Get More From PU01
Planetside 2 was updated this week with PU01 – Performance Update Zero One. This update was much anticipated by the player base. The development team seemingly put a lot of time and effort into the optimization patch. Game activity dwindled as the patch date loomed closer. People claimed they were waiting for the optimization patch. And it released yesterday. I was very optimistic about the patches. I had watched all of the YouTube videos documenting what the Planetside 2 developers were working hard on. I was excited for the optimization patch and what it would do for my aging computer’s Planetside 2 performance. The developers really seemed to be hitting the nail on the head with what they were optimizing, which was a pretty comprehensive selection. Patch day hit and I was there. I downloaded the patch and hopped right in. But I wasn’t getting decent frame rates. I tried tweaking my UserOptions.ini file but had no luck and no improvements. Then a few members of Ghosts of the Revolution suggested to me that I do a complete reinstall of the game. It didn’t seem like such a bad idea. TLDR: In order to get more from PU01:
- Uninstall Planetside 2.
- Find where it was installed and delete any remaining files.
- Restart your computer.
- Reinstall Planetside 2 using the installer provided by Planetside2.com.
- Use the default settings.
- If you are still having performance issues, follow the steps in our guide here.
A lot of times games do file-based texture caching to save resources and cut down on memory and CPU transactions and perhaps I was running some of the older and unoptimized textures, or something like that. Impatient as I am, I started a secondary install via Steam while I played my, what I’ll call from here on out, my “Sony Copy”, which I installed with the downloader provided on Planetside2.com. This was a huge mistake. The Steam copy was 9.1 GB via steam and apparently Steam has a really outdated copy of PS2 on their servers because when I launched the Station Launchpad from the Steam copy, the launch pad started downloading 8+ GB of updated files! I let it download overnight anyway, thinking it would be fine to use the next day. The next day came and I launched the game via the Steam copy only to find that for some reason it was loading some files from the Sony copy and some from the Steam copy and it ran poorly. So I uninstalled my Sony copy, deleted any remaining files from it and tried to launch the Steam copy, which failed to launch. So I told Steam to verify the game’s files, which caused it to redownload the 9.1 GB of files, presumably the entire outdated copy that they have on their servers, which would then require me to download another 8+ GB of files via the launchpad. This was a strong “Aww, hell no!” in my book, so I cancelled the entire thing, deleted the steam copy off of my computer and rebooted. Then I went to Planetside2.com and downloaded the Sony installer for Planetside 2 and continued to install. After downloading and installing the game, all was good. I am now getting 45-60 FPS in all but Amp Stations and Bio Labs, where I get about 30 FPS. Not to worry though, a new computer is in the works for me, so performance should not be an issue much longer. Stay tuned, as I will be doing a live video stream of the physical build of my new computer when the parts arrive!