Before covering the various graphics-related settings which have the most significant impact on performance and image quality, this section examines the other settings. To access the in-game settings, launch BF3 and in the main menu click the Options button. The Video options are covered on the next few pages, but below we look at the Controls, Gameplay and Audio settings.

The settings below have no significant impact on performance.

Controls

Vertical Look: If this option is set to Normal, moving your mouse forward results in your character looking up, and moving the mouse back will make your character look down. If this option is set to Inverted, the arrangement is reversed, so that moving your mouse forward will make your character look down for example. This option only affects the Vertical (forward/back) not Horizontal (left/right) mouse axis.

Vertical Flight: This setting works in the same manner as Vertical Look, however it only affects flight controls, not soldier or land vehicle controls.

Mouse Sensitivity: This slider determines the level of responsiveness of the mouse to your movements. The higher the slider, the more responsive the mouse will feel. Keep in mind that if your mouse movements feel laggy even after raising the Mouse Sensitivity, you should check your framerate. If your framerate falls below around 20-25 FPS at any time, you will need to adjust your settings to improve FPS and hence keep your mouse feeling suitably responsive. Also be sure to set the Vertical Sync option to Off if you still experience a laggy feel - see Vertical Sync in the Video section of this guide.

Vehicle Mouse Sensitivity: This slider is independent of the general Mouse Sensitivity slider and controls the sensitivity of mouse movements only when you are in a vehicle.

Raw Mouse Input: When set to On, this option is designed to make mouse movement more accurate by ensuring that your mouse input is processed directly by BF3, and doesn't have any mouse acceleration or other Windows-related changes forced upon it. Enabling this option should improve your aim by making mouse movements more predictable and precise, but again, low framerates and VSync will impact on mouse responsiveness regardless of this setting.

Joystick Sensitivity: This slider only determines the sensitivity of controllers like joysticks and gamepads, not the mouse.

To change the default keys and buttons bound to specific actions, look under the Key Bindings section of the Options screen in BF3, and set them to suit your taste.

Gameplay

Subtitles: If set to Yes, text subtitles will be shown under spoken text. If set to No, subtitles are not shown.

Hint System: If set to Yes, the game will prompt you with on-screen hints as to how to take particular actions with weapons and vehicles. For example, if you are in a tank, the game will show a '[LMB] Fire' prompt on the right of the screen, hinting that you should press your Left Mouse Button to fire the tank's gun. To disable these prompts, set this option to No. It is recommended that the Hint System be set to Yes initially, so that you become accustomed to the various actions possible and how to trigger them, especially if you are experimenting with different key bindings.

Reload Hint: If set to Yes, the game will prompt you with a flashing '[R] Reload' text hint at the bottom right of the screen, just below your ammunition counter, whenever your weapon has nearly expended all the ammunition in its current magazine. Set to No to disable this prompt.

Weapon Zoom: This option allows you to control the way in which you zoom (look down your sights) on a weapon. The default zoom binding is your Right Mouse Button (RMB), and when this option is set to 'Hold Button', you will only zoom for as long as you hold down RMB; as soon as you let go, you revert to normal view. If set to 'Click Button' on the other hand, whenever you press RMB you will zoom in and stay zoomed, even if you let go of RMB. You will then need to click RMB again to get out of zoom mode.

Allow PunkBuster: This option must be set to Yes to enable the PunkBuster (PB) anti-cheat system and thus allow you to play BF3 multiplayer on ranked servers which have PB enabled. If set to No, you will only be able to play the BF3 Campaign (singleplayer) mode, or on unranked non-PB multiplayer servers. You can use the Battlelog server browser filter to find servers which are or are not PB-enabled, but playing on non-PB servers greatly increases the chance that people will be using cheats and exploits. If you're having problems with disconnections which could be due to PunkBuster, you can manually update PB by going here . Follow the instructions to save the two .htm files to your Program Files (x86)Origin GamesBattlefield 3pb folder.

Network Smoothing Factor: This slider controls interpolation, a technique which determines where a particular moving object or character is currently located in the game world, based on actual locational data periodically received over the network. If an enemy soldier is running along in front of you, interpolation allows their movement to appear fluid, calculating their movement across the screen even though your computer is receiving only periodic updates of where they actually are. So instead of seeing a person jerkily warping from point to point, you see smooth animated motion all the way along. By reducing this slider, you can reduce the use of interpolation, and in turn potentially increase your accuracy by reducing latency; you're more likely to shoot at where someone actually is at any time. The downside to reducing the slider is that it may make character movements more jerky in the game. This depends on a range of factors, including the quality and latency of your own connection to the server, and those of the other players. Start by lowering the slider to the midway point. If after a period of gameplay on your favorite servers you don't notice any jerkiness in friendly or enemy movements, then lower it slightly again. If you do, raise it slightly until things are smooth.

Audio

Master: This slider is the master volume control, affecting the level of sound effects and spoken dialog.

Your Speaker System: This option determines the way in which in-game audio is processed, and is best matched to your speaker configuration, although it also depends greatly on personal taste. The available options are:

TV - Designed for smaller speakers, such as those on televisions;

Headphones - Suits most basic stereo headphones;

Hi-Fi - Suitable for speakers which have reasonable dynamic range, such as stereo speaker (2 or 2.1 channel) setups and good quality headphones;

Home Cinema - Suitable for multi-channel (e.g. 5.1 channel) speaker setups;

War Tapes - Provides an exaggerated sound stage with greater reverberation and impact on any speaker system, though it can make accurately detecting directional sounds a bit more difficult at times.

Enhanced Stereo Mode: If set to On, this setting enhances stereo to simulate a wider audio field for those using speakers or headphones which don't have surround sound functionality.

Voiceover Language: This setting controls the language used for voices in the game. Select your own language to ensure that you can understand what your teammates are saying.

On the next page we begin our look at the various graphics-related settings in Battlefield 3.