Would this setup run BATTLEFIELD 3 on High settings

[WrekCreation]

Hi gise,
will this built run BF3 on high with 1920x1080 res and +45 fps ?
in otherwords, will it be a full battlefield 3 experience with smooth play.. (it doesnt have to be on ultra, i just want it to run smooth with good graphics)

My soon to be system:

CPU - intel core i5-2500k sandy bridge
PSU - 650w
GPU - MSI gtx560ti twin frozr ii OC
Motherboard - gigabyte z77X (dont really have to worry about that too much)
RAM - 2x4GB 1600 (8GB)
Monitor - 23" LED

would appreciate it.
Thanks

 

[g-unit1111]

If you fill this out we can better assist you: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261222-31-build-advice

For now I'd say swap the GPU with a Radeon 7850 and up your PSU to a 750W for future expansion.

 

[kulladoctor]

Get a Card with 2GB + vram to avoid stuttering on the larger levels. And the 560ti would be too slow for playing on High. You would need 2x 560 (not Ti) or a single 7850/570GTX

 

[azeem40]

Lol, you're suggesting a card with the same speed as the 560ti as able to play on high and not the 560ti itself. Nice one.

 

[catatafish]

OP:

To answer your question, YES. I have nearly the same set up (see signature). I play BF3 on the default High settings, I get mostly 60 fps with 30 in there now and then (I use Vsynch). I play every single map on multiplayer and I get nothing but smooth butter on High settings. I have my 560ti overclocked to 950 which took me about 25 seconds using MSI Afterburner, my temps are stellar, fan never goes over 50%, I'm lovin life. Oh, and my AA is definitely not "completely off". I think I've got it on the lowest or 2nd to lowest setting (whatever "High" defaults it to). In any case, cables and wires and such appear smooth. The last thing I'm doing in BF3 is staring at a telephone pole wire and wishing I had 2x more AA.

Now if I can just find where that sniper is that keeps camping me......

Edit:
Oh, and I played full Ultra on Campaign mode.

 

[kulladoctor]

sorry I meant the 7870. And I dont personally have a 560ti, so I deffer to catatafish.

But I had a 560ti 448 core for a while (not OC'ed), and that gave me occasional stuttering in large multiplayer maps. I think it comes down to how you define playable 45+ 90% of the time is not 45+ all the time. But its upto you how much you are willing to overlook.

 

[lucuis]

As a person that actually has a 560 ti you can indeed play BF3 on high with about 45+ just like you want. In fact you can run everything ultra, with no mlaa, high fxaa, and HBAO

With 2 560ti in SLI you can run all ultra, except high textures. Low fxaa, no HBAO or SSAO, BUT 4x mlaa.

For the best no stutter experience, make sure to have desktop composition disabled for when your playing, and run 8x Anisotropic filtering to lower the mem usage a tinch. Those 2 setups puts you roughly just under a gig of memory usage.

Now that i realize you haven't bought anything yet, i'd definitely go for a higher memory card. Not having that restraint to work around would have made my life a lot easier, and it will yours.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

One 560 Ti will do BF3 on high and two will do ultra in single player.....however, expect some stuttering in multiplayer on ultra. This has nothing to do with GFX but is a CPU limitation. I'm basing this on experience with an i7-2600k @ 4.8 GHz and twin 560 Ti's in SLI @ 1020 MHz. Even on this, multi-player hiccups a bit unless ya drop settings a bit. See the same thing on another box with an OC'd 580. The twin 560's run about 40% faster than the 580 for less money.

BTW, if you plan on overclocking, the GFX I'd move up from the Twin Frozr's. While the Frozr has a better cooler than the reference design and even adds two phases to the stock VRM for a total of 6, if ya wanna hit the highest OC's, I'd recommend at least 7 phases. Gigabyte, Asus and Gainward offer 7 phase designs and MSI offers 8 and 10 phase designs i the Hawk and Lightning. EVGA OC designs (except for the "Classified") all have stock PCB's and measly 4 phase VRM's so I'd avoid those altogether.

With the extra phases in the VRM, the 560 can reach beastly OC's.

http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1201&page=17

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&N=-1&isNodeId=1&Description=900Mhz+560+Ti&x=0&y=0

With BF3, ya might even wanna consider the 2GB version.

 

[lucuis]

One 560 Ti will do BF3 on high and two will do ultra in single player.....however, expect some stuttering in multiplayer on ultra. This has nothing to do with GFX but is a CPU limitation. I'm basing this on experience with an i7-2600k @ 4.8 GHz and twin 560 Ti's in SLI @ 1020 MHz. Even on this, multi-player hiccups a bit unless ya drop settings a bit. See the same thing on another box with an OC'd 580. The twin 560's run about 40% faster than the 580 for less money.

If you don't have HT disabled give it a try, fixed my stuttering almost completely, and it takes less then a minute.

 

[WrekCreation]

OP:

To answer your question, YES. I have nearly the same set up (see signature). I play BF3 on the default High settings, I get mostly 60 fps with 30 in there now and then (I use Vsynch). I play every single map on multiplayer and I get nothing but smooth butter on High settings. I have my 560ti overclocked to 950 which took me about 25 seconds using MSI Afterburner, my temps are stellar, fan never goes over 50%, I'm lovin life. Oh, and my AA is definitely not "completely off". I think I've got it on the lowest or 2nd to lowest setting (whatever "High" defaults it to). In any case, cables and wires and such appear smooth. The last thing I'm doing in BF3 is staring at a telephone pole wire and wishing I had 2x more AA.

Now if I can just find where that sniper is that keeps camping me......

Edit:
Oh, and I played full Ultra on Campaign mode.

Thanks man.
thats the answer i was hoping to get.
the setup i have now will be considered a pile of $#@* to the average gamer nowadays ... so i think this setup will make me pretty happy.

P.S is it quite tricky overclocking if youve never done it before? and with afterburner?

Thanks a lot man.

 

[WrekCreation]

As a person that actually has a 560 ti you can indeed play BF3 on high with about 45+ just like you want. In fact you can run everything ultra, with no mlaa, high fxaa, and HBAO

With 2 560ti in SLI you can run all ultra, except high textures. Low fxaa, no HBAO or SSAO, BUT 4x mlaa.

For the best no stutter experience, make sure to have desktop composition disabled for when your playing, and run 8x Anisotropic filtering to lower the mem usage a tinch. Those 2 setups puts you roughly just under a gig of memory usage.

Now that i realize you haven't bought anything yet, i'd definitely go for a higher memory card. Not having that restraint to work around would have made my life a lot easier, and it will yours.

Thanks.. what is mlaa?? and fxaa? when you say a higher memory card do you just mean the vram should be say 2gb?

shot a lot

 

[WrekCreation]

One 560 Ti will do BF3 on high and two will do ultra in single player.....however, expect some stuttering in multiplayer on ultra. This has nothing to do with GFX but is a CPU limitation. I'm basing this on experience with an i7-2600k @ 4.8 GHz and twin 560 Ti's in SLI @ 1020 MHz. Even on this, multi-player hiccups a bit unless ya drop settings a bit. See the same thing on another box with an OC'd 580. The twin 560's run about 40% faster than the 580 for less money.

BTW, if you plan on overclocking, the GFX I'd move up from the Twin Frozr's. While the Frozr has a better cooler than the reference design and even adds two phases to the stock VRM for a total of 6, if ya wanna hit the highest OC's, I'd recommend at least 7 phases. Gigabyte, Asus and Gainward offer 7 phase designs and MSI offers 8 and 10 phase designs i the Hawk and Lightning. EVGA OC designs (except for the "Classified") all have stock PCB's and measly 4 phase VRM's so I'd avoid those altogether.

With the extra phases in the VRM, the 560 can reach beastly OC's.

http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1201&page=17

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&N=-1&isNodeId=1&Description=900Mhz+560+Ti&x=0&y=0

With BF3, ya might even wanna consider the 2GB version.

Thanks JackNaylorPE
why is it better to run 7 phase opposed to 8 or 10? what does that mean? please explain, if you can easily

 

[WrekCreation]

If you don't have HT disabled give it a try, fixed my stuttering almost completely, and it takes less then a minute.

what do you mean HT disabled???

 

[catatafish]

Thanks man.
thats the answer i was hoping to get.
the setup i have now will be considered a pile of $#@* to the average gamer nowadays ... so i think this setup will make me pretty happy.

P.S is it quite tricky overclocking if youve never done it before? and with afterburner?

Thanks a lot man.

Here's the steps:

1) Download MSI Afterburner from their site.
2) Slide the bar to 900....play it for a few days. If its all good slide it to 925....repeat. After you slide it you save the profile to #2 (keep #1 for stock settings).
3) The end.

I think what Jack is saying is that the Hawk is a beast and you can overclock it more because its built better. Of course, you pay more for that . I've seen the MSI frozr II for as low as $185 on amazon with a rebate. I got my rebate in 4 weeks. If you can find a Hawk for another $15 or so, I'd definitely jump on that. Right now the frzr II is running right at $200 but check amazon and other sites daily....the prices are jumping all over the place right now.

 

[azeem40]

Thanks JackNaylorPE
why is it better to run 7 phase opposed to 8 or 10? what does that mean? please explain, if you can easily

VRM, or Voltage Regulator Mode, determines how many volts a card can take after OCing before needing to up the voltage.

"VRM is a buck converter that provides a microprocessor the appropriate supply voltage, converting +5 V or +12 V to a much lower voltage required by the CPU."

 

[lucuis]

what do you mean HT disabled???

I mean disable Intel's Hyperthreading in the BIOS. It's been known to cause stuttering in many games, including BF3. Not to mention it offers almost zero performance benefits in a gaming environment. By disabling it you eliminate that possible factor, plus it'll noticeably lower the temps of you processor

Thanks.. what is mlaa?? and fxaa? when you say a higher memory card do you just mean the vram should be say 2gb?

Sorry i meant to say msaa which is the 2x and 4x setting in game, FXaa is the one that shows low/med/high in game. And by memory i do mean more vram.

 

[WrekCreation]

thanks gise. is fxaa anti-alias or what ever its called again? (cant remember) what does msaa and fxaa stand for?

So if i could possibly get a thumbs up or a thumbs down without any references to other cards or even more vram.. just a yes it will suffice or no it wont suffice..... remember HIGH settings at 1920x1080 with constant fps. lets say i had msaa x4 and fxaa on high.

And thanks a lot gise you are a lot of help[

 

[lucuis]

fxaa and msaa are to different anti aliasing techs. fxaa is shader based and uses a lot less resources but tends to blur things a bit. msaa is more resource expensive but looks nicer overall, it still can't do some edges though, which is why a bit of fxaa in the mix helps. Alternatively you can enable transparency aa in the nvidia control panel.

As for the 560ti playing at 1080p with 4x msaa, i'd so no. I know you can with 2 but the fps will be more like 30ish in busy areas with just the one card. Even with more vram on the same card might not be enough. For one card you'd simply need a bit more horsepower, like a gtx570 or better. The 560 ti is close to doing it though, it'll depend more on your personal limits as far as fps and stuff.

 

[WrekCreation]

As a person that actually has a 560 ti you can indeed play BF3 on high with about 45+ just like you want. In fact you can run everything ultra, with no mlaa, high fxaa, and HBAO

With 2 560ti in SLI you can run all ultra, except high textures. Low fxaa, no HBAO or SSAO, BUT 4x mlaa.

For the best no stutter experience, make sure to have desktop composition disabled for when your playing, and run 8x Anisotropic filtering to lower the mem usage a tinch. Those 2 setups puts you roughly just under a gig of memory usage.

you confused me slightly coz you first say with a single card i can run high fxaa and then you say with it in SLI i must put it on low fxaa??? is it just because id have it on ultra im guessing..

also i would appreciate it if you could tell me the exact game settings you play on in BF3? i know it requires you to actually do something but it would help me. and you pc specs..
thanks man

 

[catatafish]

I'm running default High settings with 4x AA on my 560ti overclocked to 950 (925 works too) and my MSI Afterburner shows a very steady line at between 52-56 fps, in multiplayer, in the lockers in metro with everyone spamming nades and darts and my GPU temps are in the low 60s, CPU overclocked to 4.5, 1.3 vcore sitting at 55c. No fans to be heard. Max fan on my GPU was around 55 percent.

 

[lucuis]

With a single card i said high fxaa because you'd not be running any msaa, whereas with 2 cards in sli you can get away with 4x msaa but having high fxaa is too much, so i set it to low, which is enough to clean up the little bit of shader targeted aliasing.

My exact settings are as follows;
Screen Resolution 1920x1080 120hz
Vsync On (Adaptive Vsync set in the Nvidia Control Panel)
Field of view 90

Texture Quality - High
Shadow Quality - Ultra
Effects Quality - Ultra
Mesh Quality - Ultra
Terrain Quality - Ultra
Terrain Decoration - Ultra
Antialiasing Deferred - 4x
Antialiasing Post - Low
Motion Blur - Off
Anisotropic Filtering - 8x
Ambient Occlusion - Off

My current system is as follows;
i7 930 @ 4.011ghz Hyperthreading Disabled in the BIOS
18gb Mushkin Ram @ 1527mhz 9-9-9-24
2x MSI 560 ti HAWK edition gpus @ 950mhz core clock (Ran them at reference stock speeds of 820mhz until i got me new heatsinks the other day so even at reference stock speeds it'll run the settings mentioned.)

There's also another setup i used to use to great effect as well, i just find the settings i listed first to look better to me. You can try these out yourself to see which you like better, both setups will run about the same fps, it'll just be which one you like the looks of better. Both setups will run fine on either 1 or 2 cards.

**Alternative settings**
Screen Resolution 1920x1080 120hz
Vsync On (Adaptive Vsync set in the Nvidia Control Panel)
Field of view 90

Texture Quality - Ultra
Shadow Quality - Ultra
Effects Quality - Ultra
Mesh Quality - Ultra
Terrain Quality - Ultra
Terrain Decoration - Ultra
Antialiasing Deferred - Off
Antialiasing Post - High
Motion Blur - Off
Anisotropic Filtering - 8x
Ambient Occlusion - HBAO

 

[WrekCreation]

thanks so much you. one more thing... what do you gise think of bf3? and are there any other games similar (meaning First person shooter) that have really good graphics on a bf3 level.. not meaning looking like bf3 just meaning the realism of everything? coz i dont know of any.. and dont even even think about saying MW3... (im not saying i dont like MW3, it just simply doesnt compare to BF3.)

 

[catatafish]

I dumped WoW and SWTOR once I got BF3. Graphics wise its one of the few games that was developed for PC, so you aren't looking at crappy graphics that were ported over from an xbox or whatever.

Until the dart became OP, I really enjoyed the game. Now the chat box is 100% QQQQQQQQ over who darted someone. Turn off chat and you will have a blast. Metro for leveling a weapon, any other map for some nice graphics, strategy, and variety.

 

[WrekCreation]

I dumped WoW and SWTOR once I got BF3. Graphics wise its one of the few games that was developed for PC, so you aren't looking at crappy graphics that were ported over from an xbox or whatever.

Until the dart became OP, I really enjoyed the game. Now the chat box is 100% QQQQQQQQ over who darted someone. Turn off chat and you will have a blast. Metro for leveling a weapon, any other map for some nice graphics, strategy, and variety.

what do you mean when you say "Until the dart became OP" ??? sorry still a lot to learn

 

[catatafish]

It's some ammo that blows out pellets like a shotgun shell. But instead of each pellet having reduced damage, each pellet instead acts like a full blown assault weapon round. So in tight quarters, with certain conditions in your weapon set up, you just point it anywhere near someone's chest and they get one shot. OP=overpowered.

Metro is a tight quarters grenade fest in the french subway system. So the dart users pop around lockers and corners and one shot you. And whoever is the recipient of said OP Dart, starts to cry and whine. Yesterday I was actually on a server where anyone that got "darted" would initiate a vote kick and it was a freakin vote kicking fest....complete ridiculosity.

But I digress. I've never had so much fun with a game than BF3, other than maybe WoW when Burning Crusade launched and I raided Kara. Many of the BF3 people playing make fun of COD/MW...I don't know why, I've never played it but it sounds like it's too much running and gunning and grenading, whereas BF3 requires a bit more strategy maybe?