Battlefield 3 Alpha Test GPU

 

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Genre: Action (Shooter) / 3D / 1st Person
Year: 2011
Developer: DICE
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Publisher in Russia: Electronic Arts

Battlefield 3 is a tactical first-person shooter video game developed by EA Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts. The game will be released for PC platforms (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. "Battlefield 3" is a direct sequel to "Battlefield 2", which was released in 2005.

Unlike other big-budget games of this time, the main gaming platform for "Battlefield 3" is the PC, and not game consoles. In the PC version, the maximum number of players on one map will be 64 players, and in the console versions for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the maximum number of players will be 24 players. Also, the PC version will have other advantages and differences compared to the console versions.

The game will be released in October 2011.

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Review: Graphics

For a whole month now, the developers have not spoiled us with fresh products. And approximately the same amount of time remains until the opening of the autumn gaming season. And at the moment we present to you the Battlefield 3 Alpha test, in which we can get acquainted and determine the estimated performance of video cards when using Frostbite 2.0. At the moment of testing, the game contains only basic settings, and the number of visual effects is noticeably reduced, but for a multiplayer test for developers this is more than enough. You can see his video below.

The Frostbite 2.0 game engine, according to the developers, is a completely new engine, not based on Frostbite 1.0 or Frostbite 1.5. According to DICE, the first version of Frostbite did not allow the studio to realize all of its plans for Battlefield 3, so in parallel with the development of games on Frostbite 1.0, a separate team was allocated to work on Frostbite 2.0. According to DICE in February 2011, the Battlefield 3 development team was just beginning to explore the technological potential of Frostbite 2.0.

Frostbite 2.0 was originally designed to work with DirectX 11, but DirectX 10 is also supported. DirectX 9 is not supported, so the operating system Windows XP is not suitable for the game. Old maps will definitely be out of use, and all those who tried to delay the transition to the new operating system will have to change their prejudices.

Minimum version of Microsoft Windows for the game is Windows Vista, but what we think is the most optimal use Windows 7. Many graphical moments were excluded from the alpha version and below we will provide a short technological video of the capabilities of Frostbite 2.0

The physics engine, as in previous versions of Frostbite, uses Havok Physics produced by the company of the same name. However, the Havok-based "Destruction" environmental destruction system has been updated to version three. This version provided even more extensive and precise destruction.

Almost everything can be destroyed in Battlefield 3 Alpha, but it also depends on the type of weapon used... According to DICE, in theory they could use “Destruction 3.0” to simulate the destruction of a model of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in the center of Dubai.

Next, we move directly to the video card tests themselves.

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Review: Resource-intensive game

All video cards were tested at maximum graphics quality using MSI Afterburner. The purpose of the test is to determine how video cards from different manufacturers behave under the same conditions. The minimum and average frame size is taken as the performance indicator. Below is the configuration of our test systems.

Less powerful video cards up to the level of GeForce GTS 450 and Radeon HD 4870 are tested based on Core 2 Quad Q9550 and Phenom II X4 940 BE processors, depending on the resource intensity of the game, and more powerful ones are based on more powerful solutions. Overclocked versions of video cards presented by sponsors were equal to conventional analogues by reducing their clock speeds.

Our video cards were tested at a resolution of 1920x1080 in DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 modes at maximum quality settings (high) allowed by the game. NVIDIA 3D Vision and AMD Eyefinity technologies were not tested at this resolution. Frostbite 2.0 currently does not support Cross Fire and SLI technologies, which will of course be fixed in the future by both the game developers and newer drivers. The test was not conducted in the most resource-intensive place. Servers with zero people were selected for testing, since in this case it was simply impossible to repeat the same type of testing elements.

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 DirectX 10

And although in this case MSI Afterburner showed the presence of DirectX 11, we know that these cards cannot support it in hardware. Therefore, in this case, we used libraries common to both DirectX 10 and DirectX 11. Let's say right away that the game is very picky about the amount of video memory, so using cards with a capacity of less than 768 megabytes is inappropriate. At Full HD resolution, the minimum level of performance will be provided by the Radeon HD 4870 or GeForce GTS 250, which is very good. The FPS limit of 25 frames can be surpassed by video cards of the Radeon HD 4890 or GeForce GTX 260 core 216 level.

Testing at maximum quality settings 1920x1080 DirectX 11

The minimum level of performance in DirectX 11 mode can be provided by Radeon HD 5750 or GeForce GTS 450 video cards.  The FPS limit of 25 frames can be bypassed by video cards of the Radeon HD 5830 or GeForce GTX 460 level. And although many graphic features of Frostbite 2.0 turned out to be, so to speak, "behind the scenes", the optimization process will still be polished for a long time, but all graphic accelerators presented in the tests were able to prove themselves worthily.

CPU dependency testing

We tested processor dependence on 10 models of basic configurations, which are the most relevant today. The processor dependence test was carried out at a resolution of 640x480 with low graphics quality settings.

Testing at high quality settings 640x480

As we can see, the performance of dual-core models in Battlefield 3 Alpha is downright deplorable. Developers should pay attention to optimizing Hyper-threading. But let's not make hasty conclusions. Firstly, this is only an alpha version, and secondly, the multiplayer always gave a more serious load than the single player.

There will be no assessments in this case. Battlefield 3 Alpha is primarily a "test salvo" to fix online bugs. Our goal was to determine how Frostbite 2.0 would behave on modern hardware. The result was quite acceptable, almost all of our tested video cards will be able to show an acceptable level of performance, although some optimization for dual-core processor models would not hurt. We are waiting for the beta test and, of course, the full-fledged game, the release of which will take place soon!

 

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We would like to express our gratitude to all manufacturing companies that were able to provide test equipment for our tests. GPU and we hope that in the future their number will increase significantly!

 

 

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Test score

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Rating 86% [38 vote(s)]

Game rating

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Rating 89% [38 vote(s)]