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shaq_mobile
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Battlefield 1

Sat Oct 22, 2016 12:26 pm

Just a quick review, because I don't feel that most of the reviews online reflected my gameplay experience.

As usual, BF1 has strong environmental and cinematic special effects. There is a wide array of WW1 weaponry, some of which have some iconic and endearing quirks. The maps are visually interesting and attractive.

That being said...

The gunplay feels very sloppy. When you get a kill, it rarely feels deserved. When someone kills you, it often feels like it's more about the frenetic nature of the map design than someone who is literally just better at the game than you are (whether that's true is another matter, of course! :)). The overuse of lazy environmental effects that limit your vision range by X distance instead of having anything to do with location or geography is abundant. Regenerating healthbars really detracted from the theme. The mustard gas is more annoying than additive to the experience (though it requiring a gas mask therefore inhibiting use of crosshairs lends it some interesting tactical use!) There is no hardcore mode. The server browser was largely empty, with only 2 servers with people playing. I don't think the game has any mod support, as usual, so if you want more content you just have to wait and pay up.

Really, it just feels like a simple BF4 with lots of WW1 gimmicks. Some of the new map modes are interesting attempts. There were clear efforts at some innovation, but it mostly resulted in shallow changes. I certainly don't think it was the iterative cash grab that some other franchises are criminally guilty of. There are very obvious signs of effort and love in a lot of respects, I just don't think it came together very well.

I read one review comparing it to Bad Company 2, which I recently booted up a few months ago and played for a few weeks, and this game is about as far from BC2 as any of the BF games have ever been, aside from Hardline (I didn't play Hardline, but the theme was pretty distant). Bad Company 2 had very crisp gunplay, levels that were just the right size and design for the player counts, with just enough insanity to keep you on your toes but not so much that it left you feeling somewhat helpless.

I actually encourage anyone who is interested to buy this game, because of Origin's solid return policy. Your experience may vary completely, and there's no reason to take my opinion too seriously while you can just experience it yourself. I just figured I'd put my thoughts out there, since I felt that a lot of the online reviews were incredibly generous in most respects. I think a lot of folks were just happy that we got a differently themed BF, so they gave it far more leeway than they should have.
 
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Re: Battlefield 1

Sun Oct 23, 2016 12:29 pm

I agree with the gun play.... BFBC2 had much better control of the open sights, I never had as much trouble with them as I do in BF1. I also think the maps are very good and well laid out. The conquest maps are excellent but some of the Deathmatch maps are a little big for the amount players on them. Sometimes it seems you run around looking for the enemy forever. A couple of my friends say that they can't hardly see anyone and I agree and yes, the mustard gas is not adding to the game at all.

My biggest issue is that I'm running a !5 3570k and a GTX 970 and I have to run the video stings on low just to keep the frame rates from cratering and even then in vehicle combat it often dropped to 24 FPS. Interestingly, by enabling DX12 I was able to play in low settings with consistency and around 60 -90 FPS.

My biggest disappointments with the game is no dedicated servers yet.. they are coming but will be controlled by EA which likely means no banning foul mouthed Timmy because we might hurt his feelings and no joystick support. I'm getting tired of these game that they play with servers and things like joystick support. Every time they come out with a new game we fight these same battles.
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Krogoth
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Re: Battlefield 1

Sun Oct 23, 2016 1:40 pm

Seen in action and it is just WWII-style combat with WWI props. The only thing that is WWI-era is cavalry and chemical warfare.

Then again trying to accurately depict WWI-era combat wouldn't be that fun. :D
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travbrad
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Re: Battlefield 1

Sun Oct 23, 2016 4:15 pm

Krogoth wrote:
Seen in action and it is just WWII-style combat with WWI props. The only thing that is WWI-era is cavalry and chemical warfare.

Then again trying to accurately depict WWI-era combat wouldn't be that fun.  :D

Yeah it is essentially WWII style combat/weapons with WWI models/skins over it, but as you said that it a lot more fun.  I actually like how clunky/bad the weapons feel though, and it feels like there is a much bigger difference between classes instead of all the modern Battlefield games which just have a bunch high ROF automatic guns.  In BF3/BF4 the guns looked different but ultimately an assault rifle, carbine, and LMG didn't really feel that different from each other.  In BF1 there are some real trade-offs.  Medics get rifles that are pretty accurate but slow ROF and not great up close, Assault gets SMGs/shotguns which are great up close but terrible at range, Support gets LMGs that have a lot of ammo but aren't easy to control without deploying a bipod.  The gas grenade/gas mask mechanic that forces you to hipfire rather than ADS is an interesting gameplay addition as well.

I also like how slow the tanks are, and how limited the viewports are for the gunners, and how the turrets have limited angles of movement.  It would be even better if they didn't allow 3rd person view for the driver too IMO, but either way it's a big improvement over the modern fast tanks of BF3/BF4 that could look around them easily at all times and had a bunch of special gadgets.  The behemoth gameplay mechanic (only the losing team gets one, and they get it sooner the worse they are doing) is a cool in-game way of trying to balance stacked teams as well which has been a major problem in recent Battlefield games.

They just implemented so many great ideas that seem to address most of the shortcomings of the recent Battlefield games.  It's a bit early to say for sure but this might be the best one since BF Vietnam or BF2 IMO.

Pville_Piper wrote:
My biggest issue is that I'm running a !5 3570k and a GTX 970 and I have to run the video stings on low just to keep the frame rates from cratering and even then in vehicle combat it often dropped to 24 FPS. Interestingly, by enabling DX12 I was able to play in low settings with consistency and around 60 -90 FPS.

That's odd.  I am getting 90-100FPS on my GTX 970 on "High" or "very high" settings (I'm not sure but I'll check next time I play) in DX11 mode.  I doubt it's my slightly faster CPU making that big of a difference either since I am only at about 60-65% CPU usage. Maybe try reinstalling drivers or something?  I don't know.
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Pville_Piper
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Re: Battlefield 1

Mon Oct 24, 2016 7:58 am

travbrad wrote:
Krogoth wrote:
Seen in action and it is just WWII-style combat with WWI props. The only thing that is WWI-era is cavalry and chemical warfare.

Then again trying to accurately depict WWI-era combat wouldn't be that fun.  :D

Yeah it is essentially WWII style combat/weapons with WWI models/skins over it, but as you said that it a lot more fun.  I actually like how clunky/bad the weapons feel though, and it feels like there is a much bigger difference between classes instead of all the modern Battlefield games which just have a bunch high ROF automatic guns.  In BF3/BF4 the guns looked different but ultimately an assault rifle, carbine, and LMG didn't really feel that different from each other.  In BF1 there are some real trade-offs.  Medics get rifles that are pretty accurate but slow ROF and not great up close, Assault gets SMGs/shotguns which are great up close but terrible at range, Support gets LMGs that have a lot of ammo but aren't easy to control without deploying a bipod.  The gas grenade/gas mask mechanic that forces you to hipfire rather than ADS is an interesting gameplay addition as well.

I also like how slow the tanks are, and how limited the viewports are for the gunners, and how the turrets have limited angles of movement.  It would be even better if they didn't allow 3rd person view for the driver too IMO, but either way it's a big improvement over the modern fast tanks of BF3/BF4 that could look around them easily at all times and had a bunch of special gadgets.  The behemoth gameplay mechanic (only the losing team gets one, and they get it sooner the worse they are doing) is a cool in-game way of trying to balance stacked teams as well which has been a major problem in recent Battlefield games.

They just implemented so many great ideas that seem to address most of the shortcomings of the recent Battlefield games.  It's a bit early to say for sure but this might be the best one since BF Vietnam or BF2 IMO.

Pville_Piper wrote:
My biggest issue is that I'm running a !5 3570k and a GTX 970 and I have to run the video stings on low just to keep the frame rates from cratering and even then in vehicle combat it often dropped to 24 FPS. Interestingly, by enabling DX12 I was able to play in low settings with consistency and around 60 -90 FPS.

That's odd.  I am getting 90-100FPS on my GTX 970 on "High" or "very high" settings (I'm not sure but I'll check next time I play) in DX11 mode.  I doubt it's my slightly faster CPU making that big of a difference either since I am only at about 60-65% CPU usage. Maybe try reinstalling drivers or something?  I don't know.

I love the tanks in this game, really cool and well done. The way the field pieces work is and the entry to the vehicles is a great touch and ads to the immersion. I never like the magical press a button and poof, your inside/outside of the tank. Something else that I really like is the melee, no more if this shooting them and all of a sudden you just give up and die. I hated that. I don't like the gas thing, it is being way overused. They need to add a major cool down to resupply of those things. Overall, I really like the game, just wish they would implement joystick support and proper servers. The whole red outline of the enemy thing is like the kill cam, it needs to be gone.
I don't know what is up with the frame rate issue. Nvidia wants to set the game on full ultra with my system but that is crazy. I run a G-Synch monitor and I like to run 90 fps minimum. I could do that with mostly high settings in BF4 but the high settings in BF1 crater my setup. I was a tail gunner in a bomber and as another aircraft approached and rammed us my frame rate dropped to 24 fps and stayed there until it flew away. I'll go online and check usage of the gpu and cpu soon. I was surprised that running DX12 made a difference but it did.
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Re: Battlefield 1

Mon Oct 24, 2016 9:12 am

Mystery solved... I am CPU bound! Idling with the browser open I'm using about 7% CPU and when I open the in game menu it jumps to between 80 and 90% percent usage on all 4 cores and I haven't started the game. Once the game starts to load the CPU usage jumps to 100% and never comes down until I quit the game. The GPU usage was around the 55-65% and these usages are based on Low Settings. In contrast BF4 will have about 60 to 70% CPU usage, a little lower on 2 cores when browsing for a server, loading the game actually drops the usage until the game gets loaded. Once loaded, all 4 cores will run between 80 and 90% with the game on Ultra settings with 4x MSAA, HBOA on and AA set to high and the frame rate varies between 100-124 fps . Quite a difference in the games! I guess it is time to overclock as I don't have the money for a new CPU, motherboard and ram but I could get a good cooling solution.
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DPete27
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Re: Battlefield 1

Mon Oct 24, 2016 11:23 am

That would explain why enabling DX12 helps the situation.  However, I suspect being CPU bound in DX11 mode on an i5 is due to some sort of optimization/coding problem which they can hopefully fix.  I haven't seen any game benchmarks where enabling DX12 provides a >2x increase in framerates.
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Re: Battlefield 1

Mon Oct 24, 2016 12:45 pm

DPete27 wrote:
That would explain why enabling DX12 helps the situation.  However, I suspect being CPU bound in DX11 mode on an i5 is due to some sort of optimization/coding problem which they can hopefully fix.  I haven't seen any game benchmarks where enabling DX12 provides a >2x increase in framerates.

Actually it doesn't raise the frame rate that much it just keeps it from cratering. The frame rates I observed this morning both in and empty server and a full server are averaging about 63 fps with a range of 50 to 70 fps. What happens in DX11 is that it drops to 24 fps in places, most noticeably in vehicle combat, but is very choppy. Mind you I'm running G-Synch but it doesn't help the smoothness at that frame rate. It really sucks, I know the Ivy Bridge is getting a bit long in the tooth but I never expected it to be this bad. I hope it is an optimization issue and they clear it up.
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travbrad
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Re: Battlefield 1

Mon Oct 24, 2016 2:24 pm

I played the beta on my OCed 2500K and it ran well on that also so overclocking your 3570K would probably help you. IIRC I was getting around 70-80FPS with that.

With the 6700K my 970 is at 100% usage the whole time so it definitely seems you are CPU limited only getting 55-65% usage on yours. I guess it's good to see DX12 finally make a big difference in a game though.
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Re: Battlefield 1

Mon Oct 24, 2016 5:33 pm

I just figured out what was killing my frame rates... It was the GPU Memory Restriction setting. I was messing around with my settings and I was running on High when all of a sudden the frame rate dropped in half! And it didn't come back no matter what I did. I set the settings to low, nothing. I backed offline came back in... Nothing. I changed the GPU Memory Restriction to OFF  and it went away. I then set it up on full Ultra and was able to play around 60 fps with only a minor stutter now and then. Put it on high and the game runs smoothly from 65 - 85 fps. The GPU is now maxed out and the CPU gets a little day light between the 100% mark and 90%.
I guess something is up with that setting and trying to mange the GPU memory.
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Re: Battlefield 1

Mon Oct 24, 2016 5:35 pm

travbrad wrote:
I played the beta on my OCed 2500K and it ran well on that also so overclocking your 3570K would probably help you.  IIRC I was getting around 70-80FPS with that.

With the 6700K my 970 is at 100% usage the whole time so it definitely seems you are CPU limited only getting 55-65% usage on yours.  I guess it's good to see DX12 finally make a big difference in a game though.

What is your CPU usage running? I've been kicking around the idea of getting a 6700K for  while.
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Re: Battlefield 1

Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:04 pm

Pville_Piper wrote:
travbrad wrote:
I played the beta on my OCed 2500K and it ran well on that also so overclocking your 3570K would probably help you.  IIRC I was getting around 70-80FPS with that.

With the 6700K my 970 is at 100% usage the whole time so it definitely seems you are CPU limited only getting 55-65% usage on yours.  I guess it's good to see DX12 finally make a big difference in a game though.

What is your CPU usage running? I've been kicking around the idea of getting a 6700K for  while.

Around 65-70% CPU usage.  I do have it overclocked though.  I am definitely limited by my 970.  People with GTX 1080s and a 6700K say they are hitting 144fps @ 1080p.
Also I guess it makes sense that the memory restriction setting could cause issues.  It was probably trying to send stuff across to system memory instead of using your GPU memory or something.
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Re: Battlefield 1

Wed Oct 26, 2016 11:33 am

My CPU (i7-3820) is doing ok it seems. Saw this post over at AT's forums and it seems i7 Sandy/Ivy is ok, on i5 class or lower though the game wants to have Skylake.
 
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Re: Battlefield 1

Wed Oct 26, 2016 4:01 pm

jihadjoe wrote:
My CPU (i7-3820) is doing ok it seems. Saw this post over at AT's forums and it seems i7 Sandy/Ivy is ok, on i5 class or lower though the game wants to have Skylake.

overclocked i5-2500Ks still handle this game with ease
 
Airmantharp
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Re: Battlefield 1

Wed Oct 26, 2016 4:04 pm

Firestarter wrote:
jihadjoe wrote:
My CPU (i7-3820) is doing ok it seems. Saw this post over at AT's forums and it seems i7 Sandy/Ivy is ok, on i5 class or lower though the game wants to have Skylake.

overclocked i5-2500Ks still handle this game with ease


Eh, my 2500k was topped off with BF4, and that game is lighter than BF1... I suspect that I'd be pretty well limited by it.
 
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Re: Battlefield 1

Wed Oct 26, 2016 4:43 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
Firestarter wrote:
jihadjoe wrote:
My CPU (i7-3820) is doing ok it seems. Saw this post over at AT's forums and it seems i7 Sandy/Ivy is ok, on i5 class or lower though the game wants to have Skylake.

overclocked i5-2500Ks still handle this game with ease


Eh, my 2500k was topped off with BF4, and that game is lighter than BF1... I suspect that I'd be pretty well limited by it.

It may be CPU limited with a 2500K but with mine @ 4.6ghz I was getting 70-80fps in the beta so you can still get a pretty good gameplay experience with it, especially if you are using a 60hz monitor where you'd stay above that anyway.  That is pretty much the same performance I got from BF4 also.  I know they bumped up the official "system requirements" for BF1 but they seemed to run about the same for me.
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Airmantharp
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Re: Battlefield 1

Wed Oct 26, 2016 6:26 pm

Average FPS was never an issue, but minimum FPS, and more importantly the median low FPS were more troublesome. That's where I see the difference moving from a 2500k at 4.4GHz to a 6700k at stock.
 
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Re: Battlefield 1

Wed Oct 26, 2016 10:16 pm

So far the game has been quite enjoyable for myself. The multi-player has been fun but I find myself missing the action from older BF series (BF2 all time favorite). I also feel it's pretty difficult to go on streak. Granted the realism is part of the game with the early weapons but I hope that have some interesting ad ons. The game looks great and solid framerates for my system. Nice to see the game engine use up to 9X percent of the CPUs "cores"
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shaq_mobile
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Re: Battlefield 1

Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:25 pm

Whoa this thread took off. Glad people got some tech stuff fixed out of it as well! I know my opinion is not shared by most of the articles and gamers out there. I just felt like, in a Christopher Nolan/JJ Abrams-esque manner, the product was highly misrepresented in reviews due to the amount of eye candy, gimmicks, and surface level cerebral facade. Like Krogoth sort of said, it's just an iteration of the battlefield series with some different skins. I didn't really think it brought anything new or interesting to the table.

I'd REALLY like to see more rts/fps games. I think that's been a largely unexplored genre that I actually wouldn't mind AAA studios poking around in. The only ones I can think of are Savage, Nuclear Dawn, and Natural Selection 2 (which is the only significantly successful one). They were heading that way in BF2 with commander role, removed it in BF3 (i think? I can't remember), toyed with it again in BF4 (with the tablet app), then ditched it again in BF1. Planetside 2 had potential for it. Having a centralized command staff that could issue orders to squads (with other command staff acting as scouts or something) actually seems relatively practical. Having a tactical aspect to FPS (or any game genre) can lend it incredible life.

I picked up Titanfall 2. It had a pretty good singleplayer experience, but apparently they forgot how to make multiplayer browser menus that aren't frustrating. I know that having hosted servers and an abundance of gametypes makes an in game browser a little wonky, but I really appreciate being able to quickly look at a window, see which servers have people playing in them, and just join. I don't really care about joining mid match. What I want to avoid is having to choose from one of many (or a collection of a few) gametypes and then having to wait around in a queue to be matched against other people.

Still, the singleplayer experience was good, if not a little short. I think I got about 5 hours out of it. Some of the Titan loadouts felt inherently weaker than others though. The Titan combat and SP reminded me of Shogo (I never played the first Titanfall, since I had already ODed on CoD paced shooters).

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