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iMac and Battlefield 3. Wut?

From what I've heard , the 27" Imac is quite decent at scaling down to 1080p resolution. And while I prefer running in native res myself , I'm curious if a owner who games can verify this ?

I'm about to get an Imac and the one thing holding me back from the 27" is how does it do when you need to scale the res down to 1080p to get decent gaming performance ? Does the screen still look as well in BF3 and other games ?

I really love the higher res in workspace use.
 
It's not going to look as good as native res. It will be somewhat blurry.
For best look and performance the first thing to disable is AA. AMD takes a major hit with this. Then take down shadows.
 
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Well heck , was considering selling off my pc gaming rig and going the 2gb video card Imac route as I really prefer OS X for everything at home and the Imac looks and takes up much less space than the PC rig also.

My pc rig is on OC'd 2600k with a 580 gtx the pretty much destroys every game at 1080p. But SWTOR is going to be my main game upcoming maybe with BF3 , and I on the fence about how SWTOR is going to run max'd at the native 27" res , and I know BF3 isn't going to happen well.

Might just go the low end 21.5 Imac from Amazon and add some RAM and keep the PC rig. Still would much rather just have the 27" Imac , just can't stand fuzzy at non native res.
 
Dahkot said:
Well heck , was considering selling off my pc gaming rig and going the 2gb video card Imac route as I really prefer OS X for everything at home and the Imac looks and takes up much less space than the PC rig also.

My pc rig is on OC'd 2600k with a 580 gtx the pretty much destroys every game at 1080p. But SWTOR is going to be my main game upcoming maybe with BF3 , and I on the fence about how SWTOR is going to run max'd at the native 27" res , and I know BF3 isn't going to happen well.

Might just go the low end 21.5 Imac from Amazon and add some RAM and keep the PC rig. Still would much rather just have the 27" Imac , just can't stand fuzzy at non native res.
Click to expand...

Your PC will obliterate the iMac. The 6970m performs on par with a 6850 desktop card. It is NOT a 6970 proper. Your GTX580 is the fastest single GPU out right now. Do not sell. Use both or get a laptop or something. That worked for me for a bit. Mac lappy and super powered PC tower. NOw I have the Mac Pro but in a few years I may go this route again.
 
Wait, I just re-read what was posted earlier. Are you saying that I could use the new iMac as a "monitor" with a separate Windows PC? I was under the impression that the new iMacs could Thunderbolt to video out but not in. Is that not the case?

If I can plug another PC into the display then I might just gut my gaming PC for parts I don't really need (Vertex 3 SSD, extra hard drives, 24" IPS monitor etc) and split the difference with the iMac. I could justify doing that.
 
Fairly sure adapters for Thunderbolt to dvi/hdmi to do what you want to do aren't available yet.

Likely on the horizon , but I bet you'll be talking about a pricey adapter initially also.
 
Dahkot said:
Well heck , was considering selling off my pc gaming rig and going the 2gb video card Imac route as I really prefer OS X for everything at home and the Imac looks and takes up much less space than the PC rig also.

My pc rig is on OC'd 2600k with a 580 gtx the pretty much destroys every game at 1080p. But SWTOR is going to be my main game upcoming maybe with BF3 , and I on the fence about how SWTOR is going to run max'd at the native 27" res , and I know BF3 isn't going to happen well.

Might just go the low end 21.5 Imac from Amazon and add some RAM and keep the PC rig. Still would much rather just have the 27" Imac , just can't stand fuzzy at non native res.
Click to expand...

same same here
 
whats the best driver to use on bootcamp for bf3?

is the 11.10 preview 3 driver the latest?
 
Will somebody kindly share his/her experience playing Battlefield 3, especially on hi-end 27" iMac?

Resolution/settings/FPS please? :)
 
So I take it then that they don't make a Mac version of BF3? Kind of gets expensive after you buy an iMac, then have to also buy a full version of Windows 7 and then the PC version of BF3.
 
Hey guys.

I bought BF3 on PS3, but I absolutely despise aiming with the joypad, so I'm thinking of trading it in and getting it for my Win7 partition.

My 27" iMac is;

3.1GHz i5
AMD Radeon HD 6970M 1GB
4GB DDR3 (soon upgrading to 8GB)

Could anyone let me know how well I could run BF3 and on what settings? If I'm going to get blurry graphics and at a low FPS I'll just force myself to enjoy it on the PS3. If anyone has the same iMac as me and could post a screenshot that'd be ace

Cheers
 
Estate said:
I tried using this driver you linked but it says my graphic card is not supported

I have a 6970M 2gb running in bootcamp
Click to expand...

Estate said:
I tried using this driver you linked but it says my graphic card is not supported

I have a 6970M 2gb running in bootcamp
Click to expand...

Strange, I've got the very same GPU in my Mid 2011 27" iMac and installed these drivers only three nights ago (I'm running Windows 7 64 Bit). If you're running Windows 7 32 Bit then you'll need a different set. Have you uninstalled the previous set of drivers first?

Maybe follow this link, there's an application to detect what drivers you're running and check if there are updated ones OR you can select "Auto Detect & Install" (I've never used this facility so can't vouch for it). remember, the 6970M is a mobile GPU, referred by AMD as a "Notebook" class of GPU.

http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/AMDSupportHub.aspx
 
zarf2007 said:
all those sitting on the fence unsure about the iMac's long term graphics performance there is always this to help with future GPU expansion:

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/04/external-thunderbolt-graphics-card-for-macs-to-be-developed-soon/
Click to expand...

From what I've read, that thing only works if you use it as a "pass through" to an external monitor. for use with a specific app. It can't take over ass the native renderer of your OS because it can't boot from thunderbolt. Or something like that.

I don't remember the details, but the take away was that you couldn't use it in the manner you're describing.
 
spcdust said:
Strange, I've got the very same GPU in my Mid 2011 27" iMac and installed these drivers only three nights ago (I'm running Windows 7 64 Bit). If you're running Windows 7 32 Bit then you'll need a different set. Have you uninstalled the previous set of drivers first?

Maybe follow this link, there's an application to detect what drivers you're running and check if there are updated ones OR you can select "Auto Detect & Install" (I've never used this facility so can't vouch for it). remember, the 6970M is a mobile GPU, referred by AMD as a "Notebook" class of GPU.

http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/AMDSupportHub.aspx
Click to expand...

nevermind it works now, I downloaded the same file from another link that is the mobility 11.10 released on oct 30
 
I have a 27" iMac i7 3.4ghz, 8gb ram and 2gb 6970.
In battlefield 3 I am getting 40-45 fps in single player and 45-50 fps in multiplayer. All settings on high with aa off at native resolution. With aa on it drops about 5fps. I downloaded the latest amd catalist drivers 11.1 final they where released on the 31st October. If you do a google search for them go to the amd site they are the first ones listed. I had the 11.1 preview 2 installed and going to the 11.1 finals gave me about a 8-10fps increase, these drivers are a must for battlefield 3. This game is just amazing at native resolution.
 
Lotta people posting BS performance in this thread. That, or they're testing the game exclusively indoors on maps without a lot of particle effects.

At 1920x1080 I get around 35-40 FPS with all settings at Medium (besides textures which are at Ultra), standard AA disabled, Post-AA on High, FOV at 90 and DBAO/motion blur etc enabled. All of my testing was in multiplayer on 64-player maps with lots of vehicles and crazy **** going down. I have the 3.1 GHz 27" iMac with 12gb RAM and 2gb 6970.

I've found these settings to be the most visually pleasing while still running smooth. The 1080p scaling is pretty solid in this game, and the consistent performance definitely makes it worthwhile. I wish there was a way to cap the fps at 30; I don't like it when the performance dips from 40 to 33 or vice versa. I'm sure an option will present itself soon.
 
U tryd said:
I have a 27" iMac i7 3.4ghz, 8gb ram and 2gb 6970.
In battlefield 3 I am getting 40-45 fps in single player and 45-50 fps in multiplayer. All settings on high with aa off at native resolution. With aa on it drops about 5fps. I downloaded the latest amd catalist drivers 11.1 final they where released on the 31st October. If you do a google search for them go to the amd site they are the first ones listed. I had the 11.1 preview 2 installed and going to the 11.1 finals gave me about a 8-10fps increase, these drivers are a must for battlefield 3. This game is just amazing at native resolution.
Click to expand...

I have nearly the same imac as you, can you link which driver you used exactly? is it the 11.10 for win7 or the mobility 11.10? at native res I cannot get 40-45 fps for sure at the moment, only possibly at 1080P
 
U tryd said:
I have a 27" iMac i7 3.4ghz, 8gb ram and 2gb 6970.
In battlefield 3 I am getting 40-45 fps in single player and 45-50 fps in multiplayer. All settings on high with aa off at native resolution. With aa on it drops about 5fps. I downloaded the latest amd catalist drivers 11.1 final they where released on the 31st October. If you do a google search for them go to the amd site they are the first ones listed. I had the 11.1 preview 2 installed and going to the 11.1 finals gave me about a 8-10fps increase, these drivers are a must for battlefield 3. This game is just amazing at native resolution.
Click to expand...

You will get that fps if you stare at a wall.

Not in action scenes etc. Thats just a lie.
 
I run BF3 on my 27" iMac (1GB VRAM) on native resolution, everything set to "high" (AA off) and it plays very well. Didn't record the FPS number and frankly, don't care - the game runs great, there are no slowdowns. Looks very good too, but man is the game boring and shallow... some 10 year old shooters were more innovative than this unimaginative "creation".
 
^ if you're playing the campaign you're doing it wrong.
 
NMF said:
^ if you're playing the campaign you're doing it wrong.
Click to expand...

Don't care much for multiplayer...

Anyway, the point of my post was to make it clear that iMac is absolutely sufficient for playing BF3 with decent quality on native resolution.
 
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