It has not been a secret that Battlefield 3 will be giving a challenge to hardcore PC Gamers. This news calls for PC Gamers to update and run an assessment on their gaming rigs after Valve and Nvidia recently came with its latest study showing a loathsome percentage of PC Gamers who would need to completely upgrade their rig in order to play the game smoothly.
The study was taken from all steam users worldwide in Valve’s data. As you might not know, steam actually profiles your PC, takes the basic hardware information (i.e. GPU, Processor, OS, HDD, Motherboard, etc.), and keeps it in record. The study shows that over 84% percent of Steam users (PC) do not have the required specification in their system to run Battlefield 3 smoothly. Now, 84 Percent is a wild number, talk about losing that many gamers just because they are not able to run the game. This has also prompted Valve to rethink and lower the minimum recommended specs for the PC, in which case, then that percentage might just improve – though it is highly unlikely that the game would be playable enough for online gameplay if you would not upgrade.
At the moment, these are the published Battlefield 3 PC Requirements:
MINIMUM SYSEM REQUIREMENTS
OS: Windows Vista (SP 2) 32-bit
PROCESSOR: 2 GHZ Dual Core (Core 2 Duo 2.5 GHZ or Athlonx2 2.7 GHZ)
MEMORY (RAM): 2 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB
GRAPHICS CARD (AMD): 512 MB, DirectX 10.1 Compatible (ATI Radeon 3000, 4000, 5000 or 6000 Series with ATI Radeon 3870 performance or higher)
GRAPHICS CARD (NVIDIA): 512 MB, DirectX 10.0 Compatible (NVIDIA GeForce 8, 9, 200, 300, 400, or 500 Series with NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT Performance or higher)
SOUND CARD: DirectX Compatible
KEYBOARD AND MOUSE
DVD ROM
RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
PROCESSOR: Quad Core
MEMORY (RAM): 4 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB
GRAPHICS CARD: 1 GB, DirectX 11 Compatible (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 or ATI Radeon 6950)
SOUND CARD: DirectX Compatible
KEYBOARD AND MOUSE
DVD ROM
If your rig passes the minimum specs, it still will not cut the chase. You will most likely be running the game in lowest video configuration just to keep up with the FPS, and when more players come in, particularly the possible 64 player game mode, the minimum requirement will probably run at 30-40 FPS at most, which is playable but certainly not recommended for online competitive gameplay.
The biggest difference between minimum and recommended specs is of course the GPU and RAM – where most of the action happens. The recommended specs would probably be viable to play the game on high – maximum video setting with a decent 60-70 FPS, but in order to really beat the crap out of the game, you’ll have to go higher, especially with the “Ultra Graphics Settings” feature. Though the recommended specs might be able to run the game on the Ultra Graphics Setting, but it is most likely to fail on Frames Per Second.
You are probably going to need more than the Recommended System requirements to get this quality. (Released Screenshot of Battlefield 3 PC on Ultra Graphic Settings)
Nick Hernandez
Really? NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 is “recommended.” I’m sure my 2x GTX 280’s and 12gb of ram should be sufficient.
But this game looks real nice from all the trailers I’ve seen thus far, so I think it’s worth the upgrades if you don’t want the console version
Andy Codina
Ohh.. Cool.. SLI! Surely, 2x GTX 280 will do, as with RAM, well you have way more than what’s required,speed would just then fall to having better transfer rate, mobo specs, chipset, etc. but I seem to think that wouldn’t matter much with 12GB of RAM, almost the whole data of the game can be placed on RAM. I’m looking to get my second 580, probably long after Battlefield 3 will be released and I think even a single 580 will be having trouble running on Ultra Graphics Settings – that’s the part I’m really looking forward to.
Chris Hernandez
I wonder what percentage of Steam users meets the minimum requirements, as that is what will really matter in terms of a games sale.
Andy Codina
Probably at best, low-mid graphic setting, 30-40 Fps. Quite fair considering the console versions will only be able to run it on 30 fps.