Can the Cobra engine handle detailed populated planets with cities?

[GG7]

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.

Well, I see no evidence of FD supporting the 11 gigs of DDR5x I have sitting here largely unused when I load up ED. It never gets above about 4750 MB. That right there is one major area of newer tech that would improve graphics performance and take some strain off their engine.

But I keep coming back to the fact that the most demanding areas of the game run perfectly smooth for me with this card. Basically a locked 60fps 17ms for hours at a stretch. But drop into a station or base from SC, and everything falls apart for well over a half a minute sometimes. Sure looks like a game engine crapping the bed to me.

After the dozens of closed and open betas I have been involved with on both PC and consoles, you tend to recognize a duck when you see one.

 

[GG7]

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.

I have yet to drop into a station or glide into a base that doesn't suffer from these drops. Ship makes no difference. Time of day on the planet also makes no difference. Type of station or base design used at the location also makes no difference.

So basically, the problem is 100% reproducible regardless of station or planet base location. The drops at planetary bases only surfaced during the 2.3 Beta, and while it was reported numerous times in the Bug Report section, it remains unaddressed in 2.3.02 today.

Bottom line here...

It really doesn't matter that there are players who are not having this problem. There are obviously a sizable number of player who are, and that should raise some red flags with someone at FDEV. Provided of course they give a groat about supporting everyone who purchased and continue to support this game.

 

[lenna]

Well, I see no evidence of FD supporting the 11 gigs of DDR5x I have sitting here largely unused when I load up ED. It never gets above about 4750 MB. That right there is one major area of newer tech that would improve graphics performance and take some strain off their engine.

Not necessarily an FD issue...

But I keep coming back to the fact that the most demanding areas of the game run perfectly smooth for me with this card. Basically a locked 60fps 17ms for hours at a stretch. But drop into a station or base from SC, and everything falls apart for well over a half a minute sometimes. Sure looks like a game engine crapping the bed to me.

I am sure if this was happening with EVERYONE with a 1080 Ti that the problem would be more widely accepted as being "specifically" a bug with the engine.

I'm getting 100-160 FPS around stations in 4k with a stock 1080Ti. [???]

The claim by bitstorm earlier in this thread does seem to indicate that the problem is far from a universal issue, and ALL angles need to be considered.

@GG7: What synch settings are you using in the NVidia control panel? Have you tried using other synch settings?

 

[Cosmo]

Probably:

https://www.planetcoaster.com/en?gc..._g-fdmmKAtFq5yFqAYI3-laS39A6lTdzxUaAlMk8P8HAQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esL8Bm1Ltao

Probably: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glr71X-cr84

Yes all these games use the Cobra Engine. I think the walking NPCs at stations and settlements will use the NPC crowd technology of Planet Coaster. Because it works already and they aren't gonna waste their budget to develop something completely new.

[video=youtube;VFivg1Ty1xQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFivg1Ty1xQ[/video]

 

[lenna]

It really doesn't matter that there are players who are not having this problem. There are obviously a sizable number of player who are, and that should raise some red flags with someone at FDEV. Provided of course they give a groat about supporting everyone who purchased and continue to support this game.

I disagree with your summary "hyperbole" judgement about the game engine being broken and I am sure FD have not completely ignored the issue. However, unless they can replicate the problem it would be nigh on impossible for them to be able to identify the root cause of the issue. Even then, it is not unknown for certain "repeatable" issues to occur consistently on one item of hardware and not occur at all on another item of hardware with EXACTLY the same configuration.

That being said, the fact that some players are not having this problem and at least some are reporting far higher frame rates than you are (with stock versions of your card plus allegedly higher resolutions) could be indicative of other issues being in play (other than technically a bug with the game engine).

 

[Y2K]

Probably not, but as long as you think so.

oddly it runs smooth as silk on my system too, and thats in VR.

 

[GG7]

oddly it runs smooth as silk on my system too, and thats in VR.

Funny...About a year ago, a good chunk of the community complained about the stuttering and hitching during the Hyperspace Tunnel sequence. You can go back through the forums during that time and find dozens of comments like yours claiming that this transition/loading sequence ran perfectly smooth for them. Others blaming the user's hardware for the problem, which for some seems to be their broken record response to any performance complaints posted here.

Fast forward to today and the new and improved Hyperspace sequence runs stutter and hitch free for pretty much everyone on the PC. Frontier obviously changed something to bring that all about.

I am pretty confident these problem areas of the game could see similar improvements if FDEV would actually take these reports seriously enough to look into it. Maybe build a few high end rigs, configure them with the reported hardware and settings and see what kind of performance they get.

I mentioned earlier, that I have actually seen these drops on Ed's PC during some of the Live Streams. It is blatantly obvious to anyone who has experienced this issue when you see it repeated on another system. But... Ed is either too busy with the stream to notice/care, or they are aware of it and choose to pretend it isn't there.

Others likely assume it is a glitch in the streaming feed instead of video proof of the problem running on an FDEV PC.

 

[EdzUp]

For one thing dropped frames can be down to anything from hardware or even the OS stating it's Cobra is a bit premature.

 

[GG7]

That being said, the fact that some players are not having this problem and at least some are reporting far higher frame rates than you are (with stock versions of your card plus allegedly higher resolutions) could be indicative of other issues being in play (other than technically a bug with the game engine).

Whatever...

Another broken record response.

The problem is real. Denying it makes no difference to those who have done the testing and compared performance with other games using the identical hardware.

And once again, since you obviously didn't bother to actually READ my previous posts, you missed the part where I pointed out that I get a locked 60fps on planets with my SRV. One of the most demanding areas of the game. Never heard of a user hardware issue being so selective about where it decides to crap out. Choosing to drop frames at far less demanding sections, but running perfectly on the highest demand sections.

A broken game engine on the other hand is notorious for this kind of behavior.

FYI: I am running at 1080p 60hz. The nature of my display's spec locks my FPS to 60fps 17ms frame time. As long as I output to this 55" panel, I can't run any higher frame rates than 60. Has nothing to do with my card.

Could be higher resolutions are immune or less effected by whatever this is. Ever consider that?

As usual, any talk of performance issues with this game always descends into blaming the user's hardware, ignoring the details of their actual reports, while holding a halo over FD's head as if they can do no wrong.

What a joke.

 

[davedf]

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..."

I stand corrected, that was the post I was [mis]remembering

 

[lenna]

...

Overall, your gripe is a support issue. It is not a true indication of a broken engine.

Based on your earlier post(s) I have to assume that you have V-Sync turned on and have not tried using the NVidia control panel alternative settings for V-Synch control. I would recommend at least checking out the Adaptive Half-Refresh setting for starters.

Secondly, given your problem description to date I would suggest checking your anti-virus settings (assuming you have AV installed, as I have had some AV interfere with the loading of game assets before).

In addition, assuming that you are not using and SSD. A targeted defragmentation of the ED game folder may be worth trying (the contig tool from the Microsoft web site can help with that).

I have had several games (and other software) over the years behave strangely for apparently inexplicable reasons, and sometimes a completely clean OS install has worked around the problems (other times it changed nothing). As for game engines being broken, if you want to TRUELY talk about broken then you need only look at the game Technomancer - it has major issues (game won't run at all) on machines with lots of cores and that is a well documented and reported issue.

 

[Old Duck]

Sure looks like a game engine crapping the bed to me.

I don't disagree. I had some choice things to say about MSFS' engine back in the day. I think the argument some are making is it might not be a pure "Cobra is broken, period" problem, but perhaps a "Cobra is choking when using these video cards and these drivers when sending this specific data to this specific graphics API" problem.

Even Microsoft once said that bad graphics drivers are the root of many perceived bugs in Windows.

 

[lenna]

Another broken record response.

Far from it... As a software developer myself I fully appreciate the complexities of getting software to run on a wide variety of hardware and system configurations.

It is all too easy to simply blame the failing software for any given fault, but in many cases that is far from the actual truth of the matter.

When investigating and trying to resolve issues you should consider ALL potential causes regardless of how unlikely they may seem.

 

[GG7]

I don't disagree. I had some choice things to say about MSFS' engine back in the day. I think the argument some are making is it might not be a pure "Cobra is broken, period" problem, but perhaps a "Cobra is choking when using these video cards and these drivers when sending this specific data to this specific graphics API" problem.

Even Microsoft once said that bad graphics drivers are the root of many perceived bugs in Windows.

I am running the latest Nvidia driver available. Hasn't seemed to cause any problems in any of my other games. As I said, the performance with this 1080ti on everything other than ED has been incredible. The performance boost in GTA5 and Battlefield alone makes the purchase totally justified.

Ironically, I primarily upgraded to get better performance in ED, which thanks to the status quo is not happening.

I think I am about done whipping this dead horse. My new and improved GTA5 Online is calling.

Have a good weekend!

 

[Old Duck]

I am running the latest Nvidia driver available. Hasn't seemed to cause any problems in any of my other games. As I said, the performance with this 1080ti on everything other than ED has been incredible. The performance boost in GTA5 and Battlefield alone makes the purchase totally justified.

Ironically, I primarily upgraded to get better performance in ED, which thanks to the status quo is not happening.

I think I am about done whipping this dead horse. My new and improved GTA5 Online is calling.

Have a good weekend!

I hear you. When I upgraded my Nvidia (back in the day), it made a huge improvement on most games. It was just a couple that took the hit. Like you, the couple that degraded were a couple of my favorite games. I got tired of whipping the dead horse long ago, and that's why today I play my games on a Playstation. The graphics may not be as pretty as some PC setups, but I can just press a switch and play. No fuss, no muss, no fidgeting with drivers.

 

[dognosh]

Guys, like GG7 I have built PCs for over 20 years, written software for a living for 20.
p.s I am also an ED fanboy of sorts.

Give him a break, I can see his point of view and you can't keep accusing him that his rig is at fault.

I recently posted my stutter and fps problem, using triple screen, and still saw it in single screen,though it got better.

My post :
My FPS seems low , as the values below are nowhere near maxed !!!
Res : 5760 X 1080 , fullscreen, v sync : off, refresh rate : 60 Hz , Frame rate limit : off
GPU1 : around 50% Temp : 31C , GPU2 : around 50% Temp : 31C ( Both GTX 780Ti )
CPU : 25% (each core around 15%-30%)
MB Temp : 32C , Ram used : 8GB(16GB total) , Win 10(64bit) , i7 3.5GHz , Samsung SSD(477GB free)

The above was taken at Dav's Hope , and at a particular place I played with Ultra, High and Medium settings
U : 20 fps
H : 25 fps
M : 30 fps
( fps taken from ingame Ctrl-f)

 

[xondk]

Can the game engine handle cities? My guess is yes, the real question is, can your PC handle cities?
Already FD is talking dropping 32 bit support and some people are still on 32 bit and don't/can't upgrade to 64 bit. Just imagine the uproar what do you mean I need a GPU/CPU upgrade for the expansion to land on a planet with an atmosphere and cities? Just grab popcorn the fun will begin anew.
.
Calebe

Exactly,

Both of you are referring to the already 'watered down' freezing effect

I'm looking and trying to compare, it doesn't really seem that big a change, and freezing during jump doesn't make much sense, maybe that is why it was removed?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

So yeah, I don't know what to say about this, I personally I'm not saying "its your hardware" I'm saying "Its likely your setup" software can be a BIG part of the problem, it is very clear that you are not getting the performance you should, especially when those with less powerful gear are reporting better performance then you.

But I've met and fixed computers for too many that "Its nothing bad with my system" types to ignore it, your computer stats mean _nothing_ if your setup is not great, wrong drivers, having changed stuff, heck installing "game optimiser" or stuff that helps with overclocking can many many times worsen the problem.

Heck if you are windows 10 user, turn off game mode unless your computer is near constantly under full load.

Without seeing your computer, there is ultimately no way for me to tell what is wrong on the surface, but also be aware it 'can' also be something like a motherboard that is growing faulty, or such, causing sub optimal performance, here's what we all know, others, me included have less powerful gpu's then you, and some less cpu even, and are reporting better performance on ultra then you, clearly 'something' on your side, be it hardware or setup, is causing this. We are last I checked not saying you are a bad person, or anything like that, we are saying "hey something is up" heck the general air seems to be towards people gladly helping people with issues on this forum. But you are seemingly taking offence? My advise, stop that, stop blaming frontier, and try looking into whatever it is, heck, it could be something as simple as bad software, bad virus scanner, a TON of things.

And the only thing going "Its not my setup" is going to do, is allow you to keep getting a sub par experience.
Instead why not post your full specs, software included, anti virus and whatnot, and maybe any overclock tools used? because another thing that can cause sub par performance, is overclocking, it isn't simply turning up the dial, if things are out of sync, regardless of how much you overclock, you can get sub par performance, because one part might be waiting on something else, because timing is bad.

 

[Cheapchips]

"Can Cobra handled populated cities" isn't entirely the right question.

To pick GTAV - This is a city + a bit of countryside that took a north of 1000 people years to make. This is a city that's has a very limited number of building you can actually go inside and all the gameplay is handcrafted. The game's performance is essentially hand crafted as well. They can 'just' remodel level of detail at customised distances to the best effect.

No one's yet made a procedure city generator that can come close. The nearest modern examples are the villages in Ghost Recon: Wildlands. They are embedded in a combo of hand crafted/procedurally augmented map 10's of km across, instead of a purely procedurally generated world.

FDev really have their work cut out regardless of what hardware looks like when they finally get to cities.

 

[NW3]

I am running the latest Nvidia driver available. Hasn't seemed to cause any problems in any of my other games. As I said, the performance with this 1080ti on everything other than ED has been incredible.

I don't think you've mentioned the resolution you're using; I'll assume it's 4K, based on the rest of your system specs.

I'm guessing you aren't using super-sampling on any of those other games. It's a tremendous strain on your graphics card. For a more realistic test, use NVidia's Dynamic Super Resolution set to 4.0 (which is the same as Elite's 2.0, which is 2*x & 2*y - NVidia's marketing wants the numbers to be as high as possible so they call that 4.0). Then test some of your other games in 7680x4320 res (or whatever your 4x res is); if you see slowdowns, then SS is the root of your issue.

I see some mild stuttering when dropping at a station; it usually only happens for 1-2 seconds. My framerate usually stays above 50 fps. In game, I'm running Ultra settings with super-sampling set to 1.0, framerate is unlimited, and VSync is OFF. In the NVidia control panel, I have VSync set to Fast, which uses a second back-buffer to deliver near-GSync framerates without tearing.

Note that Fast appears to be broken in the latest "game ready" drivers. (I see tearing.) I'm using older drivers which work properly (version 381.65).

I get 90-130 FPS in space, 50-80 FPS outside stations, and 45-60 FPS inside stations and on planets.

Please compare your system to mine:

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro, 64-bit
GPU processor: GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Driver version: 381.65
CPU: Intel i7 4770 @ 3.4 GHz
RAM: 16.0 GB
Disk: 512 GB SSD
Screen Res: 4K (3840x2160)

Since you (understandably) want to use SS=2.0, try setting your in-game graphics quality to high. There's not much visible difference between high and ultra, to my eyes. I run ultra, since there's not much of a framerate difference between the 2 settings on my system, unless I use SS greater than 1.0.

Also, try disabling NVidia "Instant Replay" in GeForce Experience. Otherwise, your system is always recording video to a circular buffer, so you can save the last 5 minutes of game play. At high resolutions, that is also a strain on your system. Note that I have Instant Replay enabled, but I'm only recording at 1080p 30 FPS, not at 4K 60 FPS, which is the default for my system.

 

[mossfoot]

I don't think you've mentioned the resolution you're using; I'll assume it's 4K, based on the rest of your system specs.

I'm guessing you aren't using super-sampling on any of those other games. It's a tremendous strain on your graphics card. For a more realistic test, use NVidia's Dynamic Super Resolution set to 4.0 (which is the same as Elite's 2.0, which is 2*x & 2*y - NVidia's marketing wants the numbers to be as high as possible so they call that 4.0). Then test some of your other games in 7680x4320 res (or whatever your 4x res is); if you see slowdowns, then SS is the root of your issue.

I see some mild stuttering when dropping at a station; it usually only happens for 1-2 seconds. My framerate usually stays above 50 fps. In game, I'm running Ultra settings with super-sampling set to 1.0, framerate is unlimited, and VSync is OFF. In the NVidia control panel, I have VSync set to Fast, which uses a second back-buffer to deliver near-GSync framerates without tearing.

Note that Fast appears to be broken in the latest "game ready" drivers. (I see tearing.) I'm using older drivers which work properly (version 381.65).

I get 90-130 FPS in space, 50-80 FPS outside stations, and 45-60 FPS inside stations and on planets.

Please compare your system to mine:

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro, 64-bit
GPU processor: GeForce GTX 980 Ti
Driver version: 381.65
CPU: Intel i7 4770 @ 3.4 GHz
RAM: 16.0 GB
Disk: 512 GB SSD
Screen Res: 4K (3840x2160)

Since you (understandably) want to use SS=2.0, try setting your in-game graphics quality to high. There's not much visible difference between high and ultra, to my eyes. I run ultra, since there's not much of a framerate difference between the 2 settings on my system, unless I use SS greater than 1.0.

Also, try disabling NVidia "Instant Replay" in GeForce Experience. Otherwise, your system is always recording video to a circular buffer, so you can save the last 5 minutes of game play. At high resolutions, that is also a strain on your system. Note that I have Instant Replay enabled, but I'm only recording at 1080p 30 FPS, not at 4K 60 FPS, which is the default for my system.

Not to change the topic to that of optimization, but is there a thread about optimization? I'm curious how to make sure I'm getting the most out of my rig.

I've got a GTX 970 with an i5-3450 @3.1 GHz, 16GB of ram, and running at 1920x1080.