Hardcore Russian GPU website, GameGPU has posted a detailed bechmark analysis of the multiplayer beta for Battlefield 4 on a range of hardware specs. Key attention is paid to the Frostbite 3 graphics engine, the DirectX API, graphics quality settings and important visual aspects.
Frostbite 3 is capable of rendering large landscapes with destructible environments. The technology supports dynamic lighting, the HBAO variant of ambient occlusion, procedural shading, various post-effects (including HDR and depth of field), particle system and texture mapping techniques, such as bump mapping. The maximum size of multiplayer maps available in the beta is 32 × 32 square kilometers, out of which 4 × 4 km of space is available for on-foot soldiers.
The advanced graphical settings available in the beta can be seen below.
A screenshot comparison of the different graphical settings available in the beta can be seen below. Not surprisingly, the most notable difference in visual fidelity comes between low and medium settings.
From the screenshots, it can seen that there is a significant drop in texture detail on the ‘Low’ setting. In additional, reflection maps of the surrounding environments are only visible on the ‘High’ and ‘Very High’ setting.
Benchmarks, using various GPU configurations with the game running at 1080p, can be seen below.
The biggest surprise came in the form of DICE’s optimization of Frostbite 3 for AMD CPUs.
What’s most impressive is that Battlefield 4 can completely use up to eight CPU threads. The distribution of load on AMD processors calibrated much better than it did for Intel. If this is a sign of things to come for multi-threaded CPU utilization in games, the prospects for AMD CPUs may well be brighter than what we have today. Couple with the potential of Mantle, this could very well lead to an edge for AMD’s PC components at we we enter the next-gen era of gaming.
The PC multiplayer beta is currently only available to those who preordered the game, Battlefield 3 Premium subscribers and owners of the Medal of Honor Warfighter Limited Edition Online Pass. Everyone else will have to wait until 4th October in order to gain access.
Stay tuned for further updates on Battlefield 4 as they become available.
