Battlefield 3 RETAIL Performance Thread

[SixTwoSix]

Very happy...got my 6970 yesterday and running this on Ultra settings with no real slowdown, even on really congested area's...can't believe how fluid it runs.

I am only gaming at 1680x1050 and I find 30-45 FPS acceptable, I know some people demand 60FPS+ but i'm happy with what I have.

 

[JAGRocks09]

Mine arrived this morning, will install and test when I get home from work at 2,

anyone want to place bets on what FPS I'll get, probably running medium on a 9800gx2 on my 1680x1050 screen.

 

[liamcrane]

What is the one setting that tends to kill your fps do you think? I have everything set to high apart from shadows on medium HBAO is off as well as motion blur. I tend to get 60fps with d3doverider on instead on the in game vsync option but get a drop to around 40-45 on casapian border when in the middle of the map all be it i am running this on a 5850 clocked to 825/1100 temps max out at 55c. I have a 900/1100 clocked saved which requires a bit more juice from the standard 1.019v to 1.125v but not actually tried it yet

Get another 5850 dude I have 5850 CF using 11.10 Prev3 drivers and the game runs like a dream. Not even overclocked them and I'm averaging 70fps on Caspian Border with 64 players.

Got myself a Crucial M4 64GB SSD and 8GB ram and now I loaded up BF3 and noticed I'm only using 1600MB of VRAM where as before the RAM upgrade it was 1950MB. So I increased some settings to Ultra and the FPS has stayed the same more or else. But the best thing is the stuttering has gone! The game looks so much better on Ultra.

The only think I can think of is the extra RAM has allowed the game to buffer the textures and so I no longer run out of VRAM

I have been thinking of getting another 5850 but my board only has 1 pcie slot so it would mean getting a new board think i would look to intel rather than amd this time round. Also it would mean new ram and a new cpu as i currently only have a ddr2 setup with my am2+ board

Could be a costly upgrade and 5850's seem to be rare or still go for quite a bit of £. I must admit my current setup runs the game very well imo and im always wary of changing something that works if you see what i mean

I know wat your saying regarding an ssd as well, i have been thinking of getting one of the M4's just to install my games to and keep windows running on my old sata II drive. Would you see an improvment in game loading speed if windows is still using an older mechnical drive?

Thaks again matey

 

[Aurhinius]

Does anyone else get this problem........
When I go to Video settings and adjust the settings I save it which then puts up a banner asking "Do you want to save these settings" but the screen freezes and I have to Conrol,Alt Delete ?

So far with this game I've had 1 BSOD 4 in game crash back to desktop and 3 freezing uo when changing video settings

Yes I have this issue with 6970 xfire as well.

I found that if you switch off deferred AA this stops the problem.

I also found once this had happened that the game struggled to load up. You can fix it by deleting the BF3 folder in your my documents (this stores the GPU settings and will force the game to auto detect again).

Once auto detect runs again and it sets it's own settings everything works fine. Go in and select custom and switch off deferred AA.

Worked for me

 

[StrykY]

im running bf 3 sp around 60/70fps with everything on ultra except 2xmsaa , motionblur off , hbsao off , @1920x1080 on a 24" screen with the following setup:
i5 [email protected]
4gb 1333 ram
gtx 560ti 1gb stock
w7 pro 64bit

oh and my mb usage never passed 950mb. yet this is sp so need to see what mp does

 

[opethdisciple]

The game auto detected all high, deffered off but ultra textures at 1920x1200.

I changed it to all ultra with deffered off, and have been playing fine since.

But what advantage does a higher fps do , if the game is still playable at ultra?

 

[gwobbles]

i maxed everything to ultra, aswell with 4x msaa, HBAO is off though, Im getting constant 60s with VSync on, only dips to mid 40s when on larger servers with a lot of action going on (usually only happens on caspian border)

My 580 running at 880/1760/2070
(The OC really helped push it over the 60fps mark)

 

[OCPete]

The game auto detected all high, deffered off but ultra textures at 1920x1200.

I changed it to all ultra with deffered off, and have been playing fine since.

But what advantage does a higher fps do , if the game is still playable at ultra?

Re higher fps.

If (to your eyes) the game is still playable at your current frame rate then enjoy it as it is!

If you perceive it as juddery or less smooth than you would like, then drop the settings so you get consistent frame rates higher until you are happy.

For me even with an i7 rig and overclocked 480 i have turned settings down significantly to give me 120 FPS minimum as i run a 120Hz screen. I like it silky smooth. IMO its a game not an art contest!

I shall look into a GPU upgrade as soon as the next gen from both sides are out.

 

[Yaayuh!]

Use ssao and turn off MSAA and you might find it runs well.

It runs well as it is Just every now and then there is a stutter, it's random. Could be inside just walking with nothing going on or it could be outside with everything happening at once. Which, after testing last night, turning HT off seems to of resolved will have more of a test tonight but 3 games last night and no noticeable stutter!
I would like to have HT on however, so i hope they resolve the issue in the near future.

 

[meths]

How are peoples 4870's running this ? In particular, the Sienne Crossing level.

I was running it on medium at 1920x1200 with AA and AS switched off on my single 4870. I wasn't watching an fps counter though, just playing the game an judging based on how it felt.

I could run it on high but it was a bit chuggy in places. Medium was best for performace in multiplayer though.

 

[elrasho]

Does anyone else get this problem........
When I go to Video settings and adjust the settings I save it which then puts up a banner asking "Do you want to save these settings" but the screen freezes and I have to Conrol,Alt Delete ?

So far with this game I've had 1 BSOD 4 in game crash back to desktop and 3 freezing uo when changing video settings

Yep I've got that too. Running 11.10 Pre3 with no CAP. 11.10WHQL got released today I'm going to try them with CAP4.

 

[elrasho]

I have been thinking of getting another 5850 but my board only has 1 pcie slot so it would mean getting a new board think i would look to intel rather than amd this time round. Also it would mean new ram and a new cpu as i currently only have a ddr2 setup with my am2+ board

Could be a costly upgrade and 5850's seem to be rare or still go for quite a bit of £. I must admit my current setup runs the game very well imo and im always wary of changing something that works if you see what i mean

I know wat your saying regarding an ssd as well, i have been thinking of getting one of the M4's just to install my games to and keep windows running on my old sata II drive. Would you see an improvment in game loading speed if windows is still using an older mechnical drive?

Thaks again matey

Have Windows 7 on the SSD with a select number of games you play regularly. I wouldn't replace your mobo just to get another 5850, currently the best single card is the GTX580. Get a 3GB version if you plan to play on multiple monitors or play at very high resolutions, if your playing at 1080P or below the 1.5GB cards will be enough. Just to be on the safe side get 8GB of ram just in case you start running out of VRAM.

The rest of your spec seems fine.

 

[simonhutchin322]

i maxed everything to ultra, aswell with 4x msaa, HBAO is off though, Im getting constant 60s with VSync on, only dips to mid 40s when on larger servers with a lot of action going on (usually only happens on caspian border)

My 580 running at 880/1760/2070
(The OC really helped push it over the 60fps mark)

What voltage is the card at out of interest ?

 

[liamcrane]

Have Windows 7 on the SSD with a select number of games you play regularly. I wouldn't replace your mobo just to get another 5850, currently the best single card is the GTX580. Get a 3GB version if you plan to play on multiple monitors or play at very high resolutions, if your playing at 1080P or below the 1.5GB cards will be enough. Just to be on the safe side get 8GB of ram just in case you start running out of VRAM.

The rest of your spec seems fine.

Thanks mate i was thinking of throwing in another 2gb of good old ddr2 ram I only have access to 3 slots due to my large cooler so at least that would boost me up to 6gb. When the vram on the card is full does it then utilize the RAM on the board? If so i never new that lol learn something new everyday.

I have a dual monitor setup but i only game on one the other is there just to view open programs and web browser etc. The res i use is 1600x900 so im thinking cross fire might be overkill, had a look at the card you mentioned looks fab but a bit pricy for me at the mo was thinking of maybe looking at a 2gb 69xx series card or may even wait for the new 7 gen ones

 

[elrasho]

Thanks mate i was thinking of throwing in another 2gb of good old ddr2 ram I only have access to 3 slots due to my large cooler so at least that would boost me up to 6gb. When the vram on the card is full does it then utilize the RAM on the board? If so i never new that lol learn something new everyday.

I have a dual monitor setup but i only game on one the other is there just to view open programs and web browser etc. The res i use is 1600x900 so im thinking cross fire might be overkill, had a look at the card you mentioned looks fab but a bit pricy for me at the mo was thinking of maybe looking at a 2gb 69xx series card or may even wait for the new 7 gen ones

In that case get a 2GB 6950, will do you fine at your resolution and if you ever do get a crossfire/sli motherboard having two 6950s is probably the best value/performance option availsble at the moment. I was in fact thinking of selling my 5850s and getting two 2GB 6950s.

Ideally you want 8GB of ram too. DDR2 ram is more expensive than DDR3 ram though.

 

[ashmanuk67]

Yes I have this issue with 6970 xfire as well.

I found that if you switch off deferred AA this stops the problem.

I also found once this had happened that the game struggled to load up. You can fix it by deleting the BF3 folder in your my documents (this stores the GPU settings and will force the game to auto detect again).

Once auto detect runs again and it sets it's own settings everything works fine. Go in and select custom and switch off deferred AA.

Worked for me

That is great thank you for your help I will try tonight.

 

[Deleted User 298457]

Has anyone got a benchmark with the new Catalyst drivers vs. old?

 

[Gerard]

This a bit of a workaround for anyone using eyefinity\surround so they can play with the name icons etc intact, has to be 1 setting below your regular eyefinity res though

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1647636

 

[ChrisD.]

Why is my FPS seemingly locked to 60? If I turn loads of stuff down, it's still 60? It does go lower on ultra though, just never above?

 

[eyetrip]

Why is my FPS seemingly locked to 60? If I turn loads of stuff down, it's still 60? It does go lower on ultra though, just never above?

V-sync is enabled