Credit: EA/DICE
Although rumored details have circulated, EA/DICE has not yet released system requirements for BF3.
In the past, EA’s Battlefield games have implemented the latest DirectX features and taken advantage of the latest hardware. Expect BF3 to be no exception.
Take Battlefield: Bad Company 2 for an example.
Released in March 2010, EA set the following for BC2:
1) Minimum requirements: dual core CPU, 2 GB RAM, GeForce 7800/ATI X1900
2) Recommended specs: quad core CPU, 2 GB RAM, GeForce GTX 260/Radeon 4870
The minimum specs averaged around a 30 frames per second on low resolution and video quality settings – enough to be considered “playable.”
The recommended specs were good for around 60 FPS at medium resolution and video quality settings.
Some PC gamers choose to take advantage of all the “eye candy” a game has to offer by using high quality video settings and a 1080P or better resolution. To pull this off in BC2 while maintaining a good framerate, it means going beyond the recommended specs. A quad core CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 470/Radeon 5870 were needed.
At the time of BF:BC2’s release, a video card meeting the minimum requirements cost about $50; for the recommended specs, about $150. A video card that could run BC2 with all settings on “high” ran about $350.
How will this relate to Battlefield 3?
Let’s look at the same three tiers of performance for BF3:
– Minimum requirements: Low resolution, low video quality, 30 FPS
– Recommended specs: Medium resolution, medium video quality, 60 FPS
– Unpublished high end specs: High resolution, high video quality, 60 FPS
On to my predictions for Battlefield 3…
– Minimum requirements: X2/Core 2 Duo CPU, 2 GB RAM, GT 430/Radeon 5550
– Recommended specs: X4/Core 2 Quad or i3 quad CPU, 4 GB RAM, GTX 560/Radeon 6870
– Unpublished high end specs: X6/Core i5 CPU, 4 GB RAM, GTX 590/2x GTX 560 SLI/Radeon 6990/2x Radeon 6870 crossfire
By the time the open beta rolls around in September, expect video card prices to be a bit lower. That should put the above options at around $50, $150, and $300 (for the SLI/crossfire options). For those of you looking to purchase hardware now, use the specs above as a guideline to prepare for BF3’s release.
Is there any word on DOS support?
Yes, EA will offer an MS-DOS 6.0 compatible version which installs from 13,889 2.5″ floppy disks.
HAHA…..that awesome…..DOS. Even though all computers today are a glorified form of dos it would be amazing to see if my computer (recommended settings) will run this. i found that if you turn off AA and lighting and shadows then you get really good textures at high or max setting, view distance up, and character detail up. But if the game doesnt look good without lighting and shadows then i think im fucked……ill max out everything to see what the fps is. if its 30 then ill be happy there. anything below and ill start slowly reducing the shadows then lighting, then AA, and so on until it hits a stable 30.