**OFFICIAL** AT Battlefield 3 FAQ and News Thread

[liquidblue]

So the Karkand expansion is not actually out yet (since no one is talking about the maps)? I cancelled from Origin and keep getting emails about it. Amazon was supposed to have it for pre-order but I only got codes for the game itself and the dogtags. Last night I couldn't get into any multiplayer games, so I tried out the campaign for like 10 minutes... on my 560ti it looked amazing with everything on high, and textures on ultra. It played butter smooth but will have to do a fraps run and see what I can play with.

 

[Termie]

So the Karkand expansion is not actually out yet (since no one is talking about the maps)? I cancelled from Origin and keep getting emails about it. Amazon was supposed to have it for pre-order but I only got codes for the game itself and the dogtags. Last night I couldn't get into any multiplayer games, so I tried out the campaign for like 10 minutes... on my 560ti it looked amazing with everything on high, and textures on ultra. It played butter smooth but will have to do a fraps run and see what I can play with.

Karkand probably won't be available until the end of the year, so you're ok.

 

[novasatori]

Yeah to redeem the codes in Origin you click the gear icon which drops down a list, click redeem code.

Put in your PWP / Dog Tag codes etc in there

 

[imaheadcase]

Don't forget you can enable fps in the console now so you don't need fraps. It has lots of other fps options like max/min to. Just use the ` key and type commands to see them.

Also, the DAO-12 that comes with phisical warfare pack is in a word...AWESOME.

 

[gonzal13]

Saw this on another forum and totally agree with it.

Rather than use the god aweful view on the Minimap, zoom it in. You can change the level of zoom on the minimpa to suit the combat.

When In in grand bazaar I'm zooming it all the way in so I can see where the shots are comign from around corners, when you are playing a wide open map, IE caspian, zoom it out for a better view of the whole battlefield.

I use this like I use select fire (Single, Burst, Full-Auto), I'm constantly changing the setting based on my current combat situation.

 

[SexyK]

Anyone else getting occasional massive frame rate drops? It doesn't appear to be a graphics subsystem problem because other than the massive drops everything is silky smooth (6870 crossfire, 3.4GHz i7 920, 6GB system). However every once in a while things will just slow to a complete crawl, almost like the game is pulling data from the HDD. I turned down MSAA a notch and it seems to have helped a bit, but I'm still getting massive drops every few minutes.

Other than that issue (and occasional crashing) loving the game so far. Can't wait to get home from work to get in my first full session!

 

[imaheadcase]

Anyone else getting occasional massive frame rate drops? It doesn't appear to be a graphics subsystem problem because other than the massive drops everything is silky smooth (6870 crossfire, 3.4GHz i7 920, 6GB system). However every once in a while things will just slow to a complete crawl, almost like the game is pulling data from the HDD. I turned down MSAA a notch and it seems to have helped a bit, but I'm still getting massive drops every few minutes.

Other than that issue (and occasional crashing) loving the game so far. Can't wait to get home from work to get in my first full session!

I know what you mean about slow down, though not sure if same issue. I get when i can't click to enter the game, its like the GUI in the game just froze, but the game is continuing in the background. Then about 2min later it just starts working again.

 

[Cutterhead]

Rather than use the god aweful view on the Minimap, zoom it in. You can change the level of zoom on the minimpa to suit the combat.

When In in grand bazaar I'm zooming it all the way in so I can see where the shots are comign from around corners, when you are playing a wide open map, IE caspian, zoom it out for a better view of the whole battlefield.

I use this like I use select fire (Single, Burst, Full-Auto), I'm constantly changing the setting based on my current combat situation.

That's nice and all, but I have to agree with other's sentiments here; the map as it is now is simply not as functional as those of the previous games. Having to zoom in and out on the fly just to get a discernable view of the action is not a good design.

Maybe it was for the "cool factor", but I don't understand why we had to go all TRON with the minimap. Show me terrain, show me my squad leader, show me my objectives, and make them all clearly distinguishable from one another. Not so much to ask.

 

[Zargon]

Played for about 4 hours late last night. Had an absolute blast. Much, much more polished than the beta. Textures and graphics are amazing and the game ran great on my new GB 6950 (better than I was expecting after all the data from beta, etc). I agree with above poster, turning off msaa is a big help in FPS.

My only gripe is squads are still a little tricky and it is very hard for me to tell where I am spawning. When I select a spawn point it's hard to tell where the flashing circle is - sometimes there's too much chaos and I'm just guessing where I'll spawn. But that's a very minor gripe. For a huge day 1 release everything seemed to go wonderfully.

yeah squads still need work, we need to be able to PICK what squad we join

and I also had issues telling where I was going to spawn

i wish it would also select NO spawn when you want to spawn on a squadmate and he dies befor eyou hit deploy, instead of dumping you back to the initial deployment point

 

[CVSiN]

Played a couple rounds this morning before work. Amazing game, I'll definitely be playing this one for a very long time.

I did encounter a bug that I think is because I'm running it in surround. I was playing on some "normal mode" servers and the friend/foe indicators over people's heads don't work all of the time. When I do see them they're all stretched out.

But at least I have my HUD now - it didn't work in surround in the beta. And the HUD is centered on my middle screen so that's awesome.

Running in Eyefinity here and yes they did an AWESOME job of setting it up for multimonitor setups for sure!

I also had issues I cannot see ANY friend/foe markers at ALL.. is this something the server can turn on and off? it didn't seem spotting was working at all either..

Me being an old guy... my eyes aren't as sharp as they once were.. I'm having a hell of a time telling good guys from bad guys the camo works too well.. and the uniform colors are pretty close.

 

[Paladin]

What's the command to show your fps in the console?
Last night the first thing my son noticed was 'where's the crosshairs?' Is it just me, or are they just trying to discourage firing from the hip? Not a big deal.
Map does need work.
Great game so far!

 

[Zargon]

For those of you running in CF with BF3, and suffering stuttering, please remove Catalyst 11.9 CAP3, we're looking into the stuttering issue

for you xfire guys

 

[Nizology]

Running in Eyefinity here and yes they did an AWESOME job of setting it up for multimonitor setups for sure!

I also had issues I cannot see ANY friend/foe markers at ALL.. is this something the server can turn on and off? it didn't seem spotting was working at all either..

Me being an old guy... my eyes aren't as sharp as they once were.. I'm having a hell of a time telling good guys from bad guys the camo works too well.. and the uniform colors are pretty close.

What's the command to show your fps in the console?
Last night the first thing my son noticed was 'where's the crosshairs?' Is it just me, or are they just trying to discourage firing from the hip? Not a big deal.
Map does need work.
Great game so far!

You guys were probably playing on hardcore servers...removes spotting and crosshairs. The names above soldiers I believe is a server toggle.

 

[CVSiN]

for you xfire guys

No stuttering at all here.. not sure what's different in my setup..
I did have to make some changes for TOR beta..
maybe same issues there.

 

[mc866]

Joined the platoon last night but didn't get a chance to play yet.

my ea name is big_mc_866

I'm a complete BF noob, haven't played much for PC shooters since CS:S and UT 2004 so be kind to me

 

[GullyFoyle]

What's the command to show your fps in the console?

Render.DrawFps 1

 

[dfuze]

Me being an old guy... my eyes aren't as sharp as they once were.. I'm having a hell of a time telling good guys from bad guys the camo works too well.. and the uniform colors are pretty close.

Glad to see it's not just me; I'm 34 and have a hard time telling them apart sometimes.

 

[Paladin]

Hey Gully, I don't think this has been said much, but for what you've done over the last several months, keeping us up to date and informed:
THANK YOU

 

[Nizology]

Hey Gully, I don't think this has been said much, but for what you've done over the last several months, keeping us up to date and informed:
THANK YOU

+1. Thanks buddy! :thumbsup:

 

[Jschmuck2]

Hey Gully, I don't think this has been said much, but for what you've done over the last several months, keeping us up to date and informed:
THANK YOU

!!!!!!

 

[Canbacon]

Also, the squad selection is still bugged or at least confusing. I tried switching and kept being put back in the same squad. Maybe I was missing the magic combination of mouse clicks, but it's certainly not user-friendly.

Annoying thing about the squads is that it shows all the squads but doesn't allow you to pick the squad you want to be in (squads ). The criteria is that the lowest populated squad will be filled first and it will load balance them out like beta. For the best chance of getting into a party into the same squad is to join a medium-low pop server and hope that it fills up.

 

[hondaf17]

About squads - you can pick which squad you want to be in. It's confusing as H but it can work. I think you click "leave squad" first. Then you select the squad you want to join. After that a very small "join squad" button shows up below all the squad list. That should work for you. First hour or two I couldn't figure it out either.

 

[scooterlibby]

Yes, Thanks Gully, You were a great gatherer of info for BC2 as well.

Can someone add me (austin_erik) to the platoon? I'm a little unfamiliar as to how that works.

 

[GullyFoyle]

New Battlefield Blog Post: PC Gamers: Your quick checklist to get ready for Battlefield 3

Monday, 24 October 2011 07:00

This morning we woke up to a shiny new metacritic score for Battlefield 3, and we are ready for you to join us online. Here are a few quick things you might want to take care of to get yourself into Battlefield 3 as quickly as possible on launch day:


1) Create an Origin account, if you haven’t already. You can do so here. If you have an EA account then you already have an Origin account! Make sure you know your account name and password.

2) Download the Origin client. You will need to have the latest version (8.3.1) of the Origin client running on your PC in order to play Battlefield 3. To make sure you're up-to-date, we recommend clicking here to get the latest version up and running on your system.

3) Double-check to make sure you have the latest graphics card drivers. Visit the drivers section at AMD or Nvidia, depending on what your manufacturer of choice is.

4) Pre-load Battlefield 3. If you purchased Battlefield 3 through Origin (or any other digital retailer that is offering BF3 and supports pre-load as an option), the game is currently available for pre-load. This means the game will be downloaded and installed already when it goes live. The game will unlock at specific times in each region, and you will not be able to play it before the unlock-time in your region.

5) Check your PC specs. Minimum and recommended specs below:

Minimum System Requirements
OS: WINDOWS VISTA (SERVICE PACK 2) 32-BIT
PROCESSOR: 2 GHZ DUAL CORE (CORE 2 DUO 2.4 GHZ OR ATHLON X2 2.7 GHZ)
MEMORY: 2 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB
GRAPHICS CARD (AMD): DIRECTX 10.1 COMPATIBLE WITH 512 MB RAM (ATI RADEON 3000, 4000, 5000 OR 6000 SERIES, WITH ATI RADEON 3870 OR HIGHER PERFORMANCE)
GRAPHICS CARD (NVIDIA): DIRECTX 10.0 COMPATIBLE WITH 512 MB RAM (NVIDIA GEFORCE 8, 9, 200, 300, 400 OR 500 SERIES WITH NVIDIA GEFORCE 8800 GT OR HIGHER PERFORMANCE)
SOUND CARD : DIRECTX COMPATIBLE
KEYBOARD AND MOUSE
DVD ROM DRIVE

Recommended System Requirements
OS: WINDOWS 7 64-BIT
PROCESSOR: QUAD-CORE CPU
MEMORY: 4 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB
GRAPHICS CARD : DIRECTX 11 COMPATIBLE WITH 1024 MB RAM (NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 OR ATI RADEON 6950)
SOUND CARD : DIRECTX COMPATIBLE
KEYBOARD AND MOUSE
DVD ROM DRIVE

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This is a better quality version of something posted a week ago.

Video: Johan Andersson Battlefield 3 Keynote From GeForce LAN

October 24, 2011
By James Wang

There are two things Battlefield fans love talking about: Battlefield 3 and Frostbite 2, the engine that powers the game's gorgeous visuals. Although DICE has promoted the engine heavily leading up to the game's release, just exactly how it works has nevertheless remain shrouded in secrecy.

At NVIDIA's GeForce LAN 6 event in Alameda last week, we invited Johan Andersson from DICE to unveil once and for all the intricate internal workings of the most talked about graphics engine of the year.

The one hour presentation is filled with wonderful tidbits that will sure to delight any graphics geek or aspiring 3D programmer. We learned that the reason why the lighting looks so good is because it's based on radiosity--a technique that simulates how light bounces around in an environment. We learned that because the engine uses deferred shading, it supports hundreds of lights at once instead of just one or two as in Bad Company 2. Rocket smoke looks so good because each particle reaches light and reacts to shadows. And DirectX 11 is used to add real geometric detail to mountains and terrain as well as to speed up lighting calculations.

Johan revealed that a lot of the technology in Frostbite 2 are the result of collaboration between NVIDIA and DICE. HBAO (Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion), a technique that adds richness and detail to shadows, was developed by NVIDIA graphics engineers and integrated by DICE. So was the clever shader based antialiasing option "FXAA" that smoothes out jaggies without killing your performance.

You can check out the full presentation video below.

GeForce LAN 6 - Johan Andersson Battlefield 3 Presentation Part 1 / 5
GeForce LAN 6 - Johan Andersson Battlefield 3 Presentation Part 2 / 5
GeForce LAN 6 - Johan Andersson Battlefield 3 Presentation Part 3 / 5
GeForce LAN 6 - Johan Andersson Battlefield 3 Presentation Part 4 / 5
GeForce LAN 6 - Johan Andersson Battlefield 3 Presentation Part 5 / 5

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[Zargon]

Yes, Thanks Gully, You were a great gatherer of info for BC2 as well.

Can someone add me (austin_erik) to the platoon? I'm a little unfamiliar as to how that works.

i sent you a friend request, accept it and I can invite you to the platoon