M14x Battlefield 3 Perfomance & Discussion Thread

I said:

"I received my new alienware M14x yesterday. Its a brilliant machine! But having spoken to other gamers they have all said that they got a better deal when ordering! Specifically, they would also spend £1000 as i did, but also get an alienware backpack and an alienware Tactx mouse! This is a considerable offering! So i was wondering, how can i return the machine so that it can be re-ordered through a rep with these extras added on? Its a shame that i have to go through this process to get the better deal, but as the backpack and mouse have a retail of £140 its definately worth my while doing so!"
To which they ask where you see that deal. is it from dell? i reply

"Thank you for your prompt reply.

Yes, these are people that have spoken to alienware/dell reps. They have gotten deals that included the alienware m14x bag and tactx mouse, and paid the same amount as me! As you can appreciate, i felt a little left out at that! but being a forum, i only have their gamer tages, not the email they ordered with, or order number.

If theres a way of sending me a bag, i wont return it, and it will be hugely appreciated! if i HAVE to return it to reorder, then i'll have to do that. but i'd prefer not to! especially as the machine ends up getting cast off in the outlet store then!

As i say, not disatissfied with the machine, its a cracking little thing! Its just the offer i got could have been better!

Thank you for your help!"
At this point they say they cannot send a bag, but can send 10% refund.

2 emails, £106. i think thats worth a punt! and then you can enjoy Battlefield 3! Its brilliant!!

 

Hardware: i7 2630QM, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, 256 GB SSD, 1.5 GB nVIDIA GT 555m, 1600x900

Settings: All maxed out and vsync on, 1600x900

Driver: 285.79 beta (latest)

Just finished the game last night. I'd estimate between 25-40 fps throughout the game. tbh I don't really like the game

 

Finally found the settings I'm happy with.
Perfect balance of playability and quality for me.

Performance: 40 fps with some rare dips to 35fps.
Resolution 1900x600 60hz
GPU overclocked via EVGA Precision: 740/1480 1080
Max GPU temp: 75deg

Settings
Texture: High
Shadow: Medium
Then everything on High
AA deferred: off
AA post: medium
Motion blur: off
Anist.: 8X
Ambient: SSAO

Don't know if it was already mentioned (probably) but to check fps in game,
push the "~" key and enter: "render.drawfps 1"


I also bought a 24" monitor and I'm playing at 1920x1080 with settings on medium . Still getting 30-35fps.
Ordered an Aurora R3 with GTX 590 though couldn't resist (especially with the Saveology coupon + gift card deal I saved 40% off original price)

 

turn SSAO off and gain 5-10 fps. and less headshaking

 

So what's the general consensus of the FPS of this game in 900p in ULTRA settings or HIGH? can it be summarized so I don't have to deal with scrolling through the 15 pages...

Anyway, it seems HIGH would offer the best ratio of performance since ULTRA tends to dip toward the 30's, is this correct?

Anyone have CoD MW3? the m14x annihilates that game, though it's less graphic intensive obviously.

 

So I set the game up with Medium on everything, and SSAO off, shadows LOW, AA 4x, the the Antialiasing deferment I believe its called turned off, as well as motion blur off.

I used Fraps and got alot of FPS like 40-60.

BUT THEN I used "RenderDrawFPS1" ingame and BF3 in game fraps tells me much lower from 30-45 fps.

So what gives?

I don't have the GT555m overclocked, but I still thought I would be able to kick out more power since I have the full upgraded m14x minus the SSD.

Albeit, the game looks pretty damn beautiful even on Med. I used to run BF BC2 on my gaming desktop with crossfire ATI's and I would say the medium on BF3 matched it to that on BC2 on ultra.

Anyway so what's up with the difference in FPS versus in game vs fraps?

 

My technical mate said:

different calculation of the framerate. the BF3 thing is probably based on it's internal rendering engine, fraps uses actual frame changes. so if BF3 pushes a frame (without complete render) FRAPS would report higher than actual
that's why when you start using triple-buffering and vsync the framerates go screwy
vsync'd apps can't go faster than the refresh of the display driver
so the framerate reported isn't true in that respect

Might help, might not!

 

it makes sense.

so my question to all the guys claiming ultra or HIGH modden GFX in BF3 with 40 + fps: are you using fraps or BF3?

my logic would obviously tell me that the BF3 engine frames per second is more reliable.

 

Do you guys leave the PHYSx option in Nvidia control panel on "auto select" by default or do you swtich it to GPU?

I see that the CPU is also an option; any idea whcih is better selected for PHYS x?

 

I turned off intel smart step and turbo in the bios. then moved physX to the gpu from the CPU. that brough my CPU down to 85C from 99C! And gpu is happily going at 76C.

 

Thanks. Guys, for those of you that overclocked the GT555m using MSI Afterburner, what did you do about fan speed? I Noticed the option for fan speed is grayed out in MSI afterburner. Does this mean it is set on "auto" and thus will self-adjust itself? plz let me know.

 

OH BTW. So I'm running the 700/1400Mhz overclock, via MSI. Which is suppose to be the "moderate" stable OC. Ran Kombustor for 10min everything looks good. Max temp 70C.

Well now, 45-50fps in Medium BUT FPS dips constantly CONSTANTLY to 30's and 25's where noticeable choppiness.


So I went to BIOS and DISABLED TURBO BOOST. It seems smoother now, No FPS dips in the red. Does it make sense? The throttling?

Is it safe to push the card further passed 700/1400?

I know people like pushing the cards and say "if the temp is good, then it's good!" but from what I read, the extra current still damages the card so I just wanted something moderate.

Thanks

 

im safely pushing mine to 745/1490 memory 1080;

no artefacts even for looong gaming periods. but i have a U2 cooler under it, but it ran very good with that settings before too.

 

Yeah. I found Kristopher's overclocking gt555m thread.

I set my gt555m to 750/1400 as he suggested. He also suggested 1080 for the memory but I just left mine stock 900.

I got a huge FPS boost in BF3. Like 40-50fps average on 1600x900, medium settings.

The heat max is 70C while running Kombustor or gaming in BF3.

The AMAZING thing is, I was getting FPS dips in RED but after I turned off "TURBO BOOST" for the intel CPU in BIOS it STOPPED.

And my CPU dropped about 10C in heat! it got up to 97C before with turbo boost, now only 88's etc... when gaming 100% load.

Weird.

 

runs good on 900p with 40-60fps with a very little oc. kinda happy

 

I updated the stock dell drivers today to the 285.79 drivers and there was no difference in fps. I played on stock medium settings 900p and got around 27-33 fps in multiplayer. I am kinda dissapointed with these drivers, as I expected a performance increase as told by some forum posters here.

Overclocking the gpu to 700/1000/1400 with NVIDIA system tools increased the fps to a much smoother 33-38 fps.

I will tweak a little more with the settings for a good ratio graphics/performance.

 

i play on 900p with everything on high, hbao on, and 8x af. AA OFF. i get around 35-50 fps average. im overclocked to 770.
the game plays fine for me and looks fantastic.
But most of the time i play on everything low on 766p just so i dont drop below 60 fps but thats only when i play with my peeps.

 

single player works just fine with 900p and mixture of high and medium settings. around 45-55 fps ( checked with fraps)
though i also go 766p when in multiplayer mode cuz then, texture arent as important as higher fps.

 

Dell support for bf3 issues

 

just played bf3 on my m14x for the first time last night. played well on high settings. with turbo boost off and the back of the computer propped up i didnt get over 70 degrees.(no overclocking done either) but then again i only played for about 30 mins.

graphics are pretty good tho! better then ive seen before

would i need to follow that dell support if my game runs fine? prolly not im thinking....

any input?

 

that dell support refers to ATI Cards. so nothing there for us.

looks like a dll issue which has to be fixed by hand on ati cards with dell drivers. thats wy they copy the “atioglxx.dll” into BF3’s folder.



edit: anyone tried out the new nvidia 290.36 beta? any improvements? loading it atm.

 

My first experience on BF3 wasn't so good. Was 0-5 Looked great on the auto detect settings but I was moving too slow compared to when I play on Xbox. Just to try playing I moved down to low and things went well. Last night I changed my settings to what someone posted on here and then plugged into my samsung plasma 51 inch 1080p. The display showed 1920 - 1080 in Nvidia. The TV display popped up and I think it showed 1680 - 1080?? Not for sure. What settings would you recommend for playing on external tv?

 

Didn't overclock CPU or GPU on my m14x and it plays well on High-Ultra Setting. Around 30fps.

 

So i downloaded the 290.36 drivers and updated from the 285.79 and performance made a slight jump but the temperatures where crazy like 10 c more than i usually have while playing (It was hitting 80 for me and i had never gotten that) Anyone tried the 285.62 or the 285.79 with BF3? Which one is better in general?

 

i only played bf3 on 285.79. seemed ok mixture of medium high settings.

 

im playing on it now, for some reason i get some screen tearing even on medium settings.
Probably time to overclock the gpu?
Whats the best way to check my fps?

 

overclocked mine to 619,1238,915.... about to try it out now

 

free software called fraps

 

Use Frap, it's free, normally the fps indicator will show in the top right but you can always change its position, it also allow you to take screenshot and video clip, however the free version limit you to screenshot on the .bmp file only and for video clip it is limit to 30 seconds.

I play BF3 on the 290.36 Beta, and never got any problem with it, instead it make the performance better, much much better, say 5 to 10 framerate better, and the temp never go beyond 75C, and I also have my GPU OC, and the setting is at 800/1600/1080 (I use a Modded VBIOS), however the only thing that seem to be the downside is the CPU's temp, it increase but never seem to go beyond 90C though.

 

CPU temp goes tot he 80's exactly, The performance increase IS expected from temperatures like that. Not sure if worth it since when i play it stutters after some time and my FPS dips dramatically, i will test some more and make sure it was not on my side.

 

my oc didnt seem to make any difference i dont know why im getting screen tearing on the newest nvidia drivers :/ Its not that bad, but i dont see what it would be happening even on medium settings....

 

im getting 20 fps on high settings, 30 fps on medium

tried overclocking to 640 and a higher memory clock about 930 but only gave me a few more fps. what to do?

and for some reason my nvidia settings in the nvidia control panel say that bf3 doesnt support ambient occlusion? i could have sworn this latest driver activated it...is there anyone that can give me all the settings my card SHOULD have in the nvidia control panel and what is a safe overclock to do on stock bios a06

will rep
thanks

 

Ambient Occlusion is supported in the newest BETA 290.36 vid driver panel on MW3 and Skyrim. Not for BF3, at least not in Nvidia CP on my computer. I have Bios A03. My Control Panel settings for BF3 are see pic. I have vertical synch (against screen tearing) enabled in-game and tripple buffering (supports vertical synch) in Nvidia CP. Everything else I have m.a.x.e.d in-game except for AA and the other AA are OFF. 25-40 FPS, yes, some dips to 20s. Mostly my FPS are around 32 FPS. I have OC 730/1050.

 

repped!! thanks i really appreciate that post, helped me out ALOTT!

im assuming that the 730 is referring to the core/shader that is linked
and the 1050 is the memory?

is this on stock bios ao3 or do i need to mod my a06 bios to overclock it that much?

 

730/1050 you get it right.
I use unlocked A03 (one with no GPU voltage mod included)
No need for modding. Even unlocked Bios does not let you access GPU values, only IGP.

730/1050 is safe or 'mild' overclock for majority users.

thanx for the rep. +rep lol

 

played for about 30 mins with 708/982 and temps jumped to 72 at one point but dropped to 64 and didnt go higher then that. (for processor) the GPU jumped to 60 ish but then dropped to 56 and stayed under that for whatever reason.

hdd stayed under 35 degrees C.

Whats the reasoning for turning AA and Post AA off in game? REALLY helps the fps tho!

 

As you said it is I just too much for the GPU, probably two most hardcore FPS eaters in-game.

 

what about my temps? do they look ok? im trying to keep them well within the "safe" range.

and i only have 4 gb of 1600mhz ram? should i upgrade? did my laptop come with 2 2gb sticks or one 4gb? if it came with one 4gb i could put a super high performance 4gb in its place and put the stock one behind it......

 

Your temps are awesome and safe. I have GPU max 66c and CPU 83c during BF3.

Your laptop almost definitely has 2 memory sticks by 2 Gigs, you can check using CPU-Z under the drop-down menu (see pic, the blue drop menu). It will show you 4 ports but there are only two in reality.

And memory only runs (with mixed sticks) at specs of the lower performance stick. So, for example mixing a 1333 stick and a 1600 would give you only 1333 as a result DEFAULT for both, the same goes for timings.

 

THANKS!! i really do appreciate your help, if i could rep again i would!
Are you using a laptop cooler? i feel like my new u2 cooler makes all the difference.

ive never seen a red m14x, you have any pics?

 

Your rep actually made me happier than I was. I do not use laptop cooler, but I have it lifted 2 cm using 2 thick permanent markers.

I do not have pictures of red M14X. I googled it before I bought mine.

OFFLINE

 

What settings would be suitable for my XPS 17 of an equivalent spec? The resolution I'm using is 1600x900.

 

all high, AA off

 

Just wondering if anyone has found a sweet spot between maximum framerate and visual quality in battle field 3. I kind of found one with resolution on 720p, aa 2x, filtering 2x, textures on ultra and the rest on medium, with an overclock of 700 on the core. I seem to get between 30-60, average of 48 fps. Anyone got any tips?

 

I don't have any suggestions, but I will try your settings. Thanks

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk

 

I play on 900p, everything medium except for Texture is Ultra, Effect is High, filtering 1x, AA and motion blur is off, with an OC of 800/1600/1080 (custom/modded VBIOS), and the framerate is between 35 - 50, avg of 40. Using the latest NVIDIA Driver 290.36 Beta right now.

 

I also have the i7 CPU and 3 GB GT 555m GPU, but I have an SSD instead of the standard hard drive. Why am I getting an average of 25-30 FPS with no overclock? Overclock increases FPS THAT much?

 

It doesn't really make fps go a lot higher, but its usually 5-10, but even without the fps boost, the gameplay is still smoother it seems. I tried with high settings and it averages below 30 fps, which isnt acceptable for me. Nvidia wasn't kidding when they said you need a gtx 560 at least to play it in good quality lol.

 

Oh forgot to mention the mode and map I play, I usually play on Conquest Large (Infantry only), TDM/SQDM and sometime Rush, but most of the time I play on the Op Metro CQL 64 player, which have no vehicle or any scenery to decrease the framerate at all. Extra OC sometime can be help but like Niko said, 5-10 framerate, but 5-10 framerate is a lot for me for a demanding game like BF3, and I guess if I decrease the screen resolution to 720p it might help boost more fps.

BF3 is not a fast pace game like CoD where you are running n gunning all the time, that's why 25-30 is console standard for BF3 and 60 for CoD, if you just try to limit framerate in CoD to BF3's framerate, you'll see running is like walking that it is so slow that would kill the game style.

 

Lowering it to 1366x768 really does help a lot, gives room to bump up aa and filtering as well as increase some settings without a huge drop in fps.