Need help upgrading my PC for BF3


Recommended Posts

Hi Neowinians :)

After reading many posts from other people who get some really good advice on PC upgrades, it's now time for mine.

I recently was accepted to test Battlefield 3 Alpha.

I did know that my PC would need upgrading, but thought that LOW settings might just get away with "trying it", but my PC can only cope with playing it on low in windowed mode.

Before I start, I know that my Processor needs an upgrade (bought it when they first appeared) and is probbaly the bottleneck in all of this, but I want advice on the cheapest way for me to play it on high settings.

Current PC:

Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 1.86ghz Socket 775 FSB800 2MB Cache

Motherboard - ASUS P5Q Pro Turbo

Graphics - Nvidia 8800 GTS 512MB

Ram - 4gb Corsair XMS 2 DDR2 800mhz

Windows 7 Pro 64bit

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The cheapest way to play BF3 on high would be great, thanks to anyone who helps in advance :cool:

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1015720-need-help-upgrading-my-pc-for-bf3/
Share on other sites

I agree with upgrading the whole machine. BF3 will rape that cpu, and the vid card needs upgrading as well if you want to play on good settings. At the very least graphics and cpu. You will want a quad core. Video card you will want something like a 6850/GTX 460 or better depending on your budget.

My machine (in sig) can play the alpha on high settings, fullscreen (1680x1050) just fine. The final game will likely have more way eye candy settings to enable judging from the fault line videos.

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131637

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231275

Price: 252$ + Shipping

I just bought this same setup earlier in the week. Got it all set up Wednesday night (I live 40 minutes from NewEggs warehouse, so I get overnight on free shipping ^_^), and there isn't a single game that I play I cannot run on High/Ultra graphics.

I'm loving it, considering I pretty much had the same setup as you before, on an old Duo CPU, with DDR2 RAM, I was bottlenecking bad. After this upgrade, I am incredibly happy. All of this was easy to setup for the most part, I had to reformat my drive with Win7 64bit because my old Windows install was not playing well with the motherboard. I had two windows partitions, 64bit and 32bit. The 64bit worked with the mobo without reformat, the 32 bit did not.

I am very satisfied though, especially for what I paid.

EDIT: I didn't see you also said graphics card. That I am not sure. I am on an Nvidia GT240 at the moment. Not the most powerful, but I haven't had any trouble running anything. It may not be enough to run BF3 with everything jacked up, but it will definitely do the job on High.

So far I have shortlisted these:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.5GHz Socket 775 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor 158333 85 in stock ?107.00

HIS HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI Dual Mini DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 264775 24 in stock ?191.92

Total: ?298.92

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@Zappa - What Gfx Card you got, can you reply with your full rig please?

So far I have shortlisted these:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.5GHz Socket 775 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor 158333 85 in stock ?107.00

HIS HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI Dual Mini DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 264775 24 in stock ?191.92

Total: ?298.92

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@Zappa - What Gfx Card you got, can you reply with your full rig please?

I edited it in.

ASUS ENGT240/DI/512MD5/A GeForce GT 240 512MB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

I need to upgrade that, that is my last thing, and I will be good to go for sure.

i used to have a P5Q or similar and it does support quadcore's but make sure you update your bios first!

can you increase your budget at all? that 6950 is great, but putting a Core 2 Quad into that machine is still going to be a bottlneck...

i used to have a P5Q or similar and it does support quadcore's but make sure you update your bios first!

can you increase your budget at all? that 6950 is great, but putting a Core 2 Quad into that machine is still going to be a bottlneck...

Can't really afford to update Mobo and Ram as well as both of these at the moment, just bought a house a lots of furniture.

I can always buy the rest later down the line, just want something that will not struggle for a bit, i know the gfx card is much better, but i can always migrate it into a new spec at some point.

To keep you posted, I will probably go for the Quad core an Gfx card I mentioned above.

I overclocked my CPU from 1.8ghz to 3ghz today and overclocked my Gfx card slightly with Rivatuner.

I can now play BF3 Alpha fine on medium settings, it goes a little laggy with loads of smoke, but i can get a feel for it.

Going to get these two parts well before official release and thanks for the help to those that replied :)

So far I have shortlisted these:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.5GHz Socket 775 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor 158333 85 in stock ?107.00

HIS HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI Dual Mini DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 264775 24 in stock ?191.92

Total: ?298.92

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@Zappa - What Gfx Card you got, can you reply with your full rig please?

Q8300 nothing to work with! you want a Q9400min at least a Q9550 would be best! with a Q8300 you would be wasting your time! and with the 6950 you will have bottlenecks from here to china! (using Q8300)

To keep you posted, I will probably go for the Quad core an Gfx card I mentioned above.

I overclocked my CPU from 1.8ghz to 3ghz today and overclocked my Gfx card slightly with Rivatuner.

I can now play BF3 Alpha fine on medium settings, it goes a little laggy with loads of smoke, but i can get a feel for it.

Going to get these two parts well before official release and thanks for the help to those that replied :)

WTF you get BF3 Alpha?

  • 1 year later...

Hello, My name is Jonathan ,

my brother have PC with a Asus M5A97 MOB, AMD ATHLON 2 X4 630, 8 GB RAM , ATI RADEON 5770 1GB, 320GB OF HARD DRIVE, A CORSAIR 750WATTS POWERSUPPLY, HE BUY BF3 BUT IT GETTING LAG , I NEED TO KNOW WHAT YOU RECOMEND ME TO UPDATE THE PC to play the game in high

in the other side i Just Buy for Build a PC FOR me , im using XFX 750WATTS powersupply, 8 gb corsair vengeance ddr3 1866, Amd FX 6100 CPU, ASUS ATI RADEON 7770 2GB VIDEO CARD, ASROCK FATAL1TY PROFESSIONAL MOB, 500GB HARD DRIVE,, DO YOU THINK WITH THIS PC I CAN RUN BF3 IN HIGH SETTINGS??

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Nudge me when they bring back hardware audio acceleration so I can get my EAX 5 back. We've evolved graphics to real-time path tracing, but regressed audio some 15 years back in time with this stupid software audio stack.
    • Ocenaudio 3.19.4 by Razvan Serea  Ocenaudio is a full featured, fast and easy to use audio and music editor. It is the ideal software for people who need to edit and analyze audio files without complications. Ocenaudio also has powerful features that will please more advanced users. To assist ocenaudio development, a powerful toolset of audio editing, analysis and manipulation called Ocen Framework was created. ocenaudio is also based on Qt framework, a well known library for cross-platform development. Cross-platform support ocenaudio is available for all major operating systems: Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Native applications are generated for each platform from a common source, in order to achieve excelent performance and seamless integration with the operating system. All versions of ocenaudio have a uniform set of features and the same graphical interface, so the skills you learn in one platform can be used in the others. VST plugins support Ocenaudio supports VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plugins, giving its users access to numerous effects. Like the native effects, VST effects can use real-time preview to aide configuration. Real-time preview of effects Applying effects such as EQ, gain and filtering is an important part of audio editing. However, it is very tricky to get the desired result by adjusting the controls configuration alone: you must listen the processed audio. To ease the configuration of audio effects, ocenaudio has a real time preview feature: you hear the processed signal while adjusting the controls. The effect configuration window also includes a miniature view of the selected audio signal. You can navigate on this miniature view in the same way as you do on the main interface, selecting parts that interest you and listening to the effect result in real time. Multiselection for delicate editions To speed up complex audio files editing, ocenaudio includes multi-selection. With this amazing tool, you can simultaneously select different portions of an audio file and listen, edit or even apply an effect to them. For example, if you want to normalize only the excerpts of an interview where the interviewee is talking, just select them and apply the effect. Eficient edition of large files With ocenaudio, there is no limit to the length or the quantity of the audio files you can edit. Using an advanced memory management system, the application keeps your files open without wasting any of your computer's memory. Even in files several hours long, common editing operations such as copy, cut or paste happen almost instantly. Fully featured spectrogram Besides offering an incredible waveform view of your audio files, ocenaudio has a powerful and complete spectrogram view. In this view, you can analyze the spectral content of your audio signal with maximum clarity. Advanced users will be surprised to find that the spectrogram settings are applied in real time. The display is updated immediately when altering features such as the number of frequency bands, window type and size and dynamic range of the display. Ocenaudio 3.19.4 changelog: Adds fallback fonts so every language and symbol displays correctly Improves autosave and session recovery stability Improves region navigation and display Fixes a crash when the level meter is used on displays with a scaling greater than 200% Fixes memory corruption when using the silence selection tools Fixes crashes when closing a file while effects are still being processed Fixes a freeze when applying effects to many files at once (macOS) Fixes crashes related to audio devices on Windows Fixes invalid file names when exporting regions whose label is used as the file name Other bug fixes and improvements Download: Ocenaudio 64-bit | Portable | ~40.0 MB (Freeware) Download: Ocenaudio for Linux and Mac OS View: Ocenaudio Homepage | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Hasleo Disk Clone 5.8.2.1 by Razvan Serea Hasleo Disk Clone is a free and all-in-one disk cloning software for Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista and Windows Server that can help you migrate Windows OS to another disk, clone one disk to another disk or clone one partition to another location quickly and efficiently. Completely Free Windows Migration and Disk/Partition Cloning Software Migrate Windows from one disk to another without reinstalling Windows, apps. Clone one disk to another and makes the data on 2 disks are exactly the same. Clone a partition to another location without losing any data. Easily adjust the size and location of the destination partition. Convert MBR to GPT or convert GPT to MBR by cloning. Creation of Windows PE emergency disk. Extremely fast cloning speed and multi-language support. Supported OS: Windows Vista/Server 2008 or later, fully compatible with GPT and UEFI. Hasleo Disk Clone 5.8.2.1 changelog: Fixed an issue that caused disk enumeration to fail Fixed an issue where WinPE created under Windows ARM64 26H1 did not work properly Download: Hasleo Disk Clone 5.8.2.1 | 32.3 MB (Freeware) Link: Hasleo Disk Clone Home Page | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • This got me thinking, would you rather a self driving car prioritise protecting its passengers or everyone else? I'd choose the one that keeps me and my kids safest. At some point, these cars have to make those choices already, don't they? Wonder if we have a way to find out what way they lean.
    • The proportion (or number of iterations) has nothing to with this aspect of Copyright I am describing. In short, it doesn't matter how many times the manager tells you to change something or how. Your work product is always YOURS until and unless you then assign that to the person representing the client/company, usually for financial compensation -- either in salary or as a subcontract work for hire payment. if iterations determined copyright, then businesses would have learned to just keep making changes until they could claim they owned the copyright, without having to compensate the artist for their work. And that would be BAD. The only place where the amount of changes does have a role is in how much does a human modify a previous public domain work (from any source) before it is considered fair use or their own work, etc. For example, if a human makes substantial changes to a public domain (re: AI, by definition) work, then they can then claim that derivative work as their own...but NEVER the original version, of course. That's why anyone can make a movie about Dracula, for example, as long as it is based on the public domain novel, but not if they take new ideas from copyrighted movies made afterwards. As one of the people who personally advised the US Copyright Office on their recent ruling on these very issues, be assured that I specifically used the terminology precisely -- though I made it simple enough for laymen to understand it. If I made this confusing by doing so, I apologize. But, to be clear regarding your assumption that I would agree to your second statement that I quoted above -- the answer is NO. If AI does the work, no matter how much "direction" you give it, it cannot be copyrighted. All AI generated content is in the Public Domain and therefore the copyright cannot be assigned to ANYONE, even you -- until and unless substantial modifications are made to it BY A HUMAN BEING (yourself or a contracted artist/writer/etc.) and then that copyright on the derivative work is legally (in writing) transferred to you. This is a critical distinction. And it is important that people, especially AI sloppers, understand this. For example, YouTube is not paying AI slop generators for the copyright, etc. of their AI slop. What YouTube is doing is sharing AD REVENUE for permission to publish your AI slop. Copyright/ownership/rights never come into it. Importantly, that means that anyone can copy any AI slopware on YouTube, etc. and rehost it anywhere they want, even back on YouTube, and there is nothing legal that YouTube can do about it with regards to copyright protections, ownership, DMCA, etc. Anyone is legally free to use any AI slopware in any way they want. When this ruling was pending, I warned Disney legal of all of this before they did their OpenAI deal -- that it would literally dilute their entire IP portfolio forever. They ignored that warning for the PR and stock bump. But that is why, when the ruling came down last year, Disney quickly extricated themselves from that OpenAI deal, even eating the initial upfront fees -- followed closely by OpenAI ending their entire AI video generating business model. They adjusted their PR release dates to make this less obvious to shareholders, of course. Phew. I hope that this clears up the key distinctions for you and anyone reading. If you have any additional questions or even hypotheticals about AI and Copyright, please feel free to ask.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Collaborator
      ryansurfer98 went up a rank
      Collaborator
    • Week One Done
      Eurosoft10 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Eurosoft10 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Year In
      Skeet Campbell earned a badge
      One Year In
    • One Month Later
      Sharbel earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      553
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      188
    3. 3
      Michael Scrip
      78
    4. 4
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      74
    5. 5
      neufuse
      71
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!