Battlefield 3 Performance: 30+ Graphics Cards, Benchmarked

[nebun]

That's known, what was not clear is the REAL NEED to go for CF/SLI using mainstream cards at 720p. I don't want to buy another (I.e.:HD 5770) without a real need.

mainstream or not, dual cards will improve game experience...it's logic, do you want a car with 1hp or one that has 2hp?

 

[ITsonic]

mainstream or not, dual cards will improve game experience...it's logic, do you want a car with 1hp or one that has 2hp?

Good review Need for Speed: The run also has this frostbite 2 engine as well I hope he does a video card review of this game too. I can only hope that the frostbite 2 engine is turned down a bit on this game.

 

[de5_Roy]

mainstream or not, dual cards will improve game experience...it's logic, do you want a car with 1hp or one that has 2hp?

radeon hd 5770's in cfx might increase fps.it might increase microstuttering as well. people susceptible to microstuttering will not experience improved gameplay despite higher fps.

 

[upgrade_1977]

Made a quick benchmark video of my system. I wasn't sure if i'd loose my save game if I went back and used same mission, so I just did mission I was on at the time.
(Ever since I upgraded my ram there has been no micro stuttering at all in any games )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL6nJnIuNTE&feature=channel_video_title

Sorry about the quality, I wanted to show how BF3 Runs without fraps slowing it down, so I recorded it with my iphone 4, just to give everyone with similar setups an idea about how the game runs.

settings didn't come out to clear after the upload, ill try and make a better video in the future. Anyways all settings are on Preset "Ultra" w/ 4XAA" @ 1920 x 1080 (1080p)

LOVE BF3!!

Nvidia drivers = 285.62

System:
Windows 7 64bit Ultra
Gigabyte EX58-UD3R SLI
i7 920 @ 3.2ghz (hyperthreading enabled)
8gb DDR3 (2x4gb) Corsair Vengeance 1600
2 liquid cooled Nvidia Gtx 480's in sli (stock speeds)
H.D. = Hitatchi 1TB 7200 main system
2nd H.D. = Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200 for fraps

 

[stephm]

On my PC the singleplayer mode runs much more smoothly than the multiplayer, and I am assuming a CPU bottleneck. The CPU test really should have been done in a multiplayer match as well because this is how most players experience the game. I'd really like to know if getting a better CPU would help my case.

 

[troger5troger5]

Im running hd6970 ultra at 1920x1200 formula iv amd 6 core 1090t black edition. Everything has ran smooth as silk for me. I do not know what frames per second I am getting but I have not noticed any lag at all. I am also maxed out with 16 gigs of memory that may be playing a part in this. I do have a second 6970 card and really do not noticed any difference with it running in crossfire mode. Its smooth as silk either way. Hopped on plenty of 64 vs 64 servers testing it. Got me but I'm very happy. Would live the higher res but that will have to wait another day for a newer flat.

 

[upgrade_1977]

On my PC the singleplayer mode runs much more smoothly than the multiplayer, and I am assuming a CPU bottleneck. The CPU test really should have been done in a multiplayer match as well because this is how most players experience the game. I'd really like to know if getting a better CPU would help my case.

Probably server lag, I get 60+ FPS average in multiplayer, but still get a lot of server lag, especially 64 player maps, even with high FPS, it's still there, at times really bad, even talk to my friends and they get it at same time I do. (Not on all servers though, seems only certain servers to me.) They are supposed to be releasing a patch for that very soon. Hopefully they get 3d working in that patch also, as it's not working in the 3d release for most people.

 

[schkorpio]

[citation][nom]stephm[/nom]On my PC the singleplayer mode runs much more smoothly than the multiplayer, and I am assuming a CPU bottleneck. The CPU test really should have been done in a multiplayer match as well because this is how most players experience the game. I'd really like to know if getting a better CPU would help my case.[/citation]

yep thats what i said - but then my comment got hidden :S

its an unrealistic representation of what to expect in the game.

 

[verbalizer]

good article, much appreciated.
the GTX 570 is a sweet spot and in SLi is all I need.
is the GTX 580 worth the extra money.?
starting not to think so.
GTX 580 is an awesome card too..
same for the HD 6950 compared to the HD 6970 but then Radeon prices are cheaper.
HD Radeon plays it tough too, and at times very impressive.
HD 6990 is a beast but CF-X @ 1080 seems an issue, that's weird.
I'm just a nVidia guy.
Would have been nice to see a single chart with all the AMD and nVidia cards you tested in ranking order.

one the CPU side, Intel is killin'.
two cores, even the i3-2105....! wow.
Bulldozer holds it's own but overall a disappointment, like that wasn't expected in gaming..

 

[karma831]

Would have been nice to see a single chart with all the AMD and Nvidia cards you tested. =(

 

[V8VENOM]

Good review. Think you probably should have mentioned that BF3 also has know bugs/issues ... especially with Joystick and Mouse conflicts.

Agree, the AMD drivers are terrible. AMD forums are even worse with positively rude moderators.

I haven't tried 11.10 Preview 3 yet, still on 11.9 CAP4. But someone reported that you have to wipe AMD everything before installing 11.10 Preview 3 and do NOT install ANY CAPs.

But I'm getting pretty annoyed that anytime I buy a game, I have to wait 3 months or more for AMD to produce drivers that make the game work. And in most cases the CAPs just disable Crossfire -- this is becoming common in more and more DX11 games which begs the question why did I bother doing a Crossfire setup?

I've gone back and forth between AMD and nVidia over the years and don't really have any "brand loyalty" ... I just want SLI and Crossfire to work "out of the box" ... it never does.

Until either of these companies can demonstrate proper scalability in multi-GPU installations, I'm going to stay away from Crossfire and/or SLI.

 

[masterofevil22]

43fps avg with 155t@4.02Ghz (287*14) with an ulocked 6950 at 850/1350 (25Mhz lower on gpu/mem than a 6970, but this is at stock 6950 voltage..I just feel like that's plenty of fps)

I run Ultra in Mult-player and SP with AA AND Vsync on in Ultra mode. It's Funking Glorious If u have a decent pc that can play this game even on Low; Buy It!

 

[masterofevil22]

*1055t

 

[Ephebus]

While ATI driver coders are at it, they might as well finally IMPLEMENT proper OpenGL support for their drivers, instead of the sluggish and buggy emulation layer we've had to put up with for years.

what are people using opengl for these days? i can't tell you the last opengl game i bought.

This might come as a surprise to you, but the world doesn't revolve around you or games or the specific games you might be interested in. All you've done in this thread was TROLL and write clueless and uncalled for comments and replies, including your first post telling Chris Angelini his article was "horrible".

For your enlightenment, I've listed just a few games and applications that use OpenGL. The list includes new and old titles, but all of them still widely used/played:

Games: America's Army (Mac OS X & Linux versions), Brink, Call of Duty (series), Counter-Strike, Doom 3, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Far Cry (defaults to D3D but may use OGL), Half-Life 1 & 2 series, Left 4 Dead 1 & 2 (Mac OS X version), Medal of Honor series, Minecraft, Portal 1 & 2 (Mac OS X version), Prey, Quake series, Rage, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Second Life, StarCraft II (Mac OS X version), Team Fortress, Warcraft 3 (defaults to D3D but may use OGL), Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, World Of Warcraft (defaults to D3D but may use OGL).

Applications: Adobe After Effects, Adobe Photoshop CS5, Adobe Premiere Pro, 3D Studio Max, Autodesk Maya, FurMark, Google Earth.

Most importantly, OpenGL is a cross-platform API, which should be reason enough to deserve decent driver support from ATI (NVIDIA has excellent support for it on all versions of their drivers for all platforms). Just browse the (like someone said above) rude fanboy moderator infested AMD Game forums and you'll see the countless complaints from users (all of which are systematically sneered at by the fanboy and moderator crew), which so far have been solemnly ignored by ATI driver coders, even though the company boasts OpenGL support (including its latest version, 4.2) as a distinctive feature of their GPU's, which in my book translates as misleading advertisement.

I was unaware of these problems myself until a few months ago, when I made the unfortunate decision to try for the first time an ATI chipset based video card (replaced my wonderful GTX 260 c216 with 2 HD 5850's), only to see the performance of all OpenGL programs I use decrease by over 50% even with the two cards crossfired (that is, when the programs or CrossFire worked at all), and for Satan's sake, the appalling ATI drivers with more bugs, incompatibilities, OS crashes, etc., than I've ever experimented since I've had my first computer (a Sinclair ZX-81 clone).

I run an Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory server (www.noobsforever.net) and can only advise my users against ATI cards. And before you bash the game because it's over 8 years old - at this very moment, according to Xfire's real time stats, it's the 21st most played online game of ALL types and the 10th most played online game of the FPS genre.

 

[Yapa]

Thanks for the review but i think you have to be really careful giving people hardware recommendations based on single player which is at lest 50% less taxing than the multiplayer on the CPU.

Please do a CPU test with a number of CPU's including older Core2Quads (many still have them) on a 65 player caspian map.... you will interesting results.

I really think benchmarking BF3 on SP is not the way to go, besides the SP is very light on the system...

For example:
In SP my GTX275 SLI and Q9550 @ 3.8Ghz got 50 to 70fps... very good on High.

Same settings in MP often drop to 28 and low 30's, avg would be 40... but the dips are noticable.

I put my friends GTX560ti into my system and tested, at High settings the GTX560 @ 1920x1080 had an average GPU usage of 80%... the CPU was holding it back.

On my friends system this same card is always at 99% (using a 2500k CPU).

So MP is A LOT different to SP and because BF3 is a multiplayer game you should try to get a bench going there, I know its hard but it would give your readers a true representation of how the game will run.... after all BF3 is about MP not SP.

 

[nameon]

whats most funny is that in my copy of bf3 there isnt a multiplayer option in the in-game menu ,

 

[ojas]

[citation][nom]nameon[/nom]whats most funny is that in my copy of bf3 there isnt a multiplayer option in the in-game menu ,[/citation]
Um...yeah...ever check battleog?

 

[masterofevil22]

anybody know if a fusion based dual core laptop will run this game?? I've seen people on Youtube running it on the old 4250 GPU's...so I'm assuming it can..I'd just like a confirmation.

I'm looking into buying a fusion based 12.1 netbook and I'd love some bf3 on there is why i ask..

 

[masterofevil22]

UPDATE YOU'RE FREAKING DRIVERS!!!

All these people are complaining about "my game looks jacked", etc. etc..get it together man!! You're obviously online..get your shiz together and pickup and install the latest drivers. Catalyst 10.10 P3 runs this game great..it looks AMAZING! Everybody knows..new game, get yourself the latest DX11, GPU drivers, Etc and have fun.

I just find it hard to believe that people are posting on here about using year or two year old drivers and wondering why their game looks f'd up. If you're on Tom's..u know to get some new drivers..DO IT

 

[ITsonic]

UPDATE YOU'RE FREAKING DRIVERS!!!

All these people are complaining about "my game looks jacked", etc. etc..get it together man!! You're obviously online..get your shiz together and pickup and install the latest drivers. Catalyst 10.10 P3 runs this game great..it looks AMAZING! Everybody knows..new game, get yourself the latest DX11, GPU drivers, Etc and have fun.

I just find it hard to believe that people are posting on here about using year or two year old drivers and wondering why their game looks f'd up. If you're on Tom's..u know to get some new drivers..DO IT

Right on man.

 

[gamerk316]

Running a 570 on Ultra; no stuttering whatsoever.

 

[ezareth]

Two new 6970 2GB cards are giving me 40-50 FPS (Using Render.DrawFPS console command) at 2560X1600 with ultra settings in Multiplayer. Changing setting to high gives me 70-75 FPS. I only play large 64 player maps too so Ultra is completely playable with these cards at 2560X1600.

I will say I can't see a difference with MSAA turned on or off at 2560X1600....perhaps because at that resolution you don't see much pixelation or rough edges. The game looks equally amazing either way.

As far as stability issues I have absolutely none. In a good 20 hours of playing I've crashed maybe 3 times and I suspect those crashes were related to the BF servers and not anything to do with my PC configuration. Two of my friends I've been playing with crash regularly however neither of them is using crossfire.

For reference I have:
2.66 Ghz Core I7-920
Gigabye GA-EX58-UD5 X58 Mobo
OCZ Platinum 6GB(2X3) 1600 DD3
2X Sapphire 6970 2 GB 100311-2SR
Corsair ForceGT 120GB SSD
Creative X-fi Titatnium Championship Series
Antec TrueQuattro 1000 PS + Twelve Hundred Case

All stock settings with no OC

 

[V8VENOM]

Why do people post with CAP LOCK on? Stupid or just ignorant ... either way people aren't gonna think much of your opinion if you can't figure out how to post without CAP LOCK on.

So I've spent more time with BF3 ... Graphics and Audio are good, game play is horrible!! Crysis 2 was a far superior product.

Where BF3 fails miserably even after one has gone thru hoops to get the game to work:

1. The scripted scenes where one has to press the correct key/mouse combo at exactly the right time to complete a task and stay alive ... this is just boring at best, not entertaining at all.
2. Snipers that apparently can kill an ant from 2000 yards away.
3. Squad that is pretty much useless (often push me out into the line of fire)
4. Squad mission but I get sent off alone to do tasks ... huh?
5. No ability to really explore the environment and take in the graphics
6. Just shoot, don't aim, that seems to work most of the time
7. Often find myself going thru solid objects (walls, trucks, you name it)
8. Go "out side of the marked area" for more than 10 seconds and mission failed??

Sure the graphics and audio are nice, but it's implementation of game play isn't gonna make me want to return to this game ... more just get it over with already. Not fun, no where near as good as Crysis 2. I didn't get this game for MP, I got it for the Campaign ... so far it just about follow the script and just shoot -- not impressed at all.

Hopefully MW3 turns out better than BF3.

 

[ezareth]

Yeah pretty much every reviewer I've seen out there has stated do not buy this game for single player. You could have saved yourself the money if you had researched that before buying if you aren't into multiplayer. BF3 single player isn't all that bad, it just seems to use a lot of "dated" concepts that games like MW3 have long moved beyond. If you don't play a ton of FPS games you won't notice most of these issues as you'll be too busy drooling over all of the eye candy. My largest complaint of single player is the horrible AI and spawn points of enemies.

That being said BF3 is IMO the greatest Multiplayer FPS out at this point. There are so many different roles and vehicles and weapons to master and upgrade you could spend a good 3 months of daily 8 hour + playing just to experience it all.

 

[captain_jonno]

Nice work! I am guessing it would be too late to see how crossfire 5870's run?

I am playing @ 2560x1600 with an i7@3.8ghz but am interested to see how another 5870 would improve things since you can pick one up second hand quite cheap these days.