Any solution to low FPS?

I know, I know, posts like these have been seen a thousand times before, but I'm at my wits end here.

I started playing this game 4½ years ago, and could (with an i7-3770, 16GB of RAM and a GTX 770) run this game somewhat smoothly on ultra, getting about 50 fps in large battles.
However somewhat recently the game has decided to apparently utterly **** itself for some reason? Because my FPS in large battles drops down to 20-25, hell even rarely seen it dip slightly below 20, and most puzzling of all is that it's GPU bound... On a GTX 1070.
I've read through about 5-10 different optimization guides, tried to tweak my settings and to no avail. Only thing I haven't done is go down to potato settings, because honestly, the notion of having to do that to get a framerate above 30 on a 5½ year old game, with a GTX 1070 is ridiculous.

If anyone could help with this conondrum I would greatly appreciate it, because after tinkering with this for months and not coming to a satisfactory conclusion, I'm about to burst a blood vessel.
If anymore information is wanted/needed feel free to ask.

Current hardware:
Intel i7-3770.
16 GB DDR3 RAM
Nvidia GTX 1070.
And currently running the game on an SSD.

And Useroptions:
[Display]
Mode=Fullscreen
FullscreenMode=Fullscreen
FullscreenRefresh=0
FullscreenWidth=1920
FullscreenHeight=1080
WindowedWidth=1024
WindowedHeight=768
Maximized=0
RenderQuality=1.0

[Rendering]
OverallQuality=-1
GraphicsQuality=3
TextureQuality=0
ShadowQuality=1
LightingQuality=2
EffectsQuality=3
TerrainQuality=3
FloraQuality=4
ModelQuality=3
RenderDistance=3998.000000
Gamma=0.440000
VerticalFOV=74
ParticleLOD=3
ParticleDistanceScale=2.000000
FogShadowsEnable=0
VSync=0
AO=0
MaximumFPS=120
UseLod0a=0
BloomEnabled=0
MotionBlur=1
Smoothing=0

GpuPhysics=3

set your Render distance to 800m. no enemies render past that range anyway.

To OP, I feel you mate, I remember the beginning, optimisation was pretty good back then (at least for people that had decents machines not trying to play on potatoes), had stable FPS, and models were much, much more detailed of what you see ingame now... Now I'm struggling to have 50-60 fps in large fights with shadows off, rest split between ultra/high/med. These criers are no longer in game anyway, and we're left with this broken **** trying different settings, while 5 years back this game was running good for most of the players, and it actually looked pretty...

I wish I could get 50-60 in large fights, mine always tanks down to 20-25.

And as for lowering render distance, did that once already (that 45-50 I mentioned earlier, that was with max render distance)... So I reduced it by 2000 and there was no visible difference, but I'll try lowering it to 800.
Issue doesn't seem to be distance though, as the main problem is in large fights, where everything happens within 800m anyways... And is somehow still tanking my GPU.
And even weirder is that it's only this game where I have framerate issues with my GPU, because at first I did suspect issues with the GPU itself, but running other games, even quite demanding games isn't even a problem.

Update: I lowered my render range, it increased my FPS by about 5 fps... Hooray...

I'd suggest trying to turn off GPU Physics. I don't know for sure if it will fix your issue, but it's worth a shot.

I'd also suggest switching to maximized windowed mode, but that's just for convenience reasons

You haven't mentioned what operating system you have. Is it Windows 10, with the Fall Creators update? If so, that is causing your issues right there. If not, then try this configuration for UserOptions.ini:

The thing about your current UserOptions settings, is that a few would kill FPS on any rig for the way the game engine handles them. (Forgelight Engine) Ultra particles always cause massive lag, especially when close to smoke. GPU physics have been disabled for years, so that option is pointless. Graphics Quality = 3 is high, and you're going to want to set it to Low, which is 1. Causes a lot more lag than you'd think it does, and the game is easier to play when there's less visual noise. The single drawback it has at low, is low visibility when using thermal vision. It actually allows you to see better through base shields on the other hand. Motion blur also doesn't work. Having shadows even on low will tank your framerate, too, so turn that off.

In my above config, the 55 FPS smoothing is optional. It is to account for losses in fire rate with high RPM weapons. If you are not okay with 55 or cannot reach it, set it higher or lower, or simply turn smoothing off.

Next up, you're going to want to enforce some things in your NVidia Profile Inspector, provided you have that. If not, go download it.

Some of these settings are for performance, some are to make the game look better at extremely small performance costs.

Anything in the NVidia settings that I didn't list, I didn't change, so leave them as they are unless you want to change something else. I hope some of this helps you out, as your system should be able to do just fine with this game. One of the other things I meant to ask, though:

What speed is your CPU running at? 3.5 GHz or higher should be fine for this game if it reaches that. You also might try turning hyper-threading off, as it is an i7-series processor. Hyper-threading has problems with some older games, though I am not entirely certain about Planetside 2.

Sorry, I'm actually, insanely enough running on Windows 7 Enterprise.

Actually, no I don't... as I said, and I qoute "Only thing I haven't done is go down to potato settings, because honestly, the notion of having to do that to get a framerate above 30 on a 5½ year old game, with a GTX 1070 is ridiculous."

And to add, I'm not trying to get the highest framerate possible. I just want it to not drop down to somewhere between 15-25 in huge fights... My PC has been able to do this in the past, and isn't able to do it anymore, in spite having slightly better hardware now (which is what's puzzling me). Basically I want it to at least not drop below 30 on high or ultra.

It should reach that, but that's beside the point. The problem I was having specifically was that my FPS drops weirdly enough seem to be GPU bound, and not CPU bound, even though the game is in no way shape or form straining my GPU.

I'll look into the Nvidia Profile Inspector thing.
Thanks for your input.

Hi there,

i have exactly the same problem (with different hardware). Game was running good and for some days now I have very low FPS at large fights which sometimes affects the mouse-movement.

When having this issue, my CPU load is at 100% (all 4 cores) and GPU is at 50 to 70%. No matter how low I set the graphic settings (I didn't change the resolution from 1080p), the problem is still the same.

Planetside says that the GPU is the limiting factor.

I didn't change anything before this problem appeared.

Best regards.

I got worse specs and am running Win10 with medium to high settings. Yet I get 55+ FPS in all situations.

This game is weird.

Could there be any weird background processes running for any of you guys?

This is important to check. I learned that the launcher's background process is still running even after the game launches, and it continues to eat up CPU resources.

While at character selection, I alt tab to task manager to get rid of it. Note that ending the main game launcher background process (the one with the red icon) will subsequently get rid of the two "GameLauncherCefChildProcess".

@Sazukata: Thank you for the hint. For me that is not the case. I just checked and the game launcher process (including the 2 other ones) disappears right when the game starts and you can choose your character.

@CutieG: For me it seems there's no weird background process. The game process eats up all the cpu resources available in large battles.

The latest updates messed something up for me too!

The game was rarely dropping below 50-55FPS and was above 70 in up to 48-96vs48-96 fights.Not any more.I see a 15-30 fps drop in all scenarios.I also rolled back to a previous driver from MAD which was working fine but it didnt help.

DAYBREAK!You messed something up pretty badly in the last 10-15 days!Find it!

(specs:R5 1600/16GB DDR4 @2933/RX 580 GPU-settings:almost maxed out with shadows off)

Something changed in the last 2..3 weeks... my performance got worse... so i'd like to sign up for this thread...
i first thought it's a heat problem... but i checked it, and it's not that

Try using my config, sir: https://pastebin.com/h4J7VmwD
Spoilers: Say goodbye to "tanking".

Turn off Smoothing
Turn off VSync
Turn off Shadows
Render distance settings to 800 - 1500
Fullscreen Windowed Mode
Render Quality set to 0.5


Last ultimate setting is the Renderquality....but i would never ever turn that down.

Right thanks a lot for the replies though no luck finding a solution.
I see some of you are suggesting I go down to potato settings (or at least somewhat significantly reducing the graphics settings), which i'm a bit hestitant to do. I want the game to look good, and witha GTX 1070 I shouldn't HAVE to go down to medium or lower to get a framerate that at least doesn't drop below 30. I'm not trying to completely maximise my FPS, i just want it to not completely **** itself in large fights.
Now, I have made a few observations following: the FPS generally seems to be 20 FPS lower across the board than what it used to be, in large fights, or in the warpgate, which is... odd.
Even weirder is the fact that the game says it's GPU bound when my GPU usage is barely reaching 35% (CPU is at about 60-65%) temperatures are fine (about 15-20 degrees away from the points where either the GPU or CPU would start downthrottling) so I am really at a loss for what the hell could be causing this.

i now had this issue that the game played like 5-10 frames, even the alt+f showed ~30... the weapon change was super lagy...
so thx for all the suggestions about the settings.. but 1. it worked ~1-2 weeks earlier and 2. that doesn't seem to be a settings issue

You're doing a few things wrong. You have a better system than me and I sometimes hit 60 in big fights, but I'm usually above 100. And that's with some ultra settings that are higher than what's available with in-game options. I've got the same CPU, a GTX1050ti, and an old school drive

• Turn off GPU physics.
• Go to audio, and turn down maximum channels. Mine is at 96, but you can halve that to save frames.
• Use raw mouse input
• Turning down particles is a massive help. I run .65 so I can still see tracers and beacons, but many turn them to 0 to see through smoke.
• I set render distance to 1700 because infantry go out to 700ish, vehicles to 1100, and I fly a ton and seeing that terrain around me helps orient me when I'm turning like crazy in fights.
• Shadows are another major resource hog. I set them to 0.
• Some swear by disabling Battleye once the game starts. I haven't seen a difference.
• Disable your firewall, just to see if that helps.
• Find the ports that PS2 uses. My crappy modem doesn't have those options, so I don't know what they are. Others claim to have seen big benefits in performance from that.

Make sure to save your current settings somewhere safe. You can revert to them if your game freaks out and resets things. Try to copy/paste what I've got and see what you think. Make sure to change the things I've set to bold that aren't in this list.

I did notice better frames with Texture, effects, terrain and model turned down to potato settings, but I've got better hit reg and less warpy targets with these higher settings.... Either way, your rig can handle these if mine can.


[Display]
Mode=Fullscreen
FullscreenMode=Fullscreen
FullscreenRefresh=0
FullscreenWidth=1920
FullscreenHeight=1080
WindowedWidth=1024
WindowedHeight=768
Maximized=0
RenderQuality=1.000000

[Rendering]
OverallQuality=-1
GraphicsQuality=5
TextureQuality=0
ShadowQuality=0
LightingQuality=1
EffectsQuality=5
TerrainQuality=5
FloraQuality=4
ModelQuality=5
RenderDistance=1710.000000
Gamma=0.710000
VerticalFOV=74
ParticleLOD=0
ParticleDistanceScale=0.650000
FogShadowsEnable=0
VSync=0
AO=0
MaximumFPS=150
UseLod0a=1
BloomEnabled=0
MotionBlur=0
Smoothing=0

Render quality 100
Fov: 120 to 74 and no less
Vsync off
Gpu particle off render max 1500
Smooth off
Fog shadow off
Ambieint off
Bloom off
Graphics low
Texture ultra(no less)
Lightning low
Shadow off
Effects low
Terrain high
Flora off
Model high
Particles - vehicle ultra, otherwise low