Horizons Left Elite for 6 months, surprising result upon return.

[Chris Simon]

I am back after nearly a year of absence and I love most of the changes. For me, everything but the mission board runs perfectly smooth. The "new" mission board sometimes takes up to 30 seconds or tells me, that it was unable to connect at all. Very sad, if there is a mission very time critical (just seconds remaining), but usually no big deal.

Loading times of mission boards is an acknowledged problem. I think we can expect it to be fixed in 2.2, along with the new "incoming star" in witchspace (Yay! Finally the Faragut trailer won't be called false advertising. ), smoother drop to glide and similar things.

 

[rabobi]

I've recently also returned to the game after a couple of months. Server disconnects, lag on mission board, phase transistions, etc, i haz it all. Love the new content, but as it is now, there are too many other good games and too little time to spend it waiting for the servers to respond. I'm super happy that it works fine for some people, but there are too many people being affected by this for it to client environment/machine issue. And i'm guessing like me, most of the other people can play a host of other online game perfectly fine.

Keep the content coming, but spend some time and fix your performance issues, otherwise ed is going to risk a chuck of they player base wandering off and not coming back.

It would also be refreshing if ed put a sticky up for these issue and acknownledge them, so we don't have the windmill in the forums like this. I know developers rarely admit to these kinda issues, but i thik people would respond more positively if there was a clear acknowledgement, and they are actively addressing them.

 

[GG7]

More likely an HDD issue alone or combined with possible networking issues. Granted there are times when the loading delays are internet related, but until you factor out your system drive as a potential bottleneck, you can't totally blame this on ED's lack of optimization in this area, although they can always do better with optimizing this game in my opinion.

If anyone with loading issues is still not using an SSD drive, and preferably an NVME M.2 SSD as their system drive with ED also installed on it they should before complaining about ANY load times in the game.

A good deal of the data you pull up is cached onto your system, so if you are running a mechanical drive and this is where you have ED installed, that alone can add a good deal of load time to your game experience.

When I built my gaming/ED PC, I went with a Samsung 512GB 950 PRO M.2 Nvme as my boot and primary game install drive. My menu load times in ED were either totally eliminated or vastly reduced. The Galaxy Map loads instantly for me, and system maps load in about 1-2 seconds. The Station menus including the mission section also load much, much faster than I see on my Xbox One version.

I assume that the same would be the case with a PC running a non-SSD boot drive. A SATA SSD is better than nothing, but an M.2 is really the way to go if your system can run one. You will be shocked at how much faster everything in ED performs when it is running off something as fast as a 950 PRO.

 

[Willa Allason]

This isn't a game for people without patience. If you can't wait 5 seconds for the mission board to open or look up how to complete a mission you may want to play a different game, sorry.

 

[TrixX]

OP and the people suffering issues with loading times are mostly likely running it of slow HDD's. Running off an SSD here with crappy Australian internet (20M/bit down 1M/bit up) and longest I see is around 20s for the mission board. The Shader wheel is non-existent and loads instantly (something that was not the case on my HDD). TBH optimisation of these slowdowns would be nice, but a reasonable PC won't see them anyway, so it's a bit 50/50 as to what/who is at fault.

Mission board shouldn't take 15-20s to load though. Even if it's procedural, that should occur during landing NOT post landing on access of the function. further updates to missions should occur normally, but the initial generation should occur during the landing transition. No load time required that way.

For anyone loading in minutes, look to your PC capabilities. SSD = biggest performance enhancement over HDD based PC's for the money. GFX/PSU card should be the next target. PSU is included with GFX to make sure you can put the powre out to the GFX card as needed. CPU/RAM should be checked third so it's not bottlenecking the GFX card. An avg gaming PC will run this game without issue. Hell using a GTX 970/AMD R9 290 or better with a Core i5/i7 and 8GB+ of good (1600MHz or more) RAM on a decent SSD (Samsung Evo's are cheap and reliable, yet also the speediest) and you are laughing.

 

[Gumwars]

A lot of conjecture is going into troubleshooting this issue. To the OP, you're making a sweeping assumption about the quality of service you're seeing in game without looking at why you're experiencing the issue. You've got a smoking connection to the internet, yes. I've got 150 mps service and I still wait between 5 and 30 seconds for the mission list to pop up. Can I verify that its a fiber connection all the way from my home to Frontier? Of course I can't. Who knows what sort of convoluted path the packets take to get from my machine to Frontier and back again. To say that the issue is 100% a programming problem is overly simplistic. To say that its entirely hardware related is taking the same course.

I will say this, to those that blame the devs, I believe we would all be having the same problem if it was strictly software related. It's possible that some of us are using the same network equipment the game was optimized on, which might explain why some don't have issues while others do. Without compiling a list of our system configurations and contrasting it against a list of those having issues, this entire conversation is just pointless complaining.

 

[StiTch]

a) A lot of the issues you are describing are down to your PC performance and networking capability/reliability

b) Rant threads are boring. If you don't the game add something constructive or if you just ranting, do it in front of a mirror or something.

 

[Cmdr Delmonte[VR]]

Having read this thread i am here to support the OP and dismiss the "Network and PC spec" issues with DATA and TESTS
I have 2 PC's to play ELITE, The main machine is a custom built high end gaming machine connected directly to my Hub
The other a mid range gaming Laptop using WiFi

I "Was on BT" Fiber to cabinet on 30 meg download with around 20ms ping
I am "Now" on Virgin media "A BRAND NEW" instantiation to our estate ALL new cables i have the 100 meg package (Can go much higher) with less than 10ms ping
-
So two types of machine two COMPLETELY different networks
-
Having read the thread i have the SAME issues as the OP and have had ON BOTH RIGS BOTH NETWORKS
-
I have set up port forwarding following the instruction which made NO difference what so ever
-
The Main gaming PC opens the Markets menu only SLIGHTLY faster i still wait for faces / images to load
The laptop is playable but the lag frustrating, i have often took a mission before i see the face
-
CONCLUSION
-
It is NOT your machine it is NOT your connection, Fdev have an issue, which i am sure they will resolve sooner or later !

 

[StiTch]

Having read this thread i am here to support the OP and dismiss the "Network and PC spec" issues with DATA and TESTS
I have 2 PC's to play ELITE, The main machine is a custom built high end gaming machine connected directly to my Hub
The other a mid range gaming Laptop using WiFi

I "Was on BT" Fiber to cabinet on 30 meg download with around 20ms ping
I am "Now" on Virgin media "A BRAND NEW" instantiation to our estate ALL new cables i have the 100 meg package (Can go much higher) with less than 10ms ping
-
So two types of machine two COMPLETELY different networks
-
Having read the thread i have the SAME issues as the OP and have had ON BOTH RIGS BOTH NETWORKS
-
I have set up port forwarding following the instruction which made NO difference what so ever
-
The Main gaming PC opens the Markets menu only SLIGHTLY faster i still wait for faces / images to load
The laptop is playable but the lag frustrating, i have often took a mission before i see the face
-
CONCLUSION
-
It is NOT your machine it is NOT your connection, Fdev have an issue, which i am sure they will resolve sooner or later !

Two different LANs. Not two entirely different network routes.

As already explained, networking is NOT as simple as "I have a 30mb connection so that's what I get" for instance. The speed will always be set by the bottleneck. If you have awful routing from your router to BGS servers on a wider scale, there isn't much you can do about it.

I live in a fairly obscure place and somehow have really nice networking. The issue with mission board population and picking up IS there, as there's some inefficiencies with the BGS here.

Unfortunately a lot of the loading screens are simply loading the game as such. I have never had an issue with loading screens while my bud on a poor all-in-one PC has waits thrice as long. I have never had an issue with hyperspace jump times, while my bud on a poor all-in-one PC has waits about thrice as long again.

ED is an intense game. But it's not as inefficient on a network level as you accuse it of.

 

[BarFly]

Hello,

Cmd Delmonte

CONCLUSION
-
It is NOT your machine it is NOT your connection, Fdev have an issue, which i am sure they will resolve sooner or later !

They have to fix it...
I'm pretty shure you are right. Because...?
1. To many people are complaining (me to)
2. To many people with high speed tranfer rates are complaining
3. No problems at all with other online games.

 

[Cmdr Delmonte[VR]]

Two different LANs. Not two entirely different network routes.

As already explained, networking is NOT as simple as "I have a 30mb connection so that's what I get" for instance. The speed will always be set by the bottleneck. If you have awful routing from your router to BGS servers on a wider scale, there isn't much you can do about it.

I live in a fairly obscure place and somehow have really nice networking. The issue with mission board population and picking up IS there, as there's some inefficiencies with the BGS here.

Unfortunately a lot of the loading screens are simply loading the game as such. I have never had an issue with loading screens while my bud on a poor all-in-one PC has waits thrice as long. I have never had an issue with hyperspace jump times, while my bud on a poor all-in-one PC has waits about thrice as long again.

ED is an intense game. But it's not as inefficient on a network level as you accuse it of.

Sorry but two "Completely" different net works , your LAN comment is incorrect.
Virgin Media and BT operate "Independent networks" (They dug over 6 miles of trenches to support it in our area! Straight past all the BT rubbish)
-
I have no issue with Jumps or mass brawls or rubber banding. all of these are fine
Somehow the market , mission loading is bugged. It may be a local Cash file or something

IT IS NOT my network or computers.
-
Maybe a little context
-
I am no rocket scientist but !
I am a qualified engineering manager
I have qualifications in , PC architecture, Networking, Electronics, PLC's, RF and some programming (Rather old though must admit)
Plus another 2 dozen certificate in all sorts of stuff that's not relevant to this debate.
-
What ever the issue is or is not, simply blaming Network configuration or PC type build etc is a pointless debate.
_
Some people are having issues, some are not, it could be routing, it could be local it could be just about "Anything"
My testing simply show blaming the PC or network lacks any sound argument backed up by facts or repeatable testing.
I can PROVE that different networks and different PC's have the same issues. (Well for about another week ! Have cancelled BT contract)
-
Please consider your comments before some poor soul goes and spend's £1500 on a new PC and a new "Over the top" network supplier
only to find they have the same issues when it all loads up !

 

[StiTch]

Sorry but two "Completely" different net works , your LAN comment is incorrect.
Virgin Media and BT operate "Independent networks" (They dug over 6 miles of trenches to support it in our area! Straight past all the BT rubbish)
-
I have no issue with Jumps or mass brawls or rubber banding. all of these are fine
Somehow the market , mission loading is bugged. It may be a local Cash file or something

IT IS NOT my network or computers.
-
Maybe a little context
-
I am no rocket scientist but !
I am a qualified engineering manager
I have qualifications in , PC architecture, Networking, Electronics, PLC's, RF and some programming (Rather old though must admit)
Plus another 2 dozen certificate in all sorts of stuff that's not relevant to this debate.
-
What ever the issue is or is not, simply blaming Network configuration or PC type build etc is a pointless debate.
_
Some people are having issues, some are not, it could be routing, it could be local it could be just about "Anything"
My testing simply show blaming the PC or network lacks any sound argument backed up by facts or repeatable testing.
I can PROVE that different networks and different PC's have the same issues. (Well for about another week ! Have cancelled BT contract)
-
Please consider your comments before some poor soul goes and spend's £1500 on a new PC and a new "Over the top" network supplier
only to find they have the same issues when it all loads up !

That's funny because I was about to say that I spend too much of my time doing technical troubleshooting to start a technical argument of these forums.

Are you going to tell me you know every cable and switch your packets travel through on their way to the BGS, and that at no point do they converge? No? Good.

There IS an issue with the Mission board times. But outside of that, I am sorry but your two networks aside, there is a pattern here. Myself and many others with high-end gaming PCs have no issues. Many of my friends with lower end gaming PCs have an issue with loading times, including menu loading and hyperspace jumps. I've even been over their place to assist and was able to slightly improve some loading times by changing graphics settings and local PC settings.

There's also a couple of chaps with higher end gaming PCs that have a known bad network in their area, and that's it. Certain aspects of gameplay like dropping from SC to normal space, which is in effect a simple sync operation with the BGS, are much longer than map loading for instance - which is largely graphical.

As I said...not gonna get into an argument over this. I do it all day as it is But equally do not be so fast to point the finger because, well, "Post hoc ergo propter hoc".

 

[TrixX]

Saying "high end gaming PC" and then "mid-range gaming laptop" = me laughing both times. I don't care about your credentials either as you can say anything and it's irrelevant to ones actual knowledge and experience on PC/Network troubleshooting.

Post your PC specs and we'll be able to see if it's a "high end gaming PC" or whether it's what someone sold to you as high end and isn't really. Hell I've seen rigs put together which are epic but they bought 1333MHz RAM and wonder why everything runs crap. So Specs and don't quote things like "high end gaming PC".

The claims of WAN issues for connection to the Mission Boards and loading times is aberrant too. If I'm on a crappy 20Mbit connection with 1Mbit up and get the same as people on 100-200Mbit connections then connection is unlikely to be the actual problem. The other issues such as running incorrect or bad gfx drivers or terrible gfx settings for the client are far more likely as problems with this issue than network connection. There is always a chance that the network is at fault, but it's less likely than the PC itself being incorrectly setup or the game running incorrect settings.

 

[BarFly]

Hello

There IS an issue with the Mission board times. But outside of that, I am sorry but your two networks aside, there is a pattern here. Myself and many others with high-end gaming PCs have no issues. Many of my friends with lower end gaming PCs have an issue with loading times, including menu loading and hyperspace jumps. I've even been over their place to assist and was able to slightly improve some loading times by changing graphics settings and local PC settings.

Would you consider this PC as low end?

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230v3 4x 3.30GHz
Mainbord: AsRock Fatal1ty H87 So. 1150
Memory: 16GB (2x 8192MB) TeamGroup DDR3-1600
Graphics: 3072MB PowerColor Radeon HD 7950 PCS+ @1920x1024
+Samsung SSD
+ 550W BeQuiet
Anything else - FSA, Hyperjumps, Fights - run as expected.
If there would be a bad data connection, i also would have problems with that.
How do you explain this to me?

@TrixX
Don't overstimate the memory specs. They are pretty unimportant to the performance.
They just count if you want to squeeze out the last bit

 

[Cmdr Delmonte[VR]]

Hi TrixX
As requested

8 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro Red 2400 MHz (2x4GB) - Lifetime Warranty (DDR3) Intel i7 4790K - (4 x 4.0 GHZ) - Haswell Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5 (Intel Z97) - 4xUSB3/2xUSB2 Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional 64 BIT (Genuine DVD & COA Included) - FREE Windows 10 Upgrade 500GB Samsung 850 Evo SSD SATA-III, Read 540MB/s, Write 520MB/s - Silent 2 x Cooler Master Blue LED Quiet Case Fan 120mm 1 TB Seagate (1000 GB) SATA-III HDD 7200 RPM 64MB Corsair CX 750W (Modular) PSU - Low Noise FREE - Bluetooth USB Dongle - 150 M Samsung 24x DVD/CD Re-Writer/Reader - Black - (SATA) Corsair Hydro Series H60 2013 (Advanced Liquid Cooling) Cooler Master Elite 430 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti - 6 GB - (MSI) Twin Frozr V - (PCI-E) And my other machine Windows 10 Home 64 Memory, standard 6 GB DDR3L SDRAM (1 x 2 GB, 1 x 4 GB) Hard drive description 1 TB 5400 rpm SATA Processor family Intel® Core™ i5 processor Processor Intel® Core™ i5-6200U with Intel® HD Graphics 520 (2.3 GHz, up to 2.8 GHz, 3 MB cache, 2 cores) Display 39.6 cm (15.6") diagonal FHD anti-glare WLED-backlit (1920 x 1080) Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 940M (2 GB DDR3L dedicated) Although i have just replaced the HDD for an SSD 500Gb and doubled the Ram. Gaming rig runs everything on ULTRA settings, and i have messed with the config files to extend that even further. No problem IN the game at all ! Laptop does Ok on Medium to High settings, Gets around 75+ Fps in space around 45Fps on a planet or planet base, Engineering bases it drops lower to about 35fps but i can live with that ! Edit i also upgrade the PC sound card to a decent sound blaster that supports Dolby though my full Surround sound Sonos system

 

[Cmdr Delmonte[VR]]

Even if this problem was cured by "High end" pc ........ That's not what Fdev report for the "Minimum" spec to run the game !
And yes Bottom end of the Spec means low settings, that's fine for many. Oh and i have tried my PC on lower settings, still takes a while to load the mission boards.
Fdev have been fantastic at tweaking the requirements and work pure "Magic" with some of the Fps improvements. It seems Odd to me
that a "Static" mission board takes so ling to load, but i can buggy across terrain with 3 other players attacking a base and never seen the game twitch !
-
In my opinion (And it is just that) the mission board needs some TLC so even "If" the PC or the connection "Is" the issue, people don't suffer, id be happy with a setting that made it look like a good old BBS from the Dos days ;-) Quite fancy the Retro effect

 

[StiTch]

Hello


Would you consider this PC as low end?

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230v3 4x 3.30GHz
Mainbord: AsRock Fatal1ty H87 So. 1150
Memory: 16GB (2x 8192MB) TeamGroup DDR3-1600
Graphics: 3072MB PowerColor Radeon HD 7950 PCS+ @1920x1024
+Samsung SSD
+ 550W BeQuiet
Anything else - FSA, Hyperjumps, Fights - run as expected.
If there would be a bad data connection, i also would have problems with that.
How do you explain this to me?

That is...exactly not what I am talking about.

I am NOT putting this down to "if you have a high end PC or not". I am also NOT saying that the game is flawless - as stated above, the mission board DOES have loading time problems, and on my system is the only bit that runs slowly (and frustratingly so at that). Everything else....zilch issues. I load the game super fast, I jump to new systems super fast, I spend almost no time dropping from SC to normal space and have had hanging issues there about twice in my entire ED career.

What I am saying that people are far too ready to point the finger at FD for crap gaming/network coding and far too slow to accept it's a more complicated puzzle than it seems.

But if you want to play it that way, if there is a fundamental efficiency issue with either the ED servers or the network coding, why does my game run lightning fast? If their servers and game are so badly inefficient, why am I (and many others) magically exempt from these latency issues?

 

[BarFly]

Hello,

@StiTch
About last year march/April we all had the problem, that hyper jumps lasted up to 5 minutes and sometimes we got the message 'Connection lost'.
It was a problem at server side.
You are right, not any problem is at ED, but if a problem occurs with so many people and with any setup of networks, computers etc. than the probability is very high, that it is a server problem.

Edit:

, if there is a fundamental efficiency issue with either the ED servers or the network coding, why does my game run lightning fast? If their servers and game are so badly inefficient, why am I (and many others) magically exempt from these latency issues?

i have no idea, but as a matter of fact, the problem is very common and lots of people have it.

 

[TrixX]

Hi TrixX
As requested

8 GB Corsair Vengeance Pro Red 2400 MHz (2x4GB) - Lifetime Warranty (DDR3) Intel i7 4790K - (4 x 4.0 GHZ) - Haswell Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5 (Intel Z97) - 4xUSB3/2xUSB2 Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional 64 BIT (Genuine DVD & COA Included) - FREE Windows 10 Upgrade 500GB Samsung 850 Evo SSD SATA-III, Read 540MB/s, Write 520MB/s - Silent 2 x Cooler Master Blue LED Quiet Case Fan 120mm 1 TB Seagate (1000 GB) SATA-III HDD 7200 RPM 64MB Corsair CX 750W (Modular) PSU - Low Noise FREE - Bluetooth USB Dongle - 150 M Samsung 24x DVD/CD Re-Writer/Reader - Black - (SATA) Corsair Hydro Series H60 2013 (Advanced Liquid Cooling) Cooler Master Elite 430 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti - 6 GB - (MSI) Twin Frozr V - (PCI-E) And my other machine Windows 10 Home 64 Memory, standard 6 GB DDR3L SDRAM (1 x 2 GB, 1 x 4 GB) Hard drive description 1 TB 5400 rpm SATA Processor family Intel® Core™ i5 processor Processor Intel® Core™ i5-6200U with Intel® HD Graphics 520 (2.3 GHz, up to 2.8 GHz, 3 MB cache, 2 cores) Display 39.6 cm (15.6") diagonal FHD anti-glare WLED-backlit (1920 x 1080) Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 940M (2 GB DDR3L dedicated) Although i have just replaced the HDD for an SSD 500Gb and doubled the Ram. Gaming rig runs everything on ULTRA settings, and i have messed with the config files to extend that even further. No problem IN the game at all ! Laptop does Ok on Medium to High settings, Gets around 75+ Fps in space around 45Fps on a planet or planet base, Engineering bases it drops lower to about 35fps but i can live with that ! Edit i also upgrade the PC sound card to a decent sound blaster that supports Dolby though my full Surround sound Sonos system

Now THAT is what I like to see. Information

Well at least we can compare "high end PC's" now

It's not a slow rig by any means. Does it have 8GB or 16GB currently as you said you doubled the RAM? I ask as rule of thumb for System RAM for gaming machines is double what the Gfx card has.

Good to see the 500GB Evo 850 in there, I run off the same for Elite. If you are getting longer than 15-20s for the mission board then there's another issue somewhere as the specs for the PC are perfectly adequate for reasonable gaming on Ultra with Elite.

For the laptop ditch that 1TB 5400RPM drive. Get another 500GB 850 Evo and you'll boost performance measurably. Maybe not extending the GPU performance much but responsiveness will definitely be up there with the gaming rig. Other than that it's a reasonable laptop though with the 940m I wouldn't consider it a gaming laptop, more just a decent one

Just doing a packet check on the mission board and I'm seeing only a single (sometimes double) request packet and then around 3-7s later for a mission acceptance a single confirmation packet. Same for board access but it seems to take around 12-18s on average for the reply. As a reminder I'm in Australia on one of the dodgiest Net connections you can get (Telstra copper for the win ).

Using TCP View you can see what's going on, see if that request packet is firing off correctly and if you are receiving that confirmation. If it's taking forever just for that. Then you can test putting your PC in the DMZ (non-firewalled connection) of your router and see if it speeds up the connection. If that works then it's a porting issue on the router, more port forwarding to play with or maybe even at worst a replacement router. If that doesn't fix the issue, it maybe worth testing with a tethered 4G mobile connection to the PC/Laptop to see if that will speed things up from a connection point of view. If it does that points to a routing issue, the Router itself or the ISP as the primary suspects. Secondary targets would be FDev and the Servers/Server Hosts as causes of the issues, however as it's only a small minority of the playerbase suffering this issue it's a much smaller percentage chance.

Another thing I've noticed is that on Ultra my 4GB card is hitting it's Memory Max most of the time. Menu's in particular seem to be really hard on the GPU for some reason too. Not sure why but it's the case. Performance wise I'm getting around 120-150 FPS most of the time, with drops to around 70-80 in rocky planet rings and down to 45-50 in foggy icey planet rings. Probably a fault of my R9 290 more than anything else

I've also noticed a bit of a memory leak on my system in longer sessions. It can reach some pretty high amounts exceeding 10GB at times in active memory which is a bit odd. When that happens I tend to get Audio corruption and some frame skipping. Not fun! I do have 32GB of RAM so it doesn't hard lock or freeze my PC though and doesn't seem to go much past 10GB either.

Would love to see a DX12 version of the game

For comparison my PC Specs:
i7 3930K Sandy-Bridge @ 3.5GHz (normally 4.25GHz but need to attach new cooler!)
32GB 2400MHz Corsair Vengeance @ 2000MHz (due to boot strap).
Sapphire R9 290 OC @ 1100MHz Core and 1375MHz Memory
500GB Samsung Evo 850 System
5x Storage HD's (most 3TB)
Corsair AX1200 PSU
Corsair H100i CPU Cooler (my new cooler about to be attached!)
Soundblaster SB880

 

[StiTch]

I've also noticed a bit of a memory leak on my system in longer sessions. It can reach some pretty high amounts exceeding 10GB at times in active memory which is a bit odd. When that happens I tend to get Audio corruption and some frame skipping. Not fun! I do have 32GB of RAM so it doesn't hard lock or freeze my PC though and doesn't seem to go much past 10GB either.

You got VR going? I remember something about VR users getting strong memory leaks in ED, but not seen so much elsewhere.