performance bottleneck - GPU or CPU?

[zzzornbringer]

greetings,

these are my system specs: intel q9400 quadcore @3ghz, gtx560ti 1024MB VRAM, 4GB RAM

the game runs very good most of the time. i get 80+ fps in 1080p.

there are two occasions where my framerate goes down to 45fps.

1) at bigger stations (which is understandable)

2) in busy systems - not so understandable, because everything in the system is mostly visible on my radar. only things i see are either dots from planets or the green flare from other ships in supercruise. but still, my framerate goes down. why? bad optimization? aren't there any LOD levels? i mean, when everything is so far away that i only see dots, shouldn't this reduce the amount of stuff that is rendered?

edit: i should also add that my framerate is low even when i look in the direction of empty space which makes things even weirder.

well, that's the issues i have with performance. now to my question. i put my ship in front of a station to test various quality settings and see what affects performance most. as it turns out, nothing affects my framerate except when i go higher than 1080p. lowering resolution does nothing, so does disabling shadows (which normally costs most performance). am i right with the assumption that when lowering the resolution won't positively affect the framerate that there is a CPU bottleneck?

i'm currently planning to get some new parts for my pc but i'm unsure if i should invest in a more powerful gpu or a better cpu. some clarification would be much appreciated. i'm also curious if other players have the problem of lower framerates in busy systems.

 

[Vingtetun]

Not sure it is entirely your kit. I run an 8350 watercooled and overclocked plus a pair of r9 290s and at 1440p i managed 43fps in supercruise for a while last weekend and 12fps in combat at a nav beacon. Cpu and gpu usage stats were below 50 percent and temps were positively icy.

 

[Jewish_Doctor]

I rock a Q9550 Extreme Edition which is currently not overclocked w/ a GTX 660Ti 2GB. You want more video memory if possible. I was running on my other video card, one of those sick 750Ti's and it ran great but was only the 1GB version so definitely recommend a little more video memory. I run in 1080p.

 

[TheNameIsJambo]

Are you running this game off of a HDD or SSD? If HDD, try an SSD. Could be placebo; I've not checked the performance data on my rig, but these sudden FPS drops seem to be attributed to HDD read/write speeds.

I've noticed huge slow-down when meeting other CMDRs - What's your network connection - ADSL, Fibre? Check your latency to the server [on the menu page] by running a tracert.

Your GPU only has 1GB of VRAM.. This game uses a good chunk more than that.

On the whole - I'd get a new CPU + Mobo + GPU + PSU + 4GB RAM

Your current rig is too old to just keep dropping new GPUs into the mobo.

 

[DragonIV]

I'm running an ancient Q6600 with a fairly modern graphics card (mid-grade nvidia evga product, purchased last year). Pretty sure it's only 1GB VRAM. I also rock a spinning disc, no SSD here. Network connection is pretty rock solid tho, with 35 down and 5 up. I get 75 FPS most of the time, including in combat, but the game likes to stutter when it has to keep up with a bunch of things like extraction sites and the like in SC mode, usually as I come close in. Happens only in those systems, and not every time.

This game doesn't really press either the CPU or GPU hard. CPU is loaded to maybe 60% (pretty solid, no spikes) and GPU temps don't go anywhere near maximum. I can fire up something like Skyrim and it'll engage the graphics card to a much higher degree, mostly because it's trying to draw so much more. Disclaimer--I'm only running at 1680x1050. I have all graphics settings maxed, too.

So, no, you don't need a killer system to run this game well.

 

[Dogoncrook]

Amd 4.0ghz, and a 760 with 4gb vid mem, and on an ssd. I've always had it, but it used to be way worse. I've played with every imaginable setting and all I can do is make the stutters shorter and a little less annoying. Random stations cause it, and random planets.

I switched to Windows 8 from 7 and it did improve noticeably but it's still there. That could be from reinstalling, a issue on my old Windows installation, or due to Windows 8 itself. And I also switched to a power line adapter from a usb WiFi at the same time so it could have been that. Settings make no difference and it actually runs better if I run really high DSR which makes no sense to me.

 

[Tar Stone]

Take this with a pinch of salt but from my own fiddling frame rate seems very dependent on the raw core clock speed of your GPU.

 

[Mugshot]

Are you running this game off of a HDD or SSD? If HDD, try an SSD. Could be placebo; I've not checked the performance data on my rig, but these sudden FPS drops seem to be attributed to HDD read/write speeds.

I've noticed huge slow-down when meeting other CMDRs - What's your network connection - ADSL, Fibre? Check your latency to the server [on the menu page] by running a tracert.

Your GPU only has 1GB of VRAM.. This game uses a good chunk more than that.

On the whole - I'd get a new CPU + Mobo + GPU + PSU + 4GB RAM

Your current rig is too old to just keep dropping new GPUs into the mobo.

I run the game from my main Ram(sits in about 5Gb drive partition from my 16Gb space) and still get fps drops and juddering in SC sometimes combat. I don't think it's the hard drive.
Edited to add I also agree with the above poster, the game runs smoother at 1440p or 4k using DSR than at 1080 even though the fps is lower.

 

[zzzornbringer]

Edited to add I also agree with the above poster, the game runs smoother at 1440p or 4k using DSR than at 1080 even though the fps is lower.

this is just subjective. a game looks more smooth to you when the framerate is constant, for example 30fps, rather than it jump between 60fps and 120fps. vsync could help there if you have a 60hz monitor and are able to keep 60fps at all time.

one other thing: when my framerate goes to 45fps (in front of stations or in supercruise with a lot of traffic), the gpu is only at around 50% usage. (hence, overclocking the GPU core speed won't have any effect.) this would also underline that it's a CPU bottleneck. the GPU doesn't get enough informations from the CPU.

when i have ~80fps in low population systems, my GPU is at full capacity. -> not a lot of stuff to compute by the CPU. GPU gets data fast enough to work at full capacity.

i have the game installed on a HDD but i wouldn't bet that this has something to do with the problem.

 

[Quuhod]

Shadows are the biggest performance hog, I bet if you turn them down/off your FPS woes will be cured.

 

[medwyn]

Looks like the bottleneck is the CPU. The amount of calculations the CPU makes in some areas makes the fps drop. (Like when there's nothing to see but the radar is full - the CPU is sweating to calculate the invisible but affecting elements around and same with the asteroid fields - all those rotations of all rocks are calculated by the CPU before it sends anything to the GPU to draw).
I'm just wondering how those new contents we are awaiting for (like proper background AI simulation and so) will put the CPU to its knees when they are here... :/

 

[KillingTime]

you could try overclocking the processor, memory and the RAM separately and see which (if any) helps. While it's obviously not going to solve the problem it may help isolate where your bottleneck is. Equally, if you're not able to overclock you could downclock your components in turn and see which one caused the problem to worsen the most.

Silky smooth 60Hz 1440p here with DSR enabled... not that that helps you!

 

[stjones]

you could try overclocking the processor, memory and the RAM separately and see which (if any) helps. While it's obviously not going to solve the problem it may help isolate where your bottleneck is. Equally, if you're not able to overclock you could downclock your components in turn and see which one caused the problem to worsen the most.

Silky smooth 60Hz 1440p here with DSR enabled... not that that helps you!

you have memory and RAM ? lucky you

 

[Fangrim]

Here's my rig, and I still get heavy framedrops, especially in hyperspace, supercruise and around some planets.

Motherboard: ASUS Rampage V Extreme
CPU: Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 8-core (16 threads) 5960X@4.2GHz
GFX: ASUS GTX980-4GD5 - 4 GB GDDR5
RAM: 8x4GB Corsair Vengeance LPX - DDR4 - 2666 MHz
Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD
Noctua NH-D15 CPU Cooler
XFX 750W xxx Edition PSU
Fractal Design Define XL R2 black cabinet
3 x Asus VN247H 23.6" monitors
Windows 8.1

I think it's more a problem with the game than it's underpowered hardware.

Edit: In my experience, it's wiser to get a better graphics card than a better CPU. CPU is rarely bottlenecking a game.

 

[OneAmongOthers]

Been playing this with an AMD 965 3.4 quad, 8 gigs ram and a GTX 770, and I have yet to see any slow downs (max settings in windowed mode). Perhaps maybe an out dated driver?

 

[aRtFuL]

To OP, it is probably neither.

It is likely to be netcode and the way this game deals with sync issues. PRetty much everyone has it and nothing much you can do about it.

 

[Wicz]

Not sure it is entirely your kit. I run an 8350 watercooled and overclocked plus a pair of r9 290s and at 1440p i managed 43fps in supercruise for a while last weekend and 12fps in combat at a nav beacon. Cpu and gpu usage stats were below 50 percent and temps were positively icy.

Wow, something ( I assume your CPU ) is really holding you back there.

I have a 4770k ( currently @ stock because my H110 is being RMA'd ), 8GB @ 1600Mhz, a single R9 290 and run @ 1440p.

I only ever drop below 60 fps in witchspace, very rarely, and in stations, also rarely. Flying around in space is 80+ fps, with asteroid belts 60 - 75 fps.

 

[LtCasey]

To OP, it is probably neither.

It is likely to be netcode and the way this game deals with sync issues. PRetty much everyone has it and nothing much you can do about it.

This. Try to play in solo or group mode. Then check the result. I bet you will Run it very smoothe in solo mode.

 

[krysohmyz]

I think it is how this game works and I learned to live with it. I have stable 100FPS almost everywhere, except outside of the station I've got (interestingly) stable 43FPS and inside the station 28FPS. It's kinda funny. Maybe with time, they will find a way to pull those extremes closer together.

 

[zzzornbringer]

general question: why are some thinking that the netcode has something to do with framerate? i have never encountered latency affecting framerate.

edit: i just tried solo mode and in the current system (eravate) the framerate is actually a lot better [80fps). but... i don't think that this has something to do with latency. the system was effectively empty in solo mode. i saw one npc ship on my radar. in online mode there were multiple npc ships and multiple player ships.

so, it's more likely that the game calculates stuff in the system, even though it's not in your field of view. hope this gets optimized.