Initial beta3 feedback: (as of this post time/date)
Intel 520 SSD, i7 3.4Ghz, 8GB RAM, 6950 video card, 1400x900 windowed mode, catalyst 14.9, win7, 28 active processes.
-20 seconds of client inactivity/doing nothing from clicking Play in the launcher. No HD activity, black screen, nothing. No indication of any kind anything is happening. I thought the launcher was broken.
-hitching on the spinning ship after clicking on mode of play, pauses of 1 second and less, quite frequent.. flickering in the spinning ship model too.
-GPU usage in the hanger is now 50% instead of 90% compared to beta 2.06. Looks like all they did was remove the lights and mist/fog/steam. (identical settings, on my end)
-Hanger is extremely dark now. Don't know if that's a bug or intentional.
-attempting to bring up the system map locked the client for 8 seconds, i thought it had frozen completely/crashed.
-looking at azeban city, it says it exports grain, animal meat, and leather. Checking the commodities screen shows... (didn't get to check this, server disconnected, and I'm in Azeban orbital anyway)
-still have to exit to through the galaxy map when looking at the system map.
-looking along the galactic ecliptic in the galaxy map drives GPU usage to 100%, exactly like beta 2.06, so that's disappointing. Won't be using that as much as I would like to, as a result. My video card fans will run up to 100% if I sit in the screen for more than a few minutes, and no other game I currently or have ever played has this much load for such a simple screen.
-got disconnected from the server while browsing the galaxy map. (about 3 minutes before the hour, ~5pm mountain time)
-Start option in the main menu is now red, evidently the server is down.
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second try (had to close the client)
-tried to bring up the bulletin board, standby icon for more than 30 seconds, then an error "Unable to retrieve something", then "Could not connect to server, press ok to return to the main menu"
-start option at main menu is red again.
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third try (had to close the client)
-spinning ship for ~30 seconds, finally appeared in the hanger.
-bulletin board came up right away this time.
-tried to do some outfitting, took 20 seconds per action
-disconnected again, but this time start option from the main menu wasn't red, tried to start, took 20 seconds to switch to the "START" menu to select play mode.
-spinning ship for 20 seconds before appearing in game.
-outfitting interface took 20 seconds to appear
-looks like I got short changed. Had a type6 fully tricked out in beta 2.06, and I was given 2.7M CR, pretty sure that doesn't even buy the ship, never mind the upgrades, but whatever.
-another random server disconnect.
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giving up for now, can't even stay in game 5 minutes.