Battlefield 4 Beta Discussion

I've been enjoying the beta for the most part but one thing stood out last night.

This map is overrun with snipers on rooftops that are near impossible to hit from the ground, especially if you're looking into the sun in some cases. I had a transport chopper pilot that was fed up with the snipers and wanted to just circle rooftops and take them all out. I was the gunner and excited for the massacre about to unfold...except it didn't. That mounted chopper gun seemed to be shooting airsoft pellets. In the 5 minutes we were air born, I think I killed one sniper. I had the crosshairs trained on them and getting hit markers by the dozens, but no one was dying.

I know there's a fine line between under and overpowered in a game like this, but I don't think they're even close with those transport choppers yet.
 
i agree the mini gun on the transport choppers and also the attack boats are ridiculous. it takes less time to kill someone with a PDW at the same range.
 
I agree with the mini-gun on the transport chopper. I haven't tried it on the boat, but I imagine it's the same. It's a little underpowered against infantry it seems. I'm sure they will tweak it.
 
Do people even do any type of research on open BETAs? The build we are playing on is old.

Maybe you should do some research, because the build was cooked the week before release.

siyVsW8.jpg


And most dev's don't conduct beta's 3 to 4 weeks before retail release....they normally call them demos. But I guess its a good way to fool people into thinking that all the problems complained of will be fixed by the time its retail :rolleyes:
 
Everything seems to be improved but the game feels weird.. Very cartoonish and CODish, I didn't really enjoy it. When I jumped back to BF3 right after it felt so much better, the aiming, mechanics of the game, BF3 just feels more natural.. Maybe I'm used to it more but there's definitely something off about BF4.

I'll give it a try few more times but so far I don't regret not preordering it.

I had the same feeling when I first played, couldn't quite put my finger on it. It was definitely something with the weapons, like they reduced the bullet drop just enough to make it noticable IMO. I think it's still a far cry from Call of Duty, but my first impression was that DICE eased up on the learning curve. Tanks seem much more maneuverable and RPG's seem to fly straighter among other things. I'm sure I'll get used to it, because it IS a fun game and they've really improved some aspects of it. Right now though, I prefer "the way it was."
 
Maybe you should do some research, because the build was cooked the week before release.

What matters is how out of date the code on that beta branch is, not when it was built. Doesn't matter if it was built today if there hasn't been a merge from the main branch for six months.

The highlighted section seems to indicate that the only difference between the console and PC versions of the beta code is that the PC version contains slightly more backported fixes.

EDIT: re feature completeness "The #BF4 PC beta is a beta, not all graphics options are hooked up or tweaked yet and performance is not final. But please do test the game" -- repi

Sort of ambigious, guess it probably means not all options for tweaking is in yet, but all rendering passes are in.
 
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The game runs so much better on Win 8 unfortunately, I went through the stuttering laggy BS...I've tried everything for the last two days.

Now it runs just like BF3..smooth, @Ultra 2xMSAA, 4xMSAA, 2560x1440, I can run both MSAA's but I leave it off for the better fps.

Win 7
FUg6hXS.png


Win 8.1
5U6Sq8F.png


The spike in the GPU usage is where I alt tabbed out for a sec, otherwise smooth with no spikes.
 
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Do people even do any type of research on open BETAs? The build we are playing on is old. I believe it is one step out of Alpha. There are no high res textures put into the open BETA.

In Battlefield Open BETAs is not for you to 'try' out the game like many other open BETAs but for DICE/EA to test networking functions and stabilize them.

So pleeeeeassseee do not complain about the graphics - do you research on their BETAs before you complain :/

This
 
Do people even do any type of research on open BETAs? The build we are playing on is old. I believe it is one step out of Alpha. There are no high res textures put into the open BETA.

In Battlefield Open BETAs is not for you to 'try' out the game like many other open BETAs but for DICE/EA to test networking functions and stabilize them.

So pleeeeeassseee do not complain about the graphics - do you research on their BETAs before you complain :/

This is all true, but in a way, I don't blame those who are complaining. Marketing departments have abused the term beta and used them as substitute demos. Younger players now think beta means "representative test of final product" and not "in development software that is feature complete but still going through QA."

Maybe you should do some research, because the build was cooked the week before release.

One would expect them to compile as late as possible. That doesn't mean the code base is the same as the final product. The beta is further behind than the current code status at DICE. But core gameplay aspects like weapon stats, movement speeds, vehicle properties, etc are the same as what is currently planned to go into the final product, assuming they prove to be balanced. Weapon balance and bug finding are the two big reasons for a beta.

And most dev's don't conduct beta's 3 to 4 weeks before retail release....they normally call them demos. But I guess its a good way to fool people into thinking that all the problems complained of will be fixed by the time its retail :rolleyes:

No one is under the impression that a public beta will result in all of the problems being resolved before release or by a day one patch. If you're getting to the point that you have to invent strawmen to complain, perhaps you should no longer be involved in BF4 threads?
 
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Well I hope you guys are enjoying the beta. After an issue yesterday where I would load into a game and not be able to get out of the deployment screen even after spawning, now I can't load into a game at all. It just sits on the loading screen indefinitely. Boooo!
 
EDIT: re feature completeness "The #BF4 PC beta is a beta, not all graphics options are hooked up or tweaked yet and performance is not final. But please do test the game" -- repi

Sort of ambigious, guess it probably means not all options for tweaking is in yet, but all rendering passes are in.

Seems like this negates a lot of the conversation we've had here...
 
·PitBuLL·;1040247007 said:
Well I hope you guys are enjoying the beta. After an issue yesterday where I would load into a game and not be able to get out of the deployment screen even after spawning, now I can't load into a game at all. It just sits on the loading screen indefinitely. Boooo!

Reinstall punkbuster. That resolved the issue for me yesterday
 
Reinstall punkbuster. That resolved the issue for me yesterday

I might try that as well. I've been having the same issue. Though it's been intermittent for me. Some times i'll load it and deploy the entire round, then the next time i join it crashes over and over.
 
The spike in the GPU usage is where I alt tabbed out for a sec, otherwise smooth with no spikes.

How'd you record that? Or did you print screen? I was trying to log it, but it wasn't saving. I was obviously logging it incorrectly. I would check log, then uncheck. I went to the file, but it wasn't opening.

Has anyone had pc crash from using vent? Friends comp keeps rebooting during game only if he is using ventrilo.
 
How'd you record that? Or did you print screen? I was trying to log it, but it wasn't saving. I was obviously logging it incorrectly. I would check log, then uncheck. I went to the file, but it wasn't opening.
I just used snipping tool, I couldn't log it either.
 
Very cartoonish and CODish, I didn't really enjoy it.

I thought this exact same thing while playing. Very cartoony.

NINJA EDIT: this is pretty comparable to Metro, hopefully they release a Caspian-ish map like they did in BF3 beta.
 
I've been enjoying the beta for the most part but one thing stood out last night.

This map is overrun with snipers on rooftops that are near impossible to hit from the ground, especially if you're looking into the sun in some cases. I had a transport chopper pilot that was fed up with the snipers and wanted to just circle rooftops and take them all out. I was the gunner and excited for the massacre about to unfold...except it didn't. That mounted chopper gun seemed to be shooting airsoft pellets. In the 5 minutes we were air born, I think I killed one sniper. I had the crosshairs trained on them and getting hit markers by the dozens, but no one was dying.

I know there's a fine line between under and overpowered in a game like this, but I don't think they're even close with those transport choppers yet.

Transport choppers' miniguns are balanced by the fact that you can have two engineers on board repairing damage constantly.
 
I am tapping out at mid 30's for max fps with heavy dips. My CPU utilization is in the 90%-100% range for all 6 cores. I tried increasing all the quality settings to high to see if I could off load from the cpu, but no luck. Messed around with priorities and nothing...arrrggghhhh!!! Not sure what else to do. Maybe I should try ultra? The game is very laggy for me.

Any other suggestions?
 
·PitBuLL·;1040247007 said:
Well I hope you guys are enjoying the beta. After an issue yesterday where I would load into a game and not be able to get out of the deployment screen even after spawning, now I can't load into a game at all. It just sits on the loading screen indefinitely. Boooo!

Had the same issue. You need to manually update Punkbuster.
 
I am tapping out at mid 30's for max fps with heavy dips. My CPU utilization is in the 90%-100% range for all 6 cores. I tried increasing all the quality settings to high to see if I could off load from the cpu, but no luck. Messed around with priorities and nothing...arrrggghhhh!!! Not sure what else to do. Maybe I should try ultra? The game is very laggy for me.

Any other suggestions?

the 13.10 Beta2 drivers helped smooth things out significantly for me. don't know if they'll have the same effect on your 6870's but it's worth a try if you haven't already.
 
the 13.10 Beta2 drivers helped smooth things out significantly for me. don't know if they'll have the same effect on your 6870's but it's worth a try if you haven't already.

I have a 6870 and played the beta a little bit last night and it was a bit choppy on the 13.9 drivers. I installed the 13.10 beta2 drivers and it seems a little smoother. On both drivers, my rig would crash whenever something exploding right in my face. I guess my vid card couldn't handle all the flames filling up the whole screen.
 
I'm running the 13.10 beta1 drivers. I'll give the beta2 drivers a try tonight. Hopefully it'll work better with my 6870s.
 
Here is what I'm getting perf-and-settings-wise... very happy with it. This is on Win8 64. EDIT: Max VRAM usage reported is 2368mb.

Settings:
gnu2.jpg


Framerate graph:
9h3r.jpg


Looks great, runs great... :D. I see a ton of people in-game talking about poor performance at 1080p and don't get it :confused:, yet this is at 2560x1440. X-axis is time in seconds, Y-axis is framerate,

Code:
Frames	 Time (ms)	 Min	 Max	 Avg
92610	    960265	   59	   189    96.442
 
I have a single GTX 680 lightly overclocked, with an i7-2600k @4.8GHz and the game runs smooth as silk with everything set to ultra, 2x MSAA @ 1080p.
 
Nice. I'm trying to fill my 110hz 1440p as much as possible, or I'd up the settings more. If they improve it for release even further then... *Homer Simpson drool*...
 
I think it runs fine for what it is. There is lag at times but for the most part it runs fine. Not sure if I like the game yet or not. I am really mostly interested in how the competition side goes. If it is the same as bf3 then I will pass.
 
I think it runs fine for what it is. There is lag at times but for the most part it runs fine. Not sure if I like the game yet or not. I am really mostly interested in how the competition side goes. If it is the same as bf3 then I will pass.

I'm still on the fence about buying it as well. Unless I missed something, it's the same as BF3 just new maps and they brought back the commander position. Not sure that's worth forking over antoher $60.
 
I'm still on the fence about buying it as well. Unless I missed something, it's the same as BF3 just new maps and they brought back the commander position. Not sure that's worth forking over antoher $60.

There are a million small gameplay tweaks... it's a different game for sure if you ask me. Better graphics, improved weapon customization, more/better destruction, new maps, new helicopter flight mechanics, reloading changes for vehicles based on a timed supply, medpacks being consumable pickups instead of "sit on the box to regen", scalable UI, squad improvements including a better commrose & VOIP in-game, etc. etc. It feels like going from BC2 to BF3, for me, going from BF3 to BF4. Different games.

Graphics even not-maxed are way better too, from effects to textures to post-processing like heat trails, fire, sparks, etc. too. Examples:

http://imageshack.us/a/img13/7678/8u47.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img843/5438/31lt.jpg

Those are what the game looks like in the bench I posted above. There's only so far you can go with changes before your game becomes something different than what it was intending to be (in this case an FPS).
 
BC2 definitely had a certain "something" that BF3 failed to capture. The map design, the destruction really felt more central to the map and less gimmicky than in BF3 (i.e., blowing a hole in a house wall on defense to remove cover for the offense (rush)). Just the "scale" was better, using the helicopters in BC2 you could easily see the enemies and hit them; for some reason, even on a stable Blackhawk platform in BF3, hitting someone feels like hitting an ant with a spear.

I agree.
 
Here is what I have for my GPU Usage
3930K on x79 sabertooth
Titan SLI - 1006 skynet bios (320.49 WHQL)
5670 x 1080
Ultra Preset
Frames ranged from 35-78ish if i remember correctly.

GPU1 Conquest

GPU2 Conquest

GPU1 Domination

GPU2 Domination
 
My initial impressions is that it is almost like Bad Company 2.5. I expected huge buildings to be toppled in BF3 but we had some bastardized version of destruction that was a huge step backwards. I'm hoping it takes a lot more damage to the buildings or whatever else on the other maps to change the gameplay as it happens far too quickly on Shanghai. Plus, the game looks like complete shit once that building collapses

Oh, and it runs just fine on High settings for my dual core and 7870 at 1080p. Since updating the drivers there have been occasional hiccups that I haven't quite pinpointed though I'm thinking it is the cpu

Usage:
7870 - 60-70%
3220 - 90-98%

Not even coming close to stretching the legs on the gpu even at stock speeds. bah
 
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My initial impressions is that it is almost like Bad Company 2.5. I expected huge buildings to be toppled in BF3 but we had some bastardized version of destruction that was a huge step backwards. I'm hoping it takes a lot more damage to the buildings or whatever else on the other maps to change the gameplay as it happens far too quickly on Shanghai. Plus, the game looks like complete shit once that building collapses


Probably the novelty of bringing down a large building. I'm sure it'll wear off and not be so abundant.

Although I do think they should incorporate some destroyable team assets that engineers have to repair. That'd be neat. Air control tower or runway = no jets until it is repaired. Bridges that offer a shortcut to a flag from your base. Stuff like that.
 
I noticed the tracer rounds on the sniper rifle dont follow the actual shot, so you cant really look at them when you snipe. Anyone else notice this?
 
i'm conditioned to BF3's lack of destructibility. last night i was in a part of the map where you can press a button to bring down metal shutters on the lower floor of the building. an enemy was inside and i was outside and we were shooting at each other through the metal shutters. bullets weren't penetrating so we ended up just standing there staring at each other. i started goofing around jumping up and down and he was nonchalantly popping single shots at me. i guess he fired enough because the metal shutter popped off and killed me.
 
i'm conditioned to BF3's lack of destructibility. last night i was in a part of the map where you can press a button to bring down metal shutters on the lower floor of the building. an enemy was inside and i was outside and we were shooting at each other through the metal shutters. bullets weren't penetrating so we ended up just standing there staring at each other. i started goofing around jumping up and down and he was nonchalantly popping single shots at me. i guess he fired enough because the metal shutter popped off and killed me.

Yea, you can blow through those shutters with explosives. I also like how there are working elevators. Those surprised me.
 
Probably the novelty of bringing down a large building. I'm sure it'll wear off and not be so abundant.

Although I do think they should incorporate some destroyable team assets that engineers have to repair. That'd be neat. Air control tower or runway = no jets until it is repaired. Bridges that offer a shortcut to a flag from your base. Stuff like that.

There are more reasons as to why it feels more like BC2 than BF3 or, better yet, the two of them put in a blender and made into a delicious belgian waffle.

And that's a really cool idea regarding the assets.
 
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