[TT]Battlefield 4 PC system requirements aren't harsh at all

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Jul 29, 2012
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If I were to buy a card for BF4 it would certainly be something with more than 2 gigs VRAM

Though I'm sure won't be much compromise or trouble on my current card, nevertheless
 

Remobz

Platinum Member
Jun 9, 2005
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@TheAdvocate
I think you're right. I can play BF3 at 1920x1200 on ultra without any AA on 1GB 5850 at roughly 40FPS, so unless you are after high resolution, current high end cards should be perfectly enough.

I am trying to build a rig around BF3 right now.

So far I have IPS Asus Pa238q @ 1920 x 1080 res

2GB radeon 7850

8 gigs 1600 ram

I wonder what CPU I would need to play at high or ultra settings? Maybe high settings considering 64 multi-player games?
 

2is

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2012
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Once you start getting into 64 player games, your CPU starts to make a big difference.
 

Riceninja

Golden Member
May 21, 2008
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despite my posts on how i'm going to keep my i7 920 forever, my sister's C2D died and she will be getting my current cpu/mobo/ram.

thus, I'm pricing out a new build:

buying new, option A:

i7-4770k (planning to OC to 4.4ish)
Noctua NH-D14
Asus Z87-PRO
G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600

buying new, option B:

i5-4670k (planning to OC to 4.4ish)
Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO
Asus Z87-PRO
G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600
+
another 7950 for crossfire

the $150ish i would save on the i5/cheaper cooler would come close to paying for the extra 7950.


existing system:

Samsung 840 250GB
Sapphire HD 7950
Corsair 750W
Asus MX279H 27.0" 1920x1080


given how BF3 multi is very CPU heavy, which option will best achieve 60fps in 64 player multi on (preferably) ultra?
 
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bystander36

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2013
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I don't think I saw this article linked here, so here goes: http://www.bf4blog.com/battlefield-4-alpha-gpu-and-cpu-benchmarks/

You'll notice it does show more than 2Gb of vram used, however, you'll see that at the highest settings at 1600p, the Nvidia 2Gb perform just as well as their comparable AMD 3Gb cards. The 690 is beating the 7990, the 680 is about the same as the 7970 etc. Minimum and averages. If there were vram issues, you'd expect the minimums to at least plummet.
 

moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
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I don't think I saw this article linked here, so here goes: http://www.bf4blog.com/battlefield-4-alpha-gpu-and-cpu-benchmarks/

You'll notice it does show more than 2Gb of vram used, however, you'll see that at the highest settings at 1600p, the Nvidia 2Gb perform just as well as their comparable AMD 3Gb cards. The 690 is beating the 7990, the 680 is about the same as the 7970 etc. Minimum and averages. If there were vram issues, you'd expect the minimums to at least plummet.

I am exhausted at the very thought of having to say this again, and again and again. FPS charts don't show you the little freezes, pauses, skips, hitches that is caused by having too little Vram. Average FPS will still be fine because GPU power is there, but issues arise that you need to see for yourself. An honest reviewer would disclose these issues. Maybe they are minor to some people, but I think most people here would be pulling their hair out.
 

skipsneeky2

Diamond Member
May 21, 2011
5,035
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I am exhausted at the very thought of having to say this again, and again and again. FPS charts don't show you the little freezes, pauses, skips, hitches that is caused by having too little Vram. Average FPS will still be fine because GPU power is there, but issues arise that you need to see for yourself. An honest reviewer would disclose these issues. Maybe they are minor to some people, but I think most people here would be pulling their hair out.

Agree with this 110%.
 

ozzy702

Golden Member
Nov 1, 2011
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I am exhausted at the very thought of having to say this again, and again and again. FPS charts don't show you the little freezes, pauses, skips, hitches that is caused by having too little Vram. Average FPS will still be fine because GPU power is there, but issues arise that you need to see for yourself. An honest reviewer would disclose these issues. Maybe they are minor to some people, but I think most people here would be pulling their hair out.

Agreed completely. I notice every little blip, freeze, pause, etc and it drives me nuts. Most of the time I pull 60fps, shoot, probably 99.9% of the time, but that .1% is unbearable. Twitch shooters from a decade + ago ruined me. :)
 

moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
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given how BF3 multi is very CPU heavy, which option will best achieve 60fps in 64 player multi on (preferably) ultra?

Between your two options I would take the i5 and the second 7950 for sure. You will need all the GPU power you can get and the Haswell i5 is very capable. The i7 will produce a few percent more performance, but in order to see it you would need much more GPU power than you will have. That i5 will max your cards out i'm pretty confident in saying, certainly on ultra with this game.
 

imaheadcase

Diamond Member
May 9, 2005
3,850
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I'll come right out and say it. GTX 780SLI is the only real option for BF4 currently. All else will result in nasty FPS dips according to the slides we've seen. It showed a 690 getting 50fps. You can bet that dips to the low 30's.
Vram is an issue, but so is GPU power and 780SLI fits the bill for Ultra @ 1080p with 4XAA. The real ticket will be AMD's new offerings which should improve the price/performance offerings on both sides for this performance segment right at the time of BF4 release. What takes $1,300 to get today, will cost maybe $900 before much longer. BF4 will be a $1,000 game for me.

Sure thing bud. lol
 

2is

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2012
4,281
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I am exhausted at the very thought of having to say this again, and again and again. FPS charts don't show you the little freezes, pauses, skips, hitches that is caused by having too little Vram. Average FPS will still be fine because GPU power is there, but issues arise that you need to see for yourself. An honest reviewer would disclose these issues. Maybe they are minor to some people, but I think most people here would be pulling their hair out.

You're assuming those skips dips and pauses were present. You're making a lot of assumptions based on nothing thus far, including the SLI 780 recommendation.
 

bystander36

Diamond Member
Apr 1, 2013
5,154
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I am exhausted at the very thought of having to say this again, and again and again. FPS charts don't show you the little freezes, pauses, skips, hitches that is caused by having too little Vram. Average FPS will still be fine because GPU power is there, but issues arise that you need to see for yourself. An honest reviewer would disclose these issues. Maybe they are minor to some people, but I think most people here would be pulling their hair out.

Those skips and freezes should show up on the minimums, which the charts are showing the same minimums on the 2Gb and 3Gb cards. While it is possible there are skips, it is unlikely due to the cards having the same minimum FPS.
 
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Riceninja

Golden Member
May 21, 2008
1,841
3
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Between your two options I would take the i5 and the second 7950 for sure. You will need all the GPU power you can get and the Haswell i5 is very capable. The i7 will produce a few percent more performance, but in order to see it you would need much more GPU power than you will have. That i5 will max your cards out i'm pretty confident in saying, certainly on ultra with this game.

my reservations with the i5 is that while it will max out the current 7000 gen, if i decide to upgrade my gpu in the next 2-3 years, it might be the bottleneck for the cpu intensive games then. with the i7, i'll have to worry less about this.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
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my reservations with the i5 is that while it will max out the current 7000 gen, if i decide to upgrade my gpu in the next 2-3 years, it might be the bottleneck for the cpu intensive games then. with the i7, i'll have to worry less about this.

By the time a 3570k or similar at 4ghz+ is a bottleneck, the 3770k or similar HT cpu will be as well.
 

wand3r3r

Diamond Member
May 16, 2008
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By the time a 3570k or similar at 4ghz+ is a bottleneck, the 3770k or similar HT cpu will be as well.

Of course there'll be an advantage to the 3770k if there's more than 4 threads. It sounds like you're trying to convince yourself. ;)
 

skipsneeky2

Diamond Member
May 21, 2011
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Hard to wanna justify maxing out a game when you can drop some settings and have hell of a better experience performance wise for free.

My gtx770 and 1200p can do ultra and 4x MSAA in BF3 but a big explosion or several and i get distracted dropping as low as 44fps,run all high and kill MSAA and the game looks 85% as good while my minimums from my experience refuse to drop under 70fps...still struggling on maps to look for a time i dip below 70fps with my current settings.

Some people might say i am crazy but what is more crazy,maxing out ultra and 4x MSAA with dual $650 gtx780s and hoping for a 60fps+ experience or running settings that look about 85% as good while struggling to find dips below 70fps on a single card that costs a fraction of the dual gpu config?
 
Jul 29, 2012
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* Sirens wailing *

I see you are in need of my wisdom here.

Hard to wanna justify maxing out a game when you can drop some settings and have hell of a better experience performance wise for free.

My gtx770 and 1200p can do ultra and 4x MSAA in BF3 but a big explosion or several and i get distracted dropping as low as 44fps

Turn the Effects setting down to High. Problem solved

For competitive playing as high an FPS as possible is necessary, but in other cases why not make use of all the expensive hardware you've bought?

my reservations with the i5 is that while it will max out the current 7000 gen, if i decide to upgrade my gpu in the next 2-3 years, it might be the bottleneck for the cpu intensive games then. with the i7, i'll have to worry less about this.

Go i7 for sure. In general between CPU and GPU always spend more on the CPU platform as they last longer, and you will have a stable platform to upgrade on for several generations. i5 does bottleneck rarely in certain games
 

moonbogg

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
10,635
3,095
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Hard to wanna justify maxing out a game when you can drop some settings and have hell of a better experience performance wise for free.

My gtx770 and 1200p can do ultra and 4x MSAA in BF3 but a big explosion or several and i get distracted dropping as low as 44fps,run all high and kill MSAA and the game looks 85% as good while my minimums from my experience refuse to drop under 70fps...still struggling on maps to look for a time i dip below 70fps with my current settings.

Some people might say i am crazy but what is more crazy,maxing out ultra and 4x MSAA with dual $650 gtx780s and hoping for a 60fps+ experience or running settings that look about 85% as good while struggling to find dips below 70fps on a single card that costs a fraction of the dual gpu config?

You know what, this post sounds so good I think i'll go with it. Seriously, I changed my damn mind. I'm not spending a dime on hardware. I can see it now. I spend a ton of cash on cards only to be bottlenecked sickly by my CPU with basically no CPU upgrade option. Oh, but even if there was a CPU upgrade option, what then? Ditch the whole damn rig and completely replace it for an extra 15fps and a few extra shadows?
For some unknown reason, common sense JUST leaked straight from skipsneeky2's brain right into mine.
 

desprado

Golden Member
Jul 16, 2013
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Of course there'll be an advantage to the 3770k if there's more than 4 threads. It sounds like you're trying to convince yourself. ;)
u are wrong bro.In almost all games there is advantage of 3770k over 3570k it only take advantage on benchmark.
 

skipsneeky2

Diamond Member
May 21, 2011
5,035
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You know what, this post sounds so good I think i'll go with it. Seriously, I changed my damn mind. I'm not spending a dime on hardware. I can see it now. I spend a ton of cash on cards only to be bottlenecked sickly by my CPU with basically no CPU upgrade option. Oh, but even if there was a CPU upgrade option, what then? Ditch the whole damn rig and completely replace it for an extra 15fps and a few extra shadows?
For some unknown reason, common sense JUST leaked straight from skipsneeky2's brain right into mine.

The famous top of Gulf of Oman frame dip that seems to drag any dual gpu set up with my settings refuses to dip below 64fps,i went around Oman like a madman blowing up stuff in tanks and with c4 and attempting to find some situation i can dip below 60fps and i only went as low as 64fps period.

I wouldn't recommend the whole world to try my settings unless they want pure performance but i know there is some gamers in here looking for a 120fps experience for their 120hz monitors,i think my 60 fps experience is fair cause god only knows what settings a 120hz gamer has to run at even 1080p in BF3 lol or even what hardware.....
 
Aug 11, 2008
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Of course there'll be an advantage to the 3770k if there's more than 4 threads. It sounds like you're trying to convince yourself. ;)

There will be some advantage, but I tend to agree with wand3r3r that it will not be enough to make a 3570 obsolete while a 3770 is not. The more appropriate question to me is whether one is willing to pay the extra cost for around 10% better performance. I know there was supposedly a 30% or something like that improvement in crysis 3, but that is an outlier, and I haven't seen any confirming data on that anyway.

That said, for a high end gaming system, of if you do a lot of multi-threaded productivity work, the 3770 could be justified.
 

Stuka87

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2010
6,240
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BF3 (And I am sure 4 is the same) will use up to 6 threads. This is why an old Phenom II x6 will out perform a 2500K in BF3 when the GPU is not a limiting factor. Benchmarks don't show this as they are in single player mode. But FPS monitoring during a 64 man match does show it.

So this is one game where an i7 or an FX8350 really shines over quad core chips.
 

2is

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2012
4,281
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BF3 (And I am sure 4 is the same) will use up to 6 threads. This is why an old Phenom II x6 will out perform a 2500K in BF3 when the GPU is not a limiting factor. Benchmarks don't show this as they are in single player mode. But FPS monitoring during a 64 man match does show it.

So this is one game where an i7 or an FX8350 really shines over quad core chips.

I'd like to see these benchmarks showing a X6 outperforming a 2500K. I know it's got 6 threads but every benchmark I've seen, including encoding which scales far better than BF3 does has a 2500k on top by a pretty wide margin.
 

Spjut

Senior member
Apr 9, 2011
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If a game uses six cores/threads, the only thing we can be sure of is that a six core CPU will perform better than a quad core within the same series (Phenom II X6 better than Phenom II X4 etc).
We should be careful comparing totally different CPUs:)

Regarding i7 and hyperthreading, one can look at how the i3 fares with HT on and off. I found these tests
http://www.techbuyersguru.com/CPUgaming.php
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/core...the-importance-of-hyperthreading-in-gaming/7/

Games that are known to utilize four cores do get a noticeable performance boost with HT on. So if we get more and more games that benefit from more than four cores in the future, an i7 should be the most "future proof" CPU.
The discussion about i5 vs i7 reminds me a bit of when people went with higher clocked Core 2 Duos rather than Core 2 Quads