Battlefield 3 recommended GPU specs out

[subtraction]

Those recommended specs are a lot higher than I was expecting.
How should sli 570's do?

 

[toyota]

those recommended specs are a lot higher than i was expecting.
How should sli 570's do?

nobody knows! if that setup has trouble getting over 60fps at 1920 maxed then 90% of us are screwed though.

 

[TheAdvocate]

Man, my sacrasm meter must be broken, because I thought balckened23 and RussianSensation were joking.

PS - there's already a BF3 thread where all of this has been discussed ad nauseum.

 

[Capt Caveman]

The console version runs at less than 720p with scanline interleaving. Its surprising that the console version is so primitive yet the PC version has fairly high system requirements. I'm guessing the PC version is a hurried , botched console port.

That said, I can't wait and will definitely buy it the day it comes out

And you would be incorrect. PC and Console have two different development teams. Console is a dumbdowned version from number of players, maps, graphics, etc... There's a reason why they're stating you need 580 SLI to play the game with Ultra settings.

 

[houe]

I just got a 6950 2GB.... I wonder how they define recommended. For some companies the recommended is really the minimum.

 

[TheAdvocate]

Those recommended specs are a lot higher than I was expecting.
How should sli 570's do?

Dev said that you would need 580s in SLI to run Ultra, though he didn't specify at what res.

I suspect that 570's in SLI will let you play pretty close to max'd out at 1920x1080.Just turn the AA down until you get a smooth, playable framerate.

 

[subtraction]

nobody knows! if that setup has trouble getting over 60fps at 1920 maxed then 90% of us are screwed though.

But I want to know now!
I think one of my 570's is going to have to be rma'd.
Been receiving some weird screen tearing type stuff and have gotten 3 white screens of death today in BC2...

Edit:

Dev said that you would need 580s in SLI to run Ultra, though he didn't specify at what res.

I suspect that 570's in SLI will let you play pretty close to max'd out at 1920x1080.Just turn the AA down until you get a smooth, playable framerate.

Sounds good if I can run high with all the extra eye candies enabled @ 1920x1080 with 50-60 fps I will be happy.

But still I cannot believe the recommended specs seem unusually high.
Like Houe I would be curious how exactly they define recommended?
I would interpret it as being able to play at medium settings on a decent resolution maintaining roughly 60 fps?
At least thats what I hope it to be.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Any substantiation of this? Just curious Generally, PC only games don't sell well at all compared to console games, and top tier developers (except blizzard, mmo's and valve) must design with consoles in mind or.

Just curious. I'm pretty doubtful it was designed with the PC in mind, but I could be wrong. Either way, the game should be incredible.

?????? A little research would demonstrate how little you know. Console's may sell more games initially but the PC version will generate more money from ranked server rentals where EA/Dice gets a piece of the action to expansion packs, etc... EA/Dice still receives money from BF2 ranked server rentals 6+ years later.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

New AMD hardware can't get here soon enough. 5870 owners like me are stuck with a card that is starting to show it's age, but there is no decent card worth upgrading to from it based upon price/performance.

 

[tviceman]

see below, captain oblivious.

yeah that's exactly what I meant.

I purposely separated my second post from the first.

 

[blackened23]

And you would be incorrect. PC and Console have two different development teams. Console is a dumbdowned version from number of players, maps, graphics, etc... There's a reason why they're stating you need 580 SLI to play the game with Ultra settings.

I see. This is great news ! :thumbsup:

Looking forward to the game even more now.

 

[RussianSensation]

Youtube compressed videos will never show you the clarity of an actual screenshot.

Also, alpha is what it is. Will the release candidate include an "ULTRA" settings?

Well in all of the videos I've seen so far, the graphics are great, but not amazing. I am not talking about the sharpness - look at the polygons and details on the objects: the bushes, the ground, grass, trees, the polygons comprising the bridges, benches, sandboxes, the detail on the guns, the rocks -- it's nothing that hasn't been done before. I doubt this game will even look at good as Witcher 2. Then again, BF is more about gameplay, not the best graphics.

Still, given the insane amount of hype that BF3 had (i.e., it will have the best graphics on the PC ever!!), this game hasn't shown anything of the sort so far. It will be among the 5 best looking games on the PC, but from what has leaked on video so far, its graphics would need to improve A LOT before it can be a breakthrough as Far Cry, Crysis were back in the days. Even the videos on the official website don't show anything revolutionary. The animations are awesome though.

 

[blackened23]

?????? A little research would demonstrate how little you know. Console's may sell more games initially but the PC version will generate more money from ranked server rentals where EA/Dice gets a piece of the action to expansion packs, etc... EA/Dice still receives money from BF2 ranked server rentals 6+ years later.

Not to get into a big long debate about this, but PC game sales are absymmal (even taking DD into account) and i've seen various interviews with big figures in the industry talking about whats going on. GeorgeB from epic games had a good writeup on this a few weeks ago and basically what he said was, unless you're in the top 1% of the industry (valve or blizzard), MMO, or budgetware, getting published with a PC only game is nearly impossible. That makes PC only games very rare these days, unless you're making an mmo. In addition to this, a buddy of mine ran into Tim Willets at quakecon and he's a very cool dude...very approachable and easy going. He (willets) basically said that PC game sales , even with DD into account, would not give them an adequate profit and they had to go multi platform to be viable. Console sales are tremendously higher than PC.

He also mentioned that consoles are where the real money are. They get real data from all the DD services about how sales are doing, which isn't made public and it is across the board absymmal compared to console game sales. There are numerous blockboster console titles that sell 7+ million, but barely squeak 300k on PC's (even with DD). Its a pretty dire situation.

As well, you have to look at other industry leaders such as ID software making rage with consoles in mind. If you look at his interviews from years past, he basically stated that he had to make rage multi console to get the kind of profits they needed, there was no option of making it PC only. As a result, the PC version suffers because it does not take advantage of current PC hardware as previous ID games have. Also, blizzard has hired a console team and they are planning to develop diablo 3 for consoles - so even blizzard, a previously PC only giant is making all of their games for consoles in the future.

This isn't an afront to you, i'm not a huge console fan. I am and have always been a PC gamer, and i'm on your side -- I prefer the PC. But you can't deny whats going on in the industry. Crappy console ports are extremely common now, and PC only games which were the norm back in the 90's / early 2k are no longer, unless its a MMO. Understand that I don't like this situation, because i'm a PC guy-- but you'd have to wear blinders to deny it. PC gaming isn't in good shape compared to 5 or 10 years ago.

I remember growing up and playing games like magic carpet, ROTT, Populous, warcraft, descent.....there were ALL KINDS of PC only games that were incredible and not riddled with consoleitis. Those days are sadly gone....games with consoleitis are the norm now, with few exceptions. I am however happy to hear that BF3 was designed with the PC in mind, so i'm definitely looking forward to it.

 

[GotNoRice]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-13-dice-responds-to-battlefield-3-leak

"We always want to show a platform that we have chosen to be our lead platform. In this case we did choose PC as the lead platform; it's the one that has been, mostly, driving development forward. That is the reason why we have spearheaded a lot of the key assets with this as well.

The PC was picked as lead platform, Troedsson explained, to build "unique" features "we felt we really needed in the game". Things like 64-player multiplayer, which is "not possible" on console when combined with aspects "like destruction, like scale, vehicles and this kind of thing".

"I have to say that this discussion is a bit over the top because people don't understand that the PC is more powerful than a console - they haven't looked under the hood and in detail," Troedsson elaborated.

"What we're really striving to do with Battlefield 3 is make the most out of each and every platform. And that also means between PlayStation 3 and 360, because they're quite different under the hood. So we've been spending a lot of time with all of these.

You can't "make the most out of each and every platform" if the game starts it's life out as a gimped console port. Anyone who thinks BF3 is a console port is a bit... out of touch...

I'm personally looking forward to seeing how my 3 year old 2x 4870x2 setup does with this game. Given how well it performs in BC2 I'm fairly optimistic. I get a GPU score of nearly 33K in vantage compared to ~38K for GTX580 SLI so it shouldn't be too far off.

 

[utahraptor]

New AMD hardware can't get here soon enough. 5870 owners like me are stuck with a card that is starting to show it's age, but there is no decent card worth upgrading to from it based upon price/performance.

I am in your boat - i5 750 with ATI 5870 here

I want i7 2700K + 7970 or whatever best single slot non x2 card AMD can muster

 

[blackened23]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-13-dice-responds-to-battlefield-3-leak





You can't "make the most out of each and every platform" if the game starts it's life out as a gimped console port. Anyone who thinks BF3 is a console port is a bit... out of touch...

Get defensive much? Last I checked, I'm a PC gamer as well that doesn't own a console any longer. I wasn't sure if it was a console port or not, and stated so. I am however, glad that it isn't. Crappy console ports are extremely common on the PC now....which has made me wary. One of the best examples is MW2...that game reeks of consoleitis, so much so that I didn't even bother playing it much after buying it.

 

[GotNoRice]

Get defensive much? Last I checked, I'm a PC gamer as well that doesn't own a console any longer. I wasn't sure if it was a console port or not, and stated so. I am however, glad that it isn't. Crappy console ports are extremely common on the PC now....which has made me wary.

I wasn't even directly replying to your post, so remind me again who's getting defensive? lol

 

[blackened23]

I wasn't even directly replying to your post, so remind me again who's getting defensive? lol

Fair enough. Whatever though, BF3 will be a worth PC game from what i'm reading. Cheers to that. :thumbsup:

 

[Capt Caveman]

I see. This is great news ! :thumbsup:

Looking forward to the game even more now.

I have a friend that works at EA and I'll have to see if can find out the goods on the beta. Based on the fact that they're reusing the same map as the alpha they may be spending more time on game play, features and functionality over the graphic optimization.

Don't know if Nvidia/AMD will be releasing new beta drivers to help optimizations or if beta will even have Ultra settings as an option.

It would be nice to know if I need to pick-up another GTX 580.

 

[RussianSensation]

GeorgeB from epic games had a good writeup on this a few weeks ago and basically what he said was, unless you're in the top 1% of the industry (valve or blizzard), MMO, or budgetware, getting published with a PC only game is nearly impossible. Console sales are tremendously higher than PC.

Looking at NDP numbers for 2010, Shooters comprised just 9.7% of PC game sales last year. Role-playing + Strategy > 50% of PC game sales. BF3 will make a ton of $ among FPS games on the PC, but like you said it still makes sense to sell this game cross-platform to support the large investment costs and make more profits. I think the era of PC exclusives is long behind us. From now on, the only "A"-quality PC exclusives I foresee are going to be from up and coming developers trying to make a name for themselves like Crytek did many years ago. Otherwise, outside of MMOs, Strategy and flight sims, it's going to be mostly cross-platform games from now on, esp. with development costs expected to rise as next generation games will prob cost $50-100+ Million to develop.

BF:BC2 sold 5.41 Million copies on consoles. That's very good. I am sure that BF3 will sell even more. DICE wants to make $$$.

 

[crisium]

I'm not sure I'd say the game favours Nvidia yet. Dice may have fell for Nvidia's naming scheme that continues to trick many consumers. They could say GTX 560, but really mean GTX 560 Ti.

And look at the minimum requirements - it's reverse. In this case, the minimum is the slower card for ATi. The 3870 matches up with the 8800GTS 640mb and the GeForce 9600GT which are all one notch below the 8800GT in performance.

It's possible that the GTX 560 will perform as well as a Radeon 6950 (when most of the time it matches the 6870) but for now I'm gonna go with they just overlooked something.

 

[subtraction]

I'm not sure I'd say the game favours Nvidia yet. Dice may have fell for Nvidia's naming scheme that continues to trick many consumers. They could say GTX 560, but really mean GTX 560 Ti.

And look at the minimum requirements - it's reverse. In this case, the minimum is the slower card for ATi. The 3870 matches up with the 8800GTS 640mb and the Radeon 9600GT which are all one notch below the 8800GT in performance.

It's possible that the GTX 560 will perform as well as a Radeon 6950 (when most of the time it matches the 6870) but for now I'm gonna go with they just overlooked something.

That seems very likely in my eyes. The "ti" after 560 is very easily something they could have just left out on mistake or intentionally?

 

[toyota]

That seems very likely in my eyes. The "ti" after 560 is very easily something they could have just left out on mistake or intentionally?

yeah but why fall for Nvidias tricky naming scheme? I mean you can go with AMD and buy a 6870 that is faster than a 5870...right? because if its not then thats just a bad naming scheme and only Nvidia does that...

 

[crisium]

Well, it's a bit different with the same model number only with a "Ti" added. The main problem is the several month gap between the two. The 560 Ti came out first. However, seeing as both reviewers and consumers had no idea of a regular 560 coming, they referred to the 560 Ti as simply the 560. Once the "real" 560 came out, this has tended to stop, but not completely.

Whether or not to blame Nvidia for not calling the 560 the 555 instead or something is up to you, but it does catch people off guard. I just envision someone reading "GTX 560 Ti = Radeon 6950" and being astonished at how much cheaper the GTX 560 is than the 6950 and buying it. Not that it's horrible that they bought a 560, but if they knew the 560 actually matched the 6870 they might shop around more and get a better deal. This scenario may not have really happened yet, but if Dice has indeed made this mistake, then this could end up happening in October when it ships.

 

[subtraction]

yeah but why fall for Nvidias tricky naming scheme? I mean you can go with AMD and buy a 6870 that is faster than a 5870...right? because if its not then thats just a bad naming scheme and only Nvidia does that...

I understand and it is kind of low on Nvidia's part. That is assuming they did intentionally leave out the "ti" as a means to make it seem as if the standard 560 was equivalent to AMD's 6950. But I would not say AMD is totally innocent at least in regards to the example you gave of 5870 to 6870. For the most part I would consider it a side grade at best and personally I would take the single 5870 over a single 6870. 6870 vs 5870