Lag issue

[AndyK]

Ok... I know I haven't exactly got the fastest PC on earth - it was top of the line in june 2001 - but I figure that I should be able to run planetside with all the graphics turned all the way down.

Whenever I get into a reasonably amount of fighting the game turns into a slide show (I play on Werner). I'm connected to the net through my dorm network, and while I know this isn't exactly the best connection for online games, my experience was way better in the old tribes 2 days (even with lots of people firing guided missiles at each other in a very limited space and with all the graphics bells and whistles turned on).

I gues my question is: Does this occur to you frequently, or should I blame my connection (or my PC)?

Computer specs:
1200 MHz Athlon Tbird-C
512 MB PC2100 CL2 RAM
GF3 original version at stock speed (200 MHz core, 466 Mhz mem)
ASUS A7M266 MB (AMD 761 NB, VIA-something SB)
Seagate 7200.7 HD

Regards
Andreas

P.S. Luckily I'm still on my 7-day trial as I won't subscribe if the lag always is this bad.

[Cyanide]

You should blame SOE's programmers for sucking so much. PS has some of the most bloated coding I've ever seen in a game. That's why you need a 1024mb of ram, a 2ghz processor, and a Geforce4 to play it without getting a slideshow in big battles (even with all that you'll still get 20fps).

I'd say your computer is what's causing the slow down, not the connection. But your computer is causing the slow down because the programming in PlanetSide is horrible.

[Phaelon]

Well the slideshow effect deals primarily with your computer, you live in the UK correct?

[teratravp]

This trick signifigantly increased my framerate and cut out A LOT of the stutter (unfortunately there's still some, and at inopportune times of course) Does anyone know any other tricks? the guy who made this one had a whole website dedicated to PS tweaks but it's not up anymore and only a tiny bit of his info is available on PS forums. But mainly I think there is a signifigant code problem right now that's giving bad performance.


"Anyway, use regedit and locate the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\App Paths\PSClient.exe

You'll see a default entry that looks like this;
C:\\Program Files\\Sony\\PlanetSide\\..\\Station\\LaunchPad\\P SClient.exe
and a path entry that looks like this;
C:\\Program Files\\Sony\\PlanetSide\\..\\Station\\LaunchPad

1st export the folder(PSClient.exe) to the desktop as a .REG file just in case.
2nd delete this folder from the registry and reboot your machine.

Note there is also a Planetside.exe folder. This is the right one. If you remove this and try to play Planetside, you get a message that says you don't have Planetside installed."

[AndyK]

I live in Denmark, but it shouldn't make too much of a difference - I generally get a ping of about 40 - 50 ms.

[AndyK]

Anyhow.... thx to you all for the response. I'm very reluctant to spend a lot of money on a new comp before the BTX form factor and 0.09 um Athlon64s for socket 939 come out. Unfortunately this will llikely not happen before the end of the year

Regards
Andreas

[Phaelon]

And by deleting that registry key it increases your systems performance how? The registry is a dangerous place, don't mess with it unless you truly understand it.

I asked about the uk just making sure you were in europe for connecting to the uk. I have seen a few people in america connect to werner and wonder why thier pings suck =p

[teratravp]

check the 5 page thread about that reg key thing in planetside's tech support forums. it does work, but mainly gives you back graphical frames, doesn't fix latency issues.

the theory is that it's referencing a prog that PS doesn't use anymore and this causes error, delay, etc... check your harddrive for psclient.exe - it doesn't exist.

And I tried it can tell you, it does work. Big FPS jump. But still lag.

[Phaelon]

See the problem with this, is that Sony hasn't come forward to do anything about it, which leads me to believe that this is not in use and either will be through an expansion or somenthing along the way.

Whether you disagree or not, this could potentially create a leathal situation later on.

[teratravp]

possibly... i noticed the staff tech person regularly pointing to that thread and suggesting it as helpful though so I figured it was safe. the tech support and development are seperate I guess and reading some of the stuff over there it doesn't look like the devs interact with them much which is a shame, but that's why we're not immediately seeing things discovered at the tech service changed in game.

[Fragmatic]

Originally Posted by Phaelon

And by deleting that registry key it increases your systems performance how? The registry is a dangerous place, don't mess with it unless you truly understand it.

I asked about the uk just making sure you were in europe for connecting to the uk. I have seen a few people in america connect to werner and wonder why thier pings suck =p

What's it got to do with the UK?

Werner is in Amsterdam

[Fragmatic]

Originally Posted by Phaelon

And by deleting that registry key it increases your systems performance how? The registry is a dangerous place, don't mess with it unless you truly understand it.

I asked about the uk just making sure you were in europe for connecting to the uk. I have seen a few people in america connect to werner and wonder why thier pings suck =p

Core Combat caused all the lag

[Phaelon]

I should have geared my question towrds being in europe, because if he was in Ohio and was mentioning getting lag on Werner, well that would be expected, as it gets generally a ping higher than 100 for most American states, that is why I was asking.

[AndyK]

OK.... I�ll try out the RegHack solution and don�t worry� I have quite a bit of experience in dealing with the registry.

If that doesn�t help me enough, I'm in a bit of a dilemma�.

I was planning on upgrading to an athlon 64 next spring so that I could get a dual channel athlon64 for socket 939 made using the 0.09 um process and a btx mb (maybe with ddr2 ram). As most of the games I currently play aren�t very demanding I could live with that, but PS just gives me the good old tribes 2 feeling back and so I�m thinking about doing an intermediate upgrade to these specs:

AXP 2400+ (266 MHz bus)
ASUS A7NX-X (nforce2)
1024 MB PC2100 RAM
ATI 9600 XT (or maybe a 9800 pro 128 meg � the price difference is not that big)

My HD �old� HD is quite fast, so I�m going to keep that.

I�m planning on reusing my old 512 MB PC2100 RAM and get a new 512 MB module, so I�m only getting a cpu with 266 MHz FSB.

Have any of you experience with a similar setup?
Do you think I can get an ok FPS, or will I still experince this terrible slideshow?

Regards
Andreas

[Vick]

That is a good set-up, but I would say get some faster ram. It is really important.

I like my Corsair XMS DDR400.

I run:
2800+ Barton at 11.5 x 200fsb
9700pro OCed
2x512 DDR400 XMS Corsair RAM
Asus A7V600

I have almost no lag unless it is a huge fight versus lashers, your system should do just fine. I played on a 1700+ for a long time and it was ok.