It’s a somewhat widely known phenomenon that the Rate of Fire of PlanetSide 2 weapons depends on your PC’s performance. Getting killed because your PC lags too much is bad enough, but dying because your gun literally shoots slower than the other guys’ is just horrible.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the limitation of PlanetSide 2’s engine, and there’s not much the current development team can do to fix it.
There is a lot of drama revolving around this issue, and there seems to be a lot of myths or unclear information, so I decided to run my own set of tests to find out what exactly causes the reduction in Rate of Fire, and how strong this effect is.
Usually game’s performance is bottlenecked either by CPU or GPU (Graphics Card). I wanted to figure out which of the two causes Rate of Fire issues.
GPU Bound Results
Weapon
Settings
FPS Cap
FPS
Time, sec
Expected Time
EM6 (600 RPM)
Very Low
Uncapped
~200
~20.3 (98%)
19.9
Usual Settings
Uncapped
~180
~20.7 (96%)
RTSS FPS Limiter = 120
120
~21.2 (94%)
RTSS FPS Limiter = 150
150
~21 (95%)
Smoothing
~120
~20.3 (98%)
RQ = 1.41
Uncapped
~100
~21.6 (92%)
RQ = 2.0
Uncapped
~50
~23.1 (86%)
M18 Rotary (1000 RPM)
Uncapped
~60
~3.6
3.54
RTSS FPS Limiter = 30
30
~3.6
Kobalt (Sunderer)
(550 RPM)
Uncapped
~50
~16.3
16.25
RTSS FPS Limiter = 30
30
~16.3
EM6 (600 RPM)
MaximumFPS = 45
43
~20.3 (98%)
19.9
RTSS FPS Limiter = 45
45
~24.1 (83%)
Smoothing
~54
~21.5 (93%)
Gauss SAW (500 RPM)
Uncapped
~50
~13.7 (87%)
11.88
Watchman (857 RPM)
Uncapped
~10.9 (80%)
8.68
RTSS FPS Limiter = 30
30
~12.6 (69%)
For most of my tests I used EM6 with Extended Mags. It has convenient 600 RoF, which means the time period between two shots should be equal to 0.1 seconds. There are 199 time periods between 200 shots, so firing them should take 19.9 seconds.
To establish some baselines, first I recorded the time to empty a magazine using my Usual Settings, and then with all settings set to Very Low. In both cases I wasn’t capping FPS in any way, and RoF was close to expected values.
Test methodology: I went to Koltyr, stepped outside of the spawn building, and fired at full auto. I recorded using my shitty phone, as I wanted to avoid any potential impact from my own PC. I kinda forgot to disable Shadowplay’s background recording, though. I ran each test only once, and it’s possible the results would be inconsistent.
Then I used RTSS to cap FPS at 120, and then at 150. In both cases there was a negative impact to Rate of Fire.
Then I enabled Smoothing, which caps FPS at your monitor’s Refresh Rate. In my case, this is 120 Hz. That fixed the Rate of Fire issues.
Then I created a GPU-bound scenario by increasing Render Quality to 1.41, making the game render at double resolution, putting a lot of raw workload on my GTX 1060 3 GB. This had a noticeable negative impact to Rate of Fire.
Then I made GPU-bound situation more severe by increasing Render Quality to 2.0, making the game render at quadruple resolution. That reduced RoF even further, and introduced some horrible Input Lag.
Thanks to /u/Octiceps, we know that being GPU bound causes Input Lag, and indeed, it felt like an eternity would pass between moving the mouse and seeing the crosshair move on screen. According to my measurements, the delay was around 0.1 seconds, but it felt much longer, and the game would definitely be unplayable.
Capping the FPS by any means should remove the Input Lag. First I used RTSS to cap FPS at 45. That removed Input Lag, but impacted Rate of Fire even further.
Then I set an FPS limit through UserOptions.ini by setting MaximumFPS to 45. That removed Input Lag and solved the Rate of Fire issues.
Note that according to Octiceps, using MaximumFPS to cap FPS still adds some Input Lag, but it seems miles better than being GPU bound, and I couldn’t feel any during my short tests.
I also ran a test with Smoothing enabled while GPU bound. In this case having an FPS cap at 120 should not have affected anything, but it’s possible that Smoothing actually does something else behind the scenes. And indeed the RoF impact was lower than while simply being GPU-bound, but it’s possible this was just a statistical margin of error. Since I’m lazy and ran each test only once, there’s no way to tell.
Finally, I wanted to test whether low RoF or high RoF weapons are more affected, so I removed the FPS Cap and ran tests with 500 RPM Gauss SAW and 857 RPM Watchman. As you can see from the results, the impact to higher RoF Watchman was nearly double.
Per /u/Punisherlceman’s suggestion, I ran tests with a couple of vehicle weapons, and surprisingly they seem to be unaffected by this issue at all. Even when I used RTSS to limit FPS at 30, which made the Watchman fire at 69% of its intended Rate of Fire.
CPU Bound Results
Weapon
Settings
FPS
Time, sec
Expected Time
EM6 (600 RPM)
1 Core, 1200 MHz
~25
~24.4 sec (82%)
19.9
4 Cores, 1200 MHz
~65
~21.8 sec (91%)
1 Core, 4500 MHz
~120
~20.6 sec (97%)
My CPU is Core i5 7600k. To create a CPU-bound scenario, I went to BIOS and manually reduced its maximum multiplier to 12 and disabled 3 of the 4 cores, as well as reduced memory frequency to 2133 MHz.
For the test I set all settings to Very Low to make sure the FPS is not GPU-bound.
It didn’t feel like there’s any Input Lag, but all animations would play at super low FPS, the famous “Doom Animations“.
There was a significant impact to Rate of Fire. Then I increased the number of active cores to 4, and impact to RoF was not as huge, but it was still there. “Doom Animations” went away as the number of cores increased, so we can conclude that laggy animations happen when the CPU cannot handle several threads at the same time.
Normally my CPU runs at 4500 MHz, and RAM at 3000 MHz, so I went back to these settings, but once again left only one active core. I would still get laggy animations, but negative impact to RoF all but evaporated.
During these tests the PlanetSide’s FPS counter was showing [GPU] half the time, in a situation where being GPU-bound is practically impossible, which just goes to show that indicator cannot be trusted.
It’s worth noting that while CPU-bound, the framarate fluctuated like crazy.
Second PC Results
Weapon
Settings
FPS
Time, sec
Expected Time
EM6 (600 RPM)
Low Settings, Uncapped FPS
~65
~21 sec (95%)
20
High Settings, Uncapped FPS
~38
~20.8 sec (95%)
Low Settings, Capped FPS
53
~20.5 (98%)
I ran one more round of tests on my brother’s PC, who’s using entry-level Ryzen R3 1200, overclocked to 3.8 or 3.9 GHz, and an obsolete HD5770, middle of the road graphics card from 2009.
“Low Settings” = Very Low preset with Ultra Textures.
“High Settings” = Ultra Preset with Shadows Disabled.
Render Distance of 800m and FullHD resolution in both cases.
Similar to before, there was considerable Input Lag while GPU-bound with uncapped FPS. Using MaximumFPS in UserOptions.ini to cap FPS at 55 removed Input Lag and mostly solved RoF issues.
It’s interesting to note that even in worst case scenario RoF impact was not as severe as on my machine.
Conclusions
Rate of Fire is reduced when you are:
GPU-bound at low FPS.
Using RTSS to cap FPS.
CPU-bound by frequency.
It’s possible to have reduced RoF without any Input Lag.
You don’t need high FPS to fire at nearly full RoF.
RoF issues can be solved by:
Having very high FPS.
Setting an FPS Cap through MaximumFPS in UserOptions.ini just below your usual FPS.
Using Smoothing if your FPS is usually above your monitor’s Refresh Rate.
Preferring weapons with low Rate of Fire.
This set of tests is not intended as the last word on this topic, I mainly just wanted to see the problem with my own eyes and confirm tests done /u/ChasseurDePorcinet and /u/Datnade, and /u/Ahorns, as well as rule out Input Lag as the primary cause.
MG-H1 Watchman is a Terran Republic LMG with a beautiful model artfully crafted by /u/d0ku. Embracing the Terran faction trait, Watchman has the highest Rate of Fire among LMGs, and overall it looks and feels like a big brother to the TORQ-9 Assault Rifle.
Players have been asking for an LMG like this for a long time, and now that we have it, let’s take a deeper look to try and figure out how fast should you be throwing money at the monitor.
The following guide will be taking a good close look on the weapon, but if you want just a short summary:
It’s a great weapon for short range up to 20-50 meters. If you mainly go for headshots, it is very easy to kill multiple enemies inside buildings.
– /u/flub1337, the first player to earn an auraxium medal with Watchman
Watchman’s damage output is above average, equal to 143 @ 750 weapons, like T9 CARV and Orion. This is pretty much as high as LMGs go, and it’s a solid amount of damage.
Watchman has two tiers of damage degradation, which is typical for LMGs. However, low damage-per-shot weapons lose less absolute damage over range, though higher damage-per-shot weapons have longer Minimum Damage Range. So while they lose more damage over range, that process happens slower. For example:
If you imagine a Super Anchor with 641 RoF – that’s what it would take for a 167 damage weapon to match Watchman’s DPS – and compare how their DPS changes over range, you will notice that Watchman starts dealing more DPS at ~61m.
Click to enlarge
Of course, it doesn’t mean Watchman will actually be more effective at range than Anchor. Higher damage-per-shot weapons are naturally more effective at range.
Watchman has access to two Ammo attachments that affect its performance in a meaningful way, and it should be always used with one of them:
Soft Point Ammunition (SPA) – increases Maximum Damage Range from 10m to 15m at the cost of reducing Projectile Velocity by 5%.
Impact Ammunition (IA) – increases Minimum Damage from 100 to 112 at the cost of reducing Magazine Size from 125 to 100 rounds.
Click to enlarge
In terms of raw DPS, SPA is better within 20m, and IA is better outside that range.
SPA is most powerful at 15m, where it has a 1.6% advantage.
DPS: 1785 @ 15m – 1428 @ 55m
IA is most powerful at 55m, where it has a 12% advantage.
DPS: 1785 @ 10m – 1600 @ 55m
As a 125 damage weapon, Watchman has very consistent and clean BTK Thresholds. As long as the standard infantry target is within Maximum Damage Range, it will be killed without any overkill whatsoever, both with headshots or bodyshots, with or without Nanoweave. Going even 1cm outside the Maximum Damage Range will increase the BTK by 1 and TTK by 0.07. The main function of SPA is to postpone this effect by extra 5m.
However, Watchman has a super high Rate of Fire, and among other advantages, it means Watchman’s TTK is not as penalized when going to the next BTK Threshold. For example, the 500 RoF Gauss SAW requires extra 120ms to kill an enemy 1m outside of the Maximum Damage Range, while Watchman requires only extra 70ms.
Impact Ammunition provides a noticeable damage boost at range, and makes damage degradation even less of an issue. For example, if we take our previous example with Super Anchor, but add ammo attachments this time, you’ll notice that Watchman starts dealing higher DPS at any range further than 20m.
Or if you compare Watchman with Impact Ammunition to CARV. Both degrade to 112 damage, but one fires at 857 RPM, and the other one at 750. Watchman will overtake CARV’s DPS at 15m already.
For the sake of brevity, BTK and TTK are listed only for the first threshold.
BTK
Distance, meters
Time to Kill, seconds
Target
SPA
IA
6
0 – 23
0 – 27
0.35
NMG / Adrenaline + Headshots
7
0 – 39
0+
0.42
Resist Shield + Headshots
13
0 – 24
0 – 30
0.84
Resist Shield
15
0 – 23
0 – 27
0.98
NMG / Adrenaline + Nanoweave
Notes
Within Maximum Damage Range, Watchman kills in 4 headshots, same as 143 damage weapons. Given Watchman’s higher RoF, it makes for an incredibly fast headshot Time-to-Kill, rivaling the infamous AF-4 Cyclone.
Against Heavy Assaults, Ammo Attachment choice has no effect on TTK all the way up to medium range. Depending on enemy health and overshield energy, there could be some situations where SPA still kills faster, but since SPA deals at most 2 extra damage, these situations are highly improbable.
Against full-health targets, Impact Ammunition doesn’t come into play until 35m against standard infantry, and 48m against Nanoweave Infantry.
Effective Range
Hip Fire Accuracy
HIP CONES OF FIRE
2.25 / 2.75 / 2.75 / 3.5 / 0.1
Watchman has better than average starting Hip Cones of Fire, same as dedicated CQC LMGs like MSW-R and LA1 Anchor. It’s still pretty far from being able to comfortably hip fire at everything that moves, but you can land some decent shots at the center mass of an enemy a few meters away, and high Rate of Fire ensures good consistency.
Laser Sight provides a few extra meters of effective Hip Fire range, but it’s nothing breathtaking, and it will not confer any new combat options, like being able to reliably hip fire for headshots, or being able to take on enemy Heavy Assaults without ADSing.
ADS Accuracy
ADS CONES OF FIRE
0.25 / 0.25 / 0.25 / 0.3 / 0.05
On one hand, Watchman has fairly terrible Cones of Fire for stationary positions. Even in situations where you can afford to stand still, you cannot squeeze any more accuracy out of the weapon. It is definitely one of the meaningful downsides of the Watchman.
On the other hand, the 0.3 ADS Standing Moving CoF is hands down the best among all LMGs, period. Most other LMGs have 0.35 or 0.4 CoF.
This is honestly a weird and unexpected quality on a “bullet hose” type of weapon. However, this is somewhat compensated by relatively high Cone of Fire Bloom.
Cone of Fire Bloom
Despite dealing only 125 damage per shot, Watchman has the same Bloom per Shot as 143 damage weapons.
Watchman
T9 CARV
Hip
ADS
Hip
ADS
Bloom per Shot
0.1
0.05
0.1
0.05
Bloom per Point of Damage Done
8 * 10-4
4 * 10-4
7 * 10-4
3.5 * 10-4
Bloom per Second
1.43
0.715
1.25
0.625
Standing Moving CoF
3.5
0.3
4.5
0.4
Click to enlarge
Watchman starts with better Cone of Fire, and it will hold an accuracy advantage for the first 8 shots – up to 2000 damage. After that, CARV and other similar 143 @ 750 will have a more efficient Cone of Fire. However, this doesn’t really matter outside of prolonged magdumping scenarios.
For example, by the time both weapons would fire 3000 damage, CARV’s CoF advantage would be only 0.05, and a 0.1 advantage by 4000 damage. Basically, as long as you keep your bursts within 15 rounds or so, you will not feel any downside to higher Bloom per Shot, but there will be a meaningful accuracy advantage for the first several shots.
Recoil
VERTICAL RECOIL
0.28 / 0.3
FIRST SHOT RECOIL MULTIPLIER
2.5x
RECOIL ANGLE
5 / 10
HORIZONTAL RECOIL
0.18 / 0.22
HORIZONTAL RECOIL MAX INCREASE
-0.015
HORIZONTAL RECOIL TOLERANCE
0.5
Recoil Analysis
Watchman
T9 CARV
MSW-R
VERTICAL RECOIL PER SECOND
4.14
5
4.375
FIRST SHOT RECOIL
0.7 / 0.75
0.8
0.875
Watchman’s Vertical Recoil has a bit of random to it, but it’s not a big deal. The gun fires so fast that recoil will average out, and you won’t notice it. Vertical Recoil per Second is slightly lower than for MSW-R, and generally isn’t very high for an LMG with such a high DPS.
First Shot Recoil and Multiplier are somewhat high, but still better than for competition.
As a more interesting feature, Watchman has some negative scaling applied to its Horizontal Recoil.
Horizontal Recoil
Stock
Forward Grip
Shot #
Min
Max
Min
Max
1
0.18
0.22
0.135
0.165
2
0.18
0.205
0.135
0.15
3
0.18
0.19
0.135
0.135
4
0.18
0.18
After just a few shots, Watchman’s Horizontal Recoil scales down to the level of T32 Bull, which is downright incredible for a weapon with such a high DPS.
Stock
Forward Grip
AVERAGE HORIZONTAL DEVIATION
0.15
0.113
MAXIMUM HORIZONTAL DEVIATION
0.40
0.270
These numbers are calculated for 10 round bursts and take scaling into account. Without Forward Grip, Watchman’s Average Horizontal Deviation is only 7% higher than for MSW-Rand Orionwith a Forward Grip.
T9 CARV has noticeably worse Horizontal Recoil Tolerance than all three, and will have ~60% higher Maximum Horizontal Deviation.
Recoil Angle is average. A slight bias to the right with a bit of Variance to it. Most of the time you won’t even notice it, though statistically it will result in a minor impact to overall accuracy, giving the Watchman a slight nudge towards being a bullet hose.
Recoil Recovery
RECOIL RECOVERY DELAY
0
RECOIL RECOVERY RATE
18
Watchman has better Recoil Recovery than vast majority of other LMGs, and this is good, because it increases the effectiveness of burst fire, making it easier for Watchman to repeatedly take advantage of its better starting Moving CoF.
Velocity
VELOCITY
550 m/s
Watchman’s velocity is average for a CQC LMG, and it’s about average on the overall velocity spectrum as well. It’s not too low, but you will definitely have to do some conscious leading when engaging enemies beyond medium range.
Conclusion on Effective Range
Due to bad minimum Cones of Fire and low damage per shot, as well as high-ish FSRM and average velocity, Watchman has a somewhat limited effective range overall.
However, Watchman gives you a lot of tools to keep itself under control, such as its affinity for burst firing, stable recoil and good Standing Moving ADS CoF.
So within that “limited effective range”, a properly handled Watchman will be more effective than your average CQC bullet hose like T9 CARV.
Another thing is consistency. The effective range of other CQC LMGs is roughly equal to Watchman’s, but their performance becomes noticeably worse as the range grows, while Watchman – especially outfitted with Impact Ammunition – will perform nearly equally well at 20m and 40m.
Just keep in mind that no matter the user skill, there eventually will be a stone wall of range where Watchman is simply not effective, and hitting shots and getting kills relies mostly on luck and enemy Exposure Time.
Exposure Time is how long the enemy spends out of cover, susceptible to your shots. Given enough Exposure Time, pretty much any weapon can kill any target at any range, but Exposure Time is the one thing you have the least control of.
Finding exposed targets is easier for flanking classes, such as Light Assault and Infiltrator, but it comes much less naturally to Heavy Assaults. Often you have to land shots on just a tiny part of enemy hitbox sticking out of cover, and Watchman may well let you down, if the enemy is too far.
And when you do stumble on an exposed enemy, often you’ll have just a few moments before they make it into cover, and you won’t have enough time to pepper the enemy with weak Watchman’s shots.
Utility Stats
Ammo Capacity
Watchman Stock
Watchman IA
T9 CARV
MSW-R
MAGAZINE SIZE
125
100
100
50
DPM @ MAX DAMAGE
15 625
12 500
14 300
7 150
DPM @ MIN DAMAGE
12 500
11 200
11 200
5 600
AMMO POOL
375
375
400
250
DAMAGE TOTAL
46 875
46 875
57 200
35 750
Watchman has a respectable ammo capacity, overall close to the bountiful T9 CARV, and more or less keeps up even while using Impact Ammo.
Reload Speed
Watchman
T9 CARV
MSW-R
RELOAD SHORT
5.525 sec
5.4
3.045
RELOAD LONG
7 sec
6.2
3.305
Watchman takes a lot of time to reload, which makes it somewhat annoying to use, especially for those who suffer from reloaditus – an obsessive-compulsive disorder that forces the player to reload their weapon after every engagement.
If we wanted to assess how efficient is the Watchman, we could calculate how much “damage” it reloads per second, and compare it other LMGs:
Reload Damage per Second = Average Damage * Magazine Size / Reload Speed Where Average Damage = (Maximum Damage + Minimum Damage) / 2
Watchman
T9 CARV
MSW-R
AVERAGE LMG
SHORT RELOAD DAMAGE PER SEC
2539
2361
2093
2786
LONG RELOAD DAMAGE PER SEC
1904
2056
1929
2260
We can see that Watchman has good efficiency, though it’s still ~10% below average.
However, the issue is not time efficiency, but the fact that reload takes so darn long. Every second added to the Reload Time has an exponentially increasing negative impact, increasing chances of being engaged on, or missing a kill opportunity.
All that said, in terms of Short Reload, Watchman is very comparable to CARV, and as long as you avoid the unusually punishing Long Reload, you’ll be fine most of the time. Seriously, d0ku, what the hell were you thinking, putting the charging handle so far to the right and front?
Equip Time
Watchman
T9 CARV
MSW-R
EQUIP TIME
1125 ms
1200
800
UNEQUIP TIME
250 ms
250
250
FORWARD GRIP PENALTY
150 ms
50
150
Watchman’s Equip Time is about as expected for a full-sized LMG, and roughly equal to CARV overall.
Pros and Cons
PROS
Short headshot TTK, access to SPA.
High DPS.
Low damage degradation with Impact Ammo.
Controllable recoil for an LMG.
Best in class ADS moving accuracy.
Effective at bursting.
Good and consistent Hip Fire for an LMG.
CONS
Bad ADS still accuracy.
Limited effective range.
Average Projectile Velocity.
Takes a lot of time to reload. Long Reload is especially punishing.
High Bloom per Shot makes long bursts undesirable, especially from the hip.
Low damage per shot.
Smaller Ammo Pool compared to other “big” LMGs.
No access to Suppressor.
Recommended Attachments
Flash Suppressor is the only barrel attachment available to Watchman, and despite having unique looks, it functions exactly the same as for other weapons, and generally there’s no reason not to use it.
Technically, both Forward Grip and Laser Sight are viable, but I recommend the Forward Grip to further improve on Watchman’s strong point – easy handling. Forward Grip will reduce the number of shots required to fully scale down Horizontal Recoil, and reduce Recoil Angle and its Variance, somewhat increasing the overall effective range of the weapon, which is Watchman’s weak point. Laser Sight will make hip fire slightly better, but that’s about it.
Soft Point Ammunition is taken for competitive close quarters fighting, especially indoors, while Impact Ammunition is taken to boost your performance at medium range. Generally, unless you KNOW you will be soon fighting a lot of enemy infantry at close range, Impact Ammo should be your go-to attachment.
Optics, as always, are up to personal preference, but I would highly recommend staying away from scopes with magnification higher than 2x. Watchman just doesn’t have the effective range and accuracy to warrant it.
Tips and Conclusion
On the surface, Watchman looks like a typical bullet hose, but it’s actually a bit more nuanced, and to take advantage of everything it has to offer, it needs to be properly handled. You have to fire in bursts, which is made easier by excellent Recoil Recovery statistics. At the same time, high FSRM may make Watchman feel less controllable than it is.
At the end of the day, Watchman’s most defining feature is short headshot TTK within Maximum Damage Range. Otherwise, it is effectively a sidegrade to the default T9 CARV.
Apart from the First Shot Recoil, Watchman requires noticeably less recoil management, but more Cone of Fire management – burst firing, in other words.
You have to be mindful of Watchman’s reload. Unlike MSW-R, you can’t just reload on the go, and you have to be ready to switch to a sidearm in case you get caught while reloading. At the same time, Watchman’s reload disadvantage is somewhat overblown – as long as you avoid being hit by a Long Reload, it won’t be much different from other “big” LMGs.
Overall, Watchman is a welcome addition to the Terran Republic arsenal. It provides veterans with a stylish answer to Anchor’s headshot TTK, and this time without the TR Recoil™.
Easy recoil makes Watchman a suitable option for less skilled players as well, and it’s not like Watchman is too difficult to handle. Just remember to cut your bursts at about 10 shots at the most, and you’re good to go.
Watchman’s biggest downside is its inability to reach out to distant targets. Even when you can afford to stand still, there won’t be any accuracy boost. Couple that with low damage per shot and you can pretty much forget about even trying, unless the enemy will be exposed for a long time. That’s the price you have to pay for the combination of high DPS and easy recoil.
or 699 
