Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 G1 Gaming review - DX11: Battlefield 4

 DX11: Battlefield 4

One of the biggest game releases of last year has to be Battlefield 4, that combat immersive game that is about to blow you from your socks. Battlefield 4 is built on the Frostbite 3 engine. The Frostbite engine enables more realistic environments with higher resolution textures and particle effects. A new "networked water" system is also being introduced, allowing all players in the game to see the same wave at the same time.

Tessellation has also been overhauled. An Alpha Trial commenced on June 17, 2013 with invitations randomly emailed to Battlefield 3 players the day prior. Among the new additions is a much improved destruction feature where buildings can be completely destroyed (like in Bad Company 2, only at a much greater level and detail), a better lighting system, new animations, a brand new weather system, and more. We use a run that is located in the "Reach the VIPs" level, have a peek where we are recording:

This is the scene recording we use for our benchmarks.

For all our graphics performance tests we apply the Quality settings as discussed at 2x MSAA with all graphics quality settings set at Ultra. We confirmed that DX11 is activated. However, some mid-range card will struggle hard at these settings. There will be levels that are a tiny bit more stringent, there will be levels and sections way more easy. We think this level is the best representation of the game engine though.

Our test run has enabled:

• DX11
• Ultra mode
• 2x MSAA enabled
• 16x AF enabled
• HBAO enabled
• Level: Reach the VIPs

The mother of all resolutions for PC gamers anno 2014 is WQHD aka QHD which is 2560x1440. A perfect blend of a nice 27" monitor versus nice pixel density is what that is all about.