BF3 Performance on SLI or Single Card Setups

Hi OCF,

I was hoping to start a conversation regarding my and your SLI setups (or Setups in general) for running BF3. The game has a couple of neat console commands that allows us to check how well our computers are running the game, but I will get to that later.

First of, it is no surprise to anyone that BF3 is so intensive on the Video Card department. Prior to the release of the game, there was a lot of speculation as to how much power was going to be needed to run the game at high settings, not to mention "Ultra". I also think it is safe to say that no one could predict how much of a Vram hog BF3 turned out to be. All that aside, many users opted to upgrade their rigs to weather the demands of BF3. I opted for going SLI hoping to get the best results possible with the lowest amount of money spent.

Here is my current setup
i5-650 @ 4.3GHz
4GB Ram @ 720MHz
SLI GTX 460 768Mb OC @ 840/1720 @1.025V
1920x1080 @ 120Hz

I think I have a pretty decent setup, and while I was expecting to experience some of the micro-stuttering associated with SLI. I didn't expect my fps to jump around as much as they actually did.

Now, thanks to a couple of neat commands, I was able to check my fps in game using "Render.DrawFPS 1" and the overall performance of both CPU and GPU using "Render.PerfOverlayVisible 1"



The bottom left chart is the by far the most useful tool. It lets us know how long (in milliseconds) is each component rendering a frame. So the lower your numbers, the better your computer is handling BF3. Similarly, the chart is inverted, meaning that the lower a graph is located on the Y-axis, the better that component is performing, which can immediately highlight a CPU or GPU bottleneck. Ideally, both CPU and GPU charts should be on the same Y-axis with minimal oscillation, indicative of a very stable BF3 Performance. Jumps are indicative of FPS drops, and oscillations are indicative of FPS moving around. Those Jumps will occur when for example, an airplane just crashed in your face, but ideally nothing extreme that will cause your FPS to drop to bellow 30. On the other hand, should you components not be in the same range of rendering, then it becomes clear which component is holding your system back. In my image, I have a clear CPU bottleneck, and FPS drops that put me in the teens.

I was quite surprised to see how much my CPU struggled in Multi Player. Single Player is better off, but I didn't realize that my biggest culprit in FPS drops was going to be my trusty Dual Core. I read to find more information on the matter and it became clear that Multi Player benefits greatly from a high number of "Physical Cores" to handle all the craziness going on in a map. I say Physical Cores since Hyper Threading did not help the game; in fact many user turned it off since it caused more jagged gameplay.

Which brings me to the essence of this conversation. How are your performance charts? What setups do you have? What causes you to get FPS drops, if any?

I am currently planning on buying a Quad Core chip, but I was wondering if any of you have similar stories

No performance comments guys?

Personally I have been having a lot of problems with the game from the very beginning. Very choppy game play, poor graphics and lockups that cause me to manually power off my computer. I've tried a bunch of different drivers and settings to no avail. I've tried disabling SLI and HT and that doesn't seem to help much either. My kids have a much better time playing and they are running a single GTX 260 and a Q6600. I'm saving a reformat and reinstall as a last resort and I think I'm close now, not sure what else to try at this point.

I haven't tried Render.PerfOverlayVisible 1 but I know in FRAPS I get about 60-80FPS at 1080p ULTRA. I didn't bother buying a 2600k, 2500k is perfectly fine especially at 5.1Ghz! I also snagged a really kick *** GTX580 at Microcenter for $399. It has the huge 3-fan arctic cooler pro on it:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814187127

Also, even though the game itself does not use 4GB of RAM, it seems to prefer 8GB+

I am running gtx 460 Sli (1 gb versions), 2600k @ 4.7, 8 gb ddr3, 1920x1080. The thing I hate the most is when I alt tab out and come back in there is extreme flickering. Sometimes I can alt tab a few more times to make it go away but mostly have to exit game. This does not happen while using a single gpu.

The second thing I notice only using Sli is that fps will sometimes drop to 12 fps. That is ridiculous. Single card does not do this, ever.

I run with vsync enabled being I have a 60hz monitor. I have tested this with vsync off as well. Sake results except with extreme tearing and many more fps, up to 90 something sometimes.

My overall opinion is that it is more of an enjoyable experience with single card graphics settings mostly on high with a couple on ultra than with Sli all on highest settings. I have died too many times because my fps temporarily dropped to 12. I gave my newest 460 to my son to replace his old 8800 for the time being. Now we both have fun playing bf3. My average fps with one card mostly high settings and some ultra is mid 40's - 60.

That is interesting. All of you guys have QuadCore CPUs but are experiencing some lag spikes. Try the commands to see how your green graph performs. (The video card). I had some improvement when switching to the 285.79 Beta drivers. Give those try.

I feel that doing a clean installation might improve load times dylskee but man I'm sorry to hear that the game has been a headache since day one.

BF3 did undergo a major update recently, (Last night as of this post). They've added the 3D support and fixed glitches and it seems that they have tried to so some other performance tweaks

I think part of the problem may be the 1GB of ram on the cards and the res/settings. I know when I play I am using 1.2GB... I dont have SLI so I cant really participate in that discussion.

EarthDog said:

I think part of the problem may be the 1GB of ram on the cards and the res/settings. I know when I play I am using 1.2GB... I dont have SLI so I cant really participate in that discussion.

Click to expand...

This. That is the main issue most people are having. Particularly with the significant micro-stuttering. Lets hope some patches address some possible memory leaks.

Btw this has nothing to do with system ram as many people like to believe.

Hi guys, I'm having identical issues with my 2500k/460 SLI set up.

Game was fine first month upon release (outside of usual crashes). But once I got in the game it was smooth on Ultra (no MSAA) but everything maxed out.

I reinstalled Windows last week and I also belive the patch came out. Every since after about 2-5 min of play FPS drops to Teens/0s every so often (even in the menu/options). NOTE: I average good 50-60+ on ultra.

It has made the game completely unplayable for me.

I tried lowering to High and averaged good 70-100+ and Medium as well. It drops the FPS/Freezes the same way.

SO frustrating but I would love to know the fix.

PS. For whatever it's worth I have a 2nd rig with E8400/4870 and it runs just fine (no FPS drops etc)

Sounding like driver issues? Because when i was 2 wat SLI BF3 ran on ultra, SOme lag here and there(very very little) But now i got 3-way SLI and its seems to be worse.. Ive 648 cuda cores.. over 2500+ mbs or ram on my vid cards and its some bull crab!! batman arkham city.. i got between 68-88FPS with no problems. Hell even MW3 i can run ultra no problems! But BF3......

Evil the Vram does not add up in SLI, you only have the effective Vram of one card. This is likely your problem - BF3 needs over 1GB for ultra settings. Scaling from 2 way to 3 way sli on the GTX260 isn't ideal, some games have negative scaling. If anything I would sell that setup and get a single current high end card.

Cores 648 (216 / GPU)Clock 665MHzMemory 2688MB (896MB / GPU)
^^^^^what shows when i run the auto gpu detect om geforce website

Doesnt matter what it shows. Their memory holds the exact same thing on each card so it does not add up

896MB is not nearly enough to run BF3. It chokes on 1GB. That is your problem (along with poor scaling with more than 2 cards). Time to sell those and get something a lot better in single card form.

But i played in high on just 2 of theses cards in SLI with a weaker CPU.. and now that i got stronger (3 way sli) and CPU.. it runs worse?

PS: i cant afford a new card,, i bought theses cards used, one by one,over a 1 year period

EarthDog said:

Doesnt matter what it shows. Their memory holds the exact same thing on each card so it does not add up

896MB is not nearly enough to run BF3. It chokes on 1GB. That is your problem (along with poor scaling with more than 2 cards). Time to sell those and get something a lot better in single card form.

Click to expand...

I'd like to say EarthDog is wrong because I see him in my threats list for folding.....but he's right.

Could be the 3 way SLI that is doing it. Scrap the 3 cards and get a better single card. No reason for that hassle IMO.

Did you try to turn up the settings to ultra since you upgraded? Turning it up uses more resources (which you dont have).

i could run it on ultra before i added the 3rd card,, ANd it would just lag alittle at the beginging of the game. then, good for the rest.

EvilJoker said:

i could run it on ultra before i added the 3rd card,, ANd it would just lag alittle at the beginging of the game. then, good for the rest.

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Really? That'd be quite impressive and I'd like to know how you accomplished this. What resolution do you run BF3 at? When you say ultra, do you mean the ultra preset which uses 4xAA or do you mean ultra without AA.

I'm playin right now. The preset ultra, 45-55 fps constant 1600x900 res 60hz


:GRANTED that my PC sounds like its going to take off 9x120mm and 1 200mm fans.. And 1 80mm High speed on the NB.. Gets loud I dont care how loud it gets tho. I know its working then

You still didnt answer his question.. How much AA do you have set?

1600x900 is a low res so I would imagine 1GB would be sufficient.