Anyone else getting better performance with update 15?

[Dormant account - pls delete]

The game certainly looks a little nicer, but performance has not improved for me at all. Game is still pretty choppy at settlements, and occasionally drops a massive amount of frames after closing sysmap or galmap (and continues to drop frames until closed back to the main menu).

Interesting. What CPU and GPU do you have, and how much GPU VRAM?
My hypothesis now is U14 and U15 are pretty similar on battle station rigs that have headroom.

Thus detailed comparisons at Ultra where users already had over 60fps in U14, aren't really seeing any difference.

On any lesser rig, those users have gained some aspects of better rendering and absolutely everyone is saying it feels more responsive.

What's changed therefore is how the pipeline deals with bottlenecks. I think before if you had one tiny thing that was more like a straw than a watermain, it instantly became a choke point. Now it seems not only way more balanced but also a lot more adaptive to what kit it's on and what tunables you have set.

I also agree nVidia 2023 drivers seem better at handing the DX11 GPU<->CPU chokepoints now so 5% of the "better" since last summer is probably just that if you're on 10x nVidia or later.

AMD drivers were already better on that, so I assume Arc catching up rapidly at the bottom end of the market has made them realise they can't ignore DX11 in 2023. (Several of the major motorsport sims are DX11 and that's also a pretty vocal community when it comes to reputation at the high end)

 

[Old Duck]

Yeah but the OP is me old duck. I'm 100% sure my first impressions, as a horizons player, of odd was shock and awe mental destruction. Some aspects of it are almost certainly worse, and if you care, there's a definite period of coping you have to go through before trying to find the positives.

I really don't have the will to go through a "coping period". I could have done that if it were merely getting used to a new UI, but there are things that are clearly a downgrade (like not being able to turn off route lines) that just are a huge step backwards for me, and that's just a subset of the UI.

Spoiler: Do not like

Then there's the new planet surfaces, which I just hate very strongly dislike on multiple levels (overall appearance, performance, "pop-up" rendering, and a long list of other complaints), the new lighting system which is just horrible IMO (especially this "let us simulate dilating eyes for you" effect), and everything else I observed in other people's gameplay videos and now have experienced first-hand. Nope, I have absolutely no desire to play this new version of Elite. None.

If anything, im sorry if my positivity caused you to waste a large download or loose faith. Horizons is fixed, so if you look at it like a fixed boxed game, it's quite strong there.

Don't be sorry! I've been on this sort of "life support of hope" when it comes to Elite, continuing to engage in this forum as if someday I would once again join the ranks of active players. While painful, it's about time I deal with the reality of the situation and pull the plug. And it's about time I leave the Horizons 4.0 and Odyssey forums (queue the cheering and sneering). I've got nothing else to contribute here*.

Also im not sure what gpu vendor you're using, but something in context of nvidia, this years drivers (maybe even my specific one), and update 15 has caused real iq and performance improvements. There's sadly the odd performance cliff though, im not sure what the minimum is, maybe a 2070?

I've got a 1660ti, which runs demanding (and way better looking) games like MSFS and RDR2 perfectly fine. Even if I could somehow improve my 26 fps in empty settlements (can't imagine them full of NPCs), I still don't like how the new Elite looks and feels.

Anyway, it may be your thread, but people get angry if I post anything negative in any DD / Odd thread, so best I move on. I still love the forum as a whole, along with a subset of the people who dwell here, so I'll remain active on some of the other subforums. Speaking of (*), I do hope Frontier eventually reorganize this forum to make Horizons Legacy its own subforum, as I've not totally given up on Legacy just yet, and that seems to be a good place for retired veterans like myself to enjoy chats about the "good 'ol days".

O7

 

[Morbad]

I also agree nVidia 2023 drivers seem better at handing the DX11 GPU<->CPU chokepoints now so 5% of the "better" since last summer is probably just that if you're on 10x nVidia or later.

AMD drivers were already better on that

AMD has long had less driver overhead than NVIDIA and, as as of their May 2022 preview drivers (which made it into the numbered releases as of 22.5.2), have improved DX11 performance a fair bit, but NVIDIA, by and large still has the better performing D3D11 drivers.

NVIDIA's major DX11 improvements came long ago with a series of drivers back in 2011 to 2014, culminating in their R337 driver branch, which allowed the driver to distribute draw calls to different logical cores, even if the application doesn't make use of multi-threaded command lists. The result is that NVIDIA's D3D11 drivers are much better threaded than AMD's in those applications that don't explicitly have well-threaded renderers, allowing considerably more draw calls to be issued, despite having more overhead. So, in most scenarios where the CPU has sufficient logical cores, NVIDIA's drivers scale better in DX11 titles, often noticeably so. Only when significant developer care has been taken to explicitly utilize DX11's own multi-threading (which is pretty rare outside AAA stuff), or when the CPU is already being fully saturated (uncommon for anything with more than four physical cores), does AMD tend to perform better in CPU limited DX11 titles.

I'm not sure if Odyssey has seen much of a performance improvement from NVIDIA's drivers in 2023. I'm doubtful, as the general low-hanging fruit was picked years ago and no one seems to be optimizing specifically for niche titles originally released almost a decade ago.

Anyway, one is probably much more likely to see a performance improvement on AMD going from 22.5.1 or earlier to a more recent driver than they are going from pretty much any NVIDIA driver that supports their hardware to the newest NVIDIA driver.

 

[Morbad]

Have been doing some more testing, looking for CZs as close to the last one I was testing in U14, with some success.

Whatever minor performance difference I have observed seems to mostly come down to a behavioral phenomena that I believe is new to U15: NPC combatants appear much less likely to use their lamps, at least outside (Edit: this may well be down the power status of settlements). The resulting reduction in quantity of spot shadows is likely enough to explain most of the differential I can actually measure. Beyond this, any empirical change is within margin of error, even if I want to say things subjectively feel a bit smoother.

 

[Ivy Augustine Hall]

Interesting. What CPU and GPU do you have, and how much GPU VRAM?
My hypothesis now is U14 and U15 are pretty similar on battle station rigs that have headroom.

Thus detailed comparisons at Ultra where users already had over 60fps in U14, aren't really seeing any difference.

On any lesser rig, those users have gained some aspects of better rendering and absolutely everyone is saying it feels more responsive.

What's changed therefore is how the pipeline deals with bottlenecks. I think before if you had one tiny thing that was more like a straw than a watermain, it instantly became a choke point. Now it seems not only way more balanced but also a lot more adaptive to what kit it's on and what tunables you have set.

I also agree nVidia 2023 drivers seem better at handing the DX11 GPU<->CPU chokepoints now so 5% of the "better" since last summer is probably just that if you're on 10x nVidia or later.

AMD drivers were already better on that, so I assume Arc catching up rapidly at the bottom end of the market has made them realise they can't ignore DX11 in 2023. (Several of the major motorsport sims are DX11 and that's also a pretty vocal community when it comes to reputation at the high end)

my CPU is pretty good since I do alot of audio work, it's a ryzen 5 or something, but my GPU is only a 1660 Super. still remembering the golden days of elite (horizons) when i got 160 fps lol, now i'm lucky if i see 70 in the galaxy and above 30 in a station. game definitely seems to have some sort of memory leak though, because repeated jumping back to the same station after visiting other locations causes FPS drops that are erased when you go back to the main menu

 

[Dormant account - pls delete]

my CPU is pretty good since I do alot of audio work, it's a ryzen 5 or something, but my GPU is only a 1660 Super. still remembering the golden days of elite (horizons) when i got 160 fps lol, now i'm lucky if i see 70 in the galaxy and above 30 in a station. game definitely seems to have some sort of memory leak though, because repeated jumping back to the same station after visiting other locations causes FPS drops that are erased when you go back to the main menu

"Ryzen 5" covers quite a lot of a performance range depending on version and vintage but I would say, given even the 3600X is close to Intel 8th gen and there's no chance Elite: Dangerous is making proper use of the additional cores (because we frequently discuss here how terrible the multithreading is on this engine) you're probably CPU bound.

If you have a Ryzen 5 that is older/lesser than my guess, then you are absolutely CPU bound. That IS a good CPU but audio engines are written to take advantage of it and ED simply isn't.

I think most of the crappy leaks are settlement related - I can have a couple of hours of interstellar flitting and combat without anything slowing down but if I'm getting in and out of the SRV then yep, gotta relog every so often.

 

[Morbad]

U14:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYIxvAdCmJY


Similar, though not identical, CZ and virtually identical settings in U15:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl8DSpsyikQ


As far as memory leaks, I'm not sure ED has anything that would qualify. It will definitely use a lot of memory in certain cases, and probably doesn't evict assets as aggressively as it could, but it seems to quickly reach saturation, after which memory usage (system and GPU) remains largely static for protracted periods of time. A memory leak generally implies something progressive and eventually terminal for the process in question, beyond the final disposition of the program's allocations being uncomfortably large for the system in question.

 

[Morbad]

VRAM usage seems about the same as U14, peaking at ~14GiB on my setup in starport concourses, correctly dropping significantly when leaving the station.

System memory usage might be a bit less than before, as I've yet to see a working set size over ~7GiB. Memory is also being cleared correctly during play.

Edit: This is after a ~3 hour session (no restarts or exit to main menu) featuring a variety of activities across three systems...

No signs of a memory leak.

 

[varonica]

I really don't have the will to go through a "coping period". I could have done that if it were merely getting used to a new UI, but there are things that are clearly a downgrade (like not being able to turn off route lines) that just are a huge step backwards for me, and that's just a subset of the UI.

Um, you can turn them off, it's setting in the left hand panel! I have them turned off all the time except when I am edge exploring!

 

[Wobblin-Gobblin]

I can confirm that games runs smoother, even with ultra+ terrain. Nice job, FD

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

I really don't have the will to go through a "coping period". I could have done that if it were merely getting used to a new UI, but there are things that are clearly a downgrade (like not being able to turn off route lines) that just are a huge step backwards for me, and that's just a subset of the UI.

Then there's the new planet surfaces, which I just hate very strongly dislike on multiple levels (overall appearance, performance, "pop-up" rendering, and a long list of other complaints), the new lighting system which is just horrible IMO (especially this "let us simulate dilating eyes for you" effect), and everything else I observed in other people's gameplay videos and now have experienced first-hand. Nope, I have absolutely no desire to play this new version of Elite. None.

Sorry to hear you are disappointed, but to be perfectly honest, this (and what you wrote in the other thread) is pretty much in line with what I expected from you trying the 4.0 client. A certain vibe of stubbornness transpires through your complaint about the system connector lines, which you can turn of, and it is not even that hard to find.

Not saying it is true, but it sounds to me very much that you went in with the predetermined mindset that you will not like it - a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will (which is your prerogative, of course). Also, no matter how much one likes it or not, 4.0 is so different from Legacy that you will have to go through a phase of adjusting or "coping". By saying (I am paraphrasing as it appeared to me) "Nah, this is different, I don't like it" you do yourself a big disservice.

But well, the new version is what it is, and it will not revert back. And it is perfectly understandable that it is not for everyone. Sorry to hear you have decided the way you did. Let me say one last thing (and that is, of course, just my opinion, man): By trying just the 4.0 client and not Odyssey you are missing the one feature that kicks all complains in the derriere: My first descent on an atmospheric planet near the terminator was one of the most beautiful things Odyssey has to offer. Still is one of my favorite moments. Just for that, I would buy it again every time.

 

[yianniv]

Sorry to hear you are disappointed, but to be perfectly honest, this (and what you wrote in the other thread) is pretty much in line with what I expected from you trying the 4.0 client. A certain vibe of stubbornness transpires through your complaint about the system connector lines, which you can turn of, and it is not even that hard to find.

Not saying it is true, but it sounds to me very much that you went in with the predetermined mindset that you will not like it - a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will (which is your prerogative, of course). Also, no matter how much one likes it or not, 4.0 is so different from Legacy that you will have to go through a phase of adjusting or "coping". By saying (I am paraphrasing as it appeared to me) "Nah, this is different, I don't like it" you do yourself a big disservice.

But well, the new version is what it is, and it will not revert back. And it is perfectly understandable that it is not for everyone. Sorry to hear you have decided the way you did. Let me say one last thing (and that is, of course, just my opinion, man): By trying just the 4.0 client and not Odyssey you are missing the one feature that kicks all complains in the derriere: My first descent on an atmospheric planet near the terminator was one of the most beautiful things Odyssey has to offer. Still is one of my favorite moments. Just for that, I would buy it again every time.

To be fair, although I agree it was an expected outcome, the performance of an 1660 could very well justify the negative response. I have the luxury of a desktop and I started enjoying Odyssey when I swapped my RX580 for a 6750XT. Night and day.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Gotta say, odd on ultra is pretty nice. Shame there's nothing to do.. well.. i'll just try and get back to playing elite then.

I tried a salvage mission.. was quite dumb.. the satellite was in the middle of rough terrain so i couldn't land.. there was a half a dozen little men glowing blue, i couldn't shoot them so i just squashed them with my ship. Got a bounty from shooting the dropship of the second wave.. tried the slf.. of course ended up squashing the second wave with my ship again... it was kinda alright to cut open a panel and loot something.. the bulk of the time was spent paying off my bounty.. because of powerplay i had to jump to 3 systems to find a valid system.

In 2023, the mission board is toxic to life given all that took just under an hour. Nasty stuff. Its sandbox or bust i think.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Scavengers at crash sites react very well to dumbfires. Those are pretty much the go to weapons if you don't want to deal with them on foot.

Also, for various reasons the best Odyssey mission runner is a small ship. My favorite is the Viper IV.

 

[CMDR Ylion]

I think the anti aliasing looks better with less edge flickering.

That is confirmed in this post from Sally:

A number of lighting issues/instances of flickering and such have been addressed, yes Fixing some of the more severe instances may have also impacted some of the minor ones for the better o7

I can´t say much about performance, as I haven´t been to a ground settlement yet.

 

[Planewalker]

Gotta say, odd on ultra is pretty nice. Shame there's nothing to do.. well.. i'll just try and get back to playing elite then.

I tried a salvage mission.. was quite dumb.. the satellite was in the middle of rough terrain so i couldn't land.. there was a half a dozen little men glowing blue, i couldn't shoot them so i just squashed them with my ship. Got a bounty from shooting the dropship of the second wave..

Welp, yes you get bounties from shooting non-wanted ships. Par for the course.
Not sure what you mean there's nothing to do, i mean it's obviously a matter of taste if one cares for what there is, but saying there is nothing to do is just flat out untrue. XD

 

[Morbad]

That is confirmed in this post from Sally

Honestly, I think Sally completely misinterpreted Imo's statement or the context of the patch note she was quoting.

I've noticed fixes to lighting. I haven't noticed any hint of an AA improvement, anywhere, on any system, even after detailed examination of pre and post U15 screenshots using the same settings.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

That is confirmed in this post from Sally:


I can´t say much about performance, as I haven´t been to a ground settlement yet.

The faint stars in the skybox don't flicker for me anymore, its made all the difference. Well, just mildly now but they're not making me notice.

 

[Dormant account - pls delete]

1. There's nowt wrong with it on a 1060, so the performance of it on a 1660 isn't an explanation for the complaints.
2. For balance, indeed turning off the system lines isn't hard, but on the other hand, they did turn themselves back on randomly last night.
3. I don't get pop-in problems in the SRV. I don't have Odyssey so is this an On Foot common complaint?

 

[babelfisch]

Honestly, I think Sally completely misinterpreted Imo's statement or the context of the patch note she was quoting.

I've noticed fixes to lighting. I haven't noticed any hint of an AA improvement, anywhere, on any system, even after detailed examination of pre and post U15 screenshots using the same settings.

You are the expert, but isn't flickering usually attributed to aliasing? For me the flickering is a bigger problem than the jaggies and you wouldn't necessarily notice a change just by looking at static screenshots. I can't tell since I didn't get the chance to try update 15 yet.