- Joined
- Apr 5, 2006
- Location
- Fontana CA, United states, UCR
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
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
