Difference between revisions of "PS2 tech help"

Latest revision as of 16:27, 3 April 2013

PlanetSide 2 is a massive game and therefore unsurprisingly it puts massive strain on modern PC hardware to run. Here is a collection of tips to improve performance.

Official help pages

These are very useful. Especially the Increasing Performance article as it was originally written by one of the PS2 development team in beta.

• Recommended System Specs - http://help.station.sony.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/35012/p/5833/
• Video Card Support - http://help.station.sony.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/36590
• Increasing Performance - http://help.station.sony.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/36462/

Minimum Specification Systems

The scope of this section is aimed at Desktop PCs that are running Windows 7/8 64-bit that are in good working order. I.e Windows Updates installed, drivers updated, virus/hard disk scans run regularly.

Test system:

• Windows 7 (SP1)/8 64-bit
• AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3GHz
• 4GB DDR2-6400 @ 900MHz
• Sapphire Radeon HD4850 512MB @ 690/950Mhz / Sapphire Radeon HD7770 OC 1GB 1150MHz/ 1250MHz
• Via VT708S onboard audio
• Screen resolution, 1920x1080

Minimum FPS (press Alt +F) = 25 in massive battles

Setup

1. Escape >> Settings >> General
   • Optional: Use Raw Mouse Input: checked - This is such a small performance hit. Well worth it for better mouse control.
   • Optional: Reduce Input Lag: checked - Again a tiny performance hit. The result is more responsive controls.
2. Escape >> Settings >> Graphics
   • Render Quality - Set around 75-85%. Small drop in visual quality. Big improvement in FPS.
   • Overall Quality - Custom
   • Graphics Quality - Medium . This must be set to Medium or higher. On Low Infiltrators are 100% invisible!
   • Everything else Low or unchecked.
3. Escape >> Settings >> Audio
   • Maximum Voice Channels - Set this to 32 Voice Channels if you have onboard sound. If you're unsure what you have, you probably do.
4. Exit the game.
5. Edit UserOptions.ini located in your PS2 game directory. Notepad is fine.
6. Start in the [Rendering] section
   • Double check OverallQuality=-1 (minors-1 = custom). Or the follow changes won't work
   • ShadowQuality=0 - Huge performance improvement turning Shadow completely off compared to Low
   • RenderDistance=750 - Another massive performance improvement. By default your view distance is unlimited. Dropping to 750m helps immensely. If you find it too Low as you snipe or whatever. Anything up to 1250m should be fine.
   • Optional: MaximumFPS=60 - This stops your graphics card going mental on the start screen with 300+ FPS. You can also use this instead of Vsync. This is the preferred method. Set the Max FPS to 1 FPS below your monitor refresh rate to avoid tearing without the draw backs of Vsync. If you still get tearing try lowering the Max FPS by 1 again.
   • FloraQuality=0 - Less of an improvement compared to shadows. Still worth completely disabling Flora.
   • UseLod0a=1 - Noticeably performance improvement. I believe this is adaptive Level of Detail. Meaning objectives further away are drawn at a lower quality to improve framerate.
7. Look down to [Terrain]
   • RenderFlora=Off - make this change. This is needed with the previous setting.
8. In the [Sound] section you may want to add these. In theory they should improve performance, in reality I've not noticed any change good or bad. Worth a try.
   • Optional: SampleRate=44100 - This lowers the audio quality slightly and therefore reduce load on your CPU if you have onboards sound
   • Optional: UseFloat32Output=1 - Explanation on PS2 forums - here!
9. Save the file and restart. You should have a 30%+ improvement in your FPS.

Using Steam client with ProSiebenSat.1 account

• Open LaunchPad.ini in your \steamapps\common\PlanetSide 2 folder
• Add environment=psg to the end of the file and Save