I swore up and down once I got a single 5850, I would not upgrade to a new video card for sometime. Have had the card for like 5 months and now the upgrade bug is itching me for the sole reason of BF3. my 5850 simply does not cut it in multiplayer. Campaign mode is fine at a reasonable 30-40FPS, but Multi is simply unplayable with frames dropping in the 20s. So seeing all these recent deals on 5850 and 5870, can't decide if to go crossfire (expensive, since I water cool) or single 6950 or 6970. Damn these video game makers constantly uping the ante on GPU requirements. And I'm a casual gamer at best. Feel sorry for you guys addicted to gaming.
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Decisions, decisions
- Thread starter celwin
- Start date
Wait for the 7xxx series to at least be reviewed before making a decision. What settings/resolution are you using for BF3? 20-fps dips seems really low.
Every thing on Ultra with the exception of Shadow quality high and both antialiasing settings off. Tried high for everything but not much of a diff in Multi. did make a diff in campaign mode.
Every thing on Ultra with the exception of Shadow quality high and both antialiasing settings off. Tried high for everything but not much of a diff in Multi. did make a diff in campaign mode.
Well it really shouldn't be surprising that ultra settings don't give the best experience on a 5850 at what I'm assuming is a 1920x1080 resolution. Have you checked your vram usage? (the latest version of msi afterburner can check this) I'm willing to bet your framerate is tanking due to a vram limitation. I hit 1.7GB+ pretty regularly at 1920x1080 on the settings described later. I would first disable HBAO/SSAO, MSAA like you said, enable FXAA as it has little to no performance hit, then drop everything to medium as a starting point. I don't find Ultra settings very playable on a single 6950 either. With crossfire 6950's I run Ultra with high FXAA, MSAA off, HBAO on, and average ~80fps at 1920x1080. I haven't tried singleplayer yet so this is all based on multiplayer. IMO you are going to want to either wait for the 7xx series or jump to crossfire 6950's or better if you want a smooth Ultra setting experience. IMO it's also not worth buying a crossfire 6950 with the 7xxx series around the corner. The game still looks great at lower settings.
Just get an Nvidia EVGA GTX 580 3072MB GPU and game on............ These cards make a HUGE difference because of the 3GB VRAM. Do not get caught up in the 3GB dual GPU cards - they really are still only doing like 1.5GB per GPU which makes it no better than what you have now except for dual GPU's. So get a single GPU card with 3GB+ of VRAM and you should be fine - just my opinion from the Nvidia side of the house. Good luck - I know all too well about that upgrade bug...........
i run my 5850 with high settings on 1920x1080 and i get 45 - 60 fps. I had most settings on ultra at first but i was getting screen rolling and i couldnt play for more than a couple games. i have been wanting to upgrade too but im trying to hold off. i dont think there are many single card solutions out there right now
I swore up and down once I got a single 5850, I would not upgrade to a new video card for sometime. Have had the card for like 5 months and now the upgrade bug is itching me for the sole reason of BF3. my 5850 simply does not cut it in multiplayer. Campaign mode is fine at a reasonable 30-40FPS, but Multi is simply unplayable with frames dropping in the 20s. So seeing all these recent deals on 5850 and 5870, can't decide if to go crossfire (expensive, since I water cool) or single 6950 or 6970. Damn these video game makers constantly uping the ante on GPU requirements. And I'm a casual gamer at best. Feel sorry for you guys addicted to gaming.
Just turn the resolution down etc..
its funny i remember how shocked i was to find out that the real pro gamers (back in Quake/Ut99 time) always played in 800x600 because Framerate is always king in multiplayer..
sure enough i switched from wanting it to look the best to wanting it to have the highest framerate and i got a lot better.