What the Xbox 360 version of Battlefield 3 looks like, without installation

Battlefield 3 features an optional HD texture installation. The game is entirely playable without the installation... but a new video shows how drastic the drop in visual fidelity is.

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Because not all Xbox 360s come equipped with hard drives, Battlefield 3 features an optional HD texture installation. The game is entirely playable without the installation... but a new video shows how drastic the drop in visual fidelity is.

The HD texture pack requires 1.5GB of hard drive space, on top of the 7GB demanded by installing the disc onto the console. If you hsven't invested in a large hard drive for your Xbox 360, watch the video to see exactly why it's not really optional for Battlefield 3.

The video, captured by NextGenWalkthroughs (via Joystiq), looks akin to a last-generation title. Calling this mode "standard definition" is not entirely accurate. We'd simply call it "bad."

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    October 24, 2011 10:15 AM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, What the Xbox 360 version of Battlefield 3 looks like, without installation.

    Battlefield 3 features an optional HD texture installation. The game is entirely playable without the installation... but a new video shows how drastic the drop in visual fidelity is.

    • reply
      October 24, 2011 10:21 AM

      Wow, some of those clips from the non-HD-pack feed really do look like standard-def games like shooters on Wii.

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      October 24, 2011 10:23 AM

      So Rage is just missing its HD texture install.

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      October 24, 2011 10:25 AM

      so it looks like rage on pc

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      October 24, 2011 10:27 AM

      Is this a sign that current-gen consoles are reaching the end of the line?

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        October 24, 2011 10:37 AM

        They've long passed the end of the line, but Microsoft and Sony said they're only half way through.

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          October 24, 2011 5:15 PM

          But remember that the PS2's "lifespan" extended past the introduction of the PS3. I would be surprised if either Sony or MS don't announce a new console at the next E3.

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        October 24, 2011 10:40 AM

        probably more of a sign that streaming from a optical disc is coming to an end, shit is too slow

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        October 24, 2011 10:53 AM

        [deleted]

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        October 24, 2011 11:05 AM

        It's more likely they couldn't fit the higher rez textures and the game onto 1 dvd. This works better then having to have the game split onto separate discs.

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          October 24, 2011 11:28 AM

          yup this would be my guess, Forza 3 & 4 has extra content on a 2nd disk.

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            October 24, 2011 6:15 PM

            Forza 4's second disc content is 2.8 GB, easy to fit on a 4 GB Arcade 360 if it's the only game installed.

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        October 24, 2011 11:07 AM

        Actually, this isn't such a bad option... PC games have only been doing this forever. Far Cry, X3, Diablo II if I remember right, and scads more came with what amounted to a Play disc and one or more data discs to install. For some reason, since only the beginning of this console generation, the concept of pausing gameplay to switch discs has become so abhorrent that a Final Fantasy game coming on more than one disc is considered news. Yes, people without a hard drive are out in the cold for this sort of thing, but this provides an alternative.

        In the end, we'll see how it pans out, but with all the negative gamer reactions to multi-disc console games, what other alternatives are there? They have to test the water somehow.

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        October 24, 2011 4:14 PM

        Problem is, what is the new delivery system for games without coming up with a new disc format?
        USB drives?

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        October 24, 2011 5:43 PM

        They blew past that line back in 2009 mate.

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      October 24, 2011 10:34 AM

      ouch! that looks like shit

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      October 24, 2011 10:36 AM

      So how big is the texture pack? I only have a couple of gigs that I can free up on my shitty 20gb drive.

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        October 24, 2011 10:40 AM

        Looks like 7GB, though the wording in this article is odd.

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          October 24, 2011 10:42 AM

          Fuck. There's no way I can find that much room. I have an extra HD lying around somewhere but it will kind of suck to have to delete all of my old games.

          I wish there was an easy way to delete only xbox arcade games, most of my space is being eaten up by dumb shit that downloaded automatically. Removing 200 50mb games one at a time is not a lot of fun. It actually sucks really bad.

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            October 24, 2011 10:47 AM

            its only 1.5GB. The game itself, if you install it to the HD, is 7GB.

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            October 24, 2011 10:48 AM

            You may be able to install to a usb drive? Or move your games to one? I don't know I know there was a report about usb drives being compatible with xboxes now, but I've never had to use one.

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              October 24, 2011 10:51 AM

              I'm not sure how the USB stuff works. I know it has a max size of 16GB, but I dunno if you can install XBLA games to them and swap them around on one account, or if they're just used for transfer.

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                October 24, 2011 10:55 AM

                I don't have any USB sticks with capacity >2gb so I haven't bothered with that much, I thought about using it to port my xbl account from one xbox to another but I let a friend of mine borrow my spare 360 for a while so I never got around to it.

                Guess I'm going to have to look into it soon, or try and pick up a 120gb drive for cheap or something.

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                  October 24, 2011 11:02 AM

                  If you are in UK & can't spend on a 16gb usb drive right now or a larger disk then drop me a SM and I'll ship you one gratis MWM. Have a couple of data ferry ones left over from a VM show recently.

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                    October 24, 2011 11:04 AM

                    It's cool, it's not the money as much as the fact that I just haven't had a reason to look into it all that much. I can usually wipe out a demo or two to clear up some space, too many awesome games are coming out now for that to continue to be a viable option though. I'm gonna snag one off amazon, but thanks for the offer!

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                      October 24, 2011 11:06 AM

                      (I'm in Dallas btw so shipping would make it not worth it, but thanks again for the offer)

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                      October 24, 2011 11:13 AM

                      Cool. I keep looking for some way, on here, to pay forward Big Luke giving me a DLC code for Duke map pack :-) and though I understand Microsoft's business model on disk pricing I balk at their RRPs - inherent tightness of the miserable Englishman. That install looks essential & I look forward to killing you in battles.

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                October 24, 2011 10:59 AM

                You can.Can also install optical disc games to them. A 16gb usb will get you about 14.1 of usable space if I recall correctly. You can also do a Content Transfer with Y button on memory screen to transfer all content or selected content of one type or all types, to drive. Its not great but...

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            October 24, 2011 10:50 AM

            I suppose with a 20GB drive, it's pretty rough if you play a few installed disc-based games alot. I install them for the time I'm going through them, and remove them when I'm done. The couple games I'm currently working on are the only 2 or 3 which are installed at any given time. But even doing the math on that says that would use up nearly the full 20GB on a small drive.

            Time to just upgrade that shit and transfer it over.

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              October 24, 2011 10:52 AM

              I have a bunch of DLC and stuff installed that I'm not sure I can download again, do you know if stuff like that can be downloaded more than once?

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                October 24, 2011 10:56 AM

                When I had my grief with 7 Xboxes over a period of 2 months failing, I got pretty good at re-downloading my profile. I never had any issue with downloading DLC and whatnot, but I'm not sure about things which were once on XBLA and have since been removed. I *believe* they're still hosted and can be redownloaded if you bought it when it was still on the service, but that stuff didn't start happening until I finally got a working Xbox.

                For the most part, it was a fairly straightforward, albeit long process.

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                  October 24, 2011 10:59 AM

                  That stuff is still available for download, it's just no longer available for purchase and no longer listed in the store.

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                October 24, 2011 10:58 AM

                Yes, from xbox.com you can initiate a download of stuff (even stuff that you can no longer buy or find on the store).

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                  October 24, 2011 11:00 AM

                  Awesome, time to delete some crap. Still wish there was an easier way to remove stuff because deleting things one at a time is a pain in the ass.

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                October 24, 2011 7:41 PM

                I redownloaded the Alan Wake DLC a couple days ago. You shouldn't have any problems.

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      October 24, 2011 10:53 AM

      Not unplayable, but god damn if that doesn't look absolutely disgusting.

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      October 24, 2011 11:23 AM

      I remember a discussion, when installs came out first, where there was a lot of talk about whether installing made any difference other than noise of console - long lists of load times were linked? Someone back then it wouldn't be load times that benefit solely but also this streaming from disc stuff would be holding back developers (based on what they had inferred from PS3's installed assets and access times I guess I presumed). So, if you had a 360 (say an original arcade) and it did not play a 360 game then you'd be annoyed (I recall being confused by getting an N64 cart with plug in h/w) but unless its hooked up via RF to small SD tv you aren't really having the same experience, are you?

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      October 24, 2011 11:36 AM

      looks like RAGE on PC.

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      October 24, 2011 12:01 PM

      I haven't played a 360 game from Disc in a loooooooong time.

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      October 24, 2011 12:04 PM

      It's the harbinger of the end!

      .......of this console cycle anyway. Everyone with an ounce of common sense knew this day was comming when Microsoft got out in front without a permanent storage requirement and the lack of upgraded disc media storage be it a commercial platform (HDDVD or Blu-Ray) or a propreitary disc.

      Will this game look gob smacking awesome on a capeabe PC? Yes. Does everyone want to play it on PC? No, me included since I work from home and am on a PC all day. Is the money going to come from the PC or Console? Console and that is why I am glad they provided an option for those of us with the bigger hard drives.

      The bigger thing we should be all making noise about is the proprietary bull s*** that Microsoft is still pulling over HDD's both on the launch and new XBOX 360 consoles. Say what you want about the PS3, but it has a standard 2.5" HDD which you can swap and have multiple backups of for the price of what you can get at NewEgg.

      Anyway, let the trolling continue and the mass complaining ensue.

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      October 24, 2011 12:08 PM

      It's quite sad when consoles are running sub HD resolutions. I played the beta on consoles it wasn't the textures that looked bad it was the horrible jaggies. It really is time for new consoles or we are going to be playing at 480p again.

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      October 24, 2011 12:31 PM

      [deleted]

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      October 24, 2011 12:44 PM

      looks like Half-Life

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      October 24, 2011 12:47 PM

      would the low-res version end up running smoother than the hi-res version? or does having the hi-res textures installed on the HD allow the game to run just as well as the low res version? I have this vision of hardcore gamers just running the low-res version to get better performance.

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      October 24, 2011 3:22 PM

      So much for "drop in the disc and go".

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      October 24, 2011 3:42 PM

      * R_PICMIP 3'D*

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        October 24, 2011 9:40 PM

        Played some Q3DM against an ex co-worker. As I blasted right through the department, I took a quick break to visit a co worker. He had that setting on and virtually every other setting off/low as possible. Quizzing him as to why (esp since his box could handle it): he's color blind and it was the only thing he could do to make out the differences in textures.

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      October 24, 2011 5:41 PM

      Oh the irony. When we PC folks talk about shitty graphics all I see is some console idiot type in gameplay > graphics.

      Suck it up bitches.

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      October 24, 2011 6:28 PM

      For reference, the PC version of Rage: http://chattypics.com/files/20111010_00001_2k7x5m8w7n.jpg

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      October 24, 2011 9:09 PM

      First thing I always do on FPS games is turn down the graphics settings as low as possible so they look terrible anyway. (maximize FPS and remove all the non-essential stuff that takes away from seeing enemies)

      So BF3 just does that by default on the xbox :)

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        October 24, 2011 9:20 PM

        I've always wondered about people who did that. You mean multiplayer only, to get ahead or something, right? Would you do it if it was already running 60 FPS?

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        October 24, 2011 9:41 PM

        I'm with you. To answer willard's question. Yes. I'm much more comfortable in the 90-120 fps range.
        In general turning off shadows is a huge boost for frames but BC2 didn't allow you to do that afaik and I doubt BF3 will either.

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