Many people with high-end hardware have high-end hardware because they are picky about performance.
I've been extremely vocal about Odyssey's poor performance. That doesn't mean I'm not seeing better performance than 99% of people, or that my newer/faster systems aren't performing much better than my older systems. It means the performance I'm seeing doesn't meet my standards.
Nothing you've said here refutes my statement. You are not going to see a performance decrease if you put a newer, faster, CPU or GPU in your system. Faster hardware (assuming it's applicable to some actual bottleneck) is still going result in a performance uplift, all other thinks being equal. Seeing a lower frame rate at higher resolution and quality settings on newer hardware doesn't mean the older hardware is somehow better.
Such scenarios should be phenomenally rare, barring some serious misconfiguration, extreme optimization targeting very specific hardware, or the need to emulate a legacy ISA. Even in the latter two case, performance of newer hardware often quickly outpaces old to point that ancient software is still faster on the newer hardware, after accounting for overhead and inefficiencies. The fastest processor I have for old DOS applications isn't something contemporaneous to those applications, and hasn't been for twenty-plus years, it's my Ryzen 7 5800X. Likewise, the fastest performing GLide accelerator I have isn't my Voodoo 4 4500, it's my RTX 3080 with a wrapper.
Regardless, Odyssey performs best on the fastest modern hardware that exists and this is readily demonstrable. I have some current-gen hardware that I'm confident will beat any system of any prior generation, probably by a wide margin. Give me exact settings, including any configuration files used, and a repeatable in-game scenario and I'll record it and/or include detailed performance logs.
I can understand all that your saying, but I see people with their high end PC's complaining of stutters, fps lower than 20-30, or any number of other problems. This (to me at least) seems most likely due to running the game at higher resolutions and higher requested frame rates (to match high refresh rate monitors for example) because normally their hardware can handle them. It's just that the game engine can't. On the other hand, I see people like me with older hardware, running the game without (or very few) problems at all. I know I'm only running it at 1080p 60Hz, but my machine is proportionally lower spec, and I get 50-60 fps for example.
Like someone said above (sorry, can't find the post or remember who it was) I'm sure if those high spec machines tried running it at 1080p and 60Hz like me, then they too would probably have little to no problems. But then, what would be the point of having a high end machine only to run a game at lower settings?
It just seems to me that the game engine struggles with the higher res/refresh rates more than it does with lower ones.
As a side note, regarding my experience with a faster machine giving lower performance, I have this little story (OK, it's more of 'faster broke things' than just a performance drop, but it illustrates my point)...
We had clients on Unix servers based on Intel 486 CPUs (yes this was about 20 or so years ago). Our software was written in-house and ran on these servers. The 486s were old and we wanted to sell upgrades to our clients. So we got in some nice new IBM Pentium 3 based machines and proceeded to test our software on them. Well, we were getting corrupted databases, weird system hangs, and a bunch of other weirdness. We thought there was a problem with the hardware, so tried on other P3 machines, but got the same results.
It turned out, after a few days of testing this and that without success, that it was our software that couldn't handle the faster CPUs in the new servers. Apparently, our programmers had used certain tricks to make things work as they needed, but when used on the faster hardware, things like variables were being written to the database before they were being populated with the correct data. I'm not a Unix programmer (or whatever language they used) so I couldn't tell you what it was they had been doing, but after they had figured it out, and re-wrote our softweare to compensate, everything worked fine again.
It was the fact the original software wasn't written for the newer, faster hardware in mind, that was causing all our problems.
question, will the update be dedicated to the merging of horizons and Odyssey, as well as corrections? will the content be new? or will the announcement of the content be later? and then there were so many hopes for a new update.
As a current PC, Horizons only player my main question would be:
-How long will PC players have the option to play 3.8 Horizons? I assume it will be the same planet tech, UI system, and graphics rendering as consoles, so in theory a long time. But it would be good to hear what is planned and for roughly how long that plan lasts.
I think, from what I'm getting from the post anyway, is that the codebase for Horizons will be brought in line with Ody. You won't be getting the Ody features like on-foot, so I doubt that 1 & 2 will happen simply because Hor player won't be able to participate. 3. I think is more likely though. The rest, I guess we'll have to wait and see what they update us with.
The good thing is that you'll get to try out the new client, albeit without the on foot content. Possibly FDev is just testing the waters to see what the feedback is. Though I'd be inclined to think that they are just moving on, and please be prepared to be left behind if you don't want to get Odyssey
The alignment of the core features in both Horizons and Odyssey is the best thing I have read in years. And this is coming from someone on Odyssey. Great going! o7
They posted this: To allow as many players as possible to experience the new narrative and gameplay elements, we intend to give all PC players access to version 4.0
Perhaps there will be further news on console ED a little later.
Pity many of us don't have good enough PCs in the first place, but in particular don't WANT to play this game (and likely most others) on PC!
We want to play the game on our systems of choice, where it already exists - as I've said in other threads, I don't know why Frontier seemingly made no effort and seemingly had no intention of releasing the game on the "next gen" systems, particularly when they were having trouble getting Odyssey running on "last gen"...
Surely the PS5 and Series X would have no trouble running Odyssey, but I guess it was too much effort! :_ .
Hopefully version 4.0, will be pretty quickly followed by version 4.5 "We messed up - we're restarting console development and releasing on next gen systems!" :O .
Blimey, what a palavor. Carry on Confusion, fdev!! They mean well but it's always a bit of a head scratcher after anything they communicate. With this quasi-merge-frankenstien news they really have outdone themselves! Just hope the conclusion to this saga (the in-game one) will be mind-blowing and all this will be but a little interdiction on the road to amazing things.
Apart from forum cave trolls, you've made everyone happy going forward frontier, so bask in the moment, frame it, and pin it on the whiteboard for inspiration next time making everyone happy is getting the palms up. You can do it. Its been done! Hooray!
ps. Was there an earlier version of the release that was confusing? Odd gets an update to let everyone in and keep people who haven't paid for it out of the checkbox features. New story content is more than just text and isn't sane to do in 2 clients. Nothing is getting turned off. Not that hard.
So Odyssey launcher becomes 4.0 Launcher, Horizon launcher becomes 3.8 Launcher... got it. Glad there's the option.
Also let's call those "UI/UX" changes, not "improvements".
Aaaaaaarg, how can it be so hard to find out what is happening for Consoles, specifically X box series X. I'll try again, in the short term will we be able to see the outcome the Azimuth saga, in the longer term, what effects are we going to get (if any?), or will our game remain the same until the servers are switched off.
Bruce?, Sally?, anyone?
Pity many of us don't have good enough PCs in the first place, but in particular don't WANT to play this game (and likely most others) on PC!
We want to play the game on our systems of choice, where it already exists - as I've said in other threads, I don't know why Frontier seemingly made no effort and seemingly had no intention of releasing the game on the "next gen" systems, particularly when they were having trouble getting Odyssey running on "last gen"...
Surely the PS5 and Series X would have no trouble running Odyssey, but I guess it was too much effort! :_ .
Hopefully version 4.0, will be pretty quickly followed by version 4.5 "We messed up - we're restarting console development and releasing on next gen systems!" :O .
It might be down to politics between Frontier and the console makers. I wouldn't be at all surprise if there a line or two in the contracts that state frontier has to continue to support PS4 version of their game even when it on the PS5 an the two version have to have the same features, at least for a certain period of time.
so.... uuh..... where we all know performance in Odyssey is crap compared to Horizon, how are they saying they're bringing "performance improvements" to Horizons players?
I'm an Ody player, but if I'm one of the CMDR sticking to Horizon (perhaps due to low-end hardware), this feels more like a downgrade................................................
A correction it's been working on Linux/WINE for around 4 years now, but yes surely Apple could have updated OpenGL except that they didn't want to. AFAIK, on OS/X and with compatible hardware you can run ED through WINE nowadays.
has it only been 4 years? i remember purchasing Windows to dual boot just to play elite when it was released and i dropped that as soon as dxvk became able to run it. feels like it's been longer than 4 but i guess not.
Cool, glad Frontier cares so much about the console fan base
Between this awful handling of the situation, the fact I had to make a new email to use the forums (cause I have a Frontier account, but it's for console, not forums), and Frontier's general low effort in their other games, I'm just gonna drop them.
It's a shame cause I liked ED and Jurassic World, but Frontier only seems to care about PC on ED and JW is full of MTX to the point the base game is bare.
I'm sad that I'll never finish my journey to S* or see any of you goofball flying around again, but I can't support them just abandoning us like this.
The timing's kind of unfortunate. We've got the climax/finale of the Azimuth saga, along with this newly announced 'upgrade'(?) to 4.0 for non-Odyssey PC players coming in August... just a few weeks before the promised console profile transfer event which is supposed to happen in September sometime (unless they moved that and I missed the announcement - which is a distinct possibility).
The Azimuth saga has been going on for ages, it's kind of a shame they couldn't get these two adjacent events (update 13/Azimuth finale & console transfer) reversed in order, thereby allowing those console players who are planning on switching to be involved in the full 4.0 Azimuth endgame as newly-enabled PC players.
Being that whwn the switch is flicked it may take till December to pkay out as its a story narrative, nowhere was it mentioned that when they turn it on all the Thargoids will instantly vanish from the galaxy its just hoped that will happen.
For PC Horizons is the base game iirc, im guessing between now and U14 3.8 will quietly be retired in favour of 4.0 for ease of updating as sokn as enough people are using 4.0.
I can understand all that your saying, but I see people with their high end PC's complaining of stutters, fps lower than 20-30, or any number of other problems. This (to me at least) seems most likely due to running the game at higher resolutions and higher requested frame rates (to match high refresh rate monitors for example) because normally their hardware can handle them. It's just that the game engine can't. On the other hand, I see people like me with older hardware, running the game without (or very few) problems at all. I know I'm only running it at 1080p 60Hz, but my machine is proportionally lower spec, and I get 50-60 fps for example.
Like someone said above (sorry, can't find the post or remember who it was) I'm sure if those high spec machines tried running it at 1080p and 60Hz like me, then they too would probably have little to no problems. But then, what would be the point of having a high end machine only to run a game at lower settings?
It just seems to me that the game engine struggles with the higher res/refresh rates more than it does with lower ones.
The way I see it, the broad non-exclusive possibilities for the performance issues reported by those with high-end hardware are the result of:
General reporting bias. People that don't like what they see are far more likely to speak up than people who are content to play the game as is.
Citing different gameplay scenarios...many people content with what they see seem to either not know what their actual performance figures are (they don't need diagnostic info if they aren't perceiving a problem), are reporting vague averages while ignoring the problematic worst case scenarios that more discerning users emphasize, or aren't even playing in those highly problematic scenarios.
Overly demanding settings due to the expectation that their hardware should be able to handle it without major performance caveats.
A minority that are very vocal about flukes they have encountered, occasionally due to something they've screwed up themselves.
Misidentifying hardware as faster than something else when it's actually slower in the scenario in question. One example of this would be an RX 6900 XT vs. an RTX 3080 before the glass shader fix. The RX 6900 XT is broadly the faster part by a fair margin in applications that do not feature ray tracing...but the RTX 3080 has higher performance in some areas that occasionally become very relevant (like needlessly burning FP32 performance with gobs of bad shader code). Another example of this would be an AMD Threadripper or Intel Core X system vs. a newer laptop in a CPU limited scenario. The HEDT parts may have several times the aggregate performance of a laptop Ryzen or i5, but the game doesn't really benefit from more than about six cores, and is frequently hung up on what the main thread is doing on one core. In many games, or other scenarios limited by lightly-threaded performance, a laptop with a Ryzen 5800H or i5-12600HX can easily blow away an i9-7980XE or Threadripper 3990X.
The possibility that game somehow prefers actually slower hardware.
Of those, that last possibility would seem extremely far fetched to me if I didn't have any experience with the game, and comes off as even more outlandish because of my experience with it.
Personally, I think most people complaining about performance on high-end hardware probably experience better performance than those not complaining about performance, and that the bulk of the remainder that are actually seeing less performance in identical in-game scenarios broke something somewhere.
As a side note, regarding my experience with a faster machine giving lower performance, I have this little story (OK, it's more of 'faster broke things' than just a performance drop, but it illustrates my point)...
We had clients on Unix servers based on Intel 486 CPUs (yes this was about 20 or so years ago). Our software was written in-house and ran on these servers. The 486s were old and we wanted to sell upgrades to our clients. So we got in some nice new IBM Pentium 3 based machines and proceeded to test our software on them. Well, we were getting corrupted databases, weird system hangs, and a bunch of other weirdness. We thought there was a problem with the hardware, so tried on other P3 machines, but got the same results.
It turned out, after a few days of testing this and that without success, that it was our software that couldn't handle the faster CPUs in the new servers. Apparently, our programmers had used certain tricks to make things work as they needed, but when used on the faster hardware, things like variables were being written to the database before they were being populated with the correct data. I'm not a Unix programmer (or whatever language they used) so I couldn't tell you what it was they had been doing, but after they had figured it out, and re-wrote our softweare to compensate, everything worked fine again.
It was the fact the original software wasn't written for the newer, faster hardware in mind, that was causing all our problems.
That's an interesting example, but I'm confident it's not analogous to what's going on with Odyssey. Odyssey isn't something that's been hand-tuned in a low-level language for specific hardware that now has a problem due to a radical shift in underlying architecture or things running too fast for certain dependencies. Going from a single-issue in-order part like a 486 to a superscalar out-of-order Pentium III is about as radical a jump as has ever occurred in x86; modern CPUs have much more in common with the now 26-year-old P6 architecture used in that Pentium III than a Pentium III had in common with a 486. Odyssey is, to the best of my knowledge, written in high-level languages, targeting high-level APIs.
Frontier didn't specifically optimize it for AMD Piledriver and Intel Haswell-era parts, and you'll be hard pressed to find anything that runs better on those parts than on the current Zen 3 and Golden Cove architectures. There has been no paradigm shift since then (Piledriver/Steamroller to Zen was a huge jump, but that was mostly AMD getting with the program, not developing some radical new way of pricessing) to introduce fundamental incompatibilities, just successive iterations amounting to convergent evolution toward the same sorts of wide and fast performance cores with SMT. Sometimes you'll encounter software that doesn't know what to make of the heterogeneity of the newest Intel architectures, or applications that really favored instruction sets that have been depreciated in consumer parts, but that's about it.
Likewise, on the graphics side of things, Elite: Dangerous started out targeting DX10 and quickly shifted to DX11, which Odyssey still uses, and which has been the predominant gaming graphics API until very recently. DX11 performance is still a critical selling point, resulting in AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA still putting a lot of focus on it's performance, even with the newest architectures.
I've put non-trivial time into this game on Piledriver, Westmere, Sandy Bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, Zen 2, Zen 3, Zen 3D, and Comet Lake CPUs, plus Kepler, Hawaii, Fiji, Pascal, RDNA, Ampere, and RDNA 2 GPUs, in all sorts of combinations. By and large, if one is actually GPU limited, then the performance gains one will see from a new GPU in Odyssey are going to be roughly in line with most other games, or even synthetic benchmarks, proportionally speaking. The CPU side of things is a little trickier, as the game is both relatively lightly threaded and extremely dependent on memory performance, but once memory is accounted for, the newer/faster architectures and higher CPU clocks will scale performance in CPU dependent areas (of which there are many) roughly as expected. The game is still badly optimized and doesn't perform as one would expect given what's going on, but it's badly optimized in general, rather than ultra-optimized for one specific set of hardware while neglecting the rest.
I expect EDH4.0 to be to be identical to Odyssey in all ways apart from that you will not have access to Odyssey only game features (on foot gameplay, Tenuous atmosphere planets, etc.) All bugs and features except for Ody only content will be in the 4.0 version. I do expect that both PC/EDH4.0 and PC/Ody players will be able to instance together in space, and at least in SRVs on Non-atmospheric planets.
