Serious Performance Problem

[PashPliskin]

Maybe this has something to do with my setup as I remember Elite having similar
issues (although far less common) even when I was playing on 720p due to monitor constrains.
I'll try a clean driver install and see if the problem persists. If it does I will try the other things
you suggested.

 

[Ashnak]

What else do you have running? Open up the task manager and sort by CPU load. On my setup, the (old!) SteelSeries/Tobii eye tracker would gobble up to 30% CPU (on a i5/4690k). Even if disabled and the tracker disconnected. I ended up uninstalling it, since I almost exclusively play ED in VR now (ok, currently Dishonored 2, where the eye tracker doesn't help).

 

[PashPliskin]

What else do you have running? Open up the task manager and sort by CPU load. On my setup, the (old!) SteelSeries/Tobii eye tracker would gobble up to 30% CPU (on a i5/4690k). Even if disabled and the tracker disconnected. I ended up uninstalling it, since I almost exclusively play ED in VR now (ok, currently Dishonored 2, where the eye tracker doesn't help).

Well, the only thing I open when playing ED is Razer Cortex which presumably boosts performance(although I'm not sure it does).

 

[Barking_Mad]

It doesn't matter what setting I'm playing on, the game constantly stutters/loses frames, especially when looking around at stations.
I tried medium settings,high settings,low...the stuttering remains.
The only thing that seems to help is disabling V-Sync, but then I get screen tearing (buying a g-sync monitor is out of the question).
Is there a solution to this? I'm using a 2GB GTX 960,an i5 4460 and 8gb of ram.
Thanks in advance!

Hi,


FWIW I have almost the same spec PC (i5-4590, GTX960 2gb and 12 gb of RAM and it runs without any stuttering at 1080p. (I updated my RAM from 8gb a while ago, but didn't have any issues before I did so).

 

[MickyG1982]

Maybe this has something to do with my setup as I remember Elite having similar
issues (although far less common) even when I was playing on 720p due to monitor constrains.
I'll try a clean driver install and see if the problem persists. If it does I will try the other things
you suggested.

That's very strange! I sit at around 50-80fps when I turn off VSync at 720p (same monitor constraint as you had). It drops to 40-50 at 1080p but I have to lower settings due to GPU VRAM constraints. In either resolution I don't get much in the way of stutter & your rig should be blowing mine out of the water for the most part.

 

[Broon]

FWIW I am running the exact same chip as the OP. An i5-4460 @3.2GHZ on a crap Dell motherboard.

Granted I have 16GB RAM on the board but even right now with Firefox, Thunderbird and a plethora of other services running, and the game running (sitting in a hanger in open at a busy station) Task Manager says I am only using ~45% CPU and 6.17GB RAM. So the OP's 8GB of RAM and his chip would suffice in this case it would seem.

I even ran for quite a while on a GTX 750 1GB card on High settings and had very little issues save for some stuttering near planets and such. But then again games have been stuttering since the 80's so that doesn't really bother me much. I have since upgraded my card to an RX 480 8GB and run Ultra with zero problems.

So I have to wonder if the OP's issue is a new development or if they have just come out to ask about it after some time. While I don't believe that the recent Meltdown/Spectre updates have affected my performance it could have but not noticeably to me.

 

[Lucifera Danzig]

Something else to consider, that many overlook:
Assuming you're not using a solid state drive, when's the last time you cleaned temp files and did a good defragment of the hard drive? Because the built-in "scheduled drive optimization" doesn't do much at all, even assuming your PC is on when the scheduled time actually comes around.

 

[Roybe]

There's an easy way to see if you need more RAM. Open Task Manager. Is it using all the RAM? No? Then you don't need any more. While that might seem laughably basic, that is exactly what it comes down to and nothing more. Is it being used? No? Then you don't need more.

Although that seems simple...it's not what I observed. Until I added more RAM..it never came close to filling what I had...once I added more...usage ran up to 9 gigs.

 

[GG7]

It doesn't matter what setting I'm playing on, the game constantly stutters/loses frames, especially when looking around at stations.
I tried medium settings,high settings,low...the stuttering remains.
The only thing that seems to help is disabling V-Sync, but then I get screen tearing (buying a g-sync monitor is out of the question).
Is there a solution to this? I'm using a 2GB GTX 960,an i5 4460 and 8gb of ram.
Thanks in advance!

Pretty underpowered GPU these days I'm afraid. Your primary problem is that you only have 2GB of VRAM. The game prefers at least 4GB of VRAM. I am running an overclocked 1080ti FTW3 with 11GB of VRAM. ED will use up to 5GB of that reserve with all settings on Ultra.

Between my 1080ti and my overlocked i7 7700k, I maintain a solid and locked 60fps with all settings on ULTRA/Max, Super Sampling at 2.0 and DSR 4.00x.

That is what it takes to get the most out of this game.

Your hardware is pretty antiquated, so what you are getting is about what I would expect.

In fact, I wouldn't expect even a gaming console level of performance from what you are running.

I think it is time to upgrade!

 

[CMDR_Allbright]

It's Windows 10 Fall Creators update that's doing it. I had similar issues until I rolled back Windows 10 to 1703.

 

[Scoob]

i used to run a 2GB card and had to swap it out. I suspect that might be causing some issues

I don't think the game strictly needs more than 2gb of vRam - the twin 2gb GTX 680's on my other machine run the game beautifully at 1200p on High settings. The experience I get on those vs. the single 8gb GTX 1070 in my main gamer don't feel any different, though I'm not FPS-watching the entire time, just playing.

I do get the odd judder - on both systems - but it's more like the game doing something rather than a graphical issue. I.e. I'm rolling slowly, about to line up on a target (usually in super cruise) and the game judders and I've insta-rolled slightly further. It's quite jarring, but not a massive issue. I also used to get a weird screen shake bug when using the docking computer in some ships, it looked like graphical judder, but was in fact the game wobbling the cockpit view for whatever reason. Only happened when automatically docking.

As an aside, I thought ED was generally quite light on system resources, or have recent updates changed that? I only starting playing again after an 18 month break about three months or so ago, so I've missed a few updates along the way.

FYI: my PC is pretty old now, bar the 1070, but runs the game well for the most part. 2600k @ 4.4ghz, 32gb DDR3 1600, 2x500gb SSD's in RAID0, Windows 10 Pro*

* My Windows 10 Pro on this PC will not update from build 1607 (Anniversary Update) to the new Creators update and subsequent Fall update. This is due to a known (but not fixed) issue on Microsofts side that appears to be affecting certain configurations, involving the delivery of certain prerequisite updates. Other than that, the system runs well.

Scoob.

 

[GG7]

It's Windows 10 Fall Creators update that's doing it. I had similar issues until I rolled back Windows 10 to 1703.

2GB of VRAM is literally HALF of what the game needs to run smoothly at any modest graphics settings. Couple that with his ancient CPU and the performance he is complaining about is normal.

Folks need to wake up and realize that modern games demand higher performance hardware in which to run well. You can't expect a game like ED to deliver smooth fps when you are running it on such underpowered hardware.

Its called reality.

 

[MickyG1982]

2GB of VRAM is literally HALF of what the game needs to run smoothly at any modest graphics settings. Couple that with his ancient CPU and the performance he is complaining about is normal.

Folks need to wake up and realize that modern games demand higher performance hardware in which to run well. You can't expect a game like ED to deliver smooth fps when you are running it on such underpowered hardware.

Its called reality.

Depends on what you consider to be "smooth" For me anything above 30 fps on a game like this is smooth enough for me. Though at 720p (because of the TV I now have to use) I am spoiled with 80fps almost everywhere on Ultra...

 

[Suvi Anwar]

2GB of VRAM is literally HALF of what the game needs to run smoothly at any modest graphics settings. Couple that with his ancient CPU and the performance he is complaining about is normal.

Folks need to wake up and realize that modern games demand higher performance hardware in which to run well. You can't expect a game like ED to deliver smooth fps when you are running it on such underpowered hardware.

Its called reality.

Ha!
Waiting for the dress down....

All I said was they were budget, and got the obligatory dress down, can't wait to see what they do for you! [haha]

One of the issues here is that the OP has not said if this is a recent issue or if he has been having this problem since forever. Lack of data is going to have people making every guess in the known computing world as to the cause. He also has not said if the PC is a desktop or a laptop, which will make a huge difference.

 

[PashPliskin]

Alright. I did a clean installation of the gpu drivers and tried the game with almost everything set to medium.
It runs a lot smoother. 95% of the stuttering is gone and I now get (almost) constantly 60 fps on stations and
around 55 fps on planets at 2550x1080p(ultrawide monitor) with supersampling set to 1.
And yes I forgot to mention that I had this problem for a while but it got really worse the past 2 months or so.
And yes I'm using windows 10 with the Fall Creator's Update.
Even though the problem seems to have been eradicated for the most part, I still would like to try some of the
other solutions you suggested like updating my BIOS drivers(not sure how to do this though) and cleaning my
hard drive.

 

[MickyG1982]

It's not going to get much better if at all, at that resolution you really are pushing the 960 (especially the 2 gig model) to it's limits in terms of performance.

 

[PashPliskin]

It's not going to get much better if at all, at that resolution you really are pushing the 960 (especially the 2 gig model) to it's limits in terms of performance.

I know and I really would like to upgrade but the prices right now are extremely high. I'll have to wait a few months.
Maybe when Nvidia announces its next line of GPUs and prices go down.

 

[PashPliskin]

UPDATE: Tried playing after using chrome,origin and some other programs(after closing them of course) and the stuttering appeared again. Not as much as before, but it was there. I'll probably have to restart my computer everytime I want to play.

 

[MickyG1982]

Keep an eye on how much system memory you are using, I had issues at one point where either Windows, ED or steam had a memory leak. This led to a lot of stutter as my system was always transferring too and from the swap file on my disk.

I fixed it by reinstalling my pc because I simply couldn't figure out what was at fault (very unusual for me). Anyways, that Draconian method plus a few hours of my time killed cured the problem.

 

[PashPliskin]

Keep an eye on how much system memory you are using, I had issues at one point where either Windows, ED or steam had a memory leak. This led to a lot of stutter as my system was always transferring too and from the swap file on my disk.

I fixed it by reinstalling my pc because I simply couldn't figure out what was at fault (very unusual for me). Anyways, that Draconian method plus a few hours of my time killed cured the problem.

Hm thanks, I will!
Could it be that this is a RAM issue and adding more ram could fix it?