Hardware & Technical 4k video card recommendations?

CMDR Corlas

CMDR Corlas
So, I've been using a 40" 4k TV as a gaming monitor for a while now, but my video card was older and didn't support HDMI2, so I've been running at 1080p, because I refuse to pay crypto-inflated prices for a videocard. Videocard prices seem to be returning to a bit more of a normal now though, so I'm back in the market.

I'm only running an i5 with 16GB RAM, but it does the job just fine. For the video card though... Does anyone run Elite at 4k? If so, what video card do you have? How's the experience? What graphic settings can you run the game on?

Thanks in advance for recommendations.
 

GraXXoR

GraXXoR
I run ED on 3 x 4k 30" monitors with my 1080Ti.... 0.67 supersampling is indistinguishable from 1.00 and lets me peg the frame rate @ 60 with few drops, except at guardian sites occasionally.

1080Ti is a great card.

804iGQE.jpg
 

Zieman

Zieman
CMDR Corlas said:
So, I've been using a 40" 4k TV as a gaming monitor for a while now, but my video card was older and didn't support HDMI2, so I've been running at 1080p, because I refuse to pay crypto-inflated prices for a videocard. Videocard prices seem to be returning to a bit more of a normal now though, so I'm back in the market.

I'm only running an i5 with 16GB RAM, but it does the job just fine. For the video card though... Does anyone run Elite at 4k? If so, what video card do you have? How's the experience? What graphic settings can you run the game on?

Thanks in advance for recommendations.
Click to expand...
I have GTX 980ti, use slightly reduced Ultra settings to run the game at 4k.
No bloom, FXAA instead of SMAA.
On some occasions on planets and busy starports I get dips between 50 and 60 FPS, otherwise pretty stable 60 FPS.

So, GTX 1070 /1080 / 1080ti is what I would get if I was going to buy a new GPU right now.
Waiting for 11X0 ones to come available might be a good idea too.
 

Squelch

S
I'm playing on a mid range gaming laptop connected to a 4K monitor and I'm suitably impressed at how well ED is performing on default Ultra quality settings.

GTX1050ti 3GB @30hz = barely a stutter

A lesser (read inexpensive) card may well be the ticket. Cryptomining is still pushing the high order cards to ridiculous prices.

HTH
 

Sylveria

Sylveria
I use an AMD RX 480 8GB paired with an LG 24UD58-B myself. Yeah, I'm one of "those" people who uses AMD. :p

Using multiple monitor setups isn't really my cup of tea. I've tried it, and often just end up using a single monitor while the others end up unused... so 4K pixel depth ended up being a much better investment for me. ;)

I'm looking to delve into the VR arena anyway which is much more suited to that. I'd really like to see the VR thing really take off- being able to play many more existing games with it.
 

dognosh

dognosh
ED is not in 4k, your card(and mine) upscales it :)
And the above is only my opinion from setting ED to near max and not seeing details I see in real 4k games/piccies.
 

Zieman

Zieman
dognosh said:
ED is not in 4k, your card(and mine) upscales it :)
And the above is only my opinion from setting ED to near max and not seeing details I see in real 4k games/piccies.
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When I bought my 980ti, I had no 4k monitor. I did buy them at the same time, but the monitor's delivery took a couple of weeks more. So I played in 1080p with 2.0SS setting in game. I admired the improved picture quality over regular 1080p, but after I got my 4k monitor, I realised how blurry even 1080p with 2.0SS is compared to real 4k. The difference is very easy to spot when you compare the thin circular lines on the ship's scanner, and the slightly slanted capacitor indicators.

Now, I agree that not all textures are up to 4k standard and look blocky, but stating that E: D is not 4k is patently false in my opinion.
 
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CMDR Corlas

CMDR Corlas
Zieman said:
When I bought my 980ti, I had no 4k monitor. I did buy them at the same time, but the monitor's delivery took a couple of weeks more. So I played in 1080p with 2.0SS setting in game. I admired the improved picture quality over regular 1080p, but after I got my 4k monitor, I realised how blurry even 1080p with 2.0SS is compared to real 4k. The difference is very easy to spot when you compare the thin circular lines on the ship's scanner, and the slightly slanted capacitor indicators.
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Agreed. I can run 4k with my current setup, but since it's original HDMI, I'm limited to a 30Hz refresh, which makes me feel ill after a very short while.

It's utterly gorgeous though.

When we're talking dynamically rendered 3d models (and especially at the distances commonly used in ED, when ships and stations are also designed to be seen from up close), there's not really such a thing as "upscaled" graphics, that's just... not how it technically works. Not to say you're not finding other games more attractive, or even that they don't use higher res textures. :)
 

GraXXoR

GraXXoR
dognosh said:
ED is not in 4k, your card(and mine) upscales it :)
And the above is only my opinion from setting ED to near max and not seeing details I see in real 4k games/piccies.
Click to expand...

I’m not sure where you got this from, but I think you might be mistaken (unless you can cite a source) the Cobra Engine 8k ready and can render my game at 11,520 x 2,160 (at about 20fps, tho) with 1:1 superscaling, I.e. no interpolation.

It looks like the Frontier technology page has changed. .. oh well. There goes my official citation.
 

GraXXoR

GraXXoR
I think that the Cobra engine itself, being rather light and efficient, combined with the fact that Space lends itself to huge swaths if black, no wind or atmosphere, the textures being relatively low res and the spaceships being very simplistic polygons etc means that ED can perform well at really high res.

Remember, at 4K+ res you can eschew antialiasing and anisotropic filtering off the bat. You also obviously don’t need any supersampling or image sharpening, so that saves a lot of processing power right there.

I actually use 2:3 sub sampling which makes it play like like a 3 x 1440P. At 30” that’s enough for me, to be honest.
 

dognosh

dognosh
GraXXoR said:
I’m not sure where you got this from, but I think you might be mistaken (unless you can cite a source) the Cobra Engine 8k ready and can render my game at 11,520 x 2,160 (at about 20fps, tho) with 1:1 superscaling, I.e. no interpolation.

It looks like the Frontier technology page has changed. .. oh well. There goes my official citation.
Click to expand...

I am happy to be proven wrong and apologise to you and all :)
My problem is my game looks like it is 1 pixel scaled up to 4 pixels(in a square formation), I don't know but somehow 4k doesn't seem satisfying by a factor of 4 over 1080p :)
 

dognosh

dognosh
p.s. I think the upscaling or rendering limits(max resolution of any given system) is done by your GCard(monitor being the limiting factor) , not by the game, so if your card is capable of it you will see it.
 

Morbad

Morbad
CMDR Corlas said:
Does anyone run Elite at 4k? If so, what video card do you have? How's the experience? What graphic settings can you run the game on?
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Yes.

GTX 1080 Ti, which is the slowest video card I would recommend for 4k on planets.

I run with custom settings. 16x AF, 4k (up from 2-2.5k on ultra) textures in the config files, 1k (up from 256) environment, two extra shadow frustums on top of ultra's six, and a slew of other changes. I did turn off depth of field and reduce a few other settings where ultra went a bit overboard, but overall my settings are well past the ultra preset.

Experience is good. I'm targeting 60 fps minimum in near-worst case scenarios, though I can rarely see a bit below that. Average is probably 70-100 on planets, 80-100 around starports, 120-300 in open space. Little to none of the hitching some people claim is unavoidable, outside of networking limits.

GraXXoR said:
0.67 supersampling is indistinguishable from 1.00
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Not for most people on most setups, I'd wager.

CMDR Corlas said:
A single 1080Ti pushing 3x 4k monitors? o_O

Wow.

That's crazy impressive!
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Do note than 0.67x supersampling means that instead of being triple the pixels of a 4k display, it's only about 1.34x.

GraXXoR said:
Remember, at 4K+ res you can eschew antialiasing and anisotropic filtering off the bat.
Click to expand...

A sufficient pixel density can certainly mitigate the need for AA, but not AF.

dognosh said:
My problem is my game looks like it is 1 pixel scaled up to 4 pixels(in a square formation)
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The default texture resolutions are very low and many of them cannot be increased, so maybe that's what you're seeing. I would definitely recommend increasing the texture resolutions where you can.

Actual geometry and fineness of lines still scales fine though.

dognosh said:
I don't know but somehow 4k doesn't seem satisfying by a factor of 4 over 1080p :)
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Probably never will, at least not without enormous displays and textures to match, for the same reason 1080p is rarely four times as satisfying as 720p.
 

dognosh

dognosh
@Morbad , thanks for the advice but all settings are at max already. I stand by what I said, this game isn't optimised for 4k, just upscaled :)
 
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