FPS - it seems to be the windows & glass, or the light reflections being rendered on them

Ah yes, I figured this out myself couple of nights ago when i realised that fps does indeed get interesting when looking through windows. I didn't post though as i thought it might of just been on my end.
 
To many things going on, to actually point to one root cause, just standing in the elevator gives you a huge fluctuations in FPS, or standing in a room with no mirrors or window or shiny surfaces and rotate 360 will give you a big variation in FPS.

I have another PC with a GTX970 that struggles everywhere. I'm sure complexity of the scene will have an impact everywhere on older-gen hardware, but an immediate 25-30fps drop in a repeatable situation is worth reporting on.

Okay, tested the same thing on my GTX970 system (i5-4690, 16gb ram, ssd, 1920 x 1080. Settings a mix of low and medium.)

I get 50-60 fps walking around an orbiter. Frame rate consistently drops 30 fps when I look through a store window at close-ish range, as per the screenshots in the first post.

I also get an immediate 30 FPS drop when I stand close to a mission board on foot, facing the screen but not actually accessing it.
 
Last edited:
Ah yes, I figured this out myself couple of nights ago when i realised that fps does indeed get interesting when looking through windows. I didn't post though as i thought it might of just been on my end.

It would be interesting to find out how many people it does happen to and what cards they're running.

A follow-up test would be to check windows in settlements, and also whether reflections off shiny NPC gear has the same effect. It would explain why empty settlements seem to render faster for me than ones with NPCs strolling around - I assumed it was because of the NPC ai.

And after that, it's worth looking at the graphics settings to see whether toggling something avoids this FPS drop. E.g. bloom/effects/you name it.
 
I have that glass window performance problem from the first day.
GPU usage augment almost linearly the closer you are to the window. And when i reach 100%, fps starts to drop (from 60fps on a GTX 1080 with a ryzen 2600).

I must say i reach those 60fps in concourse by lowering my resolution to 1080p and changing a few settings (i benchmarked all of them).

Some NPC heads, if i'm close to them, also cost a lot of GPU usage (i did not check if they were under a direct light).
 
Last edited:
Nice finds OP.


It would be interesting to find out how many people it does happen to and what cards they're running.

A follow-up test would be to check windows in settlements, and also whether reflections off shiny NPC gear has the same effect. It would explain why empty settlements seem to render faster for me than ones with NPCs strolling around - I assumed it was because of the NPC ai.

And after that, it's worth looking at the graphics settings to see whether toggling something avoids this FPS drop. E.g. bloom/effects/you name it.

Will test it tonight and also report back.
 
Makes about a 10 FPS difference on the computer I'm using right now.

I'm also not seeing a big disparity between GPU utilization between the different viewing angles like OP reported. Regardless, though, the game has annoyingly-low framerates considering it isn't fully loading my GPU and my CPU is basically taking a nap.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14:
  • Ryzen 9 4900HS
  • Nvidia RTX 2060 (MaxQ)
  • 16 Gb RAM @ 3200 MHz

Screenshot (75).jpg


Screenshot (76).jpg
 
Last edited:
Results of GTX970 tests:

Looking into the Pioneer store:

1622659746119.jpeg


Same time, same place but looking through the window:

20210603023458_1.jpg




Looking across the station interior from inside the Pioneer shop:

20210603024217_1.jpg


Same view, but through the window:

20210603024212_1.jpg


And finally, standing close the terminal screen visible in the two shots above. Back away and the frame rates go back up to 50+

20210603023446_1.jpg
 
Makes about a 10 FPS difference on the computer I'm using right now.

I'm also not seeing a big disparity between GPU utilization between the different viewing angles like OP reported. Regardless, though, the game has annoyingly-low framerates considering it isn't fully loading my GPU and my CPU is basically taking a nap.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14:
  • Ryzen 9 4900HS
  • Nvidia RTX 2060 (MaxQ)
  • 16 Gb RAM @ 3200 MHz

I think the disparity will be a lot higher if you can juggle your graphics settings to get 60fps when not looking through those windows. I can do this on my 970, as I've just posted, with a mix of low/medium settings, 1080p, shadows to Low and Effects to Medium.

What screen rez/settings are you running? (And what do you have for supersampling?)
 
I think the disparity will be a lot higher if you can juggle your graphics settings to get 60fps when not looking through those windows. I can do this on my 970, as I've just posted, with a mix of low/medium settings, 1080p, shadows to Low and Effects to Medium.

What screen rez/settings are you running? (And what do you have for supersampling?)
1080p, mostly High (but Medium shadows), 1.0x supersampling.

I'll play with settings and see how much of a difference I can get out of it. Quality settings barely make a difference in FPS. Putting the render scale down to like .75 increases FPS by a good bit (obviously), but the tradeoff in quality is just too great to make it feel worthwhile. The game just isn't worth playing if it has to look like a 240p youtube video in order to get good performance.

I have a GTX 970 at home (w/ Ryzen 5 3600, 16 Gb RAM) and on that PC I have the game running at 1080p and still have to put render scale way down and quality settings all at Medium (shadows on Low) just to feel like the game is playable. It's not even enjoyable at the settings I have to use on that computer, so I stick to my laptop for EDO... Stupid video card shortage...
 
Last edited:
Exterior windows don't have the same issue as interior ones, as I mentioned earlier, even though they show the same reflections.

So, FDev should probably take whatever glass they're using in the building exteriors and replace the inside windows with it...



Inside a Proc building looking towards the door (GTX970). 47 Fps.

20210603031809_1.jpg



Same view, but looking through a glass panel (26 FPS)

20210603031804_1.jpg
 
Same on settlements for me also, HYD rooms seem to have the plants inside glass tanks iirc? so that's where i notice the performance issues more.

But to be honest, the above screenshots are the first time i have actually checked my fps. Other than that I'm enjoying most of Odyssey. I just hope tomorrows update will give us some frames back 🤞 as well as squashing some bugs
 
Makes about a 10 FPS difference on the computer I'm using right now.

I'm also not seeing a big disparity between GPU utilization between the different viewing angles like OP reported. Regardless, though, the game has annoyingly-low framerates considering it isn't fully loading my GPU and my CPU is basically taking a nap.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14:
  • Ryzen 9 4900HS
  • Nvidia RTX 2060 (MaxQ)
  • 16 Gb RAM @ 3200 MHz
In those screenshots I had been messing around on a planetary base for about an hour before coming to turn in bounties, etc, at the concourse.

Rebooting the computer, and not changing any settings, FPS (and GPU utilization) went way up. Memory leak issues?

Screenshot (77).jpg


Screenshot (78).jpg
 
I'm sure there are leaks.

All this year, in Horizons, if I spend about an hour in the same rez zone (asteroid field), without using Supercruise or quitting to main menu, my frame rate will eventually drop to the mid-20's. And that's an i7-6700k with a GTX1660ti.

Jumping into Supercruise and back into the instance fixes it.
 
I'm sure there are leaks.

All this year, in Horizons, if I spend about an hour in the same rez zone (asteroid field), without using Supercruise or quitting to main menu, my frame rate will eventually drop to the mid-20's. And that's an i7-6700k with a GTX1660ti.

Jumping into Supercruise and back into the instance fixes it.
There are, left my ship on supercruise today for a few hours while shopping and my system was swapping like stupid.

A jump into the next system and the problem was gone.
 
Main menu hanger for me, Odyssey to Horizons. I'm getting roughly 1/3 the performance in Odyssey to Horizons. CPU isn't loaded much at all either way. :unsure:

Ea5rH00.png


ybnzr6B.png
 
I think there's something wrong with the texture streaming.
In concourse when all textures are loaded, I can see the GPU memory stable around 4 or 5GB. But then the memory very slowly climbs until 7-8GB.
 
Just found another type of glass which absolutely kills my frame rates:

20210603065417_1.jpg


Now bob down:

20210603065422_1.jpg


However, when viewed at an angle:

20210603065824_1.jpg



Which leads me to think it's the player's reflection causing issues?
 
More data points, this time at an orbiting outpost (small station type)

From top to bottom:
Looking into the Pioneer store through the doorway (60fps)
Looking into the Pioneer store through the window (60fps!)
Looking out of the Pioneer store through the window (38fps)
Looking out of the Pioneer store through the door (60fps)

I also threw in a close-up of the terminal screen, which is 60fps here. I wonder if the larger station boards are slow because they're reflecting the view through the social area roof, which includes the inside of the coriolis station and any passing ships?

20210603095719_1.jpg


20210603095723_1.jpg


20210603095729_1.jpg


20210603095733_1.jpg


20210603095828_1.jpg
 
Generally, reflections are static cube map captures, unless is ray traced or some sort of Screen space reflection, I doubt it would have any significant performance hit. Even SSR isn't that heavy on newer GPU.
IMHO I agree, there is some occlusion logic gone wrong.
2c
o7
 
Back
Top Bottom