Battlefield 3 announced

[tabs]

All maps have all modes for sure, that's from DICE themselves, but I'd assumed that conquest would contain the whole map, with the other modes just sub-sections... I could be wrong though.

While we're on the subject of maps, here's a peek at a couple of new ones:

Operation Firestorm

Grand Bazaar

It's PS3 footage, but still looks really good IMO.

 

[NRP]

How does one enable the FPS display? It's been so long since I've played BF2 I forgot how to do it.

Also, how do you change graphical settings? The UI is totally foreign to me.

 

[RobertR1]

How does one enable the FPS display? It's been so long since I've played BF2 I forgot how to do it.

Also, how do you change graphical settings? The UI is totally foreign to me.

Download Fraps. You can use it to show fps and even do benchmarks like the ones I posted. http://www.fraps.com/download.php

To change settings, you have to be alive, then hit ESC. goto options and video.

Make your changes and then EXIT the game. You have to close and re open the game for changes to take effect.

 

[neliz]

All maps have all modes for sure, that's from DICE themselves, but I'd assumed that conquest would contain the whole map, with the other modes just sub-sections... I could be wrong though.

While we're on the subject of maps, here's a peek at a couple of new ones:

Operation Firestorm

there are some UI differences in that build it seems. the colors are more vibrant (like the beta is in colorblind mode) and the deployment screen looks a bit tweaked (Animations).

reS3 footage, sometimes I feel like watching a PSX game in that video.

 

[Richard]

I'm really surprised so many of you guys prefer metro. I may of just overdone it, but every new round of metro was starting to feel like a do-over; like I had fallen off the screen in mario bros. and I had to start over for the umpteenth time.

That's normal. Happened to me in the ETQW betas which had only 1 map each. Objective driven maps can feel repetitive if you play them again and again but BF3 should come with plenty and the next time Metro comes on rotation it will feel fresh again.

Unlike Wolf:ET/ETQW which used a fixed timer, BF3 uses tickets and that does loosen some of the tension. OTOH, knowing your tickets reset after each map stage is an extra incentive to give it all to attack/defend an objective.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

I'm liking caspian more so far. Even with some flaws vehicles just make it a whole lot more interesting. The big flaw of modern infantry combat games is that all the weapons feel pretty similar, making it a fairly stagnant experience. Suppression, grenades, flashlights, etc. all help somewhat, but vehicles add *real* variety. Vehicles are IMHO what makes battlefield great after all.

Those caspian fences really need AA though . I'll have to revisit the option in the final game. Be nice to have real OIT in the future (see adaptive transparency paper for instance)... would clean up maps like this so much. Maybe next generation I hope

 

[NRP]

Download Fraps. You can use it to show fps and even do benchmarks like the ones I posted. http://www.fraps.com/download.php

To change settings, you have to be alive, then hit ESC. goto options and video.

Make your changes and then EXIT the game. You have to close and re open the game for changes to take effect.

Yeah, I finally figured it out. Now I need to figure out which settings to tweak. The default "Auto" sets everything to "High" with HBAO, which I think is a bit too much for the 5770. Hard for me to tell which is lag and which is low FPS though.

And yeah, Caspian is much better imo. Finally a true "Battlefield" experience.

 

[neliz]

Hard for me to tell which is lag and which is low FPS though.

lag -> rubberbanding
low fps -> low fps

fraps /afterburner will show your fps, on a laggy server, people will complain!

 

[RobertR1]

Yeah, I finally figured it out. Now I need to figure out which settings to tweak. The default "Auto" sets everything to "High" with HBAO, which I think is a bit too much for the 5770. Hard for me to tell which is lag and which is low FPS though.

And yeah, Caspian is much better imo. Finally a true "Battlefield" experience.

keep everything at high except
Set shadows to medium.
hbao to off
turn off all AA
motion blur to 0

that should get you a very good framerate.

 

[NRP]

Wierd things are happening like tanks doing wheelies and helicopters flying upside down, so I'm not sure if what I'm feeling is lag or low FPS (or both).

 

[neliz]

Wierd things are happening like tanks doing wheelies and helicopters flying upside down, so I'm not sure if what I'm feeling is lag or low FPS (or both).

There are plenty of videos of that already, also here in the thread.
low fps you can measure yourself.
lag, trust me, when you're hit by lag on Caspian, you know.

 

[Otto Dafe]

All maps have all modes for sure, that's from DICE themselves, but I'd assumed that conquest would contain the whole map, with the other modes just sub-sections... I could be wrong though.

While we're on the subject of maps, here's a peek at a couple of new ones:

Operation Firestorm

...

Anyone else notice he got 250 pts. for capturing that flag?

 

[NRP]

I gotta program my mouse buttons because using the kb for anything except movement just sucks too much ass. Fortunately, I've still got my trusty Logitech MX Laser mouse from the BF2 days, which has tons of programmable buttons. I love that mouse!

Any recommendations for headphones/mic? Do 5.1 headphones work well?

 

[tabs]

I'm using a pair of Zalman 5.1 headphones, which as one of the first that came out are not that great relatively speaking, but DICE have outdone themselves with the audio and it sounds superb through them. I think you'll find more recent products even better.

My dad has a pair of Creative X-FI USB headphones, which are only 2 speakers but selecting CMSS (fake 5.1) sounded fantastic when I tried them with Crysis. They act as their own soundcard too, so no need for any additional cards in your PC.

My onboard sounds supports DTS surround sensation (another fake 5.1) but it sucks, just making everything echoey with no positional audio benefit I could tell... so don't rely on that if you want to go that route.

The BF3 settings I use are Home Cinema, stereo off.

 

[Buran]

I want to ask about a solution due a problem I have with the beta. Basically: any time I run the game and press Alt + Enter to get access to full mode the borders of the visible display are cutted, so I loss about the las 2 cm around the image displayed. This means that I loss half of the minimap, ammunition and other HUD info.


I play this game in a Dell U2711 at 2560 x 1440 native resolution, the CPU is a i920 at standar 2,6 Ghz, 6 GB of DDR 1600 Mhz and a HD 5870 over Windows 7 Ultimate 64. The game runs fine (around 35-45 fps in Caspian Border) but the image is cutted as if a sligth zoom were active. I'm using Chrome as main browser but using Opera in the Alpha provided me the same problem (currently I'm not able to start the game using Opera as default browser).I'm pretty sure that is some kind of problem with the software due besides this the game runs well, but I can't figure what's the problem. Every other game (including browser games as League Of Legends) works well. Thanx in advance,

 

[Bludd]

Anyone else notice he got 250 pts. for capturing that flag?

That was obviously footage from an updated build. They are tweaking the ranking system and the awards.

 

[Svensk Viking]

btw any info whether radeon HD 4xxx series will get performance boost?

seems AMD/ATI already forgotten 4xxx family and the performance is horrible.... (the BF3 special driver also only for 5xxx and 6xxx)

or the DX 10.1 rendering in Frostbite2 is just not optimal enough?

I've seen on other forums as well now that people get terrible performance with this series, but equivalent Nvidia DX10 cards get higher performance(at least I don't see them complaining)...Would benefit both Dice and the users if this simply could be fixed with the drivers


Pretty sad that the Beta is nearing its end now...One problem that became apparent to me when playing Caspian though, is that the minimap simply is too small

 

[Richard]

Mini-map too small: do you mean the HUD map or the one expanded one you bring up with M?

 

[Svensk Viking]

The expanded one, on such a big map I really want to see more

The smaller one could display a bigger area as well though

 

[Buran]

Mini-map too small: do you mean the HUD map or the one expanded one you bring up with M?

The regular one. When I go to fullscreen the game futs off the display part of the minimap at the left and the ammunition/weapon stats at the right.