Bad Company 2 performance analysis

By Richard Leadbetter Published 3 December, 2009

Digital Foundry picks apart the beta.

Digital Foundry "hearts" DICE and has a particular penchant for Nordic developers in general. There's always a sense that we'll see something unique in the games that hail from this part of the world, and we're pretty much always guaranteed some lovely technical curiosities to set these games apart from the norm.

DICE in particular rarely disappoints. Even its utilisation of the ubiquitous Unreal Engine 3 middleware in Mirror's Edge resulted in a game that was innovative in both its technical approach and its core gameplay. The firm's latest - Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - is the third title to use its proprietary Frostbite engine, and it debuts in the form of a downloadable PSN beta exclusive to the PlayStation 3.

Eurogamer has already covered this multiplayer sampler from a gameplay perspective, but as usual the DF focus is on the Frostbite tech and its general performance. In his piece, Dan Whitehead lauded the improvements made to the destructible environments, but also commented on frame-rate and tearing issues, so let's tackle that straight away with a six-minute montage of clips from the beta.

Six minutes of solid action from the very cool Bad Company 2 beta test on PlayStation 3.

Overall stats on performance are variable, but rarely impactful on the actual gameplay. The Bad Company 2 beta has a minimum frame-rate of 24FPS and based on this selection of clips, 13.9 per cent of the 60Hz output of the console consist of torn frames. Maximum frame-rate is 30FPS: any tiny spikes you see above 30 are simply artifacts of the shift between one clip and the next. On its own, average frame-rate isn't a particularly useful stat - the longer the gameplay clip, the less impact performance spikes have on the overall average. However, the 29.55FPS average figure is in line with the general trend of smooth performance seen in the video.

Screen-tearing is noticeable, but the overall impact on any given scene comes down to context. The relatively slow-paced first-person viewpoint combined with a fairly uniform colour scheme helps diminish the impact of tearing in many scenes, but where it is clearly evident is in the faster action scenes during intensive gunplay.

It is interesting to see just where the performance is hit looking across the video as whole. Overdraw - the process of overlaying transparencies - cleary has an impact, with foliage and smoke in combination being the main factors in lower frame-rates in some cases. However, the game's dynamic destruction system also incurs extra load on the engine at any given moment: a relatively simple scene inside a building can become inordinately more complex as walls blast apart and ceilings collapse.

Game engines maintain performance by culling unseen triangles and cutting out unneeded processing. In the case of Bad Company 2, an easy-to-render internal scene can see engine load rise dramatically simply due to the process of rendering the outside world through the holes made in a destructible wall. All things being equal, the frame-rates and tearing levels we see here are pretty decent bearing in mind the sheer unpredictability of the experience from a rendering perspective.

In terms of non-performance related stuff, there are a number of interesting elements. While in the vehicle and travelling at speed, we see some pretty aggressive level-of-detail (LOD) transitions in both objects and even terrain geometry. In normal gameplay on-foot, this is much more difficult to discern. Texture-filtering is very important in FPS games, and in this regard Bad Company 2 looks great with implementation of both trilinear and anisotropic filtering. There's some high-quality depth-of-field in play too, particularly evident when using iron sights. In common with previous Frostbyte games, Bad Company 2 on PS3 runs at native 720p with no anti-aliasing.

Getting a preview of the game four months ahead of release has been something of a treat. PC owners are due their own beta test soon, while the word from DICE is that the all three formats get an official multiplayer demo early in 2010.

Picture of Richard.

About Richard Leadbetter

Rich has been a games journalist since the days of 16-bit and specialises in technical analysis. Commonly known around Eurogamer as the Blacksmith of the Future.

Read more articles from Richard by visiting the Richard Leadbetter archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • mcmonkeyplc #1 2 years ago

    Sweet! Multiplayer demo!

  • IronGiant #2 2 years ago

    Pretty pointless article, beta code has tearing and pop in. Why not wait till the demo next year before writing this?

    Regardless of the 'issues' mentioned it plays fantastically well and that's what really matters.

  • lockload #3 2 years ago

    Seriously where do this stuff end you will be doing performance analysis on alphas soon

  • Trejser #4 2 years ago

    "Seriously where do this stuff end you will be doing performance analysis on alphas soon "

    Like GOW3 demo? :D

  • naffers #5 2 years ago

    i want this beta, MW2 isnt doing it for me
    sucks that all ive found is american only keys

  • Thedni #6 2 years ago

    The sound design on the latest BF games has been nothing short of amazing. Good to hear it in action on the next installment.
    Edited by 1 at 03/12/09 @ 15:24

  • glaeken #7 2 years ago

    Well it was due to be released already if I remember correctly but I don't think Dice wanted to go up against MW2 so they delayed it.

  • Machiavellian #8 2 years ago

    Seriously where do this stuff end you will be doing performance analysis on alphas soon

    Do you guys wake up and leave your brain on the pillow. If there is a demo, of course it should be analyzed. Weather it's Alpha, beta or gold, any tech person would like to see how an engine progress from the different stages. From the Beta, you can see where Dice is at with BF2 and where there is room for improvement. We also have a build which you can compare to the finished game. Some of you are really uptight and should try to understand what DF is about. Just maybe you could comprehend that a tech analysis doesn't mean there is a judgment on a game but instead just an analysis of where a game is at with the particular build that customers can consume.

  • lordofthedunce #9 2 years ago

    Really enjoyed BF1943. This is firmly on my ones to watch list.

  • andromeda #10 2 years ago

    this will be THE online shooter

  • rotmm #11 2 years ago

    Well said Machiavellian

  • Benno #12 2 years ago

    how do i get in this beta?

  • TitusCrow #13 2 years ago

    playing the euro beta on ps3 the net code feels good. the game over all is real good, though I get owned by all the people expert on fps by controller :)
    come the pc version things will improve though this game will be fun on any platform it seems.

  • TriggerHippie #14 2 years ago

    I am LOVING this! I'm in the same boat as you Titus, I'm used to these games on the pc and no doubt that's where I'll go when its released. But i'm hooked for now :)

  • INSOMANiAC #15 2 years ago

    Sounds good, double the frame rate and take a way the tearing and you have yourself the 360 version !

  • tobsen #16 2 years ago

    This version is technically still an alpha according to Dice, so i really have to doubt the value of a framerate assessment. I would have rather read more about how the dynamic destruction system works, and how they put this amazing soundscape in the game together!

  • jambo74 #17 2 years ago

    The Tank blew apart and then just vaporised!

  • jambo74 #18 2 years ago

    Why no 360 beta then?

    Am I to assume the PS3 version will be better due to extended play testing?

  • Xerx3s #19 2 years ago

    Looks far more interesting than MW2.

  • penhalion #20 2 years ago

    @lockload

    I fully expect to see a Digital Foundry article analysing some game code soon. With a commentary like "And here we see that the coder has used generics instead of inlining everything for a 0.0002% frame gain. On the 360 version he's inlined as you can see so....blah blah blah"

    I mean seriously, unless this is a very late beta, the performance analysis is meaningless.

  • Trejser #21 2 years ago

    semitope: BF1943&BC1 - No aa in both version, 30fps in both and more screen tearing in Xbox versions (at least in 1943) ;)

  • Machetazo #22 2 years ago

    If struck by falling debris, from a blasted-out wall for instance, do you take proportionate damage (i.e each piece and how close you are to it, determines the pain you receive), or, is it more of a flying brick = bad (death) thing, as a given?
    Edited by 1 at 04/12/09 @ 14:40

  • freakzilla #23 2 years ago

    @Thedni

    TOTALLY agree, I'm a COD4 fan who found MW2 to a bit... crap. All the guns sounded sort of jingly, like the ak47, instead of being deafening ratatat tat its more of a tinny sound.

    Also since I play SOCOM regularly good gun sound has become an essential requirement for me.

  • DUFFKING #24 2 years ago

    Never going to be as popular as MW2 but I don't care because this will be the better game. The BF play style is so much more fun than COD's TDM basics which consist of making everything but the player control what happens in an online match. It even punishes you for other people playing badly thanks to Painkiller, and punishes you for dying... by making you die several times before it decides not to spawn you within 3 feet of a live grenade/predator missile/etc.

    The gunplay in this looks way better than BFBC, for the record. I notice the gun clips are smaller so hopefully that means slightly more powerful guns. BFBC almost had the balance right. Accuracy was fine, a little more recoil and a little more damage would be the sweet spot.

  • bratmandu #25 2 years ago

    I want to eat this game.

    The graphics here put MW2 to shame. I mean, Cod looks good, but there's something very clean and clear cut and 3d-ish about Cod's 3d design, Battlefield does that arid, dusty war-torn look so much better.

    Would like to see some footage of someone in a chopper flying over the whole level.

  • fknetwork #26 2 years ago

    meh, looks just like the first one which was pants compared to the likes of COD, map sizes are impressive though.

  • bratmandu #27 2 years ago

    @ fknetwork

    Care to elaborate on what exactly made BC1 or 2 'pants'? And what are 'the likes of COD' that you're comparing Battlefield to? I'm not gettin at you, just curious about why someone who's played BF:BC would say CoD looks and plays better. You have played BF haven't you?

  • fknetwork #28 2 years ago

    @ bratmandu
    I just found BFBC to very very underwhelming, slow, sluggish, rough around the edges, two online modes, crap ranking system that took too long to unlock anything, it looked okay but the framerate put me off the whole game, good aiming and gameplay requires a smooth framerate, 30 FPS that always dropped to the mid 20's was not good at all,

    BFBC is never going to be as popular as the COD series, look at the sales difference between COD 4 and BFBC, they aren't even in the same league lol and now MW2 has set records for pretty much everything since release, BFBC 2 won't come close to COD 4 let alone MW2, i'm not saying BFBC games are poor, i loved 1943 as a download only game but that's as good as i think it will get,


    And having a PS3 only beta for BFBC2, wow, considering the first one (and 1943) sold MUCH better on 360 it should be 360 getting a beta first or at least give them both betas, no beta for 360 is going to cause them a LOT of problems on release, remember the 1943 launch?

  • bratmandu #29 2 years ago

    @ fknetwork

    **edit are you just gonna -1 everything regardless fknetwork?

    Well I can see your point about slowness in gameplay, but I grew to understand that it's a differently paced game, where you could hang back and snipe, take a boat for a spin, or get stuck into a faster paced class like shotguns/assault rifles, or dominate in a helicopter, etc.

    In a game like BF, I couldn't really see any need for more gamemodes than what they have, but I see your point, although a lot of the gamemodes in Cod are variations on the same idea - and the result is that the less used gamemodes have empty lobbys. I feel CoD has many gamemodes just for the sake of having more gamemodes - and a lot of them are poor.

    Never noticed framerate as a major issue for me playing BF.

    I don't think anyone would consider that BF would sell as much as Cod, sales difference is largely irrelevant. Bf offers a different experience from CoD, I enjoy both games for the record. Also bear in mind 1943 broke records for a downloadable game when it came out!

    Regarding Betas, 360 got the Beta for BC1 so I suppose it's only fair that the PS3 gets it this time. I don't think they'll have many problems at launch, assuming they've learned from the launch of 1943.

    What it comes down to for me is that I like MW2, but when tiny tin or wooden shacks are immune to bombarment with rockets, it all feels a bit fake compared to BC.
    Edited by 1 at 07/12/09 @ 12:12

  • bratmandu #30 2 years ago

    @ DUFFKING

    Yea the gun / damage balance is important in a game with so many heavy weapons/mortars/etc. BC1 got a lot of stick for having the traditional 100% health at a time where regen health was the norm. Looks like they are keeping a good balance whilst also making it more realistic.

    A major prob with the first BC was that the rockets and grenade launcher were really ineffective against humans. The grenade launcher on assault rifles was essentially just a wall breaching tool. Wonder if they have changed how explosive weapons affect infantry this time??