Battlefield 3 RETAIL Performance Thread

[elrasho]

Hi
I will be buying the game soon - any idea of what to expect with the following rig:

i7 950 @ 4.4ghz
12 gb patriot gaming ram
Rampage 2
128gb SSD
ATI 2GB 6950 TF3 OVERCLOCKED
Custom Water cooling

Should I think about CF 6950?

Cheers

With that spec you'll be running mostly on Ultra with some on High. That's to have the FPS hovering around 60fps and above. If you CF 6950s you'll be set for years

 

[elrasho]

I have about a 12mm gap between my 5850s in crossfire. The top card always runs hotter than the bottom one, but my temps never go above 60C with fan speed at 50%.

The 6950s are cooler cards, but you've overclcoked yours so they will run hotter but nothing to worry about. Get another 6950.. get it... GET IT! lol What PSU have you got?

 

[elrasho]

Just installing as we speak!

What settings will i need to run this well with the following rig:
i52500k
MSI z68a-G55g3 (auto OC processor to 4.2gh)
8gb Corsair Vengance 1600
h100
6950 2gb tf3 (no idea how to OC btw)

Cheers and help i want it to look as best as it can!

Mixture of Ultra and High if your playing at 1080P resolution or lower. If you want more eye candy get another 6950 and crossfire them babie, I cant stress enough how awesome CF 6950s are!

 

[elrasho]

im thinking of upgrading to a 24inch screen, but ive oly got a single 5850.
whats the verdict on if itll be enough to play BF3 at high settings? its currently playing at 1680x1050 on all high very well. would the increase in res be a huge performance hit?

anyone using a single 5850 with a 24" screen?

With a single 5850 I can play bf3 at 1080p on my 24" asus monitor on high settimgs, no ambient occulsion, deffered thing off and aa at 16x. It runs at 35fps average, but really struggles on 64 player maps. Youl have to drop settings to medium to make it playable.

When I switch crossfire on Im playing everything ultra but shadow and textures, ambieant off and deffered off. Runs average 70fps even on 64 player maps you should get another 5850, whats the rest of your spec like?

My i5 is running at 3.7ghz and I have 8gb of ram, thats probably why I can run it those settings with good fps.

 

[elrasho]

Just installed my 560Ti and I'm getting between 50-60fps consistently at 1080p with everything on ultra, but with FXAA instead of MSAA. That's on a pretty old rig as well: Q6600 at stock, 4Gb ram, 780i mobo.

I'm quite surprised at how well it's running, actually, all things considered. I'm going to OC my Q6600 to 3.6Ghz also, so hopefully I might be able to stay above 60 all the time if that goes well.

One question though, I can't seem to open console in campaign. The tilda key isn't doing anything. Am I missing something? I've been getting FPS readings with ctrl+alt+s but that's not ideal.

Is that in single player or multiplayer? I've yet to see a single 560Ti be able to handle EVERYTHING on Ultra at 1080P and stay around the 50 - 60 fps mark in multiplayer

 

[elrasho]

Not tried the multiplayer yet but the campain is running on the ultra preset really nice and smoothly on my rig (see my signature). The lighting and smoke effects in the engine are probably the biggest difference for me between the BC2 frostbite engine and this new one.

One thing that really does annoy me though is the constant vignette effect. Is there anyway to disable it?

Try it on Multiplayer, that's a better test to stress your rig out. Especially the larger maps like Caspian Border and Operation Firestorm. You'll find you'll have to lower your graphics settings a lot to get 50 - 60 fps on a single 5850.

 

[elrasho]

How are you guys finding the new maps? I have to turn my settings down to High in order to get around 60fps on the three big maps. It does go down to 40 a times which is annoying. I'm starting to take more interst in the 7xxx series cards particulaty the 7950

 

[elrasho]

from my own testing, platorm is a [email protected] with 8gb RAM, 1920x1080

GTX560ti 1GB - High Preset - fine and smooth - Ultra preset - turns in to slide show
GTX560ti 1GB SLI - High preset fine and smooth - ultra preset = slide show

Any combination of settings that keeps the VRAM usage below 1GB (e.g. 900mb ish) is fine but ultra textures or msaa push it over that and fps falls off a cliff

GTX 580 1.5gb High preset - 70-80FPS Ultra preset 40FPS with stutters, on large maps like caspian border 64 I can see objects appearing out of nowhere (VRAM usage over 1.5gb), not internet/ping related as dropping msaa lower VRAM usage and everything is then smooth with no issues (objects appearing out of nowhere also doesn't cause FPS drop but it is noticeable and annoying).

GTX 580 3GB - ultra preset - 50fps avg. with occaisional drops to 40, no problems with textures loading on the fly, no stutter (VRAM usage 1800-1900mb)

new system build put on hold until a 2nd GTX580 3GB can be nabbed

Get a better CPU dude, it's really holding you back even at that OC

 

[elrasho]

So is an OC'ed q6600 a bottleneck or not?

Getting 30-40fps~ with my rig (in sig) on 32 player maps - All on High, HBAO off, AA off.

Is that about right for my setup?

Would I see an improvement in fps if I tried to push my Q6600 up to 3.4ghz+?

probably add another 5fps

 

[elrasho]

Did some testing last night and found the 11.11c drivers with the current CAP profiles give me the best performance.

 

[elrasho]

Anyone tried CC 12.2 drivers? I accidentally updated mine and my fps has dropped by around 5 on average back to 11.11c I go

 

[elrasho]

Anyone tried CC 12.2 drivers? I accidentally updated mine and my fps has dropped by around 5 on average back to 11.11c I go

Uninstalled CCC and CAP. used driver sweeper to get rid of all traces. Installed 11.11c drivers then 11.11 CAP3 but now MSI Afterburner shows both cards only working at around 60%? What should I do?

 

[elrasho]

12.4 also for 6 series.

elrasho sell your 5850s seems like you had nothing but hassle with bf3. you seem to have tried more drivers than the whole ati team

get a single card. enjoy gaming.

Only started having hassle now. I shouldn't have updated to 12.2 drivers. When I went back to 11.11c I was still get FPS drops, maybe becasue BF3 has been updated since then??? Anyway Im on 12.1a + latest CAP and my FPS seem to back to normal but MSI Afterburner shows both cards running at 70% ??

 

[elrasho]

Ran Uningen Heaven and both cards are being used at 99%, but in BF3 it hovers between 50% - 70%. Im using 12.1a with latest CAP, what can I do? This GPU usage issue is only with BF3, other games are fine.

 

[elrasho]

Gone back to 11.10 drivers and still only getting 50% GPU usage on each 5850, wtf has gone on!?

 

[elrasho]

Is anyone with a crossfire setup seeing 99% gpu usage on both cards here? Im tempted to re-download the entire thing

edit: disable crossfire and GPU1 is now hitting 99% as expected so this is definantly a driver issue. I need ATI drivers that will give me 99% usage for both cards in Battlefield 3!!!

 

[elrasho]

I get 99% on both cards all the time.

Still on 12.1a with the 8.95 drivers from the 24th Jan.

are you using any CAPs?

 

[elrasho]

Just 11.11 CAP3 afaik.

Everything is running smoothly (all current games I'm playing) so no need to move to 12.2/12.3 with newer CAP's

Those are the ones I had, foolishly put 12.2 on and BF3 fps plumited. Used driver sweeper to get rid of all traced of 12.2 and any CAPs then put 11.11 CAP3 back on but Im still only getting 50-70% usage on both cards

See:

 

[elrasho]

I never could understand how some people swore by that app when you've just proven how useless it is.

So how do I get my performance back to how it was?

 

[elrasho]

12.1a + 8.95 Drivers + 12.1 CAP3 and still only getting around 50% GPU usage on each 5850. This has to be a Battlefield 3 issue, I'm going to uninstall and download it again tomorrow.

GTX680 is seeming more appealing by the day...