Battlefield 3 Beta Opens Sept. 29
by Craig Getting on September 20, 2011 8:24 PM EST- Posted in
- Gaming
- Electronic Arts
- GPUs
Fans of DICE’s large-scale FPS rejoice: the open beta for Battlefield 3 launches on September 29. Anyone who preordered BF3 via EA’s Origin service or purchased the Limited Edition of last year’s Medal of Honor will be able to play the beta early starting September 27.
The beta will feature one map, Operation Metro, in the Rush mode popularized by DICE’s Battlefield: Bad Company series. Though the beta will end October 10, there is no playtime limit. Players are free to rank up as far as possible but DICE has explicitly said that no stats or unlocks will carry over to the finished product.
Xbox 360 and PS3 users need only download the beta software to play, but PC users will need to install and use Origin. The beta should give players adequate time to get accustomed to EA’s service before the full game releases October 25. System requirements for the PC version can be found below.
| Minimum | Recommended | |
| OS | Windows Vista (SP2) 32-bit | Windows 7 64-bit |
| Processor | 2 GHz Dual Core (Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or Athlon X2 2.7 GHz) | Quad-Core CPU |
| Memory | 2 GB | 4 GB |
| Hard Drive Space | 20 GB | 20 GB |
| Graphics Card | 512 MB ATI Radeon 3870 or NVIDIA 8800 GT | 1024 MB ATI Radeon 6950 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 |
| DirectX | DirectX 10.1 (AMD) / DirectX 10.0 (NVIDIA) | DirectX 11 |
| Sound | DirectX Compatible | DirectX Compatible |
Source: DICE
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JetSter735180 - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
Recommended Graphics Card : "1024 MB ATI Radeon 6950 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560"Ouch!
I'll need a new computer...AMD Bulldozer with a ATI 6950 2Gb ?
Andrew.a.cunningham - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
The system reqs as a whole look pretty high given that the thing's also coming to consoles.Craig Getting - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
Yeah, there will be a sizable discrepancy between consoles and PCs, but that's also just where the hardware is nowadays. EA's said from the beginning that PC was going to be "lead" platform on this one, whatever that means to their marketing department. So they probably just told DICE to crank everything up to 11.SlyNine - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
I lol'ed.Capt Caveman - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
Two different development teams for PC and Console. Console will be a complete dumbdowned version of the PC game. Smaller maps, lower number of players, lesser graphics, etc...Developers have already stated that you will need 580 SLI to play the game with Ultra settings.
lurker22 - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
Seems like my 9800 GT ain't gonna cut it.Great, I get to play my most hated game, figuring out the stupid numbering system on the latest Nvidia cards for best bang for the buck.
mrkdilkington2 - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
Your 9800gt is a rebranded 8800gt which is the minimum requirement. Considering that the card is 4+ years old, that isn't so bad. If you need a new card, Tomshardware ranks almost every graphics card made in a giant list.lurker22 - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
Thanks, good ideaSlyNine - Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - link
If you don't want to do that why not just say what you're willing to spend and get suggestions. I do the bang for buck calculation all the time so Itd be no sweet off my back to give you a recommendation.ksherman - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link
I would sooooo much rather buy this through Steam, I don't want to have a game downloading account on yet another service.Super excited for BF3 though! Guess my 'lowly' AMD 5850 isn't gonna cut it anymore.