Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iMac and Battlefield 3. Wut?

Hey guys!
I see there has been a lot of talk about the 27" iMac and BF3, but my question will battlefield 3 be playable on the 21,5" iMac? The one with following spec:
2,7Ghz icore i5
8gb of ram
AMD Radeon HD 6770M with 512 MB GDDR5
With other words the high end 21,5" iMac.

So will i be able to play it on ultra graphics?
 
leman said:
There is a reason why cinema industry works with 24 frames per second, you know; or do modern movies look as having too low "fps" to you?
Click to expand...

They're at 24fps for nothing more than legacy reasons (that are rapidly disappearing, but that's another story). There is no "technical" justification - old movie cameras simply couldn't make all the mechanical pieces spin any faster, and much like basing civilization on Word and Excel, the power of legacy kicked in.

HOWEVER...

Although movies were filmed at 24fps, they have not been played back at that rate for at least half a century. A long long time ago folks figured out that playing back at 48 fps (by double-flashing every frame) looks much better than watching 24fps. Why should flashing the same thing twice look better than holding the frame steady for the same length of time? Because the human visual system is a complicated mess, that's why. :)

This was/is standard practice in theatres for a long, long time.

24fps is doomed, and rightfully so, because it sucks. It's like arguing music should be recorded in 128kbps instead of lossless.
 
Popis1991 said:
Hey guys!
I see there has been a lot of talk about the 27" iMac and BF3, but my question will battlefield 3 be playable on the 21,5" iMac? The one with following spec:
2,7Ghz icore i5
8gb of ram
AMD Radeon HD 6770M with 512 MB GDDR5
With other words the high end 21,5" iMac.

So will i be able to play it on ultra graphics?
Click to expand...

I just came back to OS X from a session of BF3, no you will not be able to play it on ultra graphics on your iMac. I have a standard 27" high-end one and I'm playing at 1080p with overall settings on medium. But then i get no lag what so ever, not even in metro with rpgs whining past my head and explosions going on everywhere. I also don't get lag on any of the big open maps what so ever. :)

I think you will be able to play on settings similar to mine.

Regards, Marvin. :apple:
 
A comfortable 40-55FPS on High (medium shadows, 2x AA) @ 2560x1440 w/ Catalyst 11.10 on a 27" 3.4 i7, 12GB RAM & o/c'ed 2GB 6970M, during firefights. Runs very well, and looks great. Can get away with less AA due to the super high resolution.
 
iMarvin said:
I just came back to OS X from a session of BF3, no you will not be able to play it on ultra graphics on your iMac. I have a standard 27" high-end one and I'm playing at 1080p with overall settings on medium. But then i get no lag what so ever, not even in metro with rpgs whining past my head and explosions going on everywhere. I also don't get lag on any of the big open maps what so ever. :)

I think you will be able to play on settings similar to mine.

Regards, Marvin. :apple:
Click to expand...

Wow.... i have the high end 27" and i play both skyrim and BF3 on ultra graphics so i don't what ur doing that u can only play on medium :p
 
Popis1991 said:
Wow.... i have the high end 27" and i play both skyrim and BF3 on ultra graphics so i don't what ur doing that u can only play on medium :p
Click to expand...

That's cool!! On which resolution? And how much FPS did you get?

I thought you said you have 21.5" iMac? Or do you have both 21.5" and 27"?
 
Popis1991 said:
Wow.... i have the high end 27" and i play both skyrim and BF3 on ultra graphics so i don't what ur doing that u can only play on medium :p
Click to expand...
It has been said before. "Ultra" is meaningless without the used resolution... You must have played to game on low resolution with Ultra settings.
 
If you search on youtube for "Rage imac" there's a video of Rage being played with High settings and large textures at full resolution 2560. On iMac 2011. it looks amazing.
Rage is pretty high performance game as id Software games usually quickest and most optimized games around.

Maybe they will update BF3 to run smoother on same level as Rage. Great if it will happen by the time BF3 comes out on Steam.
 
elithrar said:
A comfortable 40-55FPS on High (medium shadows, 2x AA) @ 2560x1440 w/ Catalyst 11.10 on a 27" 3.4 i7, 12GB RAM & o/c'ed 2GB 6970M, during firefights. Runs very well, and looks great. Can get away with less AA due to the super high resolution.
Click to expand...

Sounds good, I've been running at 1080p would love to up it. What are your OC settings, fan speed and temps?
 
Popis1991 said:
Wow.... i have the high end 27" and i play both skyrim and BF3 on ultra graphics so i don't what ur doing that u can only play on medium :p
Click to expand...

I thought you didn't even have a iMac yet, why would you replace a 27" high end with a 21" one? Doesn't make sense. And at what resolution? 1280 x 720?
 
Popis1991 said:
Wow.... i have the high end 27" and i play both skyrim and BF3 on ultra graphics so i don't what ur doing that u can only play on medium :p
Click to expand...

It's called native resolution. Your iMac will choke on BF3 Ultra settings at 2560x1440.
Do you even have an iMac? I see you asking about the 20" then 1 day later you own and have been playing BF3 on ultra on a 27"? Why even ask about the 20" if you have the more powerful 27"?
 
NMF said:
The problem is I planned on paying off (most of) the iMac with the money I made from selling my PC components. If I don't sell the PC, then I can't really justify the iMac.

And I'm sick of dealing with all the minor things that spring up from building your own PC. I hate it when things go wrong and I have to be my own tech support. That stuff was fun to tinker with when I was 18, but I'm an adult now and my time is more valuable. I want my stuff to "just work."

So I'll take the hit in performance... I just wish Apple offered the 6970m in the 22" iMac, or let you downgrade the screen on the 27". The problem is that stupid, unnecessarily high resolution. :(
Click to expand...

I understand what you mean but things have changed, I find issues that you refer to aren't so common place on a Win 7 machine, yes drivers need updating but they also need updating on a mac. You have to remember the components in both a mac and pc are the same, ram, processor, GPU etc...its just the software and styling you get on a mac that really is above pretty much anything the pc world has to offer. It's lovely machine my iMac but for gaming seriously a gaming PC (for the moment) is the right tool to do the job properly.
 
Would i benefit from more ram during BF3? I currently have 4Gb in the iMac, would i notice a difference if i go for 8? Or should i go all in while I'm at it and get 16? :confused:
 
derbothaus said:
It's called native resolution. Your iMac will choke on BF3 Ultra settings at 2560x1440.
Do you even have an iMac? I see you asking about the 20" then 1 day later you own and have been playing BF3 on ultra on a 27"? Why even ask about the 20" if you have the more powerful 27"?
Click to expand...

Well then maybe he's just full of crap :D .. only he didn't do it good enough.
Let's see if he can post some proof here. Considering he had played it on his "hi-end iMac" .. a simple screenshot will suffice.
 
Tombs said:
I find issues that you refer to aren't so common place on a Win 7 machine
Click to expand...

Then you have better luck than me. I was at the point of needing a full wipe and OS re-install on my gaming PC. Some inner settings with pagefile catching was f'd up in Windows beyond repair. Beyond that it sometimes locked up or behaved poorly, despite having cutting-edge components. The iMac? None of those issues -- and even if one came up, I could just take it to the Apple Store and have them deal with it.

Hell, I had Win7 lock up on me in bootcamp on my iMac too. Windows is just a POS operating system. I deleted my bootcamp partition and am now sticking to console games. My life is much happier now.
 
derbothaus said:
It's called native resolution. Your iMac will choke on BF3 Ultra settings at 2560x1440.
Do you even have an iMac? I see you asking about the 20" then 1 day later you own and have been playing BF3 on ultra on a 27"? Why even ask about the 20" if you have the more powerful 27"?
Click to expand...

I have the 27" and im think about change it to the 21" because the 27" is so ****ing expensive. So i would sell my 27" and change it for a 21* and save about 600$( i live in sweden so that is the difference in sweden) So thats why im asking if bf3 could play on the 21".

And i am playing skyrim on ultra with 2560x1440 and ive just tried playing bf3 once so far and if i recall it was on ultra and 2560x1440 if not then it was 1080p but ill check tonight
 
Popis1991 said:
I have the 27" and im think about change it to the 21" because the 27" is so ****ing expensive. So i would sell my 27" and change it for a 21* and save about 600$( i live in sweden so that is the difference in sweden) So thats why im asking if bf3 could play on the 21".

And i am playing skyrim on ultra with 2560x1440 and ive just tried playing bf3 once so far and if i recall it was on ultra and 2560x1440 if not then it was 1080p but ill check tonight
Click to expand...

Makes sense. Didn't mean to call you out. You know how things get on the forums:cool:
Um FYI, a GTX580 can't do what you are saying your iMac can do.
I would downgrade if the 20" had the 6790m which is a 6850 desktop. If you play games best not to downgrade as the games will only get more intense and the screen scaler on the 27" iMac is supposed to be pretty good.
 
NMF said:
Then you have better luck than me. I was at the point of needing a full wipe and OS re-install on my gaming PC. Some inner settings with pagefile catching was f'd up in Windows beyond repair. Beyond that it sometimes locked up or behaved poorly, despite having cutting-edge components. The iMac? None of those issues -- and even if one came up, I could just take it to the Apple Store and have them deal with it.

Hell, I had Win7 lock up on me in bootcamp on my iMac too. Windows is just a POS operating system. I deleted my bootcamp partition and am now sticking to console games. My life is much happier now.
Click to expand...

Then you are very very unlucky.. or something else.?
 
i think I've made a decision....im going back to a pc....this horrifies me a lot and i do not like it one but but for my gaming purpose i think i will return my iMac and go for a gaming pc that is half the price.
 
Just so you know .. yesterday I've just got myself a copy of Battlefield 3 .. and play it on my iMac .. well jawdropping graphics really.

I set up on Ultra with NATIVE 2560x1440 resolution, 2xMSAA and low post antialiasing .. damn that's heavy!! Only get myself around 20 - 30FPS most of time, and sometimes just a bit below 40FPS on small places. On busiest moments can be down to 10 - 15FPS which nearly unplayable. But still darn impressive and great

And yeah .. I just can't turn down the resolution and settings, I dont want to, 1080p looks blurry, and on native.... :eek:... the graphic awesomeness is so .. well .. awesome.

At least for campaign I'm going to enjoy this.


PS: COD MW3 is nowhere near looks as good as Battlefield 3 .. the difference is just HUUGEE .. I'm talking about graphics here, not gameplay, multiplayer etc... so no flaming please.
 
I tried both of them on my iMac 27" 6970 and the performance on Windows 7 64bit. is not good, in windows score i go from 7.9 to 5.6 under graphic, and modern warfare 3 is lagging with 11.10 and 11.11.

But when i install the Apple Bootcamp ATI drivers my performance is back.

Any suggestions?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back