint his GPUs might be watercooled

Ah right. I guess you are right. But it wouldn't hurt to have GPU usage displayed to confirm the GPUs are indeed under 100% use, to rule out the possibility of CPU holding it back.

 

[biuro74]

max native res (2560x1440). Dropping it down to 1080p makes it look like utter crap.

Try to choose 720p (1280x720) which makes 1 bitmap pixel = 4 pixels @ monitor, and play 3 meters away of LCD

 

[Vir]

wtf, I just turned VSYNC on and all the stuttering is GONE @ high / ultra

if I set it to medium with VSYNC off it's fine as well... don't get it anymore!

 

[gee3000]

I've now adjusted my settings: max native res (2560x1440) everything ultra except AA deferred off, AA post off, motion blur off, AF off (personally think this setting makes the game look worse), AO HBAO. Running fairly smooth right now with average 40-50fps.

 

[dave_beast]

wtf, I just turned VSYNC on and all the stuttering is GONE @ high / ultra

if I set it to medium with VSYNC off it's fine as well... don't get it anymore!

I get that. On ultra with Vsync off i'm getting anything upto 120fps but it's stuttery garbage tbh, whack vsync on and it's smooth. Imo, the game is bust

 

[Mr Krugga]

I've now adjusted my settings: max native res (2560x1440) everything ultra except AA deferred off, AA post off, motion blur off, AF off (personally think this setting makes the game look worse), AO HBAO. Running fairly smooth right now with average 40-50fps.

Anisotropic Filtering making the game look worse?

 

[Macro]

Done a quick check but had forgotten I have switched to Vsync enabled at the moment and didn't have time to reconfig. Having said that with Vsync limiting FPS to 59FPS for a map rotation or two and with everything on ultra GPU usage was around 75 - 80% across both GPUs. I guess you can extrapolate a FPS from that if both GPUs were running at 100%.

ATI drivers v12.3 with default out of the box settings.

Your mileage may vary and all that but hope that at least gives you an indication.

 

[Sin_Chase]

AF 16x is basically free. GET IT ON!

 

[barjoysee]

His sig would seem to hint his GPUs might be watercooled

Sorry yep they are

Ah right. I guess you are right. But it wouldn't hurt to have GPU usage displayed to confirm the GPUs are indeed under 100% use, to rule out the possibility of CPU holding it back.

I normally do have GPU usage on
2560x1600 on 2x 3GB Evga's all ultra preset 2.6Ghz I7 920

In use found it to be 88%-98% for both GPU's ! so I think its using both cards fully !

New drivers seem to be helping with minimums but will need a third card or upgrade to keep it at 60 min !

Though I'm hoping to get a 3930 and get it to 4.5+ 24hr use so that should help !??

 

[Marine-RX179]

Sorry yep they are



I normally do have GPU usage on
2560x1600 on 2x 3GB Evga's all ultra preset 2.6Ghz I7 920

In use found it to be 88%-98% for both GPU's ! so I think its using both cards fully !

New drivers seem to be helping with minimums but will need a third card or upgrade to keep it at 60 min !

Though I'm hoping to get a 3930 and get it to 4.5+ 24hr use so that should help !??

Just overclock your i7 instead of leaving it at stock. It should somewhat increased the GPU usage, as well as the frame rate. If you clock your i7 from 2.6GHz to 4.0GHz or above, the chances are you will see 95~99% usage rather than 88~98% usage on the two GPUs. I mean if you already reached 60fps with you capped it to that (with application such as MSI Afterburner) or have vsync on, it is understandable to have less than 99% usage; but when you GPU usage is not close to max despite the frame rate is not close to 60fps, then your CPU is not keeping up with your graphic card...it is as simple as that (unless it is driver issue, but I would overclock the CPU first to compare the results).