Battlefield 3 PC Gaming Performance Guide

The long awaited release of Battlefield 3 has arrived, and after all the hype and anticipation, a lot of you have jumped in and purchased a copy of one of the best PC games of the year.  A game that isn't a watered down console version like so many other PC games nowadays; Battlefield 3 is an incredible first person shooter that was built with hard-core PC gamers in mind.

So what kind of hardware do you need to get the absolutely best Battlefield 3 experience possible? A lot really depends on what type of experience YOU want. What do I mean? Well if you want to experience Battlefield 3 on its high quality game setting playing on your 22" 1680x1050 resolution monitor, well than a single NVIDIA GTX 570, like the one in Digital Storm's ODE Level 1, will be plenty.

Knowing how YOU want to experience Battlefield 3 will determine what the right hardware is for your gaming computer. To help you along that path, DS Unlocked has created this guide to help you.

Battlefield 3 and your Monitor's Native Resolution

One of the single biggest factors that are going to affect your gaming experience is how you are going to view your game. Are you playing on a 17" 1280x1024 flat panel monitor or do you plan on playing Battlefield 3 on a 24" 1920x1080 monitor, or perhaps a mind blowing 30" 2560 x 1600 resolution!?

It's important to understand that the higher your monitor's native resolution is the more graphical demand will be placed on your video card(s). We also need to make a distinction between monitor resolution and size, because they are not directly related.

What I mean is that you could have a 17" widescreen flat panel monitor that offers a 1920x1080 resolution and it would require the same graphical performance as its big 24" brother. Where this issue primarily comes into play is when we PC gamers like to connect their gaming computer to a large 1080p flat panel TV.

Any TV that is 1080p has a native resolution of 1920x1080, therefore you could have a 52" behemoth television that you may want to connect to your gaming computer, but you're thinking you'll need some major horsepower to drive that monster when in actuality you'll only need the same graphical power that drives a 24" LCD monitor.

Battlefield 3 Performance Demands for Low, Medium, High, and Ultra Quality    

The other aspect we need to consider to complete the picture of what hardware is going to provide you with the best Battlefield 3 experience is what kind of game quality do you want when playing Battlefield 3.

There are four graphical quality settings available to select from in the game, low, medium, high, and ultra, depending on the graphic quality you desire, your gaming hardware is going to drastically change. With your monitor/display native resolution in one hand and your gaming quality in the other, we can exactly determine what type of hardware you'll need to get the best playing experience possible.

The tables below provide the recommendations we suggest for playing Battlefield 3 based on your native resolution and game quality. They also take into account that you want to achieve a silky smooth 60 frames per second during gameplay. The reason we settle on 60 FPS is because at any FPS higher than that the human eye cannot gauge a difference in quality. The absolutely smoothest and silkiest performance is when you can play your game at a consistent 60 FPS.

Let's begin, if you wanted to play Battlefield 3 on low quality then you'll need the following graphics cards for the corresponding native resolutions:

Table 1: Battlefield 3 - Low Quality

To play Battlefield 3 on High Quality then you'll need the following graphics cards for the corresponding native resolutions:

Table 1: Battlefield 3 – High Quality

To play Battlefield 3 on Ultra Quality then you'll need the following graphics cards for the corresponding native resolutions:

Table 1: Battlefield 3 – Ultra Quality

If you wanted to get a visual idea of the differences between the types quality available on Battlefield 3 check out he pic below:

With these tables you can easily determine the correct graphics card(s) for your monitor and the type of gameplay you want to enjoy with your copy of Battlefield 3. Check out Digital Storm's gaming computers page if you want to get an idea of the type of cost of these upgrades or how much it would cost to purchase a brand new pc.

Remember that games like Battlefield 3 don't come around often, and if you really want to have the best experience possible then follow this guide and you'll be able to rock Battlefield 3 with the flawless uninterrupted graphical goodness it was meant to be played in.