Battlefield 3: Don't worry about 720p and 30 FPS, says DICE

Yesterday, Gaming Examiner asked DICE VP and General Manager, Karl Magnus Troedsson addressed the displeasure that some gamers have expressed over Battlefield 3 being limited to 30 frames-per-second (FPS), while its closest competition, Modern Warfare 3, has promisedthat it won't dip below 60 FPS. It's an especially poignant question since Battlefield 3 is being released on Oct 25 and Modern Warfare 3 comes out a few days later on Nov 8. With both games so close together, they'll have to compete to earn action fans' attention and %26mdash; maybe more importantly %26mdash; money.

Troedsson had this to say in response to people who put a high value on framerate and resolution: %26ldquo;Console gamers shouldn%26rsquo;t worry about this, this topic is discussed out of proportions. For those tech-savvy enough to have looked into the actual resolution of their console games it won%26rsquo;t come as a surprise that a lot of console games today do not run at 1080p but rather 720p.%26rdquo;

%26ldquo;When people ask for 1080p they don%26rsquo;t see the compromises that would be needed to get there. As for the frame-rate we%26rsquo;ve made a conscious decision to stick with 30 FPS on console. It%26rsquo;s not a technical problem with getting our game to run in 60 FPS but we do this in favor of the large amount of players, large scale maps, huge amount of vehicles, full on destruction and so on.%26rdquo;

It's true the Battlefield franchise usually plays a little slower than other current-gen FPSs, and that could lend itself to a slower frame-rate without the graphics taking much of a hit in quality, but we%26rsquo;re curious to see how much %26ldquo;full on destruction%26rdquo; DICE has added to the game by knocking the frame-rate to half of what was promised by its nearest competitor.

When Troedsson was asked what he would consider a success for Battlefield, he simply said %26ldquo;that the people who play the game tell us that they enjoy it.%26rdquo; That's a much harder idea to argue with, but is he on track to achieving it?

July 26, 2011