The Battlefield V beta test has opened its doors to everyone today, allowing fans on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One to get to grips with some 64-player action across two maps. Previously due to launch on October 19th, Battlefield 5 was recently pushed back to November 20th. Do we have reason to be worried? The BFV open beta should give us all the answers we need.

Battlefield V Graphics Settings

First and foremost though, we're going to be talking about Battlefield 5's performance. The Battlefield series has long been a graphical benchmark by which other online shooters are compared. Not only is Battlefield V massive in scale, but it's also pushing the capabilities of Frostbite 3 to breaking point. It's a great looking game, no doubt about it, but how does Battlefield V perform on the most popular gaming graphics card in the world?

Battlefield V System Requirements

Battlefield V Open Beta Minimum System Requirements

• OS: Windows 7 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz or AMD FX-6350 3.9 GHz
• RAM: 8 GB System Memory
• GPU RAM: 2 GB Video Memory
• GPU: GeForce GTX 660 or Radeon HD 7850 2GB
• HDD: 50GB Available Hard Drive Space
• API: DirectX 11

Battlefield V Open Beta Recommended System Requirements

• OS: Windows 7 64-bit
• CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 3.6GHz or AMD FX-8350 4.0 GHz
• RAM: 16 GB System Memory
• GPU RAM: 3 GB Video Memory
• GPU: GeForce GTX 1060 3GB or Radeon RX 480 4GB
• HDD: 50GB Available Hard Drive Space
• API: DirectX 11.1

Battlefield V Open Beta benchmarks and frames per second analysis performed on GeForce GTX 1060 6GB | Intel i7-5820K | 16GB DDR4

For these benchmarks, we tested out how the Battlefield V open beta performed while using MSI's GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 6G, equipped with 6GB video memory. It’s backed up by 16GB DDR4 memory and an Intel Core i7-5820K CPU. This system is slightly more powerful than the recommended specs, so the expectation is of decent performance.

These benchmarks were taken during a 64-player Conquest match on BF5's Rotterdam match. Each run included a couple of minutes of gameplay, typically trying to get into the action as quickly as possible.

Battlefield V DirectX 11 Performance

Overall, I found the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB delivered excellent performance in Battlefield V. It isn't, and never was, a 4K card, so those results are fairly irrelevant outside of the knowledge that something like a GTX 1070 Ti can probably hit around 60fps on Ultra at 4K, which is good going.

For the rest of these benchmarks, we see the GTX 1060 step up as a pretty capable 1440p GPU in Battlefield 5. I would still recommend a GTX 1070 or upwards for those with a 1440p monitor, but a locked 60fps is possible in Battlefield V once a few graphics settings have been dropped. While 55fps on Ultra/1440p is pretty decent in BFV, at this stage the various dips and lurches, while not game breaking, did definitely manifest itself in varying degrees of mouse lag while playing Battlefield 5. 

Lastly, the 1080p benchmarks for Battlefield V. This is the GeForce GTX 1060's natural home and it knocks out of the park here, delivering a rocksteady 60+ frames per second on Ultra in BFV. Overall frame rates are down around 10-20% compared to Battlefield 1, although Battlefield V does have the edge in terms of visuals. Aesthetically as well, BFV's Rotterdam is much easier on the eye than the dreary streets of BF1's Amiens.

Battlefield V DirectX 12 Performance

If you're wondering where the big bar chart is below, the truth is I didn't bother. Battlefield V currently runs horrendously while DirectX 12 is enabled, at least with this particular GPU. It's absolutely unplayable and certainly not worth a full benchmarking. DICE still has a lot of work to do get DX12 performance up to par, which is fairly surprising considering the Frostbite 3 game engine has been one of the primary drivers of Direct X 12.

Just for a little bit of a context for these frame time graphs, the flatter the line, the better. This means the frames are being delivered at a nice, steady pace. Any significant spike will result in a hitch in performance. In the DirectX 11 graph, the spikes in the middle of the chart represent the map changing at the end of a round, while the flatter sections are actual gameplay. 

These frame times were taken from two tests at 1080p/Ultra in the Battlefield V open beta.

Battlefield V Open Beta DirectX 11 Frame Times

Battlefield V Open Beta DirectX 12 Frame Times

As you can see, the difference is night and day. Unfortunately, Afterburner cuts off the top and bottom of the chart, but suffice to say some frames tip into the 1000's of milliseconds to render. It's basically a total freeze of the game, and it happens in Battlefield V every few seconds with DX12 enabled. Despite this, the average frame rate was around 50fps in Battlefield 5 with a GTX 1060 on Ultra @1080p, but that doesn't tell anywhere near the whole story.

We would love to know if you've been encountering similar problems with DirectX 12 in Battlefield V, whether that's with another a GTX 1060 or any other Nvidia or AMD graphics card. Please tell us below, and also feel free to share your DX11 performance!