By Steven Walton on October 4, 2011
Editor: Julio Franco
Easily one of the most demanding video games released last year, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 featured stunning graphics with real-world damage and excellent gameplay. Still upon release the shooter was very buggy, so much that it delayed our performance article. Built around the Frostbite 1.5 engine, the game was eventually patched up to become a very popular online FPS having sold in excess of 9 million copies.
Battlefield 3, the latest in a long line of Battlefield titles is likely the most anticipated game of 2011. Using the new Frostbite 2 engine the game promises to deliver jaw dropping visuals coupled with fast paced action packed fun.
The gorgeously crafted video teasers have certainly helped the cause throughout the year. Battlefield 3 has huge momentum behind it and the cross-platform beta will hopefully serve developers towards a solid release next October 25th. After all, between the mandatory Origin PC download and the lack of private servers (a standing trend these days), no one is up for a troublesome laggy connection when trying to frag on launch day.
Battlefield 3 will feature both single and multiplayer modes, though the beta is only providing access to the multiplayer portion of the game. The beta includes a single map called “Operation Metro” and the only game mode supported on this map is called rush. There are password-protected servers that have access to the Caspian Border map with 64-player support where DICE is testing out vehicles.
Admittedly we love that Battlefield 3 is using the PC as the lead platform rather than a console. When played on the PC the game will handle 40 more players and will take advantage of the latest computer hardware with support for DirectX 11 and 64-bit processors. As such the recommended system specifications are notably high.
DICE recommends a quad-core CPU be used along with 4GB of system memory. As for the graphics card a GeForce GTX 560 or Radeon HD 6950 is suggested, meaning that gamers will want to spend around $200 on a modern graphics card to appreciate Battlefield 3. Today we'll take a peak at what's required to play Battlefield 3 as we check out how the beta performs.
Testing Notes & Methodology
For testing the Battlefield 3 beta we lined up 18 graphics card configurations across all price ranges. The latest drivers were used for all cards which is important as both AMD and Nvidia released updated drivers specifically for this game.
Testing Battlefield 3 was somewhat of a nightmare due to the clumsy system used to find games which relies on an external web browser. Rather than feature an in-game finder Battlefield 3 beta cannot be accessed until the player has found and joined a game. This means it's not possible to change settings until the player is actively playing on a map.
We used Fraps to measure frame rates during a minute of gameplay from the multiplayer map Operation Metro. The performance was measured from the same spawn point each time following the same path while an average of three runs was recorded.
Battlefield 3 was tested at three resolutions: 1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 2560x1600. The game was tested using the Ultra and High quality presets which are meant to be the same for the beta, yet we found significant differences between the two.
When set to Ultra every setting is maxed out with the exception of anti-aliasing post which is set to medium. The anti-aliasing deferred settings is set to 4xMSAA while anisotropic filtering is set to 16x. Other quality settings such as texture, shadow, effects, mesh, terrain and terrain decoration are all set to Ultra.
The Ultra preset was extremely demanding, so we also tested using the High quality preset. This turned anti-aliasing deferred off and left the anti-aliasing post settings on medium. All other visual quality settings as detailed above are turned to high. We'll be looking for an average of 60fps for stutter-free gameplay.
Test System Specs
- Intel Core i7 2600K
- x2 4GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 (CAS 8-8-8-20)
- Asus P8P67 Deluxe (Intel P67)
- OCZ ZX Series 1250w
- Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (SATA 6Gb/s)
- GeForce GTX 590 (3072MB)
- GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB) SLI
- GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB)
- GeForce GTX 570 (1280MB)
- GeForce GTX 560 Ti (1024MB)
- GeForce GTX 560 (1024MB)
- GeForce GTX 480 (1536MB)
- GeForce GTX 470 (1280MB)
- GeForce GTX 460 (1024MB)
- Radeon HD 6990 (4096MB)
- Radeon HD 6970 (2048MB) Crossfire
- Radeon HD 6970 (2048MB)
- Radeon HD 6950 (2048MB)
- Radeon HD 6870 (1024MB)
- Radeon HD 6850 (1024MB)
- Radeon HD 5870 (2048MB)
- Radeon HD 5830 (1024MB)
- Radeon HD 6790 (1024MB)
- Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
- Nvidia Forceware 285.38 Beta
- ATI Catalyst 11.10 Preview
Ultra Quality Performance
At 1680x1050 using the Ultra settings we were surprised to find Battlefield 3 to be so demanding. The Radeon HD 6950 averaged just 30fps, while the GeForce GTX 570 was noticeably faster, matching the Radeon HD 6970 with 39fps. The GeForce GTX 580 scored 42fps which is still low for the fastest single GPU graphics card money can buy.
The Radeon HD 6990 spat out a more respectable 61fps, while a pair of Radeon HD 6970 Crossfire cards were slightly faster with 64fps. The GeForce GTX 590 averaged 67fps, following the pair of GeForce GTX 580 SLI cards that managed an impressive 74fps.
Increasing the resolution to 1920x1200 hit performance further as the Radeon HD 6950 delivered less than 30fps. The GeForce GTX 580 remained the fastest single GPU card with an average of just 36fps. Dual-GPU solutions performed considerably better, with the GeForce GTX 580 SLI configuration stealing the show once again with 64fps.
There is no denying that dual-GPU configurations are a must at 2560x1600 using Ultra settings. The slowest single GPU card we tested, the Radeon HD 6950 averaged just 20fps. The GeForce GTX 570 also managed 21fps while the GeForce GTX 580 was slightly faster with 23fps.
Even the Radeon HD 6990 scored a mere 34fps while the Radeon HD 6970 Crossfire cards and GeForce GTX 590 were matched at 36fps.
High Quality - 1680x1050
Reducing the visual quality from the ultra to high drastically helped to improve performance. Here the Radeon HD 6950 is now able to average 47fps at 1680x1050, while the GeForce GTX 570 managed 51fps allowing it to match the Radeon HD 6970.
The GeForce GTX 580 was king of the single GPU cards with 58fps making it 14% faster than the Radeon HD 6970. Further down the chart we find the GeForce GTX 560 Ti averaging 43fps making it slightly faster than the 42fps of the Radeon HD 6870.
Budget-minded cards such as the Radeon HD 6850, 5830 and GeForce GTX 460 still struggled to deliver playable performance when using the high quality settings at 1680x1050.
High Quality - 1920x1200
Now at 1920x1200 the GeForce GTX 580 was able to average 50fps, followed by the GeForce GTX 570 with 46fps. The Radeon HD 6970 was slightly slower with 45fps. The GeForce GTX 560 Ti and Radeon HD 6870 struggled with 36fps, while the Radeon HD 6850, 5830, 6790 and GeForce GTX 460 all rendered less than 30fps.
High Quality - 2560x1600
Not unlike previous results we find that the 2560x1600 resolution calls for a dual-GPU solution, even with the high quality preset in use. The GeForce GTX 580 averaged just 34fps, while the GeForce GTX 570 and Radeon HD 6970 averaged 31fps. South of those graphics cards there is nothing worth talking about.
This time the Radeon HD 6990 outgunned the GeForce GTX 590 by 4fps with an average of 57fps. The Radeon HD 6970 Crossfire and GeForce GTX 580 SLI configurations both averaged 64fps.
CPU Scaling and Performance
Overclocking your Core i7 processor is not going to help deliver more performance in Battlefield 3 according to our test using a single GeForce GTX 580 card. We observed that a 49% increase in clock speed for the Core i7 allowed for a mere 6% increase in frame rates.
Processors that only support 2 threads will take a hit as our Phenom II X2 560 delivered 42fps, almost 20% slower than a similarly clocked Phenom II X4 processor. However we were surprised by how well dual-cores performed when compared to other recently tested games.
Games such as Hard Rest, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and Crysis 2 saw a massive difference in performance between dual and quad-core processors. For example, in Deus Ex dual-cores were 43% slower than their quad-core counterparts.
For the most part Battlefield 3 doesn’t appear to be all that CPU demanding, at least this is what we can tell from testing the multiplayer portion that the beta allows us to test. We'll be keen to revisit these results once the full version of the game is released.
Conclusion
Battlefield 3 certainly looks like an impressive game though to be honest between testing and the frustrating setup process for each iteration, I've not had much of a chance to play it fully. From what I was able to gather, there is still much to be done. The lack of an in-game server browser is troubling, while the inability to change any settings without being in a game and spawned is just down right foolish.
Of course, there's a beta for a reason and we have to try and treat it as such. The night after the beta went live our editor Matthew DeCarlo organized a Friday Night Fragfest (we host such an event every Friday night), so I felt it was best to ask him about his impressions of the game.
Matt felt the game's graphics were great -- especially if the final version is going to be even better -- and that the audio was fantastic. However the gameplay could only be described as buggy. There were problems that caused people to glitch into things they shouldn't have, while the hit detection is also very poor. Matt wasn’t keen on the beta map either or the game mode which required too much crawling around and he went on… The menu system is best described as a cruel joke and he found the chat box oddly placed at the top and somewhat to the right of the screen making the chat UI feel amateurish.
In a nutshell, initial impressions on gameplay are not great but this is a very limited beta, so we will leave it at that. Still it's scary to think how much work DICE has yet to get done in less than a month for Battlefield 3 to succeed.
As for my impressions on how well the game performs, BF3 certainly looks great when using the high quality settings but I'm not sure the visuals justify ~50fps out of the GeForce GTX 580 at 1920x1200 and 45fps from the Radeon HD 6970. The ultra settings are not fully developed so I won't comment on them.
For a game that was seen utilizing six threads quite efficiently, we were pleased to see that the dual-core Phenom II X2 was just 20% slower than a similar configured quad-core processor.
It's been nice to see AMD and Nvidia competing so aggressively to deliver improved support and compatibility for Battlefield 3. Testing revealed that both Crossfire and SLI worked well, though every now and then flickering glitches were noticed when using either technology. A large number of gamers are reporting flickering issues with single GPU configurations as well, so this is another issue that will needed to be addressed before the game is released.
The Battlefield 3 beta has somewhat disappointed as we were hoping to see a more polished game just a month away from release. That said we'll reserve final judgment until then and expect a detailed performance analysis once Battlefield 3 is officially released.
oh well
