Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3

Developers
	DICE
End Game	Visceral Games
Publishers
	Electronic Arts
Engines
	Frostbite 2
Release dates
Windows	October 25, 2011

Warnings

This game requires a constant internet connection for all game modes.

Key points

PC version features 64 player multiplayer, high resolution textures, high quality shadows and more PC-specific features.

General information

Official website

Battlefield 3 on Battlelog - PC section.

Answer HQ for the Battlefield series at EA.com

Battlefield Wiki

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
		Premium Edition also available.
EA app		Included with EA Play.

All versions require EA app DRM.

DLC and expansion packs

Name	Notes
Aftermath	Included with EA Play Pro.
Air Vehicle Shortcut
Armored Kill	Included with EA Play Pro.
Assault Kit Shortcut
Back to Karkand	Included with EA Play Pro.
Close Quarters	Included with EA Play Pro.
Co-op Weapons Shortcut
End Game	Included with EA Play Pro.
Engineer Kit Shortcut
Ground Vehicle Shortcut
Kit Shortcut Bundle
Promotional Items
Recon Kit Shortcut
SPECACT Kit & Dog Tag Bundle
Support Kit Shortcut
The Ultimate Shortcut Bundle
Vehicle Shortcut Bundle

Essential improvements

TweakGuides has created a comprehensive guide for fixing issues in this game.

Performance boost

This command disables the engine's deferred compute shader lighting path. This may give a large FPS boost in open, outdoor areas, but possibly may reduce performance in heavily lit scenes. Most users report only the performance boost, including inside closed areas.

This command provides no graphical change.

WorldRender.DxDeferredCsPathEnable false or DxDeferredCsPathEnable 0[citation needed]
Open the console (~). Input either WorldRender.DxDeferredCsPathEnable false or DxDeferredCsPathEnable 0 Notes You can create a text file called user.cfg in the installation folder containing this command, so that it's permanently enabled.

Optimal video settings

You may use any configuration with-which you are satisfied. The following tips serve to balance graphical fidelity, function and performance.

Setting textures to High may eliminate texture pop-in, if it is happening to you.

Setting effects to Low is recommended. Other levels show no particular improvement, it only adds a little bloom around fire sparkles.

Settings mesh to Ultra is recommended as it allows you to spot enemies at a greater distance.

Set anisotropic filtering to the maximum value your PC can handle. Better AF comes as a minimal (or none) performance cost and significantly improves graphical fidelity.

Play the game without Origin

Warning: no official word from EA, proceed at your own risk.

Patch your parameter file
Look in the installation folder for a file with .par extension Upload it to NoFaTe's Origin Requirement Remover Replace the original file with the one which will be you provided

Game data

In-game general settings.

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Battlefield 3\settings\

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Battlefield 3\settings\

meta.xml, PROF_SAVE_body, PROF_SAVE_header and PROF_SAVE_profile are the save files.

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
EA app
OneDrive		Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.

Video settings

In-game video settings.

Input settings

In-game control settings.

300px

In-game key/button map settings.

Audio settings

In-game audio settings.

IndirectSound copied to the game directory can be used to enhance audio quality and spatialization. Consider also enabling enhanced stereo mode in game options.

Localizations

Some regions do not include all languages; see Change game language.

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English				GDFBinary_en_US.dll, en_US
Traditional Chinese
Czech				GDFBinary_cs_CZ.dll, cs_CZ
French				GDFBinary_fr_FR.dll, fr_FR
German				GDFBinary_de_DE.dll, de_DE
Italian				GDFBinary_it_IT.dll, it_IT
Japanese				GDFBinary_ja_JP.dll, ja_JP
Korean
Polish				GDFBinary_pl_PL.dll, pl_PL
Russian
Spanish				GDFBinary_es_ES.dll, es_ES

Change game language

Instructions[citation needed]

If you've purchased a foreign version of the game and would like to play it in English, you can either download a complete package: Download the complete package here. - Or follow these steps: Download the BF3 Language Pack and extract the files to <path-to-game>\Data\Win32\Loc\. Download the second BF3 Language Pack for the 5 March 2013 patch and extract the files to <path-to-game>\. Download the December patch archive and extract only the "en.toc" file from \Update\Patch\Data\Win32\Loc\ to <path-to-game>\Data\Win32\Loc\ (do only take the en.toc file from this archive!) Update this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Electronic Arts\Battlefield 3 Update this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Origin Games\DGR01609244 Replace the circled keys (to the right on this page) with those provided above.

Network

Update PunkBuster using the PBSetup utility to fix most issues.

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
LAN play
Online play		64

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking		May not be reliable.
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting		Servers must be rented from approved providers.
Direct IP

Ports

Protocol	Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP	80, 443, 9988, 17502, 20000-20100, 22990, 42127
UDP	3659, 14000-14016, 22990-23006, 25200-25300

Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

VR support

3D modes	State	GG3D	Notes
Native 3D
Nvidia 3D Vision
TriDef 3D
iZ3D
vorpX		G3D Officially supported game, see official vorpx game list.

Issues fixed

"Game disconnected: something went wrong" error

Replay Mission[citation needed]
From the main menu, select Replay Missions. Select the mission you would like to continue from. Notes This will overwrite your latest checkpoint.

"Battlefield 3 has stopped working" error

Find PROF_SAVE_body[citation needed]
Go to the save game data location. Find a file called PROF_SAVE_body. If its size is 0KB, it is corrupted. Overwrite the file through re-installation or get a replacement from a verified source (friend, reputable website). If prompted by Origin, opt to use your local data instead of the version stored on the cloud.

Game crashes with a sound loop using an ASUS Xonar sound-card

Disable GX Mode[citation needed]
Open the Xonar Audio Center. Disable GX Mode.

Crashes on 32-bit Windows

Increase user-mode virtual address space to 2500MB

Nvidia GeForce GTX 500-series freezing or displaying bad graphics

Turn off various options, etc[citation needed]
Turn off Antialiasing Deferred, Vertical Sync and Motion Blur in the options menu. Close overclocking and/or monitoring software such as RivaTuner. In the Nvidia Control Panel, set Power management mode to Prefer maximum performance. Uninstall TeamViewer and any associated drivers and services. Uninstall or disable FFSplit.

Black screen (AMD/ATI)

Edit PROF_SAVE_profile[citation needed]

Go to the save game data location. Edit the file PROF_SAVE_profile using Notepad. Modify the entry GstRender.FullscreenEnabled to 0 Modify the entry GstRender.FullscreenScreen to 1 Save the file, then change its properties to Read only. Launch the game. Go to the Video menu in the options menu. Change the undefined monitor number to 1 Modify the screen resolution option to a resolution lower than your normal/native resolution. Modify Fullscreen to ON. Apply the changes.

Origin error - "Could not activate"

Delete License files
Close Origin (right click tray symbol > Exit) Go to %PROGRAMDATA%\Electronic Arts\EA Services\License Delete any files named 71067.dlf, 70619 or 70169.dlf Go to %PROGRAMDATA%\Origin\DownloadCache Delete all of the files in this folder Restart your computer and launch Origin Log into your Origin account and launch Battlefield 3 to force a license update

Weak performance on Intel Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs (especially Laptops)

Deactivate Intel TurboBoost using this trick[citation needed]

Open Control Panel-> Power Options -> Change Plan Settings (on current plan) -> Change advanced power settings On Processor power management change the maximum cpu usage to 99% instead of 100%. This will disable TurboBoost, which is the reason for weird performance issues in connection with Battlefield 3. ATTENTION: You might also have to turn down minimum CPU usage if it is set to 100% (eg Max performance mode often has this). Also your performance will get steadier with both minimum and maximum settings set to 99%, but at the cost of battery life.

PunkBuster kicked player 'xxx' (for 0 minutes) ... No Packet Flow

Dual WAN router - use one WAN for both BF3 and PunkBuster[citation needed]
Find the user manual for your router Route all connections to/from your PC through one WAN connection You may need to restart your router/ your PC

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	11

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Anti-cheat	PunkBuster

Console commands

Launch console with ~.

You can have these commands run automatically, whenever you start the game, by entering them in user.cfg in the Battlefield 3 installation folder (the file won't exist by default, you can create it through Notepad and save as a .cfg file).

Command	Description
Render.DrawFps 1	Show FPS counter
Render.PerfOverlayVisible 1	Show performance graph
GameTime.MaxVariableFPS #	Limit frame rate (where # is a positive number)
RenderDevice.TripleBufferingEnable 1	Enable Triple-Buffering (only recommended if Vsync is on)
RenderDevice.RenderAheadLimit 1	Force rendering only 1 frame ahead (may remove stutter, default value is 3)
Screenshot.Render	Take a screenshot (into %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Battlefield 3\Screenshots\)

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum		Recommended
Operating system (OS)	Vista SP2 32-bit		7 64-bit
Processor (CPU)	AMD Athlon X2 2.7 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz		Quad-core
System memory (RAM)	2 GB		4 GB
Storage drive (HDD/SSD)	20 GB
Video card (GPU)	ATI Radeon 3870 Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512 MB of VRAM DirectX 10.1 compatible		ATI Radeon 6950 Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 1024 MB of VRAM DirectX 11 compatible
Sound (audio device)	DirectX Compatible