A tweak that may boost your fps or make the game more responsive.

Discussion in 'Player Support' started by Mauller, Dec 19, 2012.

  1. Mauller

    The best performance boost i have discovered lately is to change the "Frame Render Ahead" option on nvidia cards or to change the "Frame Flip Queue" setting for ATI cards.

    Essentially what happens with this setting is that the driver tells the cpu to prepare so many frames ahead before sending them to the gpu to be rendered,
    This can help smooth the framerate when the gpu hitches on a difficult frame and boost the max fps at the detriment of some noticable input lag (also depends how many frames ahead are prepared for the extend of input lag)
    what i found with planetside 2 is that it eliminated my input lag AND improved the perceivable performance of the game at lower frame rates and improved my average and max fps.

    since im an ati user i had to use radeonpro to do this, in radeon pro add the game executable then in advanced tab set the flip queue size to 1 or 2 it will be set to 0 or driver default then just close the window and leave radeon pro running and it will detect when the game is launched and use the setting.

    but for nvidia users you can go into the nvidia control panel 3dsettings/manage 3d settings then choose either global for all games or program settings to set a profile to test changing the option with planetside 2 only, then scroll down to maximum pre rendered frames and change the option from the default 3 to 2 or 1, dont use 0 it will just use driver default of 3.


    for my own settings i have all ingame options on default/medium.
    and reduce input latency active.
    my flip queue / frames to render ahead is set to 1.

    i also have vsync enabled and msi afterburner running to limit the framerate to 1fps bellow my refresh rate to have the benefits of vsync without the latency.


    since doing this its like playing a completely different game, i also tried it with many other games and the difference can be amazing, its night and day in metro 2033 much like planetside 2 when using this option. for me anyway.

    Usually the driver is set to 3 or driver default unless the application overrides it, i dont know if SOE have manually adjusted this and set it higher than driver default but the boost was noticeable even on the main menu, the animations were far smoother at the same fps which was 59 anyway with my vsync and frame limiter before and after the tweak.

    overall with the supposed benefits of the frames to render ahead its seems more of a detriment a lot of the time in my perceivable opinion.
    • Up x 12
  2. CamboRambo

    I will give this a try tonight and report back!
  3. Mansen

    Just my luck - I don't have the ATI control panel installed. Ah well - I already have great FPS. :)
  4. Mauller

    its not an option you can change in the catalyst control panel sadly its a bit of a hidden option on the ati side, i would also recommend being rid of CCC as it causes more problems than it helps, me and friends with ati cards find.

    but radeonpro is pretty much a low overhead alternative although i did love ATI tray tools it is no longer being updated or functional with latest drivers and 7k cards :p

    but if you change options in the global settings on radeonpro they are permanent and you dont need radeonpro running, but i use it to individually change settings and force options on certain games at load and test options like this in the game.
  5. Mauller

    Bump to help.

    Also if people are getting frame stuttering this can clear it up.
  6. Believer

    is this not the same as setting MaximumFPS= in .ini file?

    I find it pretty strange that after all the ranting of FXAA, your third party tweaker hasn't got you banned. Don't let your k/d ratio get to high!
  7. Mansen

    No. One of the programmers (I think it was Cycle) explained that Vsync caused pauses in the process by rejecting frames from the game which would affect performance, whereas MaxFPS would simply stop the game engine itself from passing more frames than defined on to the graphics card.

    Baseline : MaxFPS is the better choice of the two. Set that to your monitor's refresh rate and disable Vsync.
  8. Mauller

    What im doing does nothing in regards to modifying the game unlike fxaa injectors, it sets the limits on the computers ability to render frames, it doesnt alter the game at all.

    msi afterburner is a widely known gpu overclocking application, not just some random third party tweaker.
  9. Believer

    Yep I read all the chatter about that, it doesn't happen the way nvidia users describe it on my radeon, perhaps its nonsense, perhaps my driver quietly solves the issue without fanfare, dunno, dont have that issue. Also vsync off looks horrible to me and is distracting.


    (re msi thing) as I asked about MaximumFPS= in .ini file, and it works great, dead smooth. Maybe its personal choice, but I find variable frame rates extremely distracting.

    If radeonpro is like atitraytools, then watch out, I recall att being used to turn fog off for example.
  10. powerz

    Messing with the flip que definitely helped me with my perceived smoothness as well as limiting the fps to 120 with vsynch off and input smoothing on for a trifire system. 2 was my sweet spot, 1 was considerably worse and 3 had the same wild FPS swings as default. This was all standing in a warpgate mind you.

    as far as fog off, it sure looks like fog is off for me in a cockpit view........can only one else comment? I just don't fly enough to be positive but it sure looks like it to me.

    curious if we should be-careful with this as believer mentioned, i know that atitooltrays was being punkbuster and VAC banned long ago from a false positive.....although a google search reveals no solid info on radeonpro bans and the tool has been out for some time now so i doubt it will.
  11. Hosp

    I would hesitate to do this w/o a yay or nay on the part of the devs. While it sounds like a good idea, the Control panel is a 3rd party application that could flag you for a false positive. Then all it takes is some under-informed GM to look at your flag and hit the ban button.
  12. RandyZie

    Seriously? That is just laughable. If any game company banned me for changing the settings of my video card I would boycott them.
  13. Mauller

    its no different to you using the nvidia control panel, its merely changing driver settings, you can even set it to permenantly change the global values for flip queue with radeon pro and never start it again or customise settings per application on load and have it show fps or even disable the fps monitor.

    with your gtx550ti you can just change the frames to render ahead option in nvidia control panel but sadly for ati users its not an option with catalyst, plus CCC is just a bloated joke.

    Nice to hear, i had heard for multi card setups that 2 is the better option but for singles 1 can work perfect. 3 is also the default value anyway so no change if you selected 3 :p.

    have you tried vsync on and 1 fps limit lower than your refresh? (ie 60hz so 59 cap) all the goodness of vsync without the lag.
    i personally find tearing annoying.
  14. powerz

    just tried it in the warp gate, looks even smoother, need to get out in a heavy battle and do some testing, no screen tearing with no lag is nice though, curious how it does once you near a tech plant though.
  15. TokyoShoe

    This is a direct video card performance tweak, essentially allowing you to change a setting in your video card drivers directly. Direct 3D isn't interfered with (or "injected"), and the actual content of what is being rendered by PS2 is in no way being touched or interfered with (i.e. we aren't turning off textures to see through walls, nor are we force turning off fog). This makes me firmly believe that it is in no way a bannable offense.

    However.. if a developer would like to chime in on this tweak it would be super awesome!
  16. invisanix

    I don't see how this could be deemed as bannable by ANY means. People have tweaked gfx card settings long before planetside 2, and will continue to do so after this game has had it's shelf life.

    Most importantly Radeon Pro didn't just come out last week, or even last year. That said, Very nice find op, it helps me even more than the simple .ini settings. I tried it early this morning and the results were very positive.
  17. Mansen

    Except it isn't. The Control panel interacts with the DRIVER - not the GAME specifically. The injections and tweaks that have been deemed bannable all inject/replace files directly tied to the game itself and how _IT_ sends off data down the pipes. This is the pipes taking charge of what and how they send it onward.
  18. Zakuak

    Interesting find!

    Yeah that's right I to remember reading that Devs post about Vsync but I had forgotten to turn it off and use the limiter, I'll try that tonight when I get home.

    I get pretty good performance from the game but I'll also take a shot at this pre rendered frames setting, couldn't hurt eh? =)
  19. Yosiu

    I tried this using Radeon PRO, and while i didn't notice much FPS increase, everything goes much smoother now.
    It would be great to see some Dev writing is it considered to be hacking or not, becouse i don't wanna see myself banned.
    Especially since NVIDIA users can do in regular control panel...
  20. JustSe7en

    I have an AMD gfx card and I tried this with Radeon PRO, but it doesn't allow me to run PS2. If I try and open the game with Radeon PRO open, the game will simply not open, but as soon as I close it, it opens right away. I read somewhere that the launcher may be conflicting with the program, but i'm not sure. Any help?