My rig (AMD Ryzen 5600X/3060 RTX/16 gb/1920 by 1080 60hz monitor capped, running the game on all high settings) continues to run fine. Starting with Update 8 and now continuing with U9, I maintain a steady 60 fps in space, on station concourses and at most planetary settlements (I occasionally come across one that knocks my framerate down to ~50 or so for a few seconds but then it recovers). So, going on my local hardware, the game runs fine.
However, I realize how fortunate I am to have been able to upgrade my rig, so I don't think using a new rig to evaluate the game tells the "typical" story. So, I have been making it a point to play Odyssey on Geforce Now because I think nVidia's hardware, while still robust, is closer to the average user. With that in mind I am disappointed to report that Update 9 still has a ways to go.
First, the good:
Space remains at a steady 60 FPS for me in all situations.
Update 9 has brought improvements to station concourses. With Update 8, station concourses ran pretty well and mostly maintained a framerate of 50-60, with only occasional dips into the ~45 range in certain spots/looking in certain directions. With Update 9, station concourses maintain a solid 60 fps 99% of the time. Definite optimization here!
Next, the bad:
Here, it is the usual suspect: planetary settlements. Seeing the optimizations for concourses, I headed off to a settlement eager to see improvement. Honestly, it might have gotten worse. The first settlement I hit on a thin-atmosphere world had serious performance issues on GFN. From the moment I entered orbital cruise, my framerate tanked from 60 to 45 to 30. When I activated automatic landing, I thought GFN was going to crash because the framerate hit 18(!) as my ship descended, then stuttered like mad - the audio even began to break up! - froze for a second or two, and then recovered to ~30 fps as I touched down. From there, the framerate remained at 35 even though I was looking at nothing more than sunlit barren land in the distance. When I disembarked, the framerate remained at 35 until I entered the settlement proper where it recovered to 45 for most of the time. The performance was overall so poor that I suspected maybe it was a problem with GFN. With this in mind, I made a return trip the following day but got the same results.
Last night I tried a different settlement on a dark, airless planet. Here, when I entered OC, my framerate again dropped from 60 to ~40, and tanked to ~28-35 on autolanding. Once on the concrete apron, the framerate again settled at 35 FPS, despite my view being nothing more than a lampost, a bit of concrete apron, and a dark, featureless landscape. I sat in my cockpit a bit and just watched the FPS counter. It was kinda interesting in that it went like this: 35-40-35-45-49-40-45-50-50-50-45-40-35. Again, this was with absolutely nothing being rendered on my screen but a lit lampost, etc. etc. When I disembarked, it was mostly the same as the other settlement ~45 fps or so. Playable, but again way below where it should be, especially considering that I think FDev has deliberately disabled antialiasing so as to not tank the framerate even more.
I was hoping Update 9 was going to be the one that finally made things right. Sadly, it hasn't. It just made me more frustrated. Sure, my local hardware can play the game just fine, but I know that if GFN is still struggling with performance like this, a lot of people are going to struggle too with their own hardware. That makes me disappointed for them.
Oh well, back to NMS!
