*Due to the aftereffects of a snow storm (clean up chores), I will be unable to properly test until tonight.
 
A "quick" round of testing this morning was flawless and "felt" tighter.
No issues/problems were seen.... I am liking it so far
My personal fav of this patch? Finally being able to see the pings of the other players

I should be getting my GTX 560Ti tomorrow and gonna review this thread again to see what is the best setting and of course Ultra :D However i still want to know what is the proper driver for these new cards without having problems for gaming? Does anyone here have the Classified video card? Let me know. I did post in other threads but meh i think i overdid it. Gonna stop now. Just curious.

Yes the patch is great BUT i didn't like the fact the aircrafts are paper weight now. They blow up too easily now and they made Stingers stronger now. They just literally killed Air Fights now. Now i'll have to rely on the ground more. The air is ruined. I am a amazing pilot but the patch changed the way of my skills for flying. VERY disappointed but i do like the nerfed down IR for noobs. NOW IT'S HARDER! :D Snipers are 1 hit kills i assume no idea. However the whole other things were balanced. The best part. CHATBOX!

Is there a reason not to use the New 290 Driver?

Nvidia 290.36 has no driver changes that I am aware of for BF3 vs 285.79
 
290.36 is the Skyrim/Batman release driver
 
Also, there have been reports that some x58 systems are having issues when running 290.36
 
For all of the above reasons, I suggest 285.79 as the best driver at this time for BF3
 
This does -NOT- mean that you cannot install and test 290.36 yourself on your config and see if it works for you
 

would a Pair of 570's 2560mb be a good alternitive to 580 3gb. Those are still $590 and 570's can be had for $390

Well thanks for the info. I'm still wary with the beta drivers cuz i keep hearing it causes a lot of problems. Meh.

Should we really be taking advice from a guy named Maniac?
 
HAHA I kid... awesome little video and great visual guide!!

Ok so far i have been using the NVIDIA CONTROL PANEL instructions from Maniac and it seems to work but in a few days later i caught like 3 crashes of bf.exe causing to crash. I kept thinking this can't be right cuz i have a proper beta driver installed and everything is up to date. The only thing i can assume is maybe multiplayer doesn't like AA? I should be using custom settings in graphic settings but i have been using the preset graphic settings the whole time. Doesn't make sense that it worked just fine last time or is it because i am using HDMI? My monitor is set native as a HDTV but it's a 24 inch ASUS V248H monitor. I wonder if i should set it down to a regular monitor.
I do have single display mode on in NV so far and pre-render to 2.
 
I keep thinking maybe it's the preset settings? Maybe i should switch to custom and then take off motion blur and AA and the rest else alone and see what happens. Otherwise it could be just the same crashes everyone in BF3 always gets cuz the game needs more patching. Advice?

Yea i am gonna have to use that. What about single player though? Could use your input though. Funny thing my old video card i always played on Custom settings. You're right about turning off HBAO but i don't see why what's wrong with it on? Wouldn't SSAO be fine or just plain off? Hmm gonna do some experimenting tonight. I still wonder why Multiplayer don't like the preset settings? Bad game coding?
 
Besides should i leave all my graphics to the way preset set and just disable the motion blur and hbao? I don't mind playing Ultra but it's already on Ultra on textures but the rest is on medium which is strange but hey i guess that's what the game decided on my GTX 560TI Classified. I honestly thought i could play ALL ULTRA but then again it's just the preset!

You really need to make a MODS rigs with your hardware or post your Specs in a Sig.
 
If the game setup your settings like that on Auto....
 
Lets see your complete Specs and Monitor res. Its not just your videocard that determines how well the game will run.

"*For users running 120hz or multi-monitor setups, please see the Additional Tweaking Options section. "
 
The additional tweaking options section is not done yet.  Just curious, what additional settings do you recommend for users on a 120hz monitor?

maniacvvv

Little Sister

The manage 3D settings you adjusted and recommend, have you tested this to be the best performance ect. would it be fine to leave that way for all games ect.

For 3-way SLI I would recommend the stock setting of "frames to render ahead" value of 3
*there is no damage in testing values. I would certainly test 2, 3 and 4 and see what works best for your config.

Other than that, yes that is the preferred starting point for any game install.
Since each game (and supported in-game/NVCP settings) is different, there could certainly be changes...
But for BF3 those are the settings I recommend using with the current drivers and patches (so far) 

 
I was also wondering about "frames to render ahead". 
 
What exactly does this do? Ii mean why do you recommend 2 opposed to the stock 3? 
 
I looked through this thread, and i hope i didn't miss it somewhere but i would like a detailed description of what this actually does and how i can use it for max performance in other games as well.
 
Im running a simple basic setup with one card and one monitor.  Im just wondering what the overall effect it has on gaming is and what kind of performance issues it can help out with.
 
Thanks :)

KopyKat007

maniacvvv

Little Sister

The manage 3D settings you adjusted and recommend, have you tested this to be the best performance ect. would it be fine to leave that way for all games ect.

For 3-way SLI I would recommend the stock setting of "frames to render ahead" value of 3
*there is no damage in testing values. I would certainly test 2, 3 and 4 and see what works best for your config.

Other than that, yes that is the preferred starting point for any game install.
Since each game (and supported in-game/NVCP settings) is different, there could certainly be changes...
But for BF3 those are the settings I recommend using with the current drivers and patches (so far) 

I was also wondering about "frames to render ahead". 

What exactly does this do? Ii mean why do you recommend 2 opposed to the stock 3? 

I looked through this thread, and i hope i didn't miss it somewhere but i would like a detailed description of what this actually does and how i can use it for max performance in other games as well.

Im running a simple basic setup with one card and one monitor.  Im just wondering what the overall effect it has on gaming is and what kind of performance issues it can help out with.

Thanks :)

A users CPU "renders" the math for each frame, then sends that data to the videocard to be displayed.
In DirectX supported games (not open GL) the "Render Ahead" feature is the setting for how many frames the CPU is working on at the same time.
Since todays computers are very powerful and quite fast, turning the setting down from its default value of (3) to the setting of (2) has visable positive mouse/keyboard effects in-game... and can free up CPU cycles and thus improve performance.
 
Higher values in this setting (above 3) "can" result in smoother looking gameplay, but at a large cost in input lag....
Lower values (below 3) "can" decrease observed mouse and keyboard lag in game and free CPU cycles....
--->The setting of Zero should never be used as it impacts performance greatly.
 
I have found that for just about every config but tri/quad-SLI...
--->the frostbite engine runs best with this setting at a value of 2
This is a subjective judgement based on my experience, and is NOT gospel for all users and configs.
 
I do suggest the value of 2 for best gameplay performance in BF3
But users may certainly test this setting for what works best for them

Hey Maniac, i did some testing this weekend, (computer is running flawless btw) and i have a comment about the Stereo 3D aspect of this game as well as the settings. The entire test i speak of was done while in 2d mode, 3D was never used but fuctions in this game, this is for someone who has 3D abilities but likes playing competive games in 2D for 120hz aspect. When Stereoscopic 3D was off via the NVCP (unchecked) i was seeing amazing results, such as what we had discussed over the phone. With Batmans current fix in DX11 Support i decided to crank that back up and turn 3D on, game played fine, but at the end of the day i went back to BF3. This is when i discovered this issue. During the screen when the match is over and the scores are showing i normally top out around 190-200 fps with gpu usage 96-99% (using this as a refrence because i know this is where i top out at) . Now with the stereoscopic 3d setting CHECKED in the nvcp, but NOT in 3d mode at that same score screen i was toping out at 120 and my gpu usage was max 56-66%, also during normal gameplay i can tell my performance had dropped.  Keep in mind i have a 120HZ screen so i figured it was Vsync turned on, when in fact it was off in the BF3 settings. I went into the NVCP and tried a force vsync off and that did not help as well. Tried restarting with no success and went to the extreme to reinstall drivers which seemed to fix it......(obiviously it did because it wiped all NVCP settings) But when i checked to enable Stereoscopic 3D again the problem came back after the fresh driver install. As soon as i went back into the NVCP and UNCHECEKD the Stereoscopic 3D the problem was corrected and i was back running great. So idk if you want to add that into your guide but for people that may play games in 3d they should just turn off 3D in NVCP to utilize the mose when playing in 2D for BF3, and really any other game in 2D. Unless they intend to play a game in 3D it should just be off. Not sure if this is a config issue with my personal system, but it is something i discovered. I tried playing around with many settings to get it to run good while checked and it just wasnt happening.
 
Side Note:
Beta 285.79 Is the driver im on. Which is also the current recomended driver for your guide, which worls great btw .