It’s about time that developers such as DICE shined a light on the PC. After all this is where all the FPS games started. It’s a well known fact that PC games are far superior to the mostly outdated consoles, as they get the added benefit of being constantly upgraded when the technology changes. Consoles on the other hand are stuck with whatever hardware they have for 5-7 years. As time progresses we will notice a shift of game quality coming over the PC (as with Battlefield 3) until the next generation of consoles come out. But even then, their superiority will only last a short while, as it’s all the part of the same cycle. While looking at the console industry you can see a pattern of the units becoming PC’s them self. PlayStation keyboard? Xbox Hard drive? Mouse support? Browsers? File managers? Running chopped down versions of Linux and WinXP? Looking from a side line the consoles are sure starting to look like PC’s.

I am expecting the following troll comments:

“Oh but I don’t have 1000′s of dollars to upgrade my PC every month mister BF3Nation editor, so go jump off a bridge, fag”

Really? Let’s do a little comparison…

xBox 360 – 399.99

Extra controller – 59.99 (you always get the extra one, don’t lie)

xBox Live? – If you play a lot it can cost you quite a bit.

How about that HDMI cable? Got to get that Monster Cable – 50 additional dollars.

Uh oh, how about those head phones? So you can talk to your buddies.

With a couple of games to start with you are getting close to the 1000 dollar mark.

Now lets talk PC.

You can take many routes. Yes, there are 3-5 hell even 10k rigs out there. However, as with anything there will be a variety of choices. In all honesty, you can have a respectable gaming rig for less than 800 dollars. TigerDirect.com brand name “Symantex” offers great quality PC’s for less. You can have a powerful CPU with 8 gigs of ram for 399.99 if you shop around and wait for a deal. Now the only thing needed is that dreaded GFX card. Top of the line cards will cost you 300-500 dollars, which will still put you under the 1000 dollar mark. So tell me gamers, where is the comparison that console gaming is cheaper? And don’t listen to the hype. You DO NOT have to upgrade your PC every 6 months. A good gaming rig can lest 2-3 years and run games on high setting without any problems.

There are two ways to build a gaming rig. You can build a lesser quality PC that STILL can preform for a budget, or you can go for the latest CPU’s and GFX cards that can cost thousands. This is why the PC platform developed a bad rep, as people see prices of the latest accessories and they believe you have to be rich to play PC. Nevertheless, it’s far from the truth. Smart shoppers can play the same way, for way less.

So how is the Battlefield 3 superior to consoles?

Graphics, graphics, graphics…

All the major consoles have out-dated hardware, and this is where the PC will shine. The superiority and crispness of the screen shots will make any console boy drool.

64 players for PC.

Some might argue that is too much but in reality it’s just the “haters gun hate” talk. First person shooters are all about the battle. You cannot convince me that its more fun to play with less players. That is just a ridiculous claim. Nothing beats a full blown battle where there is a shit storm behind every corner.

Modding

The modding community has done wonders for Battlefield 2. It extended the life the game by years and even improved it to the point where the MOD became better than the original. While no modding tools are confirmed for Battlefield 3 (yet), that little detail does not matter. Why? Because in the world of PC’s is US gamers who make the rules. We can chop that game up any way we want while console boys will be dependent on DLC. (uh oh, more money to spend console boys)

The superiority of PC gamers.

I believe it’s a well known fact that:

PC gamers > Console gamers.

The skills of PC gamers are unparalleled and do not even compare. Don’t believe me? Even giants like Microsoft think so. Do you know why companies never attempt to combine gaming platforms in online matches? (Such as PC vs PS3 vs XBOX) That is because the PC gamers destroyed the console boys every time they matched up (yes, this already happened). A year ago, Microsoft preformed a study and determined that even that the technology is there, they can’t allow cross platform multiplayer games as the console players do not stand a chance.

Please watch this SkyLineDigitalMedia.com video to see which platform came out on top.

So to recap…

This rant is for all you console fanboys constantly attacking the PC. While we are all gamers, and I am happy that you will get to enjoy this title, I strongly recommend for you to try the PC version. Step up to the big leagues. If you enjoy using your Prius version of a gaming rig then it’s fine, but if you ever wondered what’s it like to drive a Ferrari then buy a PC.

No hard feelings, I am just busting some balls here and it’s what gamers do, right?

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EA Dice has let slip that Battlefield 3 will support the blowing up of walls and the flattening of buildings. This information wasn’t announced however, it was tucked away in the description for a talk at next year’s GDC.

In either very late February, or very early March, DICE’s Kenny Magnusson will talk about some of the difficulties that the studio faced in creating the lighting for Battlefield 3. Nestled in the description for the talk, among the HDR, particle lighting and real-time radiosity architecture, is a small snippet of text that refers to Battlefield 3′s maps as “highly dynamic”, “varied,” and most interestingly, “destructible.” Presumably, Magnusson will speak at length about some of the challenges in lighting a level that can change in unpredictable ways.

This news isn’t a huge surprise; after both of the Battlefield: Bad Company games, and Battlefield 1943 featured destructible environments, it makes sense that Battlefield 3 would follow suit. The game runs on a more advanced version of the Frostbite engine, however, we could be in for more detailed devastation than we’ve seen in previous titles.

Source: CVG

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While EA wasn’t willing to comment on the state of the PC version, we were able to dig up some info which should put your mind at ease — scratch that, make it very excited.

Firstly, we learn via Twitter from DICE rendering architect Johann Andersson the engine BF3 is built on — Frostbite 2.0 — is “primarily developed for DirectX 11″; XP and DX9 won’t be supported (though you may be able to hack it). Also the engine will be especially optmized for 64-bit — thankfully a lot of you have chosen the road less travelled. Good news in itself, but since consoles only support DX9, the implication is the PC version will be a “true” PC game.

An interview (PDF) between AMD and Anderrson back in November taught us DICE has been involved with DX11 from a very early stage, which helped them get in all the features and improvements important to the team, like multicore optimization, multithreading support (more variation, detail, improved load times, smoother performance), compute shader support (more dynamic light sources), and lastly, tesselation (more detailed and more realistically rendered objects). It’s a fascinating read for tech heads, so give the full interview a look if you’re interested. Also check out a more in-depth look at the features in our DirectX 11 By the Numbers article. The short version is this: Battlefield 3 should be a huge jump forward that will please those with great hardware, particularly if it’s running on Windows 7 64-bit.

Now, many players are worrying 3 will turn out more like Bad Company 2. While DICE did do a pretty good job in making it feel like a PC title, it’s no classic Battlefield.

Firstly, you must understand Bad Company 2 was never a “true” Battlefield game, so it’s not fair to assume this is the direction DICE will be heading in, at least on PC. Series associate producer Barrie Tingle has said, “Battlefield Bad Company 2 is NOT a sequel to Battlefield 2 or 2142; it is a sequel to Battlefield Bad Company and as such the list of features matches that of the original game and not that of past Battlefield games.” In other words, it was always intended as an offshoot, not a monster, flagship title like previous games have been.

But no matter — the team has already admitted it was Frostbite’s first time on PC and so, limited in ways. According to Battlefield forum mod “crazycanuck”, based on his experiences and “some conversations”, Frostbite 2 is built from the ground up to “be more efficient and take advantage of the PC’s abilities.” He also says the team is “very excited about what FB2 and BF3 together are going to produce”, especially as they’ve been in development for a number of years (four to six, word has it).

Again from the mouth of Johann, we’re told Frostbite 2 is “developed simultaneously for the strengths of each platform (i.e. we use the best API for each platform).” In other words, it’s a multiplatform engine, but a good one that should satisfy all players, no matter the platform, in the same sense BioWare or Capcom have or CD Projekt will be with The Witcher 2.

The other big issue is maps — BC2 had some pretty small ones and as a result, a smaller player cap. Previous series entries included huge, sprawling maps which made for some real in-depth tactics. For this we go back to May, when senior gameplay designer Alan Kertz wrote to a fan inquiring about the lower play count, “For Battlefield it’s bandwidth; we are bandwidth capped on the consoles. For PC, I’d like to get back to big scale 64 player.”

It’s hard to say then what will happen, but they’ve said it is clear with them fans want the classic stuff. Perhaps PC players will get their own maps, or maybe console maps will be based on the PC maps but scaled down considerably — both seem like entirely plausible scenarios. We’ve seen the latter played out alongside further, bigger scale changes in Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, a console-centric version of Battlefield 2 which came about four months after the PC version. Sadly though, Kertz’ response to a fan today regarding this in relation to BC2 says, “It was two completely different games; BC2 is not 2 completely different games. Reality says it costs too much.”

That doesn’t mean the PC version won’t be great — DICE are clever people, after all. Take this quote from former DICE CEO Fredrik Lilegren who said in February, “What the PC version is going to be, Battlefield 3, I think it’s going to absolutely blow everyone away, but I can’t tell you what it is, but it will blow people away.”

Then there is of course the issue of mods, from which we’ve seen some truly epic work like the “Desert Combat” 1942 mod (the team went on to help make Battlefield 2 and then create full games of their own like Frontlines: Fuel of War). Then there’s Commanders, the “Comma Rose”, LAN play, spectating, battlerecorder, and so on. Many of these features, seemingly, are being considered for a future BC2 patch, nevermind BF3. We’re not guaranteeing any of these features will be in BF3; we’re saying based on the evidence, it looks good.

Excited?

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Dice Ditching DX9 For DX11 And FrostBite 2 For Battlefield 3

First and foremost, Dice has completely built their new Frostbite 2 engine from the ground up. While I was impressed by what Dice accomplished with the original Frostbite, it did have it’s limitations. Frostbite 2 has been built to take full advantage of the extra muscle you can only find on a gaming PC. DX9 will not be supported by the new Frostbite Engine as it has been built primarily around DX11?s architecture, sorry XP users but it’s way past time you upgraded to 7 anyway. Frostbite 2 is also optimized to take full advantage of a 64bit OS and sports features such as multi-core optimization, multi-threading support, compute shader support, and tesselation.

While Dice seems to have taken great care in building Frostbite 2 with a PC platform in mind, the engine is still multi-platform. FB2 for the consoles will be tailored to each consoles specific strengths according to DICE rendering architect Johann Andersson…

“Frostbite 2 is developed simultaneously for the strengths of each platform”

That’s good news for PC gamers that were worried about their experience being somewhat lessened by a multi-platform engine for BF3! Instead of building a single engine that can run on all platforms, Dice has pretty much created multiple versions of FB2, with the console versions of FB2 obviously being scaled back to accommodate the limits of what said console can do.

I leave you with a quote from former DICE CEO Fredrik Lilegren…

“What the PC version is going to be, Battlefield 3, I think it’s going to absolutely blow everyone away, but I can’t tell you what it is, but it will blow people away.”

Lock & load gentleman!

(Source: Kotaku)

Editorial Note: So what does this mean? In all honesty, nothing. DICE will say whatever they need to say to calm the storm that has developed over the PC community. I would not put much trust into this recent statement till we some game specifications on all systems. Until then, all we can do is wait.

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Its sad, but the PC gamers are still waiting for the release of Battlefield 1943. What is DICE up to? No one knows. I’m for one hoping that they are so busy working on Battlefield 3 that they forgot about their 1943 PC release

Please enjoy this funny video.

(embedding is disabled)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f05SK6J3V6w

Haven’t had a chance to try it out?

PC industries sent me their Mythbusters videos on twitter and I was instantly hooked.

The creativity and amount of work they have put down in these two videos is great!

The mythbusters videos are a small guide to different cool stuff you can do or try out in BFBC2.

This is so great I decided to post it on the blog.

Enjoy these great new videos

Mythbusters – Episode 1

Mythbusters – Episode 2

Click here to view the forum media section.
Battlefield Bad Company 2 PC Beta Glitches Video

All features that needed to be worked on are almost finished. Producer Gordon Van Dyke told The Feed that it’s “a hard pill to swallow delaying the game, but it was absolutely needed to ensure the features and functionality that PC Players have come to expect from Battlefield on PC are not missing.” Those features include, Van Dyke says, “Things like support for DirectX 9 and 10, higher player count (up to 32-player matches), wide peripheral support; i.e., Joysticks for flying, VoIP and ranked server provider hosting.”

“We’re close and the game is going gold within days.”

However, if you can’t wait, the console versions are there for you. If you find the idea of spending that much on a console distasteful, just tell yourself it’s a really big video card.

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Developers DICE revealed on the studio’s official blog PC players can test out the game’s multiplayer component January 28 to February 25, roughly a week before Bad Company 2 hits shelves March 2. We will have BETA-Key give away contests starting next week.

Like the PlayStation 3 beta which concluded last month, PC players will try the game’s Rush mode, where teams of 16 battle for control of a military base. You better ramp up your PC hardware as this baby will need it  !!!

The map titled Port Valdez features snowy landscapes and battles “fought alongside the waterline towards a great oil industrial landscape in the Alaskan mountains,” says the blog post.

DICE says they will reveal more details on downloading the beta as the launch date approaches. No word yet on when a multiplayer demo will reach Xbox 360 owners. (Sorry xBox Fans, LOL)

Readers tell us if you are looking forward to Bad Company 2?

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