Battlefield 1 Notebook and Desktop Benchmarks
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Graphics
That the new title from the extremely popular shooter-series will be a success was already a sure thing after the Beta version. The final product can almost meet the high expectations completely, both in terms of gameplay as well as graphics.
Developer DICE further optimized the Frostbite 3 Engine, which is used for numerous games from EA (like FIFA 17, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Need for Speed 2016 & Dragon Age Inquisition). Together with the CryEngine 4, id Tech 6, and Unreal Engine 3, it is among the best graphics engines on the market right now. Even the great-looking Star Wars Battlefront from last year is beaten in terms of visual quality.
One of the biggest advantages of the Frostbite 3 engine is the enormous amount of details. You will not find similarly crisp textures in many titles, and the same applies for the level design. There are a lot of decoration objects like stones and bushes all the way up to debris on the extremely good-looking and diverse battlefields from World War I. The result is a great atmosphere supported by first-class effects. It does not matter if you have smoke, rain or mud: Battlefield 1 is always up to date and can even set new benchmarks.
Other highlights are the lush drawing distance and the physics simulation. Contrary to the majority of action titles, trees, fences and walls are not insurmountable obstacles. Houses can be destroyed as well, which does create some tactical possibilities. The spectacle is accompanied by a brilliant sound. Besides the music tracks, the effects (shooting sound, explosions, etc.) are impeccable.
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The single-player mode will probably create diverge opinions. The idea with the War Stories is quite interesting and promising, especially since every mission is introduced by creative videos, but the final result still feels pretty "casual". In the end – as per usual for this genre – you basically shoot your way through pretty dumb hordes of enemies, and the staging of Battlefield 1 usually falls a bit short of Call of Duty. However, the missions are a perfect preparation for the multiplayer. Players not only get used to the rudimentary sneaking system, but they also learn to control vehicles and planes.
We were not completely disappointed by the campaign. The great visual and sound quality can compensate for several gameplay and story drawbacks pretty well. Contrary to Call of Duty, we also like the slightly darker setting, which takes the war scenario a bit more seriously than some rivals and tries to avoid the glorification of violence or its minimization, respectively (you can decide whether this is a success). Subjectively, however, Battlefield 1 is not as much of a shooting gallery.
You can hardly criticize the developers from a technological point of view. The Video menu, which is also accessible when you are playing, offers a lot of settings for experienced users. DICE divided the options into two tabs to make it easier. It starts with the Basic menu, where you can adjust the picture mode, resolution, brightness, V-Sync, drawing distance, Motion Blur and the Blur effects. Color-blind users get settings here as well.
Most settings are available in the Advanced menu, which also takes care of the DirectX mode (more on that later), the size of the HUD and the general graphics quality. If you do not like to tinker around, there are also four presets (Low, Medium, High & Ultra). Available anti-aliasing modes are FXAA and TAA. While the former does not fully eliminate aliasing and does create a certain blurriness, the latter works very well. Great: Changes are usually applied without a restart.
Although the visual quality of Battlefield 1 suffers significantly at the lowest settings and there will be pop-ups as well as flickering objects, the game is not ugly by any means. We would call the visual quality good with the Medium preset, and very good with the High preset. There are no noteworthy differences in terms of quality or performance between High and Ultra settings. The frame rate is always capped at 200 frames per second by the way, independent of the V-Sync setting.
But back to the graphics menu: The point GPU Memory Restriction, which has a look at the VRAM load and automatically reduces details if necessary, was deactivated for our benchmarks. Resolution Scale on the other hand, which allows down- or up-sampling, respectively, was at 100%.
We did not have any problems with crashes, bugs or severe graphics errors during the tests, but we did notice some minor issues during the benchmarks:
- Battlefield 1 often launched in a window instead of full-screen mode at the first start
- the loading times are not very short even with SSDs
- returning to the desktop often takes quite some time when you exit the game
- there can be stutters during the videos on some systems
All things considered, the engine leaves a very clean and sophisticated impression. Some other games from 2015 and 2016 can only dream of this (like Mafia 3, Hitman, Just Cause 3 & Batman Arkham Knight).
Benchmark
In order to get steady numbers, we use a sequence from the single-player mode for our benchmarks. The player drives a British Mark V tank through France, which is shocked by trench warfare, in the first part of the campaign mission "Through Mud and Blood".
Thanks to the identical run and the representative performance, the beginning is perfect for performance evaluations. The tank follows the path automatically for the first 30 seconds until it stops at a provisional wood bridge. Your system should be capable of at least 40 frames per second since this is a first-person action title.
Results
Despite the modern engine, the hardware requirements are pretty moderate. You will be well prepared for World War I unless your system only uses a weak low-end chip like the GeForce GT 720M or an HD Graphics model from the Intel processors. A mainstream GPU like the GeForce 940M has no problems with Very Low details and 1280x720 pixels.
1920x1080 pixels and the Medium preset runs smoothly with at least a GeForce GTX 860M or GTX 950M, while High settings require a GeForce GTX 870M. We recommend a GeForce GTX 880M, GTX 965M or better for a combination of FHD and the preset Ultra. Users of 4K monitors can enjoy Battlefield 1 with a high-end GPU like the GeForce GTX 980 or GTX 1060, respectively. Switching to Ultra details does not really affect the performance; our GTX 1080 desktop GPU only drops from 71 to 67 FPS. Similar to the majority of titles, the CPU is not very important and the frame rate in our tests was limited by the GPU most of the time.
Battlefield 1 | |
3840x2160 High Preset AA:T 1920x1080 Ultra Preset AA:T 1920x1080 High Preset AA:T 1920x1080 Medium Preset AA:FX 1366x768 Medium Preset AA:FX 1280x720 Low Preset | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (Desktop), 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 (Desktop), 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile, 6820HK | |
AMD Radeon R9 Fury, 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, 6700K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 (Desktop), 6700K | |
AMD Radeon RX 480 (Desktop), 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, 4790K | |
AMD Radeon RX 470 (Desktop), 4790K | |
AMD Radeon R9 290X, 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M, 4700MQ | |
AMD Radeon R9 280X, 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M, 4700MQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M, 6700HQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M, 4700MQ | |
AMD Radeon R7 370, 4790K | |
AMD Radeon RX 460 (Desktop), 4790K | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M, 4700MQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M, 4720HQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M, 6700HQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M, 4700MQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce 940MX, 6700HQ | |
NVIDIA GeForce 940M, 5700HQ | |
AMD Radeon R9 M280X, FX-7600P | |
NVIDIA GeForce 920M, 2970M | |
NVIDIA GeForce GT 720M, 4200M | |
Intel HD Graphics 4600, 4700MQ |
DirectX 12 vs. DirectX 11
The DirectX 12 mode leaves mixed impressions. While AMD models often work well with the new Microsoft API, Nvidia chips struggle. GeForce users should also avoid DX 12 in Battlefield 1. Both the GTX 1060 as well as the GTX 960M delivered worse (repeatable) results compared to DX 11 (sometimes more than 10%). AMD's RX 480 on the other hand was slightly faster in DirectX 12 compared to DirectX 11 (benchmark sequence: +1 FPS @Ultra).
DirectX Performance | GeForce GTX 1060 & Core i7-6700K | GeForce GTX 960M & Core i7-4720HQ |
---|---|---|
FHD / High @DX 11 | 104 fps (min: 95) | 37.4 fps (min: 33) |
FHD / High @DX 12 | 92,3 fps (min: 79) | 35.2 fps (min: 29) |
FHD / Medium @DX 11 | 143 fps (min: 134) | 52.9 fps (min: 48) |
FHD / Medium @DX 12 | 123 fps (min: 112) | 47.4 fps (min: 43) |
Multiplayer vs. Singleplayer
There are no concerns for the multiplayer performance. We played three different multiplayer maps to check whether the benchmark sequence is representative. The tool Fraps recorded about 10 minutes of gameplay with the GeForce GTX 1060 in each case (1920x1080 pixels, maximum settings). The results were very similar to the single-player campaign.
Multiplayer Performance | Notebookcheck Benchmark Sequence | Argonne Forest | Sinai Desert | Quentin Scar |
---|---|---|---|---|
FHD / Ultra @GeForce GTX 1060 | ~95 fps | ~90 fps | ~107 fps | ~88 fps |
Overview
Test Systems
Desktop-PCs | Custom Nvidia | Custom AMD |
---|---|---|
Mainboard | Asus Z170-A | Asus Z97-Deluxe |
Processor | Intel Core i7-6700K (Skylake) | Intel Core i7-4790K (Haswell) |
GPU | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 (6 GB GDDR5) Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 (4 GB GDDR5) |
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 (8 GB GDDR5X) Asus GeForce GTX 980 Ti (6 GB GDDR5) XFX Radeon R9 Fury (4 GB HBM) Sapphire Radeon R9 290X (4 GB GDDR5) Sapphire Radeon R9 280X (3 GB GDDR5) MSI Radeon R7 370 (2 GB GDDR5) |
Memory | 2 x 8 GB DDR4-2133 | 2 x 4 GB DDR3-1600 |
Storage | Crucial MX100 SSD (256 GB) Crucial M500 SSD (480 GB) OCZ Trion 100 SSD (480 GB) OCZ Trion 150 SSD (960 GB) |
Intel SSD 530 (240 GB) OCZ Trion 100 SSD (480 GB) |
OS | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit | Windows 10 Home 64-bit |
Schenker Notebooks | Schenker W504 | Schenker XMG A505 | Schenker S413 |
---|---|---|---|
Mainboard | Intel HM87 | Intel HM87 | Intel HM87 |
Processor | Intel Core i7-4700MQ (Haswell) | Intel Core i7-4720HQ (Haswell) | Intel Core i7-4750HQ (Haswell) |
GPU | Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M (8 GB GDDR5) GTX 970M (6 GB GDDR5) GTX 880M (8 GB GDDR5) GTX 870M (6 GB GDDR5) GTX 860M Kepler (4 GB GDDR5) |
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M (2 GB GDDR5) | Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200 |
Memory | 2x 4 GB DDR3-1600 | 2x 4 GB DDR3-1600 | 2x 8 GB DDR3-1600 |
Storage | Samsung SSD 840 EVO (250 GB) | Micron M600 SSD (128 GB) HGST Travelstar 7K1000 HDD (1000 GB) |
Intel SSD |
OS | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit | Windows 10 Home 64-bit | Windows 10 Home 64-bit |
MSI Notebooks | MSI GE72 | MSI PE60 | MSI GP62 | MSI CX61 | MSI CX61 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mainboard | Intel HM170 | Intel HM170 | Intel HM86 | Intel HM86 | Intel HM86 |
Processor | Intel Core i7-6700HQ (Skylake) | Intel Core i7-6700HQ (Skylake) | Intel Core i7-5700HQ (Broadwell) | Intel Celeron 2970M (Haswell) | Intel Core i5-4200M (Haswell) |
GPU | Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M 2016 (2 GB GDDR5) | Nvidia GeForce GTX 950M (2 GB GDDR5) | Nvidia GeForce 940M (2 GB DDR3) | Nvidia GeForce 920M (2 GB DDR3) | Nvidia GeForce GT 720M (2 GB DDR3) |
Memory | 1 x 8 GB DDR4-2133 | 2 x 4 GB DDR4-2133 | 1 x 8 GB DDR3-1600 | 1 x 8 GB DDR3-1600 | 1 x 8 GB DDR3-1600 |
Storage | Toshiba THNSNJ128G8NU SSD (128 GB) WDC WD10JPVX HDD (1000 GB) OCZ Trion 100 SSD (480 GB) |
Toshiba MQ01ABF050 HDD (500 GB) | WDC Scorpio Blue HDD (1000 GB) | ||
OS | Windows 10 Home 64-bit | Windows 10 | Windows 10 | Windows 10 | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit |
Asus Notebooks | Asus G752VS | Asus N551ZU |
---|---|---|
Mainboard | Intel CM236 | AMD K15.1 |
Processor | Intel Core i7-6820HK (Skylake) | AMD FX-7600P (Kaveri) |
GPU | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 (8 GB GDDR5) | AMD Radeon R9 M280X (4 GB GDDR5) |
Memory | 4 x 16 GB DDR4-2400 | 2 x 4 GB DDR3-1600 |
Storage | Toshiba NVMe THNSN5512GPU7 SSD (512 GB) | Samsung SSD 830 (256 GB) |
OS | Windows 10 Pro 64-bit | Windows 10 64-bit |
4K Monitor | Nvidia driver | AMD driver | Intel driver |
---|---|---|---|
2 x Asus PB287Q | ForceWare 375.57 | Crimson 16.10.2 | 15.40.28.4501 |