Looking at single-GPU performance we find the GeForce GTX 580 and Radeon HD 6970 to match exactly for performance. There doesn't seem to be any perceptible differences between the two video cards in terms of performance. We also experienced no stuttering, and completely smooth gameplay on both AMD and NVIDIA video cards. Keep in mind, the Radeon HD 6970 is still much less expensive than GeForce GTX 580, so you get the same performance as GTX 580 for a much lower price in BF3.

For our multiplayer testing we used an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 graphics card with NVIDIA ForceWare 285.62 WHQL driver. We found our highest playable settings to be 1920x1200 with Antialiasing Post on "High." Antialiasing Deferred "Off," 16X AF, and all other in-game graphics options set to "Ultra." We did turn off Motion Blur because it was conflicting with our ability to spot enemies using our peripherals; we will look more into the motion blur performance impact in our following article. Our test system consists of an Intel Core i7 920 at 3.6GHz on an MSI Eclipse X58 motherboard.

With these settings our framerates were fairly stable around 60 average FPS. The framerates varied from 57 FPS to 63 FPS. There were a few instances where frame rates would drop significantly but this usually only happened near fires. Framerates in vehicles were normally 10-15 average FPS higher than on foot. Even on the extra large maps with 64 players and 20 players shooting at each other in a small area with lots of explosions and crumbling surroundings the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 provided very playable framerates at 1920x1200. This seemed to be the sweet spot for competitive framerates as well an immersive experience.

So far we can say that Battlefield 3 is living up to the hype in terms of graphics and GPU power needed to provide a good gameplay experience. We think BF3 certainly sets a new benchmark in terms of visual quality in gaming; some of the scenes are just breathtaking and take gaming graphics to the next level. Surprisingly, it isn't as demanding as we might have thought in single player, as a Radeon HD 6970 and GTX 580 are able to play the game with the highest in-game settings in single player. However, we have not played every level and map yet, so we may yet see some more demanding scenarios as we continue to play the game. Multiplayer demands higher framerates, and thus will need even more powerful video cards to keep framerate up along with image quality.