Hello

[PortlandZombie]

Hello, my name is Shawn and my in-game name is PortlandZombie. I play as VS on Connery (US West). I play other games as well, however Planetside 2 keeps me playing more than any other game. My first Planetside 2 character was xSH00TERx (those are zeros) and I made that character on 05/22/13. I play on very low setting because I am currently using my laptop for gaming, which uses an integrated graphics card (Intel HD3000 iirc). I plan on getting some better suited gaming hardware in the near future but I just quit my job so it might be a little while. Anyways, Im glad to join this site and I look forward to discussing PS2 with you all

[THrONeBeaST]

Welcome

[synkrotron]

Originally Posted by PortlandZombie

I play on very low setting because I am currently using my laptop for gaming

Hiya Shawn. I play on a laptop too and even though I have a reasonably spec'd nvidia card I still prefer using low settings. At least, in my opinion, it does not detract too much from the game

[PortlandZombie]

I can imagine situations where low setting could be nice. However, there are also several situations where high settings are an advantage. The first situation that comes to mind is the IRNV & Thermal optics: on low setting the background/out of range areas are black, but on high setting they are just a bit blurry. I played on high a bit (with 5-10 frames per second) and tested various things, like optics, and IMO high setting is advantageous over low settings. On the other hand, low setting can be nice for eliminating some obtrusion when looking for enemies (like how shadows & flora can hide enemies). Now that is only an advantage if you can play with render quality around 100%, even 80-90% is acceptable. IMO, anything under 80% puts me at a HUGE disadvantage, because it simply takes me longer to process what I am seeing (because it is harder to make out at low render quality) and we all know time is money in any first person shooter.

With all that said, I don't just play on low, I play on VERY low lol. I play on "as low as this game can go". I play with everything turned off that can be turned off (shadows, ambient occlusion, flora, etc.). I play with everything (that cant be turned off) set to low, my render distance is around 1000m, and my render quality is at 50%. Ill be honest, my game looks like shit! The only way I get 30-40 frames per second is if I play on these settings and that is the only reason i do. Even playing on the preset "very low" gives me 25ish frames per second and I will take 50% render quality at 35 fps > 75% render quality at 25 fps.

To end this post I would just like to say I am doing my research on hardware, I am watching videos on building gaming PCs and I am slowly working on the financial piece. I WILL play this game on ultra at some point in time!

[Hamma]

Welcome!

[synkrotron]

Some very good points made there Shawn, which I hadn't considered. My problem is that I'm playing on a gaming laptop that, even though it is reasonably spec'd, doesn't have a real upgrade path.

I may well yet build a proper gaming desktop...