Battlefield 3 performance on a 260m/280m/285m

So, tried scouring the official BF3 thread but found conflicting answers for the above.

Anyone got a similar rig to my own (specs in sig) or, at least a similar GPU, and able to let me know what settings they're running on and how it performs? Thanks!

 

hi Vitor, is that a kobalt you got there?

im running a 260gtx and had a few problems in single player with split second sound loops and a few hesitations in video here and there but the multiplayer has run perfectly with no glitches or stutter. only thing that seems to happen on occasions is that it disconnects from server but i think a lot are experiencing this.

 

For the most part the game runs pretty good for me with video settings left to auto which is high textures and low everything else. Stays around 30-40-ish FPS. Could be more at times but I think the new nvidia drivers are causing my GPU to overheat and downclock (even in older games like the original BF2..). I can't be the only one with this problem?

My GPU temps were tolerable prior to updating drivers. I even re-pasted my CPU and GPU. How are others with an ASUS notebook fairing, assuming all of you have the 200M series cards? I've ordered copper heatsinks and thermal tape so I'll give that a go and probably do the drill mod as well while putting a cooler underneath the notebook.

EDIT: OP I think you'll be able to turn up your settings higher than me and achieve a playable frame rate. I know some people with a 9800GTX have even set their textures to ultra and medium for the rest.

 

Used to have a MX17 with a GTX 260M, 6GB RAM. Could play on 1440x990, everything at low, no AA/AF/AO @ around 35-45 fps.

 

Used to have the G51 I think the same model as yours but man did that thing get pretty hot. I think there's an option to stop the gpu from downclocking even when overheat but not sure. :X

 

Thanks for all the help! Guessing High textures with everything else set to low is my only option. Will check some videos online to see how that looks and see if I want to take the plunge, appreciate it!

 

setting set by auto,got a 25+ fps.....

 

People with 260m's in their M15x are struggling to play bf3

 

I wouldent quite say that... I have an M15x with the 260m, and i play it just fine. Around 32fps on 1080p and medium settings. So im just fine, although the newest Nvidia drivers were **** and were faulty with BF3...

 

1680x1050 textures high everything else on low or off. Runs well with some framedrops in big situations. Config in my signature. My 120W AC had bad times when I played

 

Hey. I posted this in the BF3 discussion thread, but I guess it <s>got lost in my ranting</s>drowned out:

I am now playing at 900p again (I can't stand non-native resolutions), but I've decided to upgrade to a 6970m to get better frames + bump some settings (especially shadows and mesh) up to medium, as the difference between low and medium is quite brutal in this game.

Hope this helps you decision. I am certainly enjoying this game

 

I assume nobody else is getting overheating problems with the latest nvidia drivers then? It's probably more common among ASUS users then with our poor cooling system.

 

I have Asus G71GX and observe the opposite with the newest drivers - even when I OC the GPU temps stay the same ~ 80C .With older drivers temps would always rise with the OC, which is logical, but not with these drivers. I am not talking about some huge OC - 570/900/1425 from the Asus stock 500/800/1250. Also my 260m GTX is undervolted to 0.9V .

 

I could definitely understand if you undervolted your GPU. I have done that before and my temperatures dropped by 10 degrees celsius. I reverted back to normal because I wanted to set the clocks as high as the 260Ms in other models such as the Sager for example, seeing as ASUS underclocked them. My temperatures only seemed to increase about 10 degrees in doing so (using older drivers).

I've read that the way the drivers are designed, GPUs should generally run hotter so I guess nothing will change drastically in the next driver updates. I think my clocks are 550/950/1375 but I'll play around with it some more after I've finished my cooling mod, possibly lower the memory a little.

 

The G51 series are really hot. The good 100*C club. My MSI's cooling also not enough to keep it cool under full stress.

 

Thanks for the info! Mind if I ask how much that upgrade set you back? Was thinking of maybe changing out my GPU is it's possible with my setup but I hear that upgrading any of the major components on a laptop (minus the HDD and RAM) is ridiculously expensive compared to their desktop counterparts.

 

A Clevo 6970M will run you $490.

 

Guessing that probably translates to around £400 in UK prices...

Any way I could sell my 285m to help with the costs or is that not going to fetch a decent price any more?

 

I would say $200 dollars for the 285m so it's half your cost right there

 

After playing this game for a few hours on MP with Deagleson and other NBR members I feel this game is very easy to run. I play with ultra on textures, medium for most others, HBAO/SSAO off, AA at 2x @ 1080p.

I turn off most things because they deter me from spotting enemies, most of the post-processing in this game actually just makes it hard to see. And to see clearer, turning that stuff off makes the game easy to run.

I also feel this game is overrated visually. Crysis 2 rocks BF3 easily. All the textures in BF3 are flat... Not even PoM, c'mon. Even Stalker mods have PoM added to those games.

PoM is Parallax occlusion mapping. THis is what gives objects a more 3D feel to it without using something as intensive as tessellation.

The textures in BF3 are 2D, not 3D.

 

If you are looking to upgrade to play BF3, I wouldn't bother. The GTX 285M is more than enough. All the ultra post-processing settings just make the game very glaring and blurry.

 

good thread, would like to help as i have a gtx 260m on my lap but i don't play that type of games sorry, i have played warhammer space marinse was fine.

 

I have had serious problem with my nvidia drivers overheating...??

 

This is not true. Even at 900p all low as I am running, frames drop towards the low 20's, which is not good at all for this type of game. At 720p it rarely goes beneath 30 fps, but then it looks very blurry.

An upgrade from 285m to 6970m will yield almost double the frames, so it is a very sensible upgrade.

Also, you failed to state which card you are running the game on.

 

I doubt it. Been playing BF3 all morning and I don't see any reason why 285M would have any issues.

Don't play with with MSAA Post-Process high and 8x AA then. Be smart about your video configurations.

 

If you don't actually have a 285M, oan001's opinion is the one that holds weight.

 

I don't believe him. 900p all low and he's having problems? The HD5870M isn't that much better than the GTX 285M. Something wrong with his setup.

 

I'm running the latest drivers on my GT 540M. Overclocked to 775MHz-950MHz-1550MHz, it didn't go over 78C.

 

I'm playing at ALL LOW settings. That means no Post-Processing, AA - off, AF 1x etc. The lowest possible setting. (I do bump up the textures on less intensive maps, but who can blame me?)

There is nothing wrong with my card or my setup. As i said, it's mostly fine to play this game, but with intense action, it can hit very low fps. The 5870m is better than the 285m, no doubt.


Oh what the heck... You are right. I admit it. I LIED. That is the only logical explanation, right?

I'm actually playing at ALL ULTRA SETTINGS, HBAO ON, 16xAA getting a steady 50-60 fps @ 1080p!!!

Or, maybe, you're just being ignorant because you just don't know what you are talking about... -sorry-

 

Highjack time...

my laptop, 2.8ghz dual with a fx3700m(between a 260m and 280m) would I be able to play around a 720p/low with it NEVER dipping below 30fps?


nothing POs me more than having a system lag in high action and getting killed, I still don't want to jump from bf2, but all of the good servers are gone now... I'm sick of being kicked for baserape

 

Are you kidding? The 5870M destroys the 285M by around 35%.

 

Thats true. Afterall the gtx2xx series are mainly 9800m gtx with increased shader count (while the 260 is basically a die shrunk 9800m gtx).
It's more than 35% performance gap.
As an example the 460m is able to achieve same scores in benchmarks and a notably faster performance in games than a sli 9800m gtx, I know it since I had a sli 9800m gtx.

As I said elsewhere I guess you can get playable performance with everything disabled and low details at 1280x720.
If that gives a good performance you can try some medium settings as well.
And also I would expect an heavy overclock on the card to get things smooth.

 

Really? Well, if I could find somewhere in the UK that was willing to upgrade my GPU for me and buy my 285m to subsidize the cost, I'd likely take the plunge.

Especially if we're talking double the performance. It's a shame Kobalt Computers shut down.... They were my go to company, no idea who else in the UK does this sort of thing.

 

I wonder how would it run on, ehem, 240 lol . Not that I'm interested in BF3, but just out of pure curiosity .

 

Too bad you missed the free open beta for about a week to test it for yourself.

 

ive got an asus G60VX-RBB05

T9550 running extreme turbo @ 2.86ghz
GTX260m OCed to 620mhz core, 990mhz? memory (I forget the exact numbers).
15.6" Screen at 1366x768

I get crap frame rate, everything is set to low accept for a detail setting on medium
Frame rates: average around 29, dips low into the 20s, and up to high 30s.

Firefights kill me, so do detailed maps...

Seems like some people are doing much better than I am.

I will post my exact clocks tonight.

 

It sounds like the GPU in that G60 is overheating which the latest nvidia drivers did to mine. With your CPU and your overclocked GPU, the game should be smooth but I think you've got some downclocking occurring.

 

Thats my guess, EVGA precision says it peaks around 84c. The speed doesn't seem to down clock though.

how can I measure my GPU's usage, none of the programs Ive tried will show it, its always 0%.

 

I'm getting 55+ with 1080p, medium settings with AA 4x and Hbao in 280m sli.

 

Just installed Nvidia 285.79 Beta Drivers. Game plays very nice 30-47 FPS on the settings you'll see on the screenshots (at least on this mission, have to test next missions as well). My 260m GTX is clocked at 570/900/1425. No CPU overclock - P8700 2.53 Ghz.

 

Hmm... interesting.

Did you notice an increase in performance from the last revision of drivers?

Also, what do you use to clock your GPU? im using EVGA precision, and I noticed my oc numbers are increased by 50 on the precision graph.

I was playing tonight, same as usual, 25-40 ish fps during gameplay. but that's with everything on low.

 

Yes, I did notice an increase of performance ~ 7-8 FPS more on average. Just tested on Operation Guillotine with high and medium settings - the same from the screenshot in my previous post. On 285.62 was getting an average of 24 FPS while running with the mortar. Then installed 285.79 and got an average of 32 FPS. I was surprised myself.

I am OCing with Nvidia System Tools.

 

Are you using a cooler per chance? I cut the blue wire on my fan so it'll run full blast and flashed my GPU vBIOS to the same clocks you have. Card still overheats and downclocks significantly and that's with high textures and everything on low.

Sure as hell hope installing copper heatsinks and drilling holes will net an improvement as far as temperatures go. If not I'll order the best of the best of notebook coolers and try that combination.

 

I have the system of my sig, and I think the 5870 is quite similar to the 280/285 and I can play with everything on Medium, HSAO @ 1080p at around 50fps. Sometimes goes 40 something and sometimes even 60 or higher, rarely goes under 40. This on MP, on SP I can put setting on High and have more fps

 

I'm using a simple plastic laptop stand for less than $20 -
Rocketfish™ Adjustable Laptop Stand : Rocketfish

It's much better than my $70 Zalman cooler because it doesn't block the vents of the laptop.

Another thing is that the G71 is bigger than the G51 thus allowing better cooling. Also the P8700 CPUs are one of the coolest ever made. Undervolted it reaches 60C on max load and since it shares the same heatpipe that helps keep the temps down.

I remember back in the days there was a whole group of G51 owners in this forum who were dedicated to tweaking their laptops. This is the link if you haven't seen it:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/401345-optimization-guide-asus-g51.html

 

AndrewCP, I was curious about that blue wire that you cut for the fan speed. Could you tell me a bit more about it please? Ty

*edit* actually might be kind of pointless because I have a gateway p 79 lol

 

I just did the mod today...

I cut the whole installed a grill, and, instead of cutting the blue wire, I carefully took it out of the connector so I could reinstall it if need be.

My temps went WAY down, like, my GPU idles at 40c instead of 60+ and the gpu doesn't reach 70c while gaming. But if I go over 620mhz core and 990mhz Memory, the game crashes randomly and says the driver stops responding. My cpu is at 2.87 using the Asus power 4 gear hybrid turbo function.

I've been debating upgrade to an ever high clock speed processor, like a X9100 or one of those e8435 mac processor, ive read some people have good luck with those despite being a bit higher TDP.

I'm not sure what else to do my performance fluctuates between 26-40fps with everything on low, and motion blur all the way down. It just isn't smooth enough, and looks like crap.

The blue wire is the fan speed control sensor, cutting it will make the fan run full blast all the time. VERY noisy compared to with it plugged in, but really cools the system down.

 

Apologies that the title doesn't include it, but I'm currently using a GT 435m and getting really bad framerates on 1280x720 with all settings low/off. It plays great until explosions go off or a lot of action is going on.

I figured it could do that since I've seen gameplay vids using GT 435m on all med settings at 720p, but even when I bump down to 1024x768 all low/off I still get framerate issues. Could it be something else like my RAM (currently at 2GB)? Using latest beta drivers

 

Is it the Acer in your sig? If so then your ram and cpu are bottlenecks as well.

 

I'm playing with medium-high settings (no post processing or AA/AF) and getting above 30fps. And I play only on 64 player maps. Nothing overclocked.