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Battlefield 4 PC Update Includes Mantle, Balancing, Performance Gains, and Undocumented Improvements - January 30, 2014

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  • Battlefield 4 PC Update Includes Mantle, Balancing, Performance Gains, and Undocumented Improvements - January 30, 2014

    An update was released earlier today for the PC version of Battlefield 4. Most notable in this update, at least for ATI users, is the addition of Mantle support to the game. Also included are various performance gains for all hardware types, weapon balancing, vehicle balancing, and more.

    Changelog for Battlefield 4 (PC) for January 30, 2014
    Mantle Support
    The new Mantle renderer has been added in Battlefield 4. Most players can expect a performance increase by using this new low-level graphics API.

    CPU/GPU performance and monitoring
    -Tweaked and improved CPU multi-core utilization to try and avoid stuttering and low framerate due to stalls that happened on some CPU and OS configurations.
    -Users can now configure and control themselves how many CPU cores should be used in the game with the new “Thread.MaxProcessorCount” settings in User.cfg.
    -“Render.DrawScreenInfo 1” now also shows information about which CPU and GPU is in the system, how many GPUs & CPU cores are used and which renderer (DirectX 11 or Mantle) is active
    -Added new “PerfOverlay.FrameFileLogEnable” command that records frame times on CPU & GPU and logs out to a .csv file
    -AMD Catalyst driver 13.12 (or later) is now recommended instead of 13.9
    -Enabled tile-based compute shader lighting optimization on Nvidia for improved GPU performance (already active on AMD GPUs)
    -Improved performance with rendering and spotlights for all GPUs, primarily in in-door environments

    DMR Balance Tweaks
    -Increased the damage of all DMRs across all ranges. Specifically, damage has been increased at long ranges to allow three-hit kills against unarmored opponents. Additionally, reduced the penalty to accuracy for sustained DMR fire, allowing more rapid follow up shots in combat. The amount of the damage increase varies from weapon to weapon, according to its intended range, rate of fire, and damage. We will continue to monitor the effectiveness of DMRs in combat, and determine if additional action is needed to make DMRs a viable mid to long range weapon.

    Other Items
    -Significantly reduced the duration of the black screen when spawning in, and fixed the issue with players getting killed before being in-game
    -Greatly reduced the risk of crosshairs disappearing, which would also result in hit markers disappearing
    -Added a headshot icon on the killcard. This should help identify instances where players are correctly killed by one shot
    -Fixed an issue in Squad Deathmatch where the “Win/Lose” text was overlapping
    -Fixed an issue with players using an exploit for the SOFLAM
    -Fixed an issue with players using an exploit for the MAV
    -Fixed the gameplay code to properly track the FOV (Field of View) changes in the options menu
    -Fixed an issue where chat would break when entering "false" or "true" in the chat window
    -Fixed an out-of-helicopter glitch in Air Superiority where players could spawn on the ground and play as infantry
    -Fixed the misaligned crosshairs on the T90 MBT
    -Added setting to tweak joystick dead zone
    -Various minor crash fixes

    There were also apparently a number of undocumented changes made in today's patch as well. Some users at Reddit are compiling a list of the items included in the "ninja update" that weren't mentioned in the main changelog from DICE.

    Of course, there are some issues with this patch. Many users are reporting that they no longer have any sounds once in a multiplayer map. Players are reporting that while they have sounds for the HUD and background music, all other sounds (gunshots, explosions, footsteps, weapon change sounds, etc.) are simply gone.

    Commanders are also reporting now that players with a "killstreak of 1" can be marked as an HVT while in Commander Mode.

    Well, at least this time it's two steps forward, one step back.
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