New Video Card Recommendations for Battlefield 3

[paulpicks21]

I bought Medal of Honor a long time ago and forgot that it came with a little perk when I bought it....

Just got this in an email and am currently downloading it.

Will let you know how it runs on my 560ti later

 

[Smokey26]

You lucky sob,i guess you wont be seeing any sunlight for the next couple of days Pls make some screenies with fraps running.

 

[champ2010]

You can check the link below and analyze if the GPU that you have is Battlefield 3 ready or not.

Battlefield 3 - Is Your PC Ready? - GeForce

 

[paulpicks21]

You lucky sob,i guess you wont be seeing any sunlight for the next couple of days Pls make some screenies with fraps running.

80% downloaded. Will try and get some shots from fraps tonight.

 

[paulpicks21]

Well if the beta is anything to go by then it's gonna be real heavy on cards!

I have showed my settings in one of the screenshots, these are high settings not ultra and I have also showed an in game shot with the frames per second.

Edited to add- if anyone wants me to test out any other settings please let me know and I will be happy to do so.

 

[Wishmaster]

With any luck, performance by improve by the time the game releases. Still plenty of time for optimizations.

I normally like x4AA and x16 AF myself, but just curious about something..

SSAO is a pretty big performance hit in some games.
If you set it to its lowest setting, or disbale it, how much does the FPS improve with all other settings as they are now?
Im curious what sort of impact it has on BF3


Thanks

 

[paulpicks21]

Hi Wishmaster, with it disabled altogether and I even restarted the game to make sure it was applied it appears to make hardly any difference, say 3 fps.

Edit:

I should add that the game seems perfectly playable at around 38 fps, but obviously it would be nice to max out Vsync at 60.


I even tried it with AA off but that made no noticeable difference.

Could be a bug in the beta maybe.

I guess at medium settings it should run faster, so off I head to try them now...

 

[Wishmaster]

Hi Wishmaster, with it disabled altogether and I even restarted the game to make sure it was applied it appears to make hardly any difference, say 3 fps.

Thanks.
In some games its a much bigger hit than that, so that sounds good.

Im betting it will run better by release though

 

[paulpicks21]

I think there may be some sort of glitch in the way it saves the settings, I have just run it again and with a few game restarts it seems the saved settings have had more of an effect. With SSAO and AA off its now running around 50fps (fluctuates between 47 and 54) which is a bit more like it.

This is with everything else still set as it was in my screen shot.

Edit: I really don't get this, I just played it again, NO settings changed since last time, now the minimum fps was 52 and it maxed out at 65.

 

[Wishmaster]

Odd.
Does sound like a bug in the settings.

 

[paulpicks21]

I guess all I can say is that if it stays around 52-65 fps then I am happy, it looks real pretty on these settings so it will do the job for me.

I think a GTX 570 would cut it with everything on high and a few of the flash bits.

But ultra is reserved for GTX 580+

Edit : this is the last time I am going to update on the fps because it's starting to get silly, but the last game I had was split into a few different sections of map, and that appears to be the deciding factor on the frame rates for me at least. The 1st section for a good 5-10 mins of play I had a minimum of 72fps and a max of 104! The second section was 48-55 and the 3rd 52-65fps. Strange how different areas of map could change the fps so dramatically but it did for me.

 

[Smokey26]

Nice FPS though,if you run on ultra vs high do you see any noticable differences ? Pretty weird that you only have 3 fps difference with ssao disabled though,since its a very gpu heavy feauture.And its quite possible that they optimize the engine even more after the beta.But are you enjoying the game ?

 

[Wishmaster]

I like to try and keep between 45-60 FPS.

Thanks for the input on perfromance. So far, it seems to be OK, especially considering its still in BETA stage.

Something else to consider as well ...

If BF3 is anything like every MMO I have Beta Tested (and theres been quite a few) during the BETA stage they often have de-buggers among other things running in the background.

This usually cause quite a performance hit.

In RIFT fro example, going from BETA to Live without the debuggers saw a 6-10FPS boost.
Ive seen similar results from other MMOs coming out of BETA.


I would assume they do something similar at this stage, to keep track of things.

It may be possible that some aspects of the engine are disabled at this point too, such SSAO, or at least crippled.

 

[pparks1]

I guess all I can say is that if it stays around 52-65 fps then I am happy, it looks real pretty on these settings so it will do the job for me.

I think a GTX 570 would cut it with everything on high and a few of the flash bits.

But ultra is reserved for GTX 580+

Thanks for taking the time to post and showing the screenshots of not only your game view, but also your settings. I'm the type who is perfectly content with backing down some of the visuals...especially when I can hardly see the difference. If the change between High and Medium is not immediately evident and I have to search for what is different than I just stick with the lower setting to reduce load and ensure smooth gameplay. I'd bet that even with a 580, I would set most things to Medium...it's certainly what I did with BF2 back in the day...even though my video card could no doubt run at High.

I'm pretty much set on the GTX570 at this point. I was going to go 560TI, but think I will opt for the 570 as it has more CUDA cores and will provide more bang for the buck with my video editing software. I've been leaning towards the EVGA with the reference design fan, as I've had good luck with them, like their warranty, and the card itself is practically identical in size to my current Evga 9800GTX+. Price is running around $329 (with free Batman Arkham game)...and now just waiting for either free shipping or a price drop from NewEgg. Still got 2 more weeks or so until my birthday and nearly a month till Battlefield.

 

[Wishmaster]

You may already be aware of this, but this was one question I had when I was looking.

If your going for a eVGA 570, there are 2 main ones.

The reference design and a HD design.
The biggest difference is the Heatsink they use.

The HD version uses a HS similiar to that of the 560. By design, it partially exhausts hot air out the back, and partialy inside the case.
So for this one, good case airflow will be very important.

The reference design uses Nvidias Vapor Chamber, similar to Sapphires Vapor-X on ATI cards, and it exhausts all hot air out the back of the case.

The HD also has a full HDMI port, where as the refrence just has a mini HDMI with a included Mimni-Full HDMI connector.


Personally, I would go for the Reference design with the vapor chambers, as they tend to run a bit cooler. In terms of noise, I have heard the reference a bit quieter, but i have no hands on evidence to confirm that.


eVGA also just release the Classified versions of the 570s, but Im not exactly sure right off where they stand on cooling.
They do seem to be clocked just slightly higher than the SC versions though.


--One other thing that may be useful.
When I purchased my 570, I also ordered the backplate, and a High Air Flow Bracket.
But, my card came out of the box with a HAF bracket already on it. It seems eVGA started including these brackets on the reference cards.
So if you were to consider one, Id wait.

 

[pparks1]

The eVGA GTX 570 that I was looking at is this one, (which is currently sold out)
Newegg.com - EVGA 012-P3-1570-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card.

This is the model that exhausts all out of the back. And it has the mini HDMI port....which is fine by me as I won't be using it anyway.

 

[Wishmaster]

The eVGA GTX 570 that I was looking at is this one, (which is currently sold out)
Newegg.com - EVGA 012-P3-1570-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card.

This is the model that exhausts all out of the back. And it has the mini HDMI port....which is fine by me as I won't be using it anyway.

Same one I have, only I have the Sc version.
Im very pleased with it.

 

[Smokey26]

Although the 570 is a very good card,but compared to the 560 TI the difference is IMO not worth paying the extra 100+ $$.Pay notice too the memory bandwith,texel and pixel rate section aswell in the link below,in which the 560 TI beats the 570.Especially if you oc the 560 TI then the performance is almost the same.If i was in your position i would rather get a 560TI ,OC it and save yourself 100 bucks.Im not trying to burn this card down,but just look at some more benches 560 ti vs 570 before you're sure to get this card,the difference is really minimal. GeForce GTX 560 Ti vs GeForce GTX 570 – Performance Comparison Benchmarks @ Hardware Compare

 

[pparks1]

Although the 570 is a very good card,but compared to the 560 TI the difference is IMO not worth paying the extra 100+ $$.

For pure gaming, I agree completely. The 560TI was the point that I was planning on. I'm thinking the $100 will benefit me in the end with my video rendering as I move from 384 CUDA cores to 480 CUDA cores. The software that I use (Sony Vegas Move Studio HD) utilizes these cores for GPU assisted rendering. That's the reason I am leaning towards the 570. But I still have some time, so I will continue thinking it out.

Pay notice too the memory bandwith,texel and pixel rate section aswell in the link below,in which the 560 TI beats the 570.

The only one that the 560TI was faster on was the Texel rates...the 570 was better in both memory bandwidth and pixel rates.

 

[Smokey26]

Yeah if you use alot of heavy video editing programs then i understand why you're going for the 570 instead.And hey if you got the money then go for it,just wanted to make sure that you're not wasting any money.