low end pc

[ligma2169]

normally getting 16 fps in big battles.....i dont mind to sacrifice graphics for performance.....any tips or ways to increase fps?

[Spaaaaace!]

big battles are cpu bound. typing /fps in chat will give you an indicator in the bottom corner. it switches between cpu and gpu aka which one is bottlenecking.
i run the game on an old i7-3770 and only get 30-40 in big battles.
maybe reducing the renderdistance for players will help but i dont know for sure

[Sweets]

Get more ram or change your pc graphic settings for performance only

[76561198807925770]

It may be worth checking Task Manager to see the specifics of what's slowing you down.

Battles with ~35 players and facing the wrong way in Sanctuary bring my 3D graphics processing to 100%, for example, which couldn't be helped by lowering most settings.
In this case, CPU was still fine, but your situation might be different.

[Twoflower]

Hey! Google for Iridar's Performance Guide for planetside. It's got genuinely great stuff for how to change some settings in ini files to help the game run on low end PCs.

I used to have a low end PC and the best thing that helped me was modifying the useroptions.ini file in my Planetside directory to set my render distance to below the usual minimum. I found 125 was a good compromise of framerate to usability. Remember with the latest update you can set a different view distance for when you are on foot vs. in a vehicle, so you will probably want the vehicle view distances to be a bit higher.

[Duuvian]

I used to go into useroptions.ini and lower settings below what the game menu allowed.

One thing that helped my really old graphics cards was turning off either lighting or shadows; I forget which it is. It looks worse because it's lighter but with my graphics card back then it made the biggest difference once everything else was lowered.

It's one of these two; set it to 0 and it takes away lighting completely, which the game menu did not allow (at least at the time, perhaps has changed?). The other if I remember correctly reverts to a functional number if 0 is entered. I can't recall if it reverts to lowest setting so you may have to change it back to lowest if you put 0 in the wrong one. Or just go back to a useroptions backup and change the other to 0 and plug it in

One of these turns off lighting if set to 0 (cannot remember which one)
ShadowQuality=2
LightingQuality=1

The other option that really helped back then was lowering this

RenderQuality=1.000000

If I remember correctly the ingame menu's floor for render quality is 50%. changing this takes it below that floor and helped the old computer I used to play on manage a few more fps. If I remember correctly .5 is 50% and I usually set mine a little over .4 because if you go too low I think it screws up the game until you fix the useroptions. Again it's been a while so I can't remember if it needs to be 0.4 or if .4 is good enough or if I am spewing out bogus numbers. My guess would be see what effect lowering it in menu to the lowest does, and then go a little below that until something breaks, and then go up a step or two above that.

Make sure you keep a backup of your useroptions if you change it a little to see what settings work. I think you can delete it and run the patcher and it will get you a new copy if you lose it somehow.

Keep in mind this advice is dated; I haven't had to do that since I came back and thus don't know if that's all valid still. I also did it from memory so it might not be 100% accurate but hopefully you get the idea at least

Besides the obvious turn down settings in the game menu, turning off shadows/lighting gave the biggest fps benefit when I had a potato, but that was before they updated to DX12 and I don't know how that and other changes have modified the effect of these useroptions changes. It will also depend on your hardware if they help; my graphics card at the time was from 2006 so it struggled with lighting.

[esturias]

Check how the game runs with everything on low and all the fancy stuff turned off. If that doesn't help, try to play around with the gamefiles, like explained above.
There even is a dedicated website that offers tutorials on how to make even newer games run on old PCs.
The games look like Toombs Raider on PlayStation1 then, but they are still playable... somehow. I forgot the name of it, but you should be able to google it.

The obvious alternative is, obviously, to get a better PC. PS2 is a pretty old game and not very demanding when it comes to graphics. I guess that it was already technically outdated when it got released, so you don't even need a fancy gamer PC.

[Duuvian]

What lowering your useroptions looks like:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=168797116

Notice the lack of lighting. It's still completely playable and you can still get headshots for example even if faces are too pixelated to make out features or you are shooting what appears to be a purple blob with lower appendages running for the cover of a doorway. You can hit them with your tank cannon at maximum range just as cleverly as at high graphics.

It sort of looks like a Playstation 1 era game, which I thought was a funny tradeoff for enjoying things like that NC tank spam without footing the bill for a new computer until the new games just don't work anymore. (EDIT: Dang check that FPS at 20 cpu limited. If I didn't turn off lighting it would have been gpu limited instead)

Compared to this with graphics up (I think I turned some down when those orange nades came out and dared to harm my fps):

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2141164189

[ligma2169]

thank u guys so muchh........im planning to get a better laptop.......ngl been playing planetside2 on low fps...i hope these things are gonna boost the fps

[ligma2169]

btw my games have always said bad connection quality...any tips or things i have to change?

[ligma2169]

like the most minimum....like the game wont look like a game anymore....any ways to lower it to that point?....like everything to the lowest it can get

[esturias]

I'd rather get a desktop PC, if that's possible. At the end, it will be less expensive than a dedicated gaming laptop and it's easier to upgrade it in the future.

@ bad connection:
That's either because you play via WiFi, which isn't ideal in general, or it's because your wired connection is bad or outdated.
Our region recently got new connections when the street got fixed. Now my connection is much better.

[ligma2169]

i dont know how to build a desktop,but im open to learning how

[esturias]

Originally posted by ligma2169:

i dont know how to build a desktop,but im open to learning how

Do a bit of research and just pick your hardware (monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc.) and let a local guy build the PC. Research some components you want to have (there are tests, comparisons, tutorials everywhere) and tell the guy to slap it together.
I have no clue about that kind of thing, either. I tried once to save money, but failed miserably.

[Clonefarmer]

Originally posted by ligma2169:

i dont know how to build a desktop,but im open to learning how

Any pc shops in your area? Sometimes you can find decent deals on used towers. I used to get used towers and upgrade them with a decent video card. Used systems are fairly affordable and you get can get a good system going for pretty cheap. I finally got my first new pc this year after many years of getting used systems. The used systems served me well until now.

First desktop is a little expensive since you need to get a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Once you have these items upgrading in the future with a new video card or even a new tower is more affordable.

[Kai]

The problem with used towers is that they are often limited in terms of good CPU options, and PlanetSide 2 needs a good CPU to run at high frame rates consistently. If I was OP I'd dump most of my money into the CPU and just go for a cheap secondhand GPU like a GTX 970 or something.