Outdoor Operation Metro Testing

Update (9/29/11): We have new performance results for the GeForce GTX 460, Radeon HD 5850 and even the GeForce 9800 GT!  Be sure you find those on the last page of our article!

Easily a more GPU-taxing area in our early BF3 beta testing was the sections at the beginning and end of the map that take place outside in a larger, more open area.  I used the first section of this map for my testing that included a large body of water as well as lots of foliage and frequent explosions.  

We used the same sets of cards for our testing here though I have to point out that we ran into some problems with the Radeon HD 6970 card consistently crashing in this area.  We tried two different HD 6970 cards and the problem repeated itself time and time again – though never in the subway parts of the map.  It would appear that AMD has some more work to do with its driver stability; though the HD 6950 and HD 6870 cards completed our testing without a hiccup.

This is definitely more of a struggle for the GeForce cards as the GTX 560 Ti is barely able to keep over a 30 FPS mark while the GTX 580 only reaches as high as 42 frames per second with a minimum of just over 30.  The MARS II card was easily the best experience, and for a $1400 graphics card I guess it should be.

In the outdoor section the Radeon HD 6950 isn’t able to keep up with the GTX 570 or GTX 580 though it manages a capable 34 FPS.  The Radeon HD 6870 result shows us an average of about 27.8 FPS and comes in under the GTX 560 Ti.  It should go without saying that this game is going to be tough on graphics hardware and definitely so on these Ultra quality settings.  

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