Can the Cobra engine handle detailed populated planets with cities?
- Thread starter BlackSpaceCowboy
- Start date
Just look up The Outsider and you'll see what can be done.
I suspect that these issues (and some others mentioned in this thread) have absolutely no relevance to this discussion; that is, they are issues with the game itself and not the Cobra engine.
Without inspecting the Cobra code and timings, all of this is idle speculation.
Even the slowdowns at stations and planets may have nothing to do with the Cobra engine, although they might. I think some of the slowdowns are due to excessive overdraw (rendering pixels of distant objects, which are later covered by objects which are closer) and excessive levels of detail (distant objects are rendered with too much unnecessary detail). The slowdowns at stations could be due to these 2 issues and possibly one other: Not properly streaming textures and geometry, which can overload the CPU, even if the GPU isn't overly taxed. The slowdown in stations when displaying menus is definitely impacted by overdraw, since the menus are semi-transparent. If the menus were opaque, the framerate would be much higher (assuming occlusion is properly implemented).
Some of this is under the player's control. Excessive geometry detail is absolutely part of the problem, since if I reduce the graphics quality from Ultra, my framerate greatly improves inside of stations.
This means it is almost certain that the Cobra engine can handle rendering planets with atmospheres, cities, and forests, it's just a matter of adjusting the graphics load to be something reasonable, for the individual player's hardware.
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![Derek Speare [VR]](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/41/41928.jpg?1617759029){kind=avatar}
Add the VR variable and recompute...Planets are already a full sysload in VR...
I'm not so sure how big a deal that is - it's not like it has to generate the whole city/planet at a time - just the region you're currently in. The trick would be (I assume) to simply have the bare bones information loaded in for a large PG area, and have it resolve as you get closer - not unlike planetary terrain.
I have a 1080ti as well running in VR and I have not seen this frame rate drop. If I had it would have caused me to vomit many many times over because of the frame drop in the HMD.
I think perhaps his issue is with the global settings conflicting with the in game settings.
You make some interesting points. I am running an Intel i7 6700k overclocked to 4.6ghz along with all the other hardware I already mentioned in earlier posts. When I see these drops at stations and bases etc. my CPU demand is always under 35% and the temp never gets above the high 30s the entire time I play ED. (more often than not it hovers at around 30 C on water even though I often play for 8-12 hours at a time) Similarly, at the time I get these drops, my boost clock is often not even activated, and GPU demand is less than 35% as well.
In fact, my 1080ti only kicks into boost at a station when I enter the mail slot. There it will stay for my entire stay inside that station. I can get the card to drop to base if I lower the Supersampling to 1.0 or 1.25, but the game looks 100% better at 2.0, so I refuse to downgrade the look of the game after spending 750 bucks on a new GPU!
I have also experience stuttering while my OSD is showing 60fps 17ms.
I suspect the engine because that is the code in the game that delivers content to the GPU/CPU of our rigs. If it is choking for whatever reason and dropping frames before they get to the GPU, that would produce precisely the numbers and on screen stuttering we see.
How many new games have suffered from similar optimization issues? TONS! However, the developers of those IPs seem to eventually figure out the problem and fix it with a patch or two. ED is the only game I own with a 3 year history of this issue that has yet to resolve it for ALL users.
As I said earlier...It really sucks that I have to load up one of my far more demanding games to experience the HUGE performance bump this GPU can provide, since the only tangible improvement I have found in ED so far is the locked 60fps on planets with the SRV.
While that is a nice improvement, I was expecting an across the board bump like I see with all my other favorite games. No such luck.
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I'm starting to think you do not realize that this enormous project is Work in Progress.
FD is forced to make choices what to do first.
They have stated from the start that creating everything they want would take at least 10 years.
You seem to be one of those who want every personal wish to get prioritized, because you say so..
Looking through this thread, it seems like people the the ultra-high end systems are the ones having the problems, while as people with "good but not best" are not. I have a point to make, but I want to make sure I'm reading this correctly.
Can the engine support populated cities?
Planet Coaster implies yes.
Can it support cities that wont be a disappointment to many?
Based on the usual unrealistic expectations people have of a computer game I'd say not a chance.
A huge ammount of the criticism thrown at FDEV comes from this. The game so many people want just aint possible.
Planet Coaster implies yes.
Can it support cities that wont be a disappointment to many?
Based on the usual unrealistic expectations people have of a computer game I'd say not a chance.
A huge ammount of the criticism thrown at FDEV comes from this. The game so many people want just aint possible.
I have reached the same conclusion. The question comes down to WHICH settings combo is pulling different assets that cause the engine to choke. The drops I get are 100% reproducable at these specific locations within the game. Other areas that are more demanding on the GPU/CPU run like butter. Hardly evidence of a hardware issue with my system.
So... I'm personally done arguing with the "Its your hardware" crowd. They never bother to read other posts before throwing in their two cents which is usually totally off base and clueless.
But you can "always" find them in all of these types of threads.
This latest 1080ti related FPS complaint is no exception:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/347399-FPS-loss-with-1080Ti?highlight=1080ti+fps+drops
Search the forums for dozens more.
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That is an important point.
That is why I said earlier that FD should perhaps not try to give us access to entire cities at all. I think they should keep in mind that this is first and foremost a spacesim.
Smaller Starport Hubs in cities where we can land, with access to relevant services and associated npc's would be the best solution I believe.
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You have mentioned your graphics card:-
But you have ignored requests for information about the other specifications of your rig.
I am sorry but basis for your claims about ED's engine being broken is seriously flawed based on the information to hand.
You can not ignore RAM or CPU where overall performance is concerned in a game engine performance context.
It sounds to me based on my personal experience (and at least some others) with ED's overall performance that there may be an underlying problem with your hardware (or physical system) configuration and/or your expectations wrt the performance you are getting out of it.
FTR I do not use a SSD for any part of my current configuration, but I do have 64GB of DDR4 RAM and a high-end 10-Core/20-Thread CPU paired with my 980 Ti. I have heard of some issues with some engines scaling performance wrt higher end graphics cards but I do not believe that this is the case with ED based on anecdotal evidence to date. My guess is that some other bottleneck in your system is probably the root cause of the issues you are experiencing (either that or a faulty card - it does happen).
You have STILL NOT ANSWERED the questions about your overall rig configuration thus of course people may jump to conclusions. You keep bringing up the graphics card aspect and NOTHING else, if you actually answered the questions (rather than evading/ignoring them) perhaps people would not need to jump to conclusions.
I have seen 100% repeatable stutter issues with specific game engines under specific circumstances but after reporting these issues to the relevant developer they normally get addressed eventually. However, you need to be VERY specific with your test criteria and thus far I have not noted any description of the issue you are encountering that would actually qualify. If you care to specify the EXACT circumstances (Star System, Planet, Lat/Long/Alt/Heading) for at least one occurrence where you are getting the issues you are reporting then perhaps people may be inclined to try and reproduce the issue on their rigs. In addition, FD may actually be able to get a better idea as to what the underlying root cause might be. A dxdiag report would not go amiss either.
Overall though, while your claims may be indicative of a bug either in specific artistic assets or part of the game engine - it is far from a conclusive indication that the ED engine it self is "broken". That kind of hyperbole is bound to draw ridicule from people who have never seen the issue you are claiming you are experiencing.
Okay, now I can make my point. Back when I was doing serious PC gaming, I ran into a similar issue where updating my graphics card actually caused some of my older games to run slower or lose features like self-shadowing. My research back in the day seemed to imply that newer cards dropped support for some older features because they were replaced by "better" features in the newer cards / DX version. Unfortunately many games did not support these new features, and thus my upgrade became an expensive downgrade. I believe this was the switch from DX7 to DX8, but it was long ago, so don't quote me. Whatever the details, it was very frustrating to me, and it was one of the many reasons that pushed me to become a console gamer.
I wonder if ED players are seeing something similar. Has anyone ever done a hardware comparison to see which vender & brand of video card does best with Elite? It shouldn't matter, but I had to do this back in the day with Microsoft Flight Sim, Ubisoft Silent Hunter, and others. ED would not be the first game that doesn't scale properly with raw hardware specs.
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I am not convinced YET that the problem is related specifically to high end cards, there have been reports of other players with the same top end cards that have not encountered the issue claimed by some but then the exact circumstances of the claimed issue(s) are currently unclear at best.
Overall, it is more a tech support issue than a true indication that the game engine is fundamentally flawed - and therefore largely off-topic, but it is probably worth investigating the details of what some are claiming they are experiencing. However, we need them to co-operate in the discussion and thus far they seem unwilling to do so.
The same. When I'm wrong, I admit it. Not that it feels good, but I believe in being honest. That said, I do hope this comes about. I'm still quite new to the game, and space is vast and empty. I'd like to see life in the places where living beings congregate, like stations and cities. One of the reasons I stopped enjoying my simulators (train, flight, etc), is that all of the worlds look barren, not a soul in sight.
I am not convinced it is a feature support issue like you may have encountered in the past. There are at-least some other people with 10xx series cards do not seem to have encountered the same issue.
We are however missing crucial details (Ship, Star System, Planet, Lat, Lon, Alt, Hdg, and precise steps to repeat) of where the alleged repeatable issue(s) are supposed to occur.
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