Rant

[jimykx]

Ok, so this is my rant on the graphics of bf3. They suck! even call of duty with the engine from 1996 does better! Right, now off with the trolling. BF3's graphics are fantastic, but my issue is that i can't see a very big change from the High settings to the Low settings, playing on low seems almost like playing on high. In my opinion they are just not lowering enough. It's like all the bloom, reflections, lights and dynamic stuff stays on to drop my performance. I thought it was me and my low fps that didn't allow me to see it but after watching this video i just got mad:

Come on!? is it just me that does not see much of a difference there? Besides the obvious vegetation 2d model popping, there is not much difference. I know that some graphic tweaks like totally disabling shadows and others would unbalance the game, but I'm sure that there's something there that can be disabled for more performance. What's your opinion?


Edit: I found a blog with a guy saying that he managed to get more fps by tweaking some hidden game files with an hex editor but he does not say how he did it, i'm still waiting to see if this is true, and if it is, if this method of tweaking will still be possible in the full game

[Anarchy1]

Re: Rant

I agree with you there. When I saw the minimum specs, I was thinking that it was terrible to have to run it on medium settings. But damn, they look good. I have tried raising some settings up to high and it looks basically the same.

The only settings that have a noticeable difference are HBAO (more shadows) and AA in my opinion.

There is definitely a difference between low and high, and presumably, low and ultra, but alot of that I consider to be excessive eye-candy anyway and would turn it off. DICE say you need two GTX 580s to max the game, but when you think about it, that is really just increasing the settings from high to ultra, turning up AA to 32x or whatever, and so on. All of that stuff, in my opinion, adds almost unnoticeable changes but hurts performance. Can people really tell 32x AA from 4x, because I sure as hell can't. And a lot of the settings in the graphics are just eye candy stuff anyway. "Terrain meshing"? The terrain looks the same when that is on low as to when it is on ultra (high) to me.

So basically, I think DICE has "raised" the lower graphics, when in most games without all the eye-candy settings, these lower graphics could be considered medium-high. The low settings should be much lower in my opinion, and that can be done (look at BC2). But I think they are trying to raise the minimum graphics up. Let's put on our tin-foil hats for a moment and realize that this game has been touted as a game that you would need to upgrade your PC for to get ultra (many people who get ultra in other games will be playing on medium settings and so may be influenced to upgrade when in fact they are fine, but people who play on low in other games may be unable to play and will so need to upgrade) and it is heavily sponsored by Nvidia, who is also trying to pressure upgrades to their newer hardware (go on that GPU site, if you don't have a 560, 570, or 580, they tell you to upgrade). DICE has come out blatantly saying multiple times that the game runs best on two 580 GTXs.

Didn't this happen with Crysis 2 in effect? There is little difference between Low and Ultra, and that game (also an EA game) was also sponsored heavily Nvidia as well so that they could show off some new technology and try to influence new hardware sales.

[Lordsethonan]

Re: Rant

No, it's to prevent people from doing the BF2 stupid BS of turning everythign on low (specially shadows) and getting a getto wall hack of sorts. In BF2 low vegetation meant that, and you got robbed of all cover, playing on max settings was actualy counter productive.