Can the Cobra engine handle detailed populated planets with cities?

[ArchEmperor]

Ancient Cities in Elite, like todays cities, are easy to produce procedurally. But future cities are 3D hives and have floating skyscrapers (may be called Skysites) littered all over. To produce these "spheres" of buildings Cobra could use the planet surface code with some modification, combined with advanced cave modification ( Caves because roads in Skysites are 3D tunnels, like a spiders web, tree-leaf-veins or long-hair hubs. And recreational areas are hollows in the Skysites. )

Skysites allow for the entire surface of a World to remain unaltered in its terraformed, or original state. Skysites may disguise themselves as clouds in the stratosphere of inhabited worlds which have not yet been deemed eligible for contact. ( Prime Directive version )

That leaves the entire glory and imaginative surfaces and interiors of Worlds for Elite players to discover and explore in its primal natural state. Thick electromagnetic strato- clouds, Deep jungles, thick marshes, rocky pillar cataclysms and abysmal abysses. All inhabited by mystical, magical and sometimes artificial entities worthy of first discovery.

Skysites may also be put in the lower cloudbase, although not recommended due to glitches revealing the camouflaged cities.
https://youtu.be/C1EhcaKmy2E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Jx18onEgE

 

[DaveB]

I'm a console player, so I'm definitely interested in this aspect. I bet my console could, if cities were "no fly zones" under a certain altitude. I run FS2004 in fairly old hardware via Wine on Linux, and the cities render surprisingly well on this old, very much NOT a gaming machine. There are many tricks that FDev can do to make a city look alive and 3D at altitude that won't be a computational burden.

People do need to have reasonable expectations. Every city can't be "Grand Theft Auto" or "Paradise City". Like I said, make it so you can fly over it, but if you try to land on the city streets, you get shot down (just like IRL). This is a space / flight sim after all, not a city sim.

-- edit --

Concept ninja'd !!

Exactly this - If it's a reasonably designed "city" the "streets" are not likely to be big enough to land even a sidey on anyway. Maybe some of the bigger structures might have rooftop pads but I doubt any of them would be bigger than medium size. Other than that there'd be spaceports where you'd find most of the pads. Likely at some distance from the city proper too, because you really don't want the dumb pilot off making a coffee while his DC handles the landing putting a crater in the middle of your downtown business district by dropping a few hundred tons of metal, several tons of fuel, a hot fusion plant, bunkers full of live ammo and field generators that can do unpleasant things to the very fabric of space-time (you know, that bunch of stuff they sometimes call a "ship") on it. "Below (x) AGL within city limits" would probably count as "loitering" unless you had a pad assigned.

 

[ConfusedRaccoon]

Using PC as a comparison isn't very good. Once you get 1k to 1.5k guests in your park the frames really start to slow down.(on an OCed 1080, i7 and ram + ssd) So rendering an entire city with population of hundreds of thousands if not millions, even at a really low poly count and baked in movement patterns my guess is it would struggle very hard. Also remember it needs to do the flight model for yours and every other ship nearby, the sky box and all the other sparkles. But, this is without knowing if the engine is even working to its maximum atm. It could only be running at 50%. Probably not the case but I've not seen or heard anything to say otherwise, please do educate me.

heh, read some more posts and I kinda agree with the "no fly zone" over the city limits. That would help a bunch. But still, take the UK for instance. in 3303 I'm quite sure it's one entire city (not been to sol for a year or two now). Now a type 7 can just about fit inside a football stadium. That's still a fairly hefty sized city to render. 242.5k Km squared roughly.

 

[killminster]

Also, cobra will be switching to DX12 or Vulcan for the next release, which should benefit performance.

Oooh interesting do you have a source for that? Other than the post that said (paraphrasing) "we're thinking about it; what do you think about it? we'll let you know at least 6 months prior if we do decide to change anything..."

 

[Codger]

There are already small towns in the game, and quite detailed. No "life" in them, yet, but still, it shows a bit of what the engine is capable of. I'm sure the talented folks at FD can figure something out.

Here's a little video of one of the current towns. I'm looking forward to more stuff to do in these kinds of places!

[video=youtube;tOAkAPvRwNo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOAkAPvRwNo[/video]

 

[GG7]

I'd think you need to look at your elite setup.(and card setup)

I run a 560Ti , sure you can hear the fan running hard when in stations or when bouncing around in a SRV.
I spent a good hr or so tweaking my ED setting to get the best I could out of my rig, ok it is'nt 4K with ultra detail, but I'm happy with 1920*1080 with some stuff on medium and some details on high
Stutter? occasionally if theres lots of ships in a station, but nothing to complain about, the only real thing I'd say is a downer GFX wise is the time it takes loading the asteroids into a RES after you drop in.

Bill

Other setup info here
Intel I7-2600@3.4ghz
8 gig ram
win 7 sp1

Apples and Oranges if you are not duplicating my MAXED setting profile I mentioned earlier.

FYI: I get ZERO frame rate or frame time drops when I am on a planet with the SRV. Zero. Locked 60fps 17ms Frametime for as long as I care to spend time on any landable planet in the game.

I spent over 2 hours on a planet the other day and monitored the session. No drops at all and with all ED graphics settings set as high as they go, including Supersample at 2.0. Boost clock was pegged at 2070mhz the entire time though. It didn't drop back down to base clock 1599mhz until I left the planet and jumped into SC.

When I returned to Medupe City in Cubio, the second I dropped out of SC, the fps dropped to 52-56fps and frame times rose to 19-21ms. This erratic behavior lasted for almost 40 seconds. I get nearly the same thing gliding into a Planetary base, just before and after the transition. (This didn't happen in 2.2.03 with my 980ti, so this particular bottleneck was introduced in 2.3 Beta and the release) My 980ti suffered with it, and now my 1080ti is suffering with it in exactly the same way. The FPS drops are more or less identical between the two cards, even though the 1080ti is almost 100% faster.

This OCed 1080ti can run GTA5 Online at a locked 60fps/17ms all day long. Battlefield 1 and numerous other far more demanding games the same thing. All running with settings maxed as high as they go at 1080p 60Hz.

No one is going to convince me that this has anything to do with my rig. The suggestion is preposterous when you review my FPS results over 8 different games. Only ED causes these issues and only at these two specific asset locations within the game. Where I come from, we tend to call a spade a spade.

And several long time players of ED have already commented in this thread that FPS issues in and around stations is a LONG STANDING issue with this game, and has seen tons of bandwidth expended on the specific cause. While it has improved over the last 2.5 years, there is still a bottleneck going on here that is many cases is unrelated to the user's hardware spec., although high performance systems with 980ti and higher GPUs seeming to suffer from it more often as a group.

Blow this all off if you like, but for those of us who have this problem, it is an obvious Cobra Engine created phenomenon whether you or anyone else cares to believe it.

Any time a game causes a powerful, performance tested GPU to choke, you don't blame the GPU. Especially when it has proven itself time and time again in other far more demanding games. I find it daft to even suggest such a ridiculous notion. But...We are on the Frontier Forums, where nothing is too ridiculous to suggest.

 

[DukeIronHand]

Probably not, but as long as you think so.

Seem to run great for me with the same card.
I may get a slight hiccup once a session and totally unpredictable when and where that may occur.
Overall though I am very happy with the 970's performance on Ultra.

 

[Siranui]

But future cities are 3D hives and have floating skyscrapers (may be called Skysites) littered all over.

They do?

 

[GG7]

Seem to run great for me with the same card.
I may get a slight hiccup once a session and totally unpredictable when and where that may occur.
Overall though I am very happy with the 970's performance on Ultra.

Good for you.

Hundreds of other users have quite the opposite opinion. We are very unhappy and unimpressed with the engine optimization in this game compared to the rest of our library. The fact that a portion of the community continues to suffer from these inexplicable FPS drops with high performance hardware should be a concern to everyone.

Even those who for whatever reason don't notice it, or legitimately don't experience it.

For the record, I have yet to read a positive experience with these stutter prone areas from anyone running a 1080ti. Only from those running lower performance GPUs with less than 100% maximum settings both in-game and in their GPU settings control panel.

I really hope FD gets their act together in the near future and addresses this obvious problem. Either through a rebuilding of the station/bases assets library to optimize GPU load, or something else that only FD would know about.

The issue of FPS problems with Elite Dangerous is one of the deadest horses you can find around here. Those who are surprised by these reports should educate themselves as to the history of this long standing issue with this game.

In the meantime, and back to the topic of this thread... The thought of this engine being able to render a city like the one found in GTA5 and do it without choking is laughable.

 

[hems303]

Funny I have a 970 GTX and it's running smooth as silk...

Ditto!

 

[Oddball]

Then again, Cobra can already do what CryEngine after many years cant. As CIG has learned.

If that is the case then why doesn't the game look as good as Star Citizen? So you are incorrect.

 

[Kubicide]

OK well I ignored the rest of your guff. I'm currently powered off looking up from the planet surface at a flower ship with a very frozen windscreen - so no - it hasn't been removed... not at all.
And for the record, I'm playing quite happily on a core2-duo quad q6600 (i think as can't be bothered to look at precise name) which must be 9-10 years old with a 4gb nVidia 750ti card - and high/ultra settings for mostly 30-60fps - so this cobra engine you diss isn't that unforgiving is it?

(yes there are lower fps exception in stations, which i think is perhaps due to ai ship docking and my pc's limited cpu - still 20fps+ tho)

[edit] frosty

Spoiler

before I crashed below the flower - but frozen + shutdown non the less
http://i.imgur.com/OyECSLS.png

Ok, but that is 'factually' not my experience, and that is my point, which seems to indicate the problem lies elsewhere.
You say lower detail compared to before? yet most of what people refer to from back then is simply a texture change inside ships and such, which is not really going to affect performance, but it is simply a design, not the whole "reduce details to increase performance" as many seem to indicate? unless you have hard proof at best it is speculation, unless you have solid proof, at best you are speculating.
The whole "the graphics changed and I don't like it" they must be nerfing them to increase performance, while yes it 'can' be true, it would make absolutely no development sense, it seems simply they moved away from the rustic design, it could be, if you look because of the lighting engine change they saw that the way the rustic looked with the new lighting engine looked bad? again, we do not know.

So yeah, its observations, but they are in no way 'factual' at best they are speculative. And add to that that you apparently aren't reading my post. I'm saying "they can make it able to handle." I never said it could handle right now, so yeah, what "proof" do I need to make to said statement?
But yes, stations have had bad performance, but its improved significantly, and I'm not saying it is perfect, I'm saying its their in home engine, they can make any and all optimisations and changes that they feel are needed. But saying "stations are bad performance so engine sucks" yet at the same time you have an engine that generates a massive amount of terrain, which I can tell you, is a significantly tough task to ask a GPU, maybe just maybe the reason for stations when they had bad performance, had another reason? you know, something unintended they worked on fixing? It is almost as if it is more complicated then any 'player' observation could simply make?

As for the 'freezing window' It is fully still there so I'm not sure what you are talking about.
But I would love to hear about "all the others features removed" because last I checked, its "design change choices" that you don't like and not feature removal, again, average player really knows very little about mechanics, and has no understanding of how stuff behind the scene's work, and while sure anyone online can claim to be anyone, you can look up more or less all i've said on development sites read about how stuff works, and maybe get an idea how complicated it is?
So yeah, again, I'm not saying Elite is perfect, I'm saying, the cobra engine can be changed to support more or less anything since they know the game fully it is their in house engine, please actually read what I write, and don't make assumptions on what I said, because that just makes you plain and simply wrong, when you for example, say that I said "It is capable" vs what I actually said "They can make it capable" big difference.

Both of you are referring to the already 'watered down' freezing effect - one that the Cobra engine can handle. Go back and search YouTube or other archives for the original freezing effect that also took place when jumping, and also how much more detailed it was during silent running. It was a very different effect back then and even FDev themselves commented it was downgraded / removed due to performance reasons.

And 20fps in a station should be a clear sign as to how the game engine will struggle if there's more 3D elements. Stations have such little content and yet the game engine struggles, and this level of content today is nothing like what cities would have as the OP has described.

It's interesting to see so many making hopeful assumptions and pure speculation that the Cobra engine is such an incredible thing and can do anything. But there's zero evidence to support any claim that the Cobra engine can do more than what we have today in Elite. Zero. But there is clear evidence it struggles with what's been implemented so far.

 

[DaveB]

Good for you.

Hundreds of other users have quite the opposite opinion. We are very unhappy and unimpressed with the engine optimization in this game compared to the rest of our library. The fact that a portion of the community continues to suffer from these inexplicable FPS drops with high performance hardware should be a concern to everyone.

Even those who for whatever reason don't notice it, or legitimately don't experience it.

For the record, I have yet to read a positive experience with these stutter prone areas from anyone running a 1080ti. Only from those running lower performance GPUs with less than 100% maximum settings both in-game and in their GPU settings control panel.

I really hope FD gets their act together in the near future and addresses this obvious problem. Either through a rebuilding of the station/bases assets library to optimize GPU load, or something else that only FD would know about.

And this is my last post on this topic. This issue is one of the deadest horses you can find around here. Those who are surprised by these reports should educate themselves as to the history of this long standing issue with this game.

In the meantime, and back to the topic of this thread... The thought of this engine being able to render a city like the one found in GTA5 and do it without choking is laughable.

Fair enough, Madame Gigi. *plonk*

 

[smartroad]

Everyone is always so negative about FD...

My post wasn't negative, at least I never intended it that way. I think that FD have done a great job on the game, sure they have dropped the ball on occasion (CQC is one for me, it should be available as part of the main game, not a shoehorned in side show), but given the game size and complexity it is an amazing bit of software.

Now they seem to be ready to stop adding in 'head-line' features and concentrate on using what they have to make a more in depth experience. I still hope they will be adding in more features as they go though. Atmospheric 'dead' planets are one thing I would love to see, more things to do on planets etc. But I hope they add more into the planet generation to allow caves and overhangs, for example.

I am enough of a realist to understand that atmo planets with life are probably a while off, doesn't stop me dreaming of being able to walk around fully realised planets and cities with populations

 

[Wotthe Dickens]

OP

I think it would be cool to see a few people in eva suits doing repairs outside stations. A few people walking around in eva suits on planet stations. Think of people as tiny spaceships.

I'd have to dig it up to check but I recall watching David Braben talking about this:
It worried me because he said something like 'oh, we could have repairmen in eva around spaceships but of course, people would just ram them and squash them. [ha haha]'.
It made me feel that he was dismissing the idea because it would be exploited rather than considering how to implement it and make it not exploited. [apologies for the use of the word exploited! and for not digging up the video ]

 

[GG7]

Both of you are referring to the already 'watered down' freezing effect - one that the Cobra engine can handle. Go back and search YouTube or other archives for the original freezing effect that also took place when jumping, and also how much more detailed it was during silent running. It was a very different effect back then and even FDev themselves commented it was downgraded / removed due to performance reasons.

And 20fps in a station should be a clear sign as to how the game engine will struggle if there's more 3D elements. Stations have such little content and yet the game engine struggles, and this level of content today is nothing like what cities would have as the OP has described.

It's interesting to see so many making hopeful assumptions and pure speculation that the Cobra engine is such an incredible thing and can do anything. But there's zero evidence to support any claim that the Cobra engine can do more than what we have today in Elite. Zero. But there is clear evidence it struggles with what's been implemented so far.

Good points! I don't see how anyone can have such unwavering confidence in a game engine when there is a 3 year history of FPS related issues with the game. A sizable number of users reporting various FPS issues going all the way back to the original release.

You can search "Elite Dangerous FPS Drops" in Google and find forum threads as old as 2014. A good majority are referring to issues in and around stations, and after Horizons, at planetary bases as well, so ED and FPS problems have gone hand in hand pretty much since day one.

I forgot to mention in my last post that switching my 1080ti back to the factory OC bios (I have two bios on this card) produced identical FPS drop numbers, yet ironically, the Frame Rate and Frame Time numbers while on a planet with the SRV were basically the same LOCKED 60fps 17ms I get with my own 2070mhz boost clock setting.

Based on this, I have decided to not bother running with my 2070mhz OC with ED, because it buys me nothing and runs the card about 8 C hotter over extended planetary adventures than at the factory OC numbers. (1569 base / 1987 boost)

Also worth noting, that the one area of the game where I have the most reliable performance with a locked 60fps/17ms ft is the same area of the game where most lower powered GPUs struggle to maintain a decent fps.

Yet, I can't jump into a station or base without severe stuttering and frame drops? Explain to me again how that would point to my hardware config. and not the game's engine?

At the end of the day, I primarily bought this new card for ED and it sucks I have to run something else like GTA5 Online to truly appreciate the monster performance this awesome new 1080ti can pump out.

Hands down the best GTA5 experience I have ever had and it feels in many ways like a brand new game compared to how it looked and performed with my 980ti. Makes sense though considering the 1080ti is almost 100% faster.

Too bad the Cobra Engine is incapable of taking advantage of that additional horsepower.

 

[Old Duck]

Both of you are referring to the already 'watered down' freezing effect - one that the Cobra engine can handle. Go back and search YouTube or other archives for the original freezing effect that also took place when jumping, and also how much more detailed it was during silent running. It was a very different effect back then and even FDev themselves commented it was downgraded / removed due to performance reasons.

And 20fps in a station should be a clear sign as to how the game engine will struggle if there's more 3D elements. Stations have such little content and yet the game engine struggles, and this level of content today is nothing like what cities would have as the OP has described.

Your two paragraphs are not related. Complex GPU shaders are required to render the effect of light passing through a "frosty" layer. It's the reason iOS 7 did not implement Apple's new (at the time) "Frosted glass" effect on older iPhones and iPads. This is completely different than the GPU's ability to render 3D polygons. Apples (pun) and oranges.

Ironically the realistic clouds, like we might find when we can fly through the atmospheres of gas giants, may be more GPU-intense than rendering cities on the ground. Particle & "smoke" effects (especially 3D) are especially challenging, at least on the older GPUs that I'm familiar with.

 

[Kubicide]

Your two paragraphs are not related. Complex GPU shaders are required to render the effect of light passing through a "frosty" layer. It's the reason iOS 7 did not implement Apple's new (at the time) "Frosted glass" effect on older iPhones and iPads. This is completely different than the GPU's ability to render 3D polygons. Apples (pun) and oranges.

Ironically the realistic clouds, like we might find when we can fly through the atmospheres of gas giants, may be more GPU-intense than rendering cities on the ground. Particle & "smoke" effects (especially 3D) are especially challenging, at least on the older GPUs that I'm familiar with.

The two paragraphs were not meant to be related by some specific technical implementation. First one is a response to two references of the same freezing effect and how it's now much less than it was originally. The second paragraph is a response to a new point raised by one previous poster. But both are examples of the Cobra engine being taxed as the freezing effect was apparently 'too much' hence its change and removal from jumps, and the FPS impact in stations - which really are not very complex elements compared to what we see in typical games of 2016/2017 - is still present. Hope this helps explains the post!

 

[GG7]

The slowest of which will always be the hard drive.

Yeah...It must be my 512GB Samsung 950 PRO M.2 NVMe that is just too slow to run ED. [haha]

Keep on blaming the user's hardware and we will NEVER see these optimization issues seriously addressed.

Bu what do I know? I've only been building custom gaming rigs for nearly 30 years.

 

[GG7]

Sounds like your PC spec is more of the issue than the engine.

Yawn.