Hardware & Technical Any tips to tweak graphics performance?

[disorganise]

I can't recall which update did it, but at some point the performance of my PC went South big time. One or two driver updates didn't help (was stuck at 30fps) but I sorted that (cleaned and reinstalled).

PC is 2 years old. Intel i5 (the unlocked one around 3.8Ghz), 16GB ram and Amd 290x [did have 2 but one died 6 months ago....not that it made any difference in Elite).

My monitor is quite old now. A 27" Dell @ 1920x1200 and lacking freesync. Consequently, it gets quite jerky when fps drop to 50's or less. That seems to happen all too regularly.....arriving into a system, during hyperspace, docking, opening the station systems, and of course gal map.

I've got the settings locked to v sync so it's capped at 60fps....mainly cos it runs much cooler that way. Removing that allows fps to hit 140 or so but it still chugs down to 50s so net result is no improvement and fast spinning fans :/

At the moment the game is set to ultra with whatever defaults that gives. Way back I changed smaa to the m2 one but the resulting jaggies drove me nuts so I put it back.

So I'm looking for tips half the settings in there I don't really understand. Obviously I want the best quality possible, but I think I'd prefer a solid 60fps and smooth. I can try reverting when/if I get new screen (and card if I go g sync....but that's future..).

Googling suggested even 4k is possible on this card, but the settings weren't provided.

Iirc I already tried "high" instead of ultra and it made no practical difference (v sync off sae fps go even higher but the trouble spots still dropped into the stuttering 50s)

 

[WindWpn]

do you play in Fullscreen mode? I find windowed or borderless cause microstutter no matter resolution.

 

[YinYin]

Try using a lower resolution and bring it back up to native via super sampling.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

Two of the settings that have the biggest impact on FPS are Ambient Occlusion and Shadows. Try it with AO off and see if you notice any difference to the image, chances are you won't unless you look hard. You will probably notice a few extra FPS especially in stations. Try setting shadows to low and see if you like it or not. I wouldn't use supersampling as that will just eat the FPS and make the card run even hotter (I have a 390X). Does that card support VSR in Radeon Settings?

By the way don't blame your card for the stuttering - quite a few people get that stuttering at the times you mention (though for most, not all, it's better in the 2.3 beta).

 

[disorganise]

do you play in Fullscreen mode? I find windowed or borderless cause microstutter no matter resolution.

Need to check. Borderless I think cos I have used captains log/EDD

- - - Updated - - -

Try using a lower resolution and bring it back up to native via super sampling.

How? I don't really get supersampling. Not that the numbers work, but sau I drop res 20%, would set sampling to 0.8 or 1.2?

- - - Updated - - -

Two of the settings that have the biggest impact on FPS are Ambient Occlusion and Shadows. Try it with AO off and see if you notice any difference to the image, chances are you won't unless you look hard. You will probably notice a few extra FPS especially in stations. Try setting shadows to low and see if you like it or not. I wouldn't use supersampling as that will just eat the FPS and make the card run even hotter (I have a 390X). Does that card support VSR in Radeon Settings?

By the way don't blame your card for the stuttering - quite a few people get that stuttering at the times you mention (though for most, not all, it's better in the 2.3 beta).

Thanks. Will try that. I have beta access so should probably consider doing a compare.
I think vsr might be an option I saw. Assuming it does, what would you suggest? (I've never used it)

 

[YinYin]

1.25×80%=100%
Not sure there is 80% of your native resolution.
2×50% should be possible.

 

[Jon flint]

Try using a lower resolution and bring it back up to native via super sampling.

You can also do it the other way round. Set your game resolution to your monitors native res, and then set supersampling to 0.85 or lower.

For example if your running at 1920x1080 and set SS to 0.85 your card is only rendering the game at 1632x918. If you go too far below 0.85 you will start to notice the drop in resolution more and more.

 

[YinYin]

But that looks bad and doesn't improve performance as much. At least for me.

 

[Morbad]

Amd 290x [did have 2 but one died 6 months ago....not that it made any difference in Elite).

CFX, in my experience, has always worked in Elite: Dangerous and has had an official profile for more than a year. The experience has generally been quite good for me, though the current beta needs a custom profile to work.

So I'm looking for tips half the settings in there I don't really understand. Obviously I want the best quality possible, but I think I'd prefer a solid 60fps and smooth. I can try reverting when/if I get new screen (and card if I go g sync....but that's future..).

Googling suggested even 4k is possible on this card, but the settings weren't provided.

Iirc I already tried "high" instead of ultra and it made no practical difference (v sync off sae fps go even higher but the trouble spots still dropped into the stuttering 50s)

4k is not practical on a single 290X without destroying the quality in other ways.

Anyway, 'Ultra' is a good place to start. First thing I would do is max out the terrain generation slider, which actually seems to help frame rate slightly on planetary surfaces.

Disabling blur, depth of field, and ambient occlusion will help frame rate quite a bit in some areas.

You'll also want to increase the power limit in the drivers, if you haven't done so already. Demanding areas might exceed the default and cause the card to throttle, reducing performance. Turning off "surface format optimization" and trying performance texture optimization may also help, without overtly harming IQ (changing surface format optimization may actually improve things slightly).

You can also make some changes to the game's configuration files, if you're up to it.

In AppConfig.xml, increasing the RenderThreadStackSize to double it's default value sometimes helps.

In GraphicsConfiguration.xml there are a number of changes that can be made to improve some of the more demanding areas. Reducing "AsteroidMaxTrails" and "PlanetMaxTrails" for the quality setting you are using (the highest one, in this case) can improve supercruise performance near planets, while all the various "DecalsPerCollection" settings (again for a specific detail level) can improve performance when objects are being shot up in your view. I also like to reduce "DebrisLimit" from 3000 to 2000.

 

[disorganise]

Great. Thanks for the tips. I shalk work through them bit by bit. I only get half an hour a day to play so it can take a while.

In the meantime.....
I'm torn regards a monitor.....
I've had it in my mind for a while that I should get 4k. Mostly "just cos" but it would make photo's look awesome I suppose.
But now I'm second guessing. I bought the 27" because of its resolution. Basically its a 24" stretched. And it's been perfect. Text is big enough to read etc.
It occurs to me that 4k would make the writing way small and I'm not sure if windows has yet addressed scaling?

I was looking at the Asus rog 34" but if I measured it correctly whilst being wider it seems to be shorter and I'm not sure that's a good idea.

I guess I'm looking for some pros n cons. Should I sink money into a monitor with freesync to sort out this stutter, or add more horsepower in the form of a new card like the 1080ti?

 

[disorganise]

Should also say the curved screen gimmick doesn't do much for me, nor the super fast refresh rates, but I reckon 75hz would be good. Since getting ED I've not played anything else, but used mostly play racing games.

 

[Yodebe]

But that looks bad and doesn't improve performance as much. At least for me.

Un-super sampling works great for me.
using a higher quality setting than my machine can really cope with, then 0.85 s.sampling brings the FPS right up to 60 again, without loosing all the eye candy

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

It occurs to me that 4k would make the writing way small and I'm not sure if windows has yet addressed scaling?

The scaling in Win10, IMO is crap compared to 7. The desktop is fine but if certain apps don't support the scaling then their text is "fuzzy".

I was looking at the Asus rog 34" but if I measured it correctly whilst being wider it seems to be shorter and I'm not sure that's a good idea.

Should also say the curved screen gimmick doesn't do much for me, nor the super fast refresh rates, but I reckon 75hz would be good

I have a 34" curved 21:9 with Freesync (3440x1440, 75Hz). I wouldn't say the curve is a gimmick, I like it - in fact I wish my monitor had a more pronounced curve for gaming. Then again I suspect apps in the desktop would start to look odd. Now, when I use a flat monitor it seems that the edges are curving away from me and they look weird IMO 75Hz is the sweet spot between performance and smoothness and I have no great desire to go higher. I suspect those with 120/144Hz monitors will have a different opinion. I'll admit the lack of height is not ideal but not a show-stopper for me (I have the FOV set to 70 in the game files which helps).

I've not played ED on a 4k screen yet (must try it on my 48" TV one of these days) so hopefully you'll get some opinions from people who have tried both 4k and ultra-wide. Ultimately it comes down to personal preference so best thing to do is try and see it for yourself.

I guess I'm looking for some pros n cons. Should I sink money into a monitor with freesync to sort out this stutter, or add more horsepower in the form of a new card like the 1080ti?

Don't do what I did and expect a more powerful PC/GPU to magically fix the stutter. It's the game engine (just browse the bug forums). Just trying to set your expectations here.

 

[disorganise]

The scaling in Win10, IMO is crap compared to 7. The desktop is fine but if certain apps don't support the scaling then their text is "fuzzy".

That's disappointing but not entirely a surprise. Good to know though.

I have a 34" curved 21:9 with Freesync (3440x1440, 75Hz). I wouldn't say the curve is a gimmick, I like it - in fact I wish my monitor had a more pronounced curve for gaming. Then again I suspect apps in the desktop would start to look odd. Now, when I use a flat monitor it seems that the edges are curving away from me and they look weird IMO 75Hz is the sweet spot between performance and smoothness and I have no great desire to go higher. I suspect those with 120/144Hz monitors will have a different opinion. I'll admit the lack of height is not ideal but not a show-stopper for me (I have the FOV set to 70 in the game files which helps).

So does the free sync actually make a difference? Ie when fps drops to 50 does it still appear to stutter or has it smoothed out?
Torn between freesync, waiting for a freesync 2 presumably with hdr, and gsync which would need a card as well so uber expensive.

The acer freesync is a good bit cheaper than the gsync acer and asus as well. FS2 will probably change that initially though.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

So does the free sync actually make a difference?

Oh yes, I couldn't go without it now. In ED it helps more with tearing rather than stutter (though any micro-stutter in this game is definitely more bearable with Freesync+Vsync at 60Hz as their physics engine updates 60 times a second). I find that without Vsync and Freesync on for example the tearing in this game can be quite bad regardless of frame rate. If you do go down the Freesync route make sure you get a monitor with the widest Freesync range possible and in addition LFC helps if ever the frame rate falls below the lower Freesync threshold.

 

[7_JAS_7]

Hi, try to change the priority of the game in windows.