Okay, firstly, thank you devs for having the good sense to give us an FPS counter. Now, I will admit that my laptop is a little underpowered for this game. I'm running minimum settings, minimum render quality and I still lag in situations with lots of players. My actual question is this: when I bring up the FPS counter, it logs my FPS, but says (CPU) next to it. I know that my laptop runs 2 graphics cards (an integrated intel CPU-driven card for the desktop and an nVidia GT 540M for gaming), so I'm wondering if Planetside is for some reason using the intel card instead of the 540m? If so, how could I force planetside into using the nVidia card? Note: I've already used the nVidia control panel to set planetside to use the 540m but is it possible that planetside is still using the wrong card?
I believe the counter works like this xx (cpu) or xx (gpu) The hardware item displayed next to the FPS indicator is what is currently limiting your FPS. I believe blue is minimal issue, Yellow is a more serious limitation. Not seen the other colours. Please note i am just guessing. If you are seeing CPU listed alot that would not surprise me on a laptop they often have bad CPU's in them unless you fork out extraordinary amounts of money on them. If you have set your graphics card to use the 540m with Planetside 2 then i would assume it is using that over the on-board card. I am no tech expert however just my input and a free bump in hopes a tech wizard will see it! You could do with posting the exact specs on your machine perhaps people can help you with getting it to run smoother. Using the UserSettings document in the install directory for planetside you can turn shadows and flora off. This will increase your FPS and may help you
I say the game just likes to overdue the CPU more than the GPU. And its not even using the CPU right, it just overstresses it which causes a low FPS.
You are CPU bottlenecked. Its running on the 540m, but its CPU bottlenecked so turning up or down settings wont effect your FPS(unless you go too high). Also, most laptops have very decent CPUs. Not nearly as powerful as desktops, but more then enough for almost any games. What are the specs of you laptop? Also, go to your PS2 install folder and edit the UserOptions.ini file. Find an option called Renderdistance. Set it from -1 to 1000. Also, consider setting ShadowQuality to 0. that should give you some massive fps aswell.
TBH I'd be surprised if planetside 2 would even launch on an integrated video card, let alone reach double figures fps, so I'm sure it's using your 540M, but sadly your CPU is the bottleneck. Follow Alexs advice above on reducing your draw distance. What CPU does the laptop have btw?
FWIW if you want to be sure what GPU is being used download Process Explorer (google it, it's a free Microsoft 'developer' download) and in View > System you can select 'GPU Engines' to display, making it easy to check which is actually under load.
Exact specs: Intel Core i7 2630QM (2.9 GHz) 4 GB DDR3 1666 MHz RAM nVidia 2 GB Geforce GT 540M Intel 120 GB 520 series SSD I've already reduced the render distance, Thanks for the tips on the shadow quality though, i'll give that a crack.
hey guys i have the fps counter on while playing after a clean system install and im running pretty good fps on default planetside 2 medium settings and get over 120 fps most of the time. however in the fps counter (bottom left) it says FPS: 107 [GPU] does this mean my gfx card is limiting performance? if so why guys? heres my specs. asus p8h67 mobo intel i5 2500k (stock clocks water cooled at 3.3ghz) 8gb gskill ripsaw ram power color amd radeon hd 6970 (stock clocks) catalyst 12.10 drivers creative xfi champion sound card 850 watt psu
Yes it should mean that you are GPU bottlenecked. Funny though because i've seen people on the forum with 2500K at 4.0GHz+ and GTX 680's who are CPU bound at low fps output (30-40).
is there a definate reason why the gfx card is bottlenecking the game? too poor for the game etc etc as most people seem to think the 6970 is a good card for this game and i expected my cpu to be the poorer component especially with the poor cpu optmizations in the game, cheers for the reply EDIT:: just change over to a different region (amerish) and changed settings to low and the counter now switches back and forth between cpu and gpu
Most likely, SOE have made it very clear that optimisation is nowhere near done. Remember, this is a brand spanking new engine and it's going to have teething problems. I'd say your GPU is doing well, remember that he FPS counter simply shows which processor is lagging behind.
hey mate cheers for the reply i didnt understand this part tho can you explain ? cheers R4. I'd say your GPU is doing well, remember that he FPS counter simply shows which processor is lagging behind
Hi guys, my FPS counter shows that the bottleneck is [CPU] and I admit my GPU could be behind (GTS 450) but my main processor is an i7 2600K SandyBridge running 3.7GHz (sometimes 4.2 GHz), so come on! I'm not buying that. There's got to be a setting somewhere that I've set wrong. Settingswise, I'm running everything on High, except rendering quality, shadows and blur.
Bare in mind, it has to show one or the other, just because it says [CPU] doesn't mean your CPU is trash, especially if the FPS is reasonable. Ignore the "zomg got 2 have 60fps or U R n00b" crowd, tweak the game so it gives you the best performance for your hardware (whichever end of the scale you are) and be happy. There is no state your game or PC can be in where it will not show one of the two components as a "bottleneck" the only question should be "am I able to play the game?"
every single person who plays this game is CPU limited, FACT. the game is currently (they are working on it) coded to only use one core and thats not nearly enough to handle this type of game. you can have a i7 4960X and you will still be CPU bottlenecked most of the time with like a 9800GT probably.
I reach 20-40 FPS during regular gameplay (minus uber large battles) and I am running an Intel HD 3000...it's not surprising, you just have to play with the various released drivers and ingame settings to find where your laptop will be comfortable at preforming at.
