So BF3... what are the likely min specs Options

[Aki]

exactly that... anyone got a clue what the likely min specs are and when the actual likely release date is? I get the feeling my 2.4Ghz dual core with 2GB ram an GeForce 9600GT might not cut the mustard... and I'd hate for us to get a brand spanking new clan happy multiplayer and not be able to join in. :S

[Magik5]

i think theyre slowly trying to phase out xp/dx9, after all they are now both legacy software - how are companies supposed to progress when people are still holding onto old tech

[MonkeyFiend]

i think theyre slowly trying to phase out xp/dx9, after all they are now both legacy software - how are companies supposed to progress when people are still holding onto old tech

But that's my point - If you aim to have a scaleable adjustable game whereby players can turn down (or off) all the eye candy, effects, post processing and features that are specific to DX10/11 then why not support XP? If you enforce these effects and features as a strict requirement then fine, make it DX11 only.

This is my point: if you include lots of DX11 exclusive effects in a game then allow people to disable them, then in essence you've got DX9

XP does afterall still hold overall market share of 41% compared to Vista (15%) and 7 (25%). Admitedly the number is probably somewhat higher for uptake of 7 on the gaming PC's but you're still talking about excluding a rather large segment of the market. (and that's even before we start on hardware requriements)

DX is just the renderer API for video/sound etc.,. Look at the tech specs between DX9 and 10/11 and a lot of the differences are the instructional sets, programmable pipes handling and shaders/texture guff. A lot of people would care more about the gameplay over graphics. I'd happily take a reworking of BF2 with additional anti-cheat measures/bugfixes/all the SF maps etc., compared to BC2. BF2 was great because of the gameplay. BC2 had lots of pretty smoke effects, burning destructable scenary, planes and helicopters flying in the background and all manner of lovely eyecandy. The game still sucked though.

Finally and rather importantly, BF3 will be on the Xbox 360. The 360 uses a modified console version of Dirext X, which guess what... is based on DX 9 (although the modifications place it a bit higher with a couple of exclusive functions such as stream outs/high speed FSAA cache etc.,)