Before covering the various graphics-related settings which have the most significant impact on performance and image quality, this section examines the other settings. To access the in-game settings, launch BF3 and in the main menu click the Options button. The Video options are covered on the next few pages, but below we look at the Controls, Gameplay and Audio settings.

The settings below have no significant impact on performance.

Controls

Vertical Look: If this option is set to Normal, moving your mouse forward results in your character looking up, and moving the mouse back will make your character look down. If this option is set to Inverted, the arrangement is reversed, so that moving your mouse forward will make your character look down for example. This option only affects the Vertical (forward/back) not Horizontal (left/right) mouse axis.

Vertical Flight: This setting works in the same manner as Vertical Look, however it only affects flight controls, not soldier or land vehicle controls.

Mouse Sensitivity: This slider determines the level of responsiveness of the mouse to your movements. The higher the slider, the more responsive the mouse will feel. Keep in mind that if your mouse movements feel laggy even after raising the Mouse Sensitivity, you should check your framerate. If your framerate falls below around 20-25 FPS at any time, you will need to adjust your settings to improve FPS and hence keep your mouse feeling suitably responsive. Also be sure to set the Vertical Sync option to Off if you still experience a laggy feel - see Vertical Sync in the Video section of this guide.

Vehicle Mouse Sensitivity: This slider is independent of the general Mouse Sensitivity slider and controls the sensitivity of mouse movements only when you are in a vehicle.

Raw Mouse Input: When set to On, this option is designed to make mouse movement more accurate by ensuring that your mouse input is processed directly by BF3, and doesn't have any mouse acceleration or other Windows-related changes forced upon it. Enabling this option should improve your aim by making mouse movements more predictable and precise, but again, low framerates and VSync will impact on mouse responsiveness regardless of this setting.

Joystick Sensitivity: This slider only determines the sensitivity of controllers like joysticks and gamepads, not the mouse.

To change the default keys and buttons bound to specific actions, look under the Key Bindings section of the Options screen in BF3, and set them to suit your taste.

Gameplay

Subtitles: If set to Yes, text subtitles will be shown under spoken text. If set to No, subtitles are not shown.

Hint System: If set to Yes, the game will prompt you with on-screen hints as to how to take particular actions with weapons and vehicles. For example, if you are in a tank, the game will show a '[LMB] Fire' prompt on the right of the screen, hinting that you should press your Left Mouse Button to fire the tank's gun. To disable these prompts, set this option to No. It is recommended that the Hint System be set to Yes initially, so that you become accustomed to the various actions possible and how to trigger them, especially if you are experimenting with different key bindings.

Reload Hint: If set to Yes, the game will prompt you with a flashing '[R] Reload' text hint at the bottom right of the screen, just below your ammunition counter, whenever your weapon has nearly expended all the ammunition in its current magazine. Set to No to disable this prompt.

Weapon Zoom: This option allows you to control the way in which you zoom (look down your sights) on a weapon. The default zoom binding is your Right Mouse Button (RMB), and when this option is set to 'Hold Button', you will only zoom for as long as you hold down RMB; as soon as you let go, you revert to normal view. If set to 'Click Button' on the other hand, whenever you press RMB you will zoom in and stay zoomed, even if you let go of RMB. You will then need to click RMB again to get out of zoom mode.

Allow PunkBuster: This option must be set to Yes to enable the PunkBuster (PB) anti-cheat system and thus allow you to play BF3 multiplayer on ranked servers which have PB enabled. If set to No, you will only be able to play the BF3 Campaign (singleplayer) mode, or on unranked non-PB multiplayer servers. You can use the Battlelog server browser filter to find servers which are or are not PB-enabled, but playing on non-PB servers greatly increases the chance that people will be using cheats and exploits. If you're having problems with disconnections which could be due to PunkBuster, you can manually update PB by going here. Follow the instructions to save the two .htm files to your Program Files (x86)Origin GamesBattlefield 3pb folder.

Network Smoothing Factor: This slider controls interpolation, a technique which determines where a particular moving object or character is currently located in the game world, based on actual locational data periodically received over the network. If an enemy soldier is running along in front of you, interpolation allows their movement to appear fluid, calculating their movement across the screen even though your computer is receiving only periodic updates of where they actually are. So instead of seeing a person jerkily warping from point to point, you see smooth animated motion all the way along. By reducing this slider, you can reduce the use of interpolation, and in turn potentially increase your accuracy by reducing latency; you're more likely to shoot at where someone actually is at any time. The downside to reducing the slider is that it may make character movements more jerky in the game. This depends on a range of factors, including the quality and latency of your own connection to the server, and those of the other players. Start by lowering the slider to the midway point. If after a period of gameplay on your favorite servers you don't notice any jerkiness in friendly or enemy movements, then lower it slightly again. If you do, raise it slightly until things are smooth.

Audio

Master: This slider is the master volume control, affecting the level of sound effects and spoken dialog.

Your Speaker System: This option determines the way in which in-game audio is processed, and is best matched to your speaker configuration, although it also depends greatly on personal taste. The available options are:

• TV - Designed for smaller speakers, such as those on televisions;
• Headphones - Suits most basic stereo headphones;
• Hi-Fi - Suitable for speakers which have reasonable dynamic range, such as stereo speaker (2 or 2.1 channel) setups and good quality headphones;
• Home Cinema - Suitable for multi-channel (e.g. 5.1 channel) speaker setups;
• War Tapes - Provides an exaggerated sound stage with greater reverberation and impact on any speaker system, though it can make accurately detecting directional sounds a bit more difficult at times.

Enhanced Stereo Mode: If set to On, this setting enhances stereo to simulate a wider audio field for those using speakers or headphones which don't have surround sound functionality.

Voiceover Language: This setting controls the language used for voices in the game. Select your own language to ensure that you can understand what your teammates are saying.

On the next page we begin our look at the various graphics-related settings in Battlefield 3.

The general video settings can be found on the left side of the Video tab, and are covered below.

Fullscreen Monitor: If you have multiple monitors, this setting allows you to select which one to use as your primary display monitor for BF3.

Fullscreen Resolution: This determines the Resolution of the game image, measured by the number of pixels horizontally and vertically (e.g. 1920 pixels x 1080 pixels). It also lets you select the Refresh Rate at your chosen resolution shown in Hz. The number of resolutions and refresh rates available here is limited by the capabilities of both your graphics card and monitor. The higher the resolution you choose, the more detailed the image will be. However higher resolutions also generate an increased load on your system, particularly your graphics card, and hence can reduce your overall performance. The performance impact can sometimes be substantial, so if adjusting the other settings fails to sufficiently improve your performance, reduce your resolution. For the sharpest image on an LCD monitor, either select the maximum available resolution here, which is also referred to as your Native Resolution, or if choosing a resolution below your maximum, set the Fullscreen option to Off - see further below.

An indication of the performance impact of changing this setting is shown below:

The graph shows that progressively higher resolutions will reduce your FPS significantly. Resolution is one of the major determinants of overall performance in BF3.

Fullscreen: If you want to run BF3 in a window on your Desktop, as opposed to taking up the entire screen, then select Off here. Running BF3 in windowed is best done if you want to reduce the game's screen resolution to improve performance, but still maintain a crisp image.

Brightness: This slider controls the level of brightness for the in-game image. It has no impact on performance, so set to suit your taste.

Vertical Sync: Vertical Synchronization (VSync) is the synchronization of your graphics card and monitor's abilities to redraw an image on the screen a number of times each second, measured in Hz. This is not the same as FPS, but when VSync is On your maximum FPS will also be capped to your monitor's Refresh Rate - see your Refresh Rate value in the Fullscreen Resolution setting. For most people the refresh rate is around 59-60Hz, which means your framerate will be also capped to around 60 FPS if VSync is On. When VSync is Off, you may experience a phenomenon known as 'tearing': portions of the image temporarily appear to be out of alignment. This does no harm to your system, but it can be annoying. Enabling VSync removes tearing but aside from capping the framerate, it can also reduce your FPS by up to 50% or more, and importantly, introduce some mouse lag. To benefit from VSync without taking the performance hit, you can enable Triple Buffering, which should already be enabled by default in BF3. Otherwise the easiest way to guarantee the highest framerates, and to prevent any mouse lag, is to simply set Vertical Sync to Off. You can also disable Triple Buffering as covered in the Advanced Tweaking section.

Field of View: This setting determines your Field of View (FOV), which is how much of the game world you can see at once on the screen. The default is 70 degrees, and here you can select any value between 60 and 90 degrees. Raising FOV requires a level restart to apply any changes, and it can also reduce performance if raised due to more of the game world being visible. See the Advanced Tweaking section if you want to set a custom FOV value.

Motion Blur Amount: This setting determines the amount of Motion Blur used. Since it's dependent on the Motion Blur setting, its impact is covered in the description for that setting later in this guide.

Open Screen Adjust: When you click 'Open Screen Adjust', a new screen will open. Within it is a dark gray window with arrows on its edges, indicating the maximum extent to which the Heads Up Display (HUD) elements, such as your compass and ammo counter, can be displayed on your screen. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to resize this window. For example, expand the gray window all the way to the edges of the screen, and in turn your HUD elements will be displayed at the far edges of the screen as well, making them less obstructive.

Stereoscopic 3D: Battlefield 3 now supports stereoscopic 3D. NVIDIA users who have a 3D Vision-capable system can turn this option On to provide a more immersive gameplay experience. More information on how to enable and use this functionality is on this page.

Colorblind Support: If set to On, the game will alter some of the colors used for various game elements to ensure that they are easier to distinguish for players who are color blind.

Once you've adjusted the settings on this screen, you will be prompted to apply and save your settings before you can move on.

Shadow Quality: This setting controls the level of shadow detail. The available options are Low, Medium, High and Ultra, and at progressively higher levels the shadows in the game become softer, more detailed, and hence more realistic, at the cost of some performance. The general impact and realism of shadows is also greatly affected by the Ambient Occlusion setting, which is covered later in the guide.

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The screenshots above show that at Low there are plentiful shadows, but they are all hard-edged. At Medium, the shadows are softer and thus more realistic, however there is actually some loss of detail in the shadows compared to Low. For example, look at the white vertical pipe at the far right of the screen: at Low it has shadows (though quite jagged ones) under the different sections of the piping; at Medium those shadows are all but gone. So going from Low to Medium is a step backward in some respects. At High, shadow edges are further softened, but importantly, shadow detail also returns. At Ultra, there is slight additional softening, and a bit more shadow depth and realism.

An indication of the performance impact of changing this setting is shown below:

The graph above highlights an interesting fact that at higher resolutions, the largest decline in FPS comes from the very first jump between Low and Medium Shadow Quality. This is because Medium is the first setting to enable soft shadows, and at subsequent levels of Shadow Quality the FPS impact is less marked. If you want a good balance of image quality and performance, then High is ideal. At Medium, you will be trading off some shadow detail in return for softer shadows, and Ultra has the biggest performance impact without substantial improvement over High. Low is obviously the best choice if you're struggling for FPS, but note that shadows can't be completely disabled; this is to maintain fairness in multiplayer.

Effects Quality: This setting determines the level of intensity of particle-based effects such as smoke, tracers and explosions. The available options are Low, Medium, High and Ultra. As with some of the other settings which can impact on the fairness of multiplayer gameplay, this setting is not highly scalable, in that between Low and Ultra there is no dramatic change, and certainly the effects can't be disabled completely.

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Though an accurate comparison of smoke and explosion effects is difficult using static screenshots, you can see that the particle effects from the smoke and fire are reasonably realistic at Low, giving off dark smoke and occasional sparks. At Medium, the smoke becomes more complex and there are more emissions in the form of sparks from the fire. What is not as noticeable in these particular screenshots is that at Medium and above, particle effects can create shadows beneath them. Furthermore the amber sparks rising from the fire cast their own light, in effect becoming individual dynamic light sources. At High these particle and lighting effects increase in complexity and volume, and Ultra sees a slight increase again.

An indication of the performance impact of changing this setting is shown below:

As expected, the performance impact of Effects Quality is noticeable but not major, especially at higher resolutions. For most people Medium is the best choice as it enables some of the key enhancements without being overly taxing. This is particularly the case if you notice slowdowns during heavy combat.

Terrain Decoration: This setting only affects visual decoration objects on terrain, such as grass, bushes, small rocks, and debris. The available options are Low, Medium, High and Ultra. However because terrain decoration is frequently used as a major source of cover during multiplayer, the setting is designed not to be highly scalable, so you can't disable grass and bushes altogether for example.

Importantly, this setting requires that you quit and restart the game for any changes to be implemented.

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The screenshots above show that at Low there are patches of grass, bushes and flowers, but these are fairly sparse in most areas, especially in the middle distance. At Medium, High and Ultra the amount of grass, bushes and flowers incrementally increases. What the screenshots don't show is that foliage 'pop-in' becomes more pronounced at lower levels of this setting, such that at Low for example, you will see flowers and some patches of grass appearing or disappearing a few meters away from you as you move.

An indication of the performance impact of changing this setting is shown below:

The graph above indicates that the performance impact of Terrain Decoration is minimal, however in practice this will depend on the particular scene. In large outdoor multiplayer maps with lots of terrain decoration such as Caspian Border, the impact will be more noticeable.

Motion Blur: This setting allows the use of motion blurring if set to On. With Motion Blur enabled, you can control the degree to which fast motion is blurred using the 'Motion Blur Amount' slider. The higher the slider, the greater the amount of blurring which occurs during fast motion, such as when spinning around. Motion blurring has its advantages and disadvantages. It can improve the perception of smoothness at lower framerates, and can also bring a cinematic feel to the game. On the other hand it can reduce performance and responsiveness during fast motion, and can also make it harder to spot enemies in your peripheral vision when turning around.

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The screenshots above show the effects when Motion Blur is first set to Off, then when enabled and the 'Motion Blur Amount' slider is at the far left (0%); at the middle position (50%); and at the far right (100%). All the screenshots were taken as the soldier was spinning around quickly from left to right. When motion blur is disabled or at its minimum, the scene remains quite clear during fast motion. At 50% motion blur, the blurring is quite noticeable, and only slightly more blurry at 100% motion blur. In practice the amount of blurring also depends on how quickly you're moving, so it is difficult to show in a precise manner in a screenshot comparison.

An indication of the performance impact of changing this setting is shown below:

The graph above demonstrates that Motion Blur has a relatively minor impact on performance. The choice primarily comes down to whether you like the effect or not.

The second graph shows that the different levels of motion blur, selectable using the Motion Blur Amount slider, reduce performance in a consistent manner.

Motion Blur in any amount can reduce performance during periods of fast motion. This is precisely the time when you don't want a dip in your framerate and any subsequent reduction in responsiveness, so it can be useful to reduce or disable motion blur to improve performance and make it easier to spot enemies.

Anisotropic Filtering: This is a form of texture filtering is designed to improve the sharpness of textures which appear at an angle to your view, such as those on the ground or walls receding into the distance. You can read more about Anisotropic Filtering (AF) in this guide. The available options for AF in BF3 are the following sample rates: 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x and 16x.

Importantly, this setting requires that you quit and restart the game for any changes to be implemented.

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The screenshots above show the range of settings from 1x to 16x AF. Pay particular attention to the tiles on the ground and the wall to the left. At 1x, from the middle distance onward everything is very blurry, becoming an indistinct mess in the far distance. At 2x clarity is improved slightly; 4x makes things crisper; and by 8x AF the scene is quite clear. The difference between 8x and 16x AF is difficult to see here, but may be more noticeable when in motion during gameplay.

An indication of the performance impact of changing this setting is shown below:

The graph demonstrates quite clearly that the performance impact of Anisotropic Filtering on modern graphics cards is relatively minor. It is recommended that you use at least 2x AF for reasonable clarity, and 8x AF is an excellent compromise between performance and image quality.

Battlefield 3 is designed around the new Frostbite 2 engine developed by DICE. The engine has a great many features, with over 3,000 command variables (CVARS) in place to control its numerous functions. However less than 100 of these CVARS are unlocked, and fewer still have any impact on the multiplayer component of BF3. This is a deliberate measure by DICE to prevent alterations to the game which would give anyone an unfair advantage. Furthermore, Battlefield 3's in-game settings are quite comprehensive and allow users to readily customize the game as much as possible within these parameters. However DICE has revealed a few advanced tweaks you can use, and these are described in this section of the guide.

Command Console

The primary method for accessing Frostbite 2's advanced functionality is via the command console. This console can be opened by pressing the ~ key, which is found just below ESC and above TAB on most keyboards. You can use the same key to close the console again at any time. Once opened, you can type any command and press Enter to execute it. Try using the List command to see the available set of console commands. The following are the most useful of these console commands, and a brief description of their function:

render.drawfps 1 - When set to 1, this command displays a frame per second (FPS) counter at the top right of the screen. The counter can be removed by typing render.drawfps 0.

render.perfoverlayvisible 1 - When set to 1, this command displays a small chart on the bottom left corner of the screen designed to provide you with key information about your system's performance during BF3. It shows your graphics card (GPU) usage as a green line, and your processor (CPU) usage as a yellow line. The aim is to ensure that during gameplay neither lines spike frequently to very high levels, as this indicates that the particular resource is being overtaxed, and possibly causing lag and instability. If necessary experiment with your in-game settings until you see a reduction in such spikes. Use render.perfoverlayvisible 0 to close the overlay.

RenderDevice.TripleBufferingEnable 1 - By default Triple Buffering appears to be enabled in BF3. If you've enabled Vertical Sync, Triple Buffering can be useful in preventing a drop in FPS, but Triple Buffering can also reduce responsiveness on some systems, even with VSync disabled. Set this command to a value of 0 to disable the built-in Triple Buffering and test to see if it reduces any input lag.

RenderDevice.ForceRenderAheadLimit 0 - This setting controls the number of frames prepared by the CPU before being processed by the GPU. You can try values of 0, 1, 2 or 3 - higher values may improve FPS but can decrease responsiveness, while lower values do the reverse. In experimenting with this on my system using the performance overlay (see above), I found that as the value increased to 3, CPU spikes became more frequent. Smoothest performance was at 0 or 1, but this can vary from system to system.

GameTime.MaxVariableFps 60 - This command allows you to cap your framerate to the FPS value you specify (e.g. a value of 60 for a 60 FPS cap). This is not the same as VSync, as the framerate cap is not linked to your refresh rate, and capping your FPS in this way will not reduce your overall performance or create mouse lag like VSync can. Instead, by capping your framerate you can prevent large fluctuations in FPS, in turn reducing resource spikes and stuttering, and improving the perception of smoothness. However capping your FPS does not mean your minimum FPS will rise to the capped value, it only prevents maximum FPS from exceeding it.

screenshot.render - When this command is executed in the console, the game immediately takes a screenshot (minus the console), and places it as a lossless .PNG file in your Users[username]DocumentsBattlefield 3Screenshots directory. You can use the screenshot.format command to change the format of the screenshot file. E.g. screenshot.format JPG to save screenshots in JPEG format rather than PNG.

ui.Drawenable 0 - If this command is set to a value of 0, it will remove the Heads Up Display (HUD) and any other screen overlays. Using the command with a value of 1 will enable them again. This is primarily designed for people who wish to take screenshots or make gameplay videos, as otherwise it is very difficult to play the game properly without these important screen elements.

If you wish to apply any console command automatically at startup, create a new text file and rename it to User.cfg. Edit the file using Windows Notepad or Wordpad, entering each command on a separate line. Save this file and place it in your main Program Files (x86)Origin GamesBattlefield 3 directory.

Configuration File

The main configuration file which holds your BF3 settings can be found under the Users[username]DocumentsBattlefield 3settings directory. The file is called PROF_Save_profile, and you should create a backup copy of it before attempting any changes. This file is best edited using the built-in Windows Wordpad, which displays the file with more legible formatting. The vast majority of the settings in this file correspond to those you can adjust using the in-game options menus, so it is not necessary or recommended that they be altered here. However there are a couple of useful settings which can be further customized in this file, as described below:

GstRender.FieldOfView 70.000000 - You can set your Field of View in the in-game options, however there it is capped between 60 and 90 degrees. Using this command, you can set a value outside that cap (in degrees), which will work in multiplayer. The default value is 70 degrees.

GstInput.MouseSensitivity 0.418605 - You can set your mouse sensitivity using the Mouse Sensitivity slider in the game options. However here you can set it more precisely, and it also allows you to use values above the maximum allowed on the slider (i.e. above 1.00000), which will work in multiplayer.

While there are plenty of other variables you can experiment with, keep in mind once again that DICE has specifically prevented any variables which alter aspects of the game that would make it unfair to other players. So there is little chance of finding a variable which removes all foliage, or which reduces object complexity beyond the limits set in the in-game options, and so on. Even if any such commands work, they are likely to be quickly detected as cheat variables and could result in being kicked or banned via PunkBuster if used online. The bulk of the useful tweaking of BF3 comes from the numerous in-game settings covered earlier in this guide.