NVIDIA Releases Battlefield 3 Graphics Guide

It’s all too rare when a game comes along for the PC that almost demands an upgrade, but Battlefield 3 is one such example. Let’s face it – Crysis in its own right was a game that demanded a super-fast PC, but the hype level leading up to its launch doesn’t hold a candle to Battlefield 3. In reading comment threads across the Web, you’d almost believe half of the world’s PC gamers are planning to upgrade their rigs this month.

With the game’s release date looming, NVIDIA has taken the time to produce a rather thorough guide detailing what each of the special graphics settings do, and also giving us an idea of what to expect in terms of performance across a wide-range of recent NVIDIA graphics cards. Though this is obviously NVIDIA-biased, AMD users can benefit from most of the information here as well.

Each of the “Preset” graphics modes are detailed here, with High looking to be the bare minimum for those who value visual fidelity. Ultra is of course preferred if your hardware can support it, but the differences of moving from Medium to High will be much greater than moving from High to Ultra. Interestingly, Ultra uses a combination of regular anti-aliasing and post-processing anti-aliasing. That seems a bit nonsensical, so a lot of tweaking might need to be done to see if you can actually tell the difference between one or the other, or both combined.

Some of the graphics settings that really reap rewards at higher detail levels include shadows, ambient occlusion, textures, and of course, anti-aliasing. In one example, the addition of AA vastly improves the detail on a fence – as expected.

From NVIDIA’s testing, the bare minimum GPU for running the game using the High preset at 1920×1080 is the GeForce GTX 560. At that point, you can expect an average FPS of 40, while the much more expensive GTX 580 bumps that to about 65. The Ultra detail level at 1920×1080 will require a GTX 580 at minimum, while 2560×1600 (and likewise multi-monitor setups) will require SLI, or a single GTX 590. To experience the game in its full glory… you better have one heck of a graphics setup.