Cobra Engine is compatible to,,,?

[Riktar]

As I start pondering my next upgrade path it occurs to me that the Cobra Engine FD uses (or the Elite Dangerous game itself) is never listed in any online benchmark.

Is there any way to draw information by comparing a particular game benchmark against Elite Dangerous when researching hardware upgrades for the PC?

 

[Nick Sticks]

Not really. Just get the best quad (or more) processor/motherboard and graphics card you can afford.
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You could state what you have now and what frame rates you are getting so that we know what you are used to and offer our current builds and performance.
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My i7 5820k/Asus X99-A and Nvidia GTX 1070 works well at 1650x1080 2xSS with 60+ FPS and should work ok at 1920x1080.
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Many other people will be able to offer much higher spec systems, I'm sure.
.

 

[smartroad]

Would be good if FDev could implement a simple benchmark test and then we could make a database that people could check Still low priority thought though LOL

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Would be good if FDev could implement a simple benchmark test and then we could make a database that people could check Still low priority thought though LOL

^^^^
This

I suggested that a very long time ago.
Some typical scenarios, nice GFX, battles and "heavy duty GFX" scenes.

a) advertise ELITE by its beauty
b) provide a comprehensive Benchmark
c) *cough* advertise ELITE

 

[Cheapchips]

An update of FE2's intro would be a perfect benchmarking sequence. Shame it'll be a long wait for all the necessary pieces

(not wanting to knock the lovely efforts that people have done in the current game)

 

[GG7]

As I start pondering my next upgrade path it occurs to me that the Cobra Engine FD uses (or the Elite Dangerous game itself) is never listed in any online benchmark.

Is there any way to draw information by comparing a particular game benchmark against Elite Dangerous when researching hardware upgrades for the PC?

I've never been a fan of their proprietary game engine aka COBRA. I always wondered why they didn't just purchase one of the time tested and highly regarded off the shelf engines instead.

I wouldn't remain so critical of their decision if COBRA actually performed up to snuff, but it clearly doesn't. I'm running a top of the line home built rig utilizing an overclocked 6700k CPU, an overclocked EVGA GTX1080 FTW GPU, with the game installed on my Samsung 950 PRO M.2 NVme system drive on an ASUS Z170 Deluxe Mobo.

Yet despite running the latest/greatest top of the line components and running ED at a pedestrian 1080p/60hz resolution, I am still seeing stuttering, pop-in, pauses and other immersion breaking performance issues with this game that I never see in any of my other games. All of which are putting far more of a demand on my hardware than anything Elite Dangerous can muster.

All signs point to Frontier's COBRA Engine as the source of these performance issues, since again, games that are far more demanding run like greased lightning on this same machine even when I switch to 4k resolutions.

Why Frontier has not spent more time seriously optimizing this COBRA Engine to run better with at least high end hardware is a complete mystery to me. Are they blind to these fps dips and other tell tale optimization related problems? They very well could be, because I have often seen these very same performance problems on their own YouTube Live Streams and archived videos.

 

[Bambi]

I've never been a fan of their proprietary game engine aka COBRA. I always wondered why they didn't just purchase one of the time tested and highly regarded off the shelf engines instead.

Because space is big, and off the shelf engines aren't really geared to handle it. The only licensable engine that comes to mind is the infinity Inovae engine, which is unproven. They'd end up in the situation that Star Citizen is facing, where they'd have to reimplement significant portions of the engine to make things work. Cobra handles the full scale of space very well and they went from nothing to supercruise in a fairly short order because they didn't have to struggle with trying to screw with a hammer.

 

[Wylie28]

I've never been a fan of their proprietary game engine aka COBRA. I always wondered why they didn't just purchase one of the time tested and highly regarded off the shelf engines instead.

I wouldn't remain so critical of their decision if COBRA actually performed up to snuff, but it clearly doesn't. I'm running a top of the line home built rig utilizing an overclocked 6700k CPU, an overclocked EVGA GTX1080 FTW GPU, with the game installed on my Samsung 950 PRO M.2 NVme system drive on an ASUS Z170 Deluxe Mobo.

Yet despite running the latest/greatest top of the line components and running ED at a pedestrian 1080p/60hz resolution, I am still seeing stuttering, pop-in, pauses and other immersion breaking performance issues with this game that I never see in any of my other games. All of which are putting far more of a demand on my hardware than anything Elite Dangerous can muster.

All signs point to Frontier's COBRA Engine as the source of these performance issues, since again, games that are far more demanding run like greased lightning on this same machine even when I switch to 4k resolutions.

Why Frontier has not spent more time seriously optimizing this COBRA Engine to run better with at least high end hardware is a complete mystery to me. Are they blind to these fps dips and other tell tale optimization related problems? They very well could be, because I have often seen these very same performance problems on their own YouTube Live Streams and archived videos.

For many reasons.

1. being they don't support games this large
2. they aren't optimized because those engines are designed to create many types of genres. Game engines in general are the definition of unoptimized. But if one must be used its far better to have an engine tailored for a specific purpose rather than multipurpose

 

[lysan]

I've never been a fan of their proprietary game engine aka COBRA. I always wondered why they didn't just purchase one of the time tested and highly regarded off the shelf engines instead.

I wouldn't remain so critical of their decision if COBRA actually performed up to snuff, but it clearly doesn't. I'm running a top of the line home built rig utilizing an overclocked 6700k CPU, an overclocked EVGA GTX1080 FTW GPU, with the game installed on my Samsung 950 PRO M.2 NVme system drive on an ASUS Z170 Deluxe Mobo.

Yet despite running the latest/greatest top of the line components and running ED at a pedestrian 1080p/60hz resolution, I am still seeing stuttering, pop-in, pauses and other immersion breaking performance issues with this game that I never see in any of my other games. All of which are putting far more of a demand on my hardware than anything Elite Dangerous can muster.

All signs point to Frontier's COBRA Engine as the source of these performance issues, since again, games that are far more demanding run like greased lightning on this same machine even when I switch to 4k resolutions.

Why Frontier has not spent more time seriously optimizing this COBRA Engine to run better with at least high end hardware is a complete mystery to me. Are they blind to these fps dips and other tell tale optimization related problems? They very well could be, because I have often seen these very same performance problems on their own YouTube Live Streams and archived videos.

The Cobra engine is very capable, it actually do a great job. Popping you see in many games and the pauses are related to the Internet connection.

However the engine still need more power for the upper high end PCs.

 

[Bambi]

The Cobra engine is very capable, it actually do a great job. Popping you see in many games and the pauses are related to the Internet connection.

However the engine still need more power for the upper high end PCs.

It does have some issues with frame pacing and antialiasing. I can never seem to get it quite smooth, there's always some microstutter or juddering.

 

[MickyG1982]

All I can say is, it works fine on my system (in my Sig) I get 50 to 60 fps everywhere with custom settings between medium and Ultra (mostly high settings, smidgen of the other 2) at 1080p. That, for me, is smooth enough (I understand why it won't be for others) but I know my systems limitations.

That said, even the mighty gtx 1080 struggles with 60fps in most games at 4k without compromising on graphical settings. Perhaps the problem with people owning high end rigs is that they expect too much from them, not a problem with the engine at all.

 

[xondk]

As I start pondering my next upgrade path it occurs to me that the Cobra Engine FD uses (or the Elite Dangerous game itself) is never listed in any online benchmark.

Is there any way to draw information by comparing a particular game benchmark against Elite Dangerous when researching hardware upgrades for the PC?

The Cobra engine is an in house engine, so FDev have full control over it.

That said totally agree, that an in game benchmark would be good for people to test various stuff. But the reason it isn't listed online is because its in house, and doesn't have internal benchmark, given that the environment is constantly changing, and a benchmark needs a static thing.

 

[GJ51]

I've got a 6 yr old Core i7-950, 24GB, SSD, and a 980Ti running a 34" 1440p for the game plus a 1920X1200 monitor for desktop access.

Butter smooth - no stutters EVER.

Frame rates always over 100

Run ED at highest settings at 3440X1440 resolution.

Go figure.

EDIT can also watch TV or videos on the 24" monitor while playing ED on the 34" - no issues.

 

[Cmdr Ultra]

Butter smooth - no stutters EVER.

This for me too at 5760 x 1080 resolution with 3770k & SLI 780ti's. The Cobra engine actually seems very well optimized.

 

[Riktar]

Not really. Just get the best quad (or more) processor/motherboard and graphics card you can afford.
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You could state what you have now and what frame rates you are getting so that we know what you are used to and offer our current builds and performance.
.
My i7 5820k/Asus X99-A and Nvidia GTX 1070 works well at 1650x1080 2xSS with 60+ FPS and should work ok at 1920x1080.
.
Many other people will be able to offer much higher spec systems, I'm sure.
.

Good point on the hardware specs. I currently have:

Asus P6x58D-E mobo

X5650 Xeon clocked to 4 Ghz

16GB ram @ 1866Mhz

Xfx R9 290(nonX) vid card pushing out to a 34" 2560x1080 monitor.

Rosewill CAPSTONE Series 750W 80 Plus Gold power supply

480GB SSD

At this point the next "upgrade" is going to be the vid card. Up until a few versions ago I was perfectly happy with the 290. I had my frame rates locked down to 60 fps since that is the refresh rate on my monitor. Frankly I don't think I ever saw the rates drop below 55 in any situation. But that was a few versions (ED and the radeon drivers) ago.

Lately I have been fighting with planetary landings that just lock up the computer on every approach. I have wotked around it by going windowed, turning off AMD gaming evolved, turning off PlaysTV, dropping the settings down from Ultra everything, etc, etc.

But I am getting REALLY tired of having to juggle my graphics settings every-time FD releases an update or AMD rolls out a new driver. Look, I like to tinker on stuff but this is getting nuts. I just want to set it and forget it.

I suppose I should state that I am still sporting Windows 7 (and plan on staying with it) so I don't care about DX12 performance. Now Vulkan looks interesting but I am not sure if FD is going to adopt it.

So that's where I am at. I have NO preference or loyalty to any hardware mfg so please don't start the red vs green debate.

In fact, the more I think about it, I could see "upgrading" to something that doesn't have me jumping through hoops. Heck, if a GTX 1060 or a RX 480 does that, I would be thrilled. Dollar wise, After I sell my 290, the cost would be pretty minimal. I don't plan on VR anytime soon so going with a FURY/1070/1080 would be wasted dollars since I don't really need that much ooomf. And don't see myself going for triple monitors or 1440p/4k anytime soon.

 

[Avago Earo]

I think the COBRA engine is used for Frontier's Roller Coaster games too. I think I read that sometime ago but I could be wrong. Elite runs buttery on my system and it's not high end. It's my first home build done gradually on a budget. I got the GPU last year but built the rest during Premium Beta.

Mobo: Asus Z87-K
CPU: i5 4660 3.2 (boost 3.4) Ghz
8Gb DDR3
Western Digital HDD
Asus Stryx GTX 970

Before I got the 970 I was running ED on this system on a used GT 740. Low settings was playable. No butter though. More like peanut butter but still playable

 

[MickyG1982]

Ok

Good point on the hardware specs. I currently have:

Asus P6x58D-E mobo

X5650 Xeon clocked to 4 Ghz

16GB ram @ 1866Mhz

Xfx R9 290(nonX) vid card pushing out to a 34" 2560x1080 monitor.

Rosewill CAPSTONE Series 750W 80 Plus Gold power supply

480GB SSD

At this point the next "upgrade" is going to be the vid card. Up until a few versions ago I was perfectly happy with the 290. I had my frame rates locked down to 60 fps since that is the refresh rate on my monitor. Frankly I don't think I ever saw the rates drop below 55 in any situation. But that was a few versions (ED and the radeon drivers) ago.

Lately I have been fighting with planetary landings that just lock up the computer on every approach. I have wotked around it by going windowed, turning off AMD gaming evolved, turning off PlaysTV, dropping the settings down from Ultra everything, etc, etc.

But I am getting REALLY tired of having to juggle my graphics settings every-time FD releases an update or AMD rolls out a new driver. Look, I like to tinker on stuff but this is getting nuts. I just want to set it and forget it.

I suppose I should state that I am still sporting Windows 7 (and plan on staying with it) so I don't care about DX12 performance. Now Vulkan looks interesting but I am not sure if FD is going to adopt it.

So that's where I am at. I have NO preference or loyalty to any hardware mfg so please don't start the red vs green debate.

That 6 year old processor isn't helping matters either. By comparison my 4 core Athlon 860k is blow for blow as fast as it. That means your CPU would be outclassed by the previous generation i3, let alone anything more modern. The limiting factor here is more likely your cpu rather than the GPU itself.

 

[Riktar]

My system is used for work as well as graphics and video editing. So while ED might not be fully utilizing all 6 cores, I can assure you that it is not a limiting factor. Especially with a clock speed of 4ghz. And for my video work I am well beyond the speed of an i3, i5 and pretty much all i7's until you get to the 4790k.

As I previously mentioned, my system has been running at Ultra with the FPS pretty much pinned at 60fps. The problem has not been with low frame rates or stutters. Flying in space or landing in stations I have velvet smooth performance without hiccups or stutters.

The problem is with the game freezing when I am trying to land on planets since 2.1 and the 16.7.3 drivers from AMD,,,,,,,

 

[Nick Sticks]

My system is used for work as well as graphics and video editing. So while ED might not be fully utilizing all 6 cores, I can assure you that it is not a limiting factor. Especially with a clock speed of 4ghz. And for my video work I am well beyond the speed of an i3, i5 and pretty much all i7's until you get to the 4790k.

As I previously mentioned, my system has been running at Ultra with the FPS pretty much pinned at 60fps. The problem has not been with low frame rates or stutters. Flying in space or landing in stations I have velvet smooth performance without hiccups or stutters.

The problem is with the game freezing when I am trying to land on planets since 2.1 and the 16.7.3 drivers from AMD,,,,,,,

Is your graphics card overclocked by you or out of the box?
There have been issues with this with various cards, the solution being to reduce the overclocking until the problem goes away.
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There does appear to be a new driver for your card (Crimson Edition 16.9.1 Hotfix) released a few days ago, have you tried that?
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At what point is the freezing occurring? i.e in glide mode or actually nearly touching down when terrain is visible?
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I'm almost thinking you are going to have to change the graphics card to an Nvidia one as you are expressing some dissatisfaction with the AMD drivers situation. The obvious choices are the new 1060/1070/1080. All I can do is vouch for the 1070 for what I do.
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[xondk]

Good point on the hardware specs. I currently have:

Asus P6x58D-E mobo

X5650 Xeon clocked to 4 Ghz

Same motherboard here, Though i7-950 instead and 'only' 12 gb ram with tripple channel.

Most of our performance gain is from graphic card no doubt, but our CPU's can hold stuff back, they just don't have as many of the optimisations that have been created over the i7 generations, personally I do not have to juggle my settings, and without wanting to offend, the culprit might be the graphic card, I'm not really brand loyal, but all the AMD cards I've known have had issues, and are heavily reliant on AMD getting stuff done right, Nvidia? not so much, there it is more a case as long as they don't mess anything up (which has happened) with drivers then, hoping for drivers to make things work. So with nvidia you can always fall back on older drivers and get same performance, with only a few exceptions and those are generally AMD optimised games.