Lag and low fps has been an incurable plague of the dust bunnies of New Eden since the birth of our kind. However, there are ways to fight it.

The first step in fighting lag and low frames per second is understanding the causes, and understanding the different times of lag. Also, that lag and low fps are different. HERE is an article about why they're different but can be caused by the same things leading to the two being confused.

Low Frame Rate

The most common and recurring performance problem is low fps. Its pretty straight forward and easy to identify, as the main symptom is your gameplay looking a little more like a slideshow. It's often caused by memory leaks or processes in general that require too much RAM.



The main symptom of network lag is something called rubber banding. Rubber banding is the phenomenon where actions performed by the player seem to be "undone" with consistent frequency. Here's an EXAMPLE video of rubber banding.

This is most often caused by a poor connection with the Dust 514 servers, either via ping, a poor internet connection on part of the player, or server side problems. Dust 514 shares servers with Eve Online, on many occasions massive battles have broken out in Eve online which can put large burdens on the servers altogether leading to network lag for both games.



This one is less known about, it's basically the delay between your TV receiving a signal and it being displayed, as well the amount of time it takes for the game to react to commands sent from your controller or kb/m.



As of right now there is no way known to me for a player to prevent memory leaks altogether. There are ways to slow and lessen its effects, which I will explain right now, listed in order of the least time consuming and easiest to perform.

1. Open your neocom, go to System Operation, then to options, then to video. Set your texture detail to low, and your effect detail to low. This is very easy, and improves performance slightly.


2. Turn off your trophies. PS menu> Trophy Collection> Press Triangle> Set to Offline mode. I saw a significant performance improvement.


3. Deleting all mails and contacts is known to yield immediate performance improvements. Similarly, keeping the number of channels you are in to a minimum reduces framerate drops as well. Other things such as how many boosters you have running or queued at once or how many fittings you have have lesser significant impacts on performance. Of course, these options are sacrificial, but they are quick and easy.


4. Disable voice chat through System Operation. Voice chat is a tested and proven source of severe frame rate drops, its just common sense the less the Dust client is trying to process the less performance issues on your plate. With a little discussion and planning, you and your friends can find an alternative means of communication that doesn't cause lag and is actually more reliable than Dust communication albeit less convenient.

Of course there's little reason not to utilize Dust Comms when not in battle if the need arises. I use Curse as my alternative communication program, my ps3 setup is right next to my computer. (Nyain San used Skype back in the day. Yes, the whole japanese speaking team in a skype call)


5. Resetting your game via quitting the game to the PS menu and relaunching is the most obvious yet slightly time consuming and tedious option, but is known to temporarily fix memory leaks. Hard resetting involves shutting down your ps3 entirely, and restarting it after a small amount of time has passed. This is even more effective and also gives your ps3 a chance to cooldown.


6. De-Fragmenting your HDD if you have one and keeping your ps3 clean are essential. Defragging your HDD (hard disk drive) basically moves relevant data closer together and to more easily accessible locations in your hardrive, increasing data read speeds. Cleaning your ps3 is highly recommended and should be performed at least once a week to prevent overheating (which can lead to YLOD). This is one of the more tedious options, but is easy to perform once you know what you're doing. HERE is a tutorial video on how to do both.


7. Playing in standard definition aka 480p is one of the most effective ways to prevent framerate drops, but as can be expected, it looks crappier than 720p. HERE is a tutorial video on how to easily change your ps3 to 480p/SD from HD, and vice versa.


8. Swapping your HDD (hard disk drive) for a SSD (solid state drive). This is by far the most effective way to prevent drops in framerate, due to the SSD's superior data reading speeds. However, this is also the most costly and time consuming option. If you choose to get an SSD, PLEASE know and remember that you should not defragment an SSD, as it does not benefit from it, rather it wears it down faster. HERE is a more thorough explanation.