PlanetSide 2 optimization

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Gabriel Calil, Apr 24, 2013.

  1. Gabriel Calil

    The goal of this post is to teach what can be done to optimize the playability in PlanetSide 2. Below are all the best methods I found. If you guys have more ideas, obviously, feel free to add them to the list.

    First of all, it may sound unnecessary to say, but just to be safe, here are some basic tips before you start applying some serious methods to boost the game performance:
    1)Be sure that your computer is absolutely free of virus. To do so, I recommend AVG as free antivirus, but this is a matter of opinion. You may prefer to use Avira, Avast, or whatever; just read some recent reviews about the antivirus you're going to pick as their quality usually varies annually (the performance of an antivirus that's considered to be the best in a year may not be that good in the next year). If it's necessary to do a very deep scan, you can use the free Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool available here: http://www.kaspersky.com/free-virus-removal-tool. Set all the options to do the deepest scan possible. It'll probably take a maximum of 20 hours to scan.

    2)Update all drivers.

    3)Use CCleaner.



    When reading this tutorial, always keep in mind that I'm using a lot of tweaking methods at the same time in my computer and that some of the methods I describe here can conflict with each other (I'll say when that's the case). As most of you guys live in US or close, probably you are not going to need all of them, so adapt my methods to your needs. Remember to copy and paste in a txt or Word file the original data of the files you are about to modify, just for safety. Please be aware that I'm using Windows 7 in Portuguese, so some words I've translated may not be exactly as they are in the English version; but don't worry, it'll always be something that even an amoeba can figure out.

    This tutorial doesn't teaches CPU overclocking techniques that can damage your computer. The overclocking techniques presented here can be considered as "extremely soft CPU overclocking" methods. Actually, if you are reading this and perform CPU overclocking, you'll even consider what I'm calling overclocking as a joke. The reason why I'm not going to talk about "real overclocking" is because it's very dangerous, as it can literally burn out your CPU. My advice: only perform overclocking if you REALLY know what you're doing AND have enough money to buy another computer in case the one you have becomes a nuclear bomb and explodes. [If you already had a bad time with nukes, don't worry, your computer won't become one. A bad overclocking will "just" burn out the CPU.]


    Well, that said, let's talk about what really matters here.


    Group of optimizations 1

    Site of the original tutorial (it's the first answer in the post):
    http://www.preachgaming.com/forum/9-gaming-talk/6624-planetside-2-fps-lag-fixes


    Below, a copy of this tutorial:
    Another option for the guys which have FPS problems.

    Follow these steps to improve your frames per second in PlanetSide 2:

    1. Navigate to your PlanetsSide 2 installation directory. For Steam it's in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\PlanetSide All others, right click your PS2 icon, go to properties, and click on open file location.

    2. Open up your UserOptions.ini file in your PlanetSide 2 directory with notepad.

    3. Change ShadowQuality to ShadowQuality=0.

    4. Change RenderDistance to RenderDistance=1000

    5. Change FloraQuality to FloraQuality=0.

    4. Click Save.

    5. Launch PlanetSide 2.

    Enjoy your FPS gain.


    Below are changes I've made mixing the tutorial above with some other information I found:

    [Rendering]
    TextureQuality=0
    Gamma=0.250000 (for me the best number is 0.500000, which is the original number)
    MaximumFPS=1000 (for me the best number is 250, which is the original number)
    OverallQuality=-1
    LightingQuality=0
    EffectsQuality=0
    MotionBlur=1 (for me the best number is 0, which is the original number)
    VerticalFOV=40

    [Terrain]
    RenderFlora=Off

    *After saving, right-click the file and go to Properties > Attributes > check "Read only" > Apply > OK.




    Group of optimizations 2

    Site of the original tutorial:
    http://windows7themes.net/10-tips-to-speed-up-planetside-2.html


    Below, a copy of this tutorial:

    1. Turn OFF VSync!
    Open the graphic settings within Planetside 2 (click the settings buttons when logging in) and make sure Vertical Sync is turned off – it will significantly improve your performance and speed up the game


    2. Competitive Gamer? Lower the render quality!
    Next, change the render quality. If you’re a casual gamer keep it high, but if you’re competing for kills then you may want to reduce the render quality as much as possible, because that will increase your FPS (frames per second) dramatically



    3. Tricky: Changing Vertical Field of View For Performance Boosts
    The vertical field of view is a tricky setting. If you’re a competitive player you may need to see for long distances to snipe enemies with your sniper rifle, but the higher this number the more your PC has to render. Therefore you need to do some testing. Find out how much lower you can go with this setting until you have disadvantages. 55 is the default settings, use that as your benchmark



    4. Apply Our Latency Fix For Windows 7


    Use our tip to fix your WoW or Guild Wars latency - this may help to lower your ping in Planetside 2 – a lower ping will speed up your game and improve your overall game experience




    Text of the link “fix your WoW or Guild Wars latency”:

    If you want to know how to improve your latency in WoW in Windows 7, try a few registry tweaks that optimize your TCP/IP settings in Windows 7 that can reduce your latency in WoW significantly!


    WoW Latency Registry Fix for Windows 7
    1. Open up the registry:


    2. Uncollapse the following entry:
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces]


    3. You will probably find several “subfolders”. Click through each folder until you find the one with the most entries in the right pane. The right interface will have many entries, e.g. DGCPDefaultGateway, DHCPDomain, DHCPIPAddress, Lease, NameServer, T1, etc.


    4. Create two “DWORD” registry keys called TCPAckFrequency and TCPNoDelay:



    Here’s an example what it should look like:

    5. Double-click on each new registry key and change the value from “0″ to “1″ (without the quotes, base hexadecimal)
    Now you can enjoy a low latency in World of Warcraft again! This fix worked for a lot of people already, so I’d be surprised if it wouldn’t help you to reduce your latency in Windows 7 and WoW.

    How does it improve my latency in WoW?
    What we just done via a handy registry tweak is to disable the delayed ACK. ACK (short for ACKNOWLEDGE) is a confirmation that you have received a network package. While you are playing WoW, you are constantly sending and receiving network packets and each of those packets has to be confirmed from your PC. To prevent a network flood of ACK messages (sending out a confirmation for EVERY package) Windows has a smart trick! Windows waits some time (up to 200ms) before it sends out the next ACK, so that it can send out multiple ACK’s in one go. The problem is, WoW won’t send you another network package before it has received the ACK, so your latency will always be higher than 200ms or even up to 300ms.

    The solution?
    TcpAckFrequency = 1 will disable delayed ACK. Default is 2, so it will wait for 2 packages until sending out ACK.
    To disable TCP packet batching, we set TcpNoDelay to 1, so all packets will be send no matter what size they have (normally TCP sends out batched packages).


    5. Install Windows on 2nd partition OR get GameBooster from iobit.com
    One of the most common problems is that you simply have too many programs on your PC and too many services. If you are serious about speeding up Planetside 2, you may want to consider installing Windows 7 on a new partition and install nothing on it except Planetside 2, that would guarantee the smoothest and fastest game. It can speed up your game by up to 20% easily
    However, if you don’t want to invest so much time, I recommend to download IO’s Game Booster


    6. Check Your Windows Tray For Running Apps
    Planetside 2 can only run smoothly and fast if there are no other downloads going on or services with high CPU usage are closed. Open your system tray and close them one by one. Back in the day, I used a program called “End it all” to kill all of those apps. Gamebooster from
    Iobit should work too


    7. Install Recent Drivers?

    Update graphic card drivers

    Sony might have worked with AMD or NVIDIA for some special patches. This is actually quite common with high-profile releases such as Planetside 2 – we therefore recommend to check your drivers. Update them!


    8. Programs with disk I/O Problems could slow down Planetside!
    Open the resource manager - look for processes that write a lot of data to your hard drive. In some cases there could be .exe files that are constantly writing to your disk. Not good! Killing services and apps that write to your disk all the time can speed up Planetside 2 significantly


    9. Speed Up WLAN
    Are you using a WLAN connection? If possible, try to get a wired connection. If that is not possible, then at least do some tweaking and turn off background scanning as explained here


    10. Stopping The Windows 7 Themes Service
    One last thing you can do – if you are regularly tweaking your system and installing shell themes, enter sfc.exe /scannow into and elevated command prompt and reset your shell to the default theme (it will remove all shell themes)




    Group of optimizations 3

    1)If your CPU is parked, unpark it with this tool: http://www.coderbag.com/Programming-C/Disable-CPU-Core-Parking-Utility


    2)Use Timer Resolution, it performs a "soft CPU overclocking" (only free for Windows XP 32-bits): http://www.lucashale.com/timer-resolution/


    3)After logging into the game, minimize the window, press Ctrl+Alt+Del, right-click PlanetSide 2, select "Go to the process", right-click the process, select "Set priority" and set priority to real-time. If you receive a warning stating that you can't set the priority to real-time and hence priority was set to high, then let it as high.


    4)Use Latency Optimizer: http://www.latencyoptimizer.com/


    5)Use Razer Game Booster. Note that you may not be able to change PlanetSide 2 process priority if you use this program. In this case, you'll have to test and discover what's better: using the game booster or giving the game a higher priority in the processes.


    6)If you are getting lag mostly because you're too far from the servers or the quality of connection to the servers from where you are isn't good enough, it's higly recommended that you use a program for IP tunneling (if you don't know what tunneling is, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunneling_protocol). I use IP tunneling because I live in the depths of hell -literally, the only way I could be even farther from the servers would be if I lived in Antarctica. :)
    Basically, IP tunneling creates a tunnel between your machine and the server in such a way that it reduces the number of points you'll be connected to in order to connect to the final server. There are lots of paid softwares that connect your computer to a desired server through IP tunneling. I know only one that's free, and I presume it's designed only for Brazil, or only for South America, but I may be wrong, you can try and check if your game performance increases. The original site is in Portuguese and it seems that the creators abandoned it, but the program still works. Note that if you have a similar latency reduction program installed, it's advisible to remove it and clean your registry before installing DirectIP. At least for me, I tested and had no problems with Latecy Optimizer (the program I recommended previously) but, obviously, if you guys notice that Latency Optimizer and DirectIP are conflicting, choose the one that improves your performance the most. Here's the link to download DirectIP (already translated by Google Translate): http://translate.google.com.br/translate?hl=pt-BR&sl=pt&tl=en&u=http://www.directip.com.br/download.htm




    That's it! You're welcome!
    • Up x 3
  2. Malsvir Vishe

    Most of this stuff is all dependent on what limits your FPS. Lowering render quality only makes sense if you have a bad GPU. Otherwise, the reduction in quality makes it harder to see some things.
    • Up x 2
  3. SgtScum

    For those of you who just want a quick copy paste of his advice I tweaked out my useroptions again last update to get a stable 60 fps while still having the game look good.

    I will also add that changing pre rendered frames on your gpu from 3 to 1 helps along with a nice boost by setting your sound card to 44.1KHz and 16-bit.

    This is basically set up for max fps and clarity of view for the best possible chance of getting a shot on your opponent that the settings will allow.

    Tweak them out to your own taste.

    [Display]
    FullscreenRefresh=0
    Maximized=0
    RenderQuality=1.100000 or 1.410000 if your gpu is reasonably current but the first value gives enough boost to clarity.
    FullscreenWidth=1920
    FullscreenHeight=1080
    WindowedWidth=1024
    WindowedHeight=768
    Mode=Fullscreen
    FullscreenMode=Fullscreen

    [Rendering]
    GraphicsQuality=1
    TextureQuality=0
    ShadowQuality=0
    RenderDistance=-1.000000
    Gamma=0.060000
    MaximumFPS=250
    UseLod0a=0
    OverallQuality=-1
    LightingQuality=1
    EffectsQuality=4
    TerrainQuality=1
    FloraQuality=4
    ModelQuality=1
    VerticalFOV=74
    ParticleLOD=0
    ParticleDistanceScale=0.650000
    FogShadowsEnable=1
    MotionBlur=0
    VSync=1
    GpuPhysics=0
    • Up x 1
  4. Codeak

    Oh its /this/ thread again...
  5. SgtScum

    Lots of players have no idea how to optimize the game themselves and we have yet to convince the mods to let us sticky one.

    So its /this/ thread again though I'm now going to link it in my sig.
    • Up x 1
  6. Lampenfieber

    Two days ago i was getting 50-60 fps
    Yesterday i start to get 20-30 fps

    Someone do some bad update with the textures...
  7. Gabriel Calil

    Some of these modifications will obviously reduce a lot the graphics quality, but many will not. Actually, the only changes that will decrease the graphics quality are the ones in Group of optimizations 1 and Group of optimizations 2 (items 1-3). The other modifications presented here will increase the performance without prejudice to the graphics.
  8. f0d

    TCP tweaks have no use in a game that uses UDP
    unparking my cpu made zero difference to me (i had awesome fps in the first place though)
    lowering the rendering quality is the last thing you should do after everything else - it makes the game look like poo

    setting priority to real time is a bad idea
    • Up x 1
  9. Gabriel Calil

    By the way, I know that there already are threads about this issue (actually, A LOT of them), not only here, but all over the internet. What I did here was to compile the best solutions I found, and solutions that are of interest not only for players that have bad computers and/or are too far from the servers, but also for the ones who have a high-quality system.
  10. Malsvir Vishe

    The second quote sums it up, really.

    @OP: You should have listed these in order of CPU -> GPU, and within those of most effective to least effective.

    I couldn't read that post because there were too many colors, there was too much white space, and the content wasn't organized.
    • Up x 1
  11. f0d

    this "Use Timer Resolution, it performs a "soft CPU overclocking"" has nothing to do with cpu overclocking

    maximumfps=1000 wont help anything more than maximumfps=250 will do - it just limits your maximum fps, 100 should be enough unless you get over 100fps

    also changing the fov to 40 will be horrible - you will lose all peripheral vision
  12. Gabriel Calil

    @f0d:
    -Sorry if I'm missing something here, but when you said that TCP tweaks make no difference in a game that uses UDP, were you talking about the IP tunneling program?

    -I've heard of many players saying that unparking the CPU makes no difference, as I've heard of many stating that it increased the performance. Whether it's just a placebo effect or not, one can just test it to check if the performance increases. As far as I know, PlanetSide 2 is designed to work with multiple cores too.

    -Again, please keep in mind that this thread is intended for people who have a low-quality machine too (or even mainly for them). Like I said, many of these tips will severely decrease the graphics quality, so, yeah, applying this type of change will simply be a waste of time if you have a high-quality computer.

    -Setting priority to real-time is capable of causing issues in your system, as I know it happens to some people, but, in this case, it's extremely likely that you receive a warning stating that the priority can't be set to real-time, so it'll be set to high.


    @Malsvir Vishe:
    I appreciate the opinion. If most of the people reading this thread have a similar opinion, I'll gladly make the required changes, as my only goal with this post is to help. The colors and spaces were meant to make it easy for the reader to find what he/she wants.
  13. Gabriel Calil

    About the "CPU overclocking", please, read what's stated at the first paragraphs, in red.
  14. f0d

    "2)Use Timer Resolution, it performs a "soft CPU overclocking" (only free for Windows XP 32-bits): http://www.lucashale.com/timer-resolution/"
    has nothing to do with overclocking - why do you think it has anything to do with overclocking?
    also its very RARE to damage a cpu now as they have thermal limiters that prevent you from damaging it - you will probably kill your motherboard before the cpu

    "-Sorry if I'm missing something here, but when you said that TCP tweaks make no difference in a game that uses UDP, were you talking about the IP tunneling program?"
    those WOW TCP tweaks will do nothing in a game that uses UDP

    i think im done picking holes in this "tweak" thread theres loads more but i cbf
  15. Gabriel Calil

    @f0d:
    -About Timer Resolution:
    "TimerResolution is an application to change the resolution of the default windows timer. The standard timer on Windows XP can vary between 10 and 25 milliseconds. Therefore if your code uses a timer or sleep value less than the timer resolution on your system you won’t be getting the results you expect.
    The timer resolution will be globally changed while the application is running and will revert to the previous value when it is closed."

    You can't consider this as overclocking if what you have in mind is the common meaning of the term (and I'm not going to enter the details here because this is simply not the intention of this thread) -in which case, you're absolutely right. Nevertheless, if you consider the broad meaning of the term "overclocking", which is merely to make a component of the system (like CPU, GPU, etc.) to work faster than what's configured by default, then what I'm calling "soft CPU overclocking" is correct. I'm just being generalistic.


    -About the TCP tweaks: http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...s-does-planetside-2-use-g37-g15-errors.54622/

    As you can clearly see by all of the above, the information in the tutorial I've posted is still valid. Besides, not being courteous doesn't make you right, just makes you rude. I do appreciate the fact that you've read the tutorial and exposed what you think is wrong, I just ask that you, or anyone who considers to have found misleading information here, at least try to do a little research in order to confirm that your statements are accurate. But, again, thank you very much for exposing your thoughts, as I know you were trying to contribute and help everyone reading this post. ;)
  16. f0d

    none of that proves you right

    timerresolution just changes the windows timer - that is all - nothing to do with making anything go faster, no matter what you set the timer to you are not actually making any hardware (like you said cpu/gpu etc) go any faster than configured by default

    tcp tweaks might help with patching and any non gameplay related issues but it will not improve performance of the game at all
    "The PlanetSide 2 Game Client uses the following for login, character select, and the worlds/zones:
    UDP-20040 through UDP-20199"

    worlds/zones use udp which is gameplay
  17. Gabriel Calil

    @f0d:

    I wasn't referring solely to hardware, but to the system as a whole, though I know that the term "overclocking" is usually applied only when the user makes the hardware works faster than what's specified by the manufacturer. I used the term more as a metaphor than anything else, which is exactly the reason why I said, in that big red warning: "Actually, if you are reading this and perform CPU overclocking, you'll even consider what I'm calling overclocking as a joke". Sorry for not making it clear, but I thought my intention was implicit, like when I said: "My advice: only perform overclocking if you REALLY know what you're doing AND have enough money to buy another computer in case the one you have becomes a nuclear bomb and explodes".

    This tutorial is directed to the game as a whole. Besides, gameplay includes voice chat, an the initial SIP request for voice chat is made through a TCP port, as stated by PlanetSide 2 staff:
    -Reference:http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/...s-does-planetside-2-use-g37-g15-errors.54622/


    Anyway, man (or girl... I don't know o_O), if you find any wrong information in this tutorial, please post it here so it can help everyone (I'm included); all I ask is that people verify if the information actually IS wrong before posting about it. If everyone who thinks to see some statement that SEEMS to be wrong but actually isn't decides to post about it without researching the subject first, this thread will simply become a real mess, people will come here for help and will leave even more confused than when they came. I'm not saying this was the case with you, as it seems that we just had a difference in a matter of opinion, but I'm just seizing the opportunity to talk about it because it's appropriate for the case.

    Please, tell me what else seems wrong in the tutorial, as this contributes to the whole PlanetSide 2 community, and my intention with this thread is solely to help. ;)
  18. Gabriel Calil

    -@Malsvir Vishe:
    The tweaks are organized in such a way that's easy for anyone to check the information in the sites where the tutorials were taken from. Separating it in any other way would just make difficult for the reader to check the information as a whole in the original sites. Knowing what refers to CPU and what refers to GPU will depend on the knowledge of who's reading the thread, but I think it's something very easy to figure out as long as the person has a basic knowledge about computers -and most gamers have. Besides, if I separate the tutorial in order of CPU > GPU, I'll also mess with the organization of the sub tutorials, and, like I said, it'll just make things confusing for the readers who want to be able to check parts of this tutorial in the original sites.
    About the effectiveness, that'll depend entirely on the limitations the player has, so organizing this text in a "most effective to least effective" way is simply impossible.
    About the colors and white space, they are meant to make the localization easier -actually, you're the first person I've ever heard of that thinks it's confusing. If more readers consider this as confusing, I'd change the tutorial, but I can't, because I can only edit it after 30 minutes of posting.
  19. Gabriel Calil

    Sorry for not replying properly before. I'm doing so now -this reply may appear duplicated:
    The tweaks are organized in such a way that's easy for anyone to check the information in the sites where the tutorials were taken from. Separating it in any other way would just make difficult for the reader to check the information as a whole in the original sites. Knowing what refers to CPU and what refers to GPU will depend on the knowledge of who's reading the thread, but I think it's something very easy to figure out as long as the person has a basic knowledge about computers -and most gamers have. Besides, if I separate the tutorial in order of CPU > GPU, I'll also mess with the organization of the sub tutorials, and, like I said, it'll just make things confusing for the readers who want to be able to check parts of this tutorial in the original sites.
    About the effectiveness, that'll depend entirely on the limitations the player has, so organizing this text in a "most effective to least effective" way is simply impossible.
    About the colors and white space, they are meant to make the localization easier -actually, you're the first person I've ever heard of that thinks it's confusing. If more readers consider this as confusing, I'd change the tutorial, but I can't, because I can only edit it after 30 minutes of posting.


    For all the other issues regarding TCP, UDP, overclocking, etc., please read my previous answers.
  20. Dagonlives

    I saw this on the Codeak thread. Thanks for posting.
    • Up x 1