Low FPS? Try this.

[Cfullard]

This may sound extremely stupid, but it worked for me.

 

If you are on low with absolutely everything and your FPS is bottoming out badly do this. Turn your settings to medium in graphics and then turn shadows off. Touch nothing else. I had a huge improvement in gameplay, game went from 30 fps constant to 51 fps constant with absolutely no stutter in PvE and PvP.

 

Not sure why it does it but try it, see if it works for you.

[Pyrasia]

I will remember this when I hopefully finally get to login tomorrow.

[infamousdog]

This may sound extremely stupid, but it worked for me.

 

If you are on low with absolutely everything and your FPS is bottoming out badly do this. Turn your settings to medium in graphics and then turn shadows off. Touch nothing else. I had a huge improvement in gameplay, game went from 30 fps constant to 51 fps constant with absolutely no stutter in PvE and PvP.

 

Not sure why it does it but try it, see if it works for you.

 

it's the shadows.. they take a lot of processing to display them.. turning them off would greatly improve any games performance.

[Lord_Indomitus]

The game can be very demanding in some areas with certain settings. So play with settings, that's your best shot and ofc keep your drivers updated, etc.

 

I am one of the few running a monster of a PC, i7- 4.2ghz, gtx580 SLI o/ced. The game can max these... yes, at grassy areas (dromund kaas and probably to other areas too), the game can max 2x over clocked gtx580.

 

Of course this is with 2560x1600 resolution, everything turned to max, 4x AA and advanced lighting through the .ini and 2x Transparency Super Sampling through the drivers. Load at the GPUs (I monitor real time through a G19) is usually at 50-75%, but when I get to a really grassy area, lots of grass on ground, that AA and TrAA settings make grass super "heavy" for me. Loads go to 97-99% and fps drop from 60 to 54 or something.

 

Bottom line, what FPS you are getting is heavily tied to your settings and hardware. "Play" with settings, especially settings like bloom/shadows. Maybe it's how your card or drivers handles bloom and bloom is a big hit for you. You need to try for yourself. I saw a guy complaining about how big a hit Bloom is for him. For me it's about 10-12% (gpu load) hit, which is considerable but not that big as the fps hit he was experiencing. Still, it seems like a considerable "hit". Ofc, don't enable AA if your card can't handle it.

 

So play with settings and don't be "afraid" to disable bloom, etc if your fps is not good. Trust me, the game will look fine (even without bloom, AA, etc) when you get used to it and having good FPS is more important. ithout bloom, just NEVER visit a friend that plays at 2560x1600, max settings + AA and see what the game looks like for him. You'll cry

Edited December 16, 2011 by Lord_Indomitus

[ExarchCathedra]

Shadows tend to be the biggest single FPS killer in any MMO.

[Antipiety]

Been playing games without shadows for so long because it improves fps massively. Surprisingly Rift Shadows didn't seem to tax the system that hard.

[nesoa]

Try this also

 

Upgrade your pc

 

works every time

Edited December 16, 2011 by nesoa

[DuAndlatVarden]

I was getting around +/- 10fps with everything on low and my shadows OFF and I was getting upset. In the beta I was running with everything maxed out (except bloom) and I was getting around 40fps. So I turned everything on high and the shadows on low with the bloom off and it jumped me back up to 40+ fps. Its weird but it worked, almost like it was working harder to dumb everything down rather then just leaving it be.

[Lord_Indomitus]

I was getting around +/- 10fps with everything on low and my shadows OFF and I was getting upset. In the beta I was running with everything maxed out (except bloom) and I was getting around 40fps. So I turned everything on high and the shadows on low with the bloom off and it jumped me back up to 40+ fps. Its weird but it worked, almost like it was working harder to dumb everything down rather then just leaving it be.

It's not weird. If you have a LOT of peeps on screen, shadows will be more demanding than if you are alone. On the other hand, Bloom will always be about the same demanding. So, I expect shadows to be less or more intensive than Bloom, depending on how many people on screen. Additionally, depending on your GPU, settings like bloom, shadows, AA can appear less or more intensive. A lot of factors affect performance, especially in odd cases of old hardware and especially if there's some kind of bug and the settings you put in are "translated" in some weird way.

 

The only true advice is EXPERIMENT with settings, it's the only really powerful tool. The game can max out overclocked gtx580 SLI with the right settings, so it's more about the setting. Ofc if you have really old hardware...

Edited December 16, 2011 by Lord_Indomitus

[KrumStrashnii]

 

Of course this is with 2560x1600 resolution, everything turned to max, 4x AA and advanced lighting through the .ini and 2x Transparency Super Sampling through the drivers.

 

Hi m8,

 

Can you please specify what you changed/added to which .ini for thous settings?

[Comradebot]

Try this also

 

Upgrade your pc

 

works every time

 

Cool, I've got a paypal account. You finance it, and I'll get my FPS up for sure then. Such a noble suggestion.

[fatoldguy]

Try this also

 

Upgrade your pc

 

works every time

 

I'll get on that as soon as you send me the money to do so.

[amnie]

Try this also

 

Upgrade your pc

 

works every time

 

heh. I play FFXIV on highest settings and have much better fps than in this game....

 

my computer is fine the way it is.

 

then again, I'm also happy with my 30-40 fps and just laugh at people who brag with 110 fps. I don't know about you guys, but my eyes cannot see 110fps:eek:

[Paradosi]

It worked for me. With everything on low, and shadows off, I had around 20 FPS average.

 

Now I'm averaging 30+ on medium to high? It definitely works, but I have no idea why it works.

Edited December 16, 2011 by Paradosi

[Tanjo]

Try this also

 

Upgrade your pc

 

works every time

 

Worked for me! lol

[Lord_Indomitus]

Hi m8,

 

Can you please specify what you changed/added to which .ini for thous settings?

The .ini is the client_settings.ini and is located somewhere in C:\Users\<windows account name>\AppData\Local\SWTOR\ Go to that folder and look for it. To get to that folder you need to be able to view hidden files and navigate to it. Alternatively press WIN + R (WIN = windows key) and type the following --> %appdata% ---> go one folder up and then into "Local" and "swtor", find the .ini. Add the following lines:

 

AntiAliasingLevel = 4

DebugAdvEnviroLighting = true

TRY IT AT YOUR OWN RISK and please don't come to the forums complaining about experimental settings, if they give you crap performance (I say this for everyone, not for you Krum). BW having them disabled atm means that BW has a good reason. Probably because combined with the rest of settings, the game becomes a big performance hit for most machines and they are maybe waiting for better optimized drivers and a better optimized game. Still, if you got the hardware for it, the game looks better for me

 

Forcing AA through Nvidia drivers didn't work for me with the first try and I never bothered to spend time to make it work through the drivers, since it works fine enabled in game with the above lines added to the .ini. Not sure if you can get more that 4x AA, but 4x AA is fine for me at 2560x1600, so never tried. Note that I know how to make it work through drivers, I used nvidia inspector and the correct override, bla bla flags, etc but nada.

 

Anyway, I post these settings here because it's a widely known fact in the internet, al one has to do is to google "swtor enabling AA". Otherwise, I wasn;t going to post "experimental" settings. Still, as I said above, better wait for for BW to make these settings available, Ofc you can always try if you feel that your hardware is coping up with the game comfortably.

Edited December 16, 2011 by Lord_Indomitus

[TitanJJ]

I overclocked my gpu and cpu today.

 

if you know of such things and are comfortable with it, it's another option.

[wolfsheadbane]

Try this also

 

Upgrade your pc

 

works every time

 

i think running on dos makes them feel "Old School"

[Chomag]

Shadows suck in games. I always reduce them to a blob under the character, just for realism. Complex shadows will eat your CPU for breakfast and for what ?!? In most games I played complex shadows looked like crap, huge jagged edges and clipping through stuff they aren't supposed to.

[Sol_Taril]

Strange, but... yes, shadows in game cause significant fpc decrease when active. Let's hope BW will do something with this in future.

[Chomag]

Try this also

 

Upgrade your pc

 

works every time

 

Said the rich kid, living off his parents.

[Hellmet]

The game looks like crap without AA on atleast 4.

[Fiachsidhe]

Shadows are are one of the biggest fps draws. Try dropping the shadow quality first.

Also lowering your resolution can work wonders.

 

I hate bloom, so I always turn it off, that also helps a bit on increasing frames.

I've never thought depth of field ever added anything to my experience, so I also advice disabling that.

[neorandomjedi]

This may sound extremely stupid, but it worked for me.

 

If you are on low with absolutely everything and your FPS is bottoming out badly do this. Turn your settings to medium in graphics and then turn shadows off. Touch nothing else. I had a huge improvement in gameplay, game went from 30 fps constant to 51 fps constant with absolutely no stutter in PvE and PvP.

 

Not sure why it does it but try it, see if it works for you.

 

or.

 

buy a graphics card.

 

shader 3 is 7 years old now, theres no excuse for not being able to run it, the xbox 360 runs dx9. my ps2 ran dx9.

 

wish the game had dx11 and shader 5, check my laptops specs in sig.

[Fiachsidhe]

or.

 

buy a graphics card.

 

shader 3 is 7 years old now, theres no excuse for not being able to run it, the xbox 360 runs dx9. my ps2 ran dx9.

 

wish the game had dx11 and shader 5, check my laptops specs in sig.

 

Yes, there is nothing more impressive, than gamers who use their PC specs as a signature.