Frontier, let's talk client performance

[CornishCracker]

Frontier,

Client performance has degraded since during every major release since alpha. Hitching and stuttering, particularly in hyper space and supercruise is really ruining the experience for me and many others. In 1.3 you added the ability to cache the shaders to improve the stuttering, but in my case and many others. This didn't solve anything, in fact in some areas it has been made worse. Also opening the system map grinds my system to a complete halt, surely the textures can be loaded in a better way? My GPU's both have 4GB of memory and I haven't seen this game exceed 2GB VRAM usage, I assume the hitching is caused by texture loading and swapping? So is the Cobra engine capable of handing this game stutter free?

I know the Xbox One version is in early beta, but the client performance for those players is even worse. The game freezes when entering hyper space and when the system map is loaded. I fear you will put people off, if you do not address these issues in both the PC and Xbox One versions.

For the record, my PC specs are below. There relatively good for today's standard and this is the only game where I encountered game breaking performance issues.

CPU: Core i5 4790k
GPU: GTX970 x2
RAM: 16GB DDR3 2,400Mhz

Can you confirm that client performance is being investigated and addressed? It's really preventing me from picking up my joystick and playing any longer.

 

[Mohrgan]

It's funny, but I have a mid-ranged gaming PC and I have virtually no stuttering. Along with that, I have seen graphical improvements all along with the patches. It would be interesting to figure this kind of thing out. Why some some big systems have issues, and some mundane systems plod along without issue.

 

[CMDR Ashylnn D'Elyse]

It's funny, but I have a mid-ranged gaming PC and I have virtually no stuttering. Along with that, I have seen graphical improvements all along with the patches. It would be interesting to figure this kind of thing out. Why some some big systems have issues, and some mundane systems plod along without issue.

It's because they optimize for the midrange since logically speaking most users will be on midrange systems...

Or the game could just be better optimized for AMD than it is Intel.

 

[Privata]

It's because they optimize for the midrange since logically speaking most users will be on midrange systems...

Or the game could just be better optimized for AMD than it is Intel.

I have a GTX980 and it runs just fine (4K 60fps)

 

[Sugarat]

Saw a massive improvement in 1.3.. tho' FD have said there is still more to do..

 

[Arjin]

This should be FD's #1 priority everything else = a distant 2nd it is absolutely ruinous to the game for those affected.

 

[VR Morgan Grimes]

Overall performance has certainly increased on my system (2500k, 8GB 800Mhz DDR3, Nvidia 760) but there is an odd hitching at times, it's not what I would call normal stutter as the frame rate appears to be unaffected but objects in view do still appear to be stuttering.

 

[DaveL]

I see even better perfomance than pre-1.3.
And yes i have subpar pc that could handle barely some high-medium details with shadows and AA off.
Now the game suggets me to put everything on high-ultra with even SS on 1.5
And it still goes with 30fps minimum.

 

[CornishCracker]

It's funny, but I have a mid-ranged gaming PC and I have virtually no stuttering. Along with that, I have seen graphical improvements all along with the patches. It would be interesting to figure this kind of thing out. Why some some big systems have issues, and some mundane systems plod along without issue.

I can play most of the time at 144fps, but it will drop down to 20-30fps when in super cruise and in the hyper space transition period. It's mainly the hitching in supercruise I am concerned about, because it's almost halting the game to a standstill.

 

[Arksun]

CPU: Core i5 4970k

No such cpu exists, unless you meant 4790K? which is actually an i7 or 4690K which is i5.

I'm on 4790K with GTX750ti and overall the game is much smoother with 1.3 compared to 1.2. I still get some stutters in supercruise around planets/stations but much better than it was. Now with 1.3.05 the client feels pretty stable overall.

 

[RingoD123]

I can play most of the time at 144fps, but it will drop down to 20-30fps when in super cruise and in the hyper space transition period. It's mainly the hitching in supercruise I am concerned about, because it's almost halting the game to a standstill.

same here, and also when it pops up with new contatcs or loses contacts, its always seemed to me to be related with the server connection rather than memory, cpu or gpu problems, whenever its polling data from the server and the connection is not at its best (most of the time) then I will get stutters, I can literally make this worse by choking the internet connection by streaming or downloading on a second pc.
would also make sense why some people with lesser specced PC's are reporting better results than some with super rigs.

 

[Darth Ender]

Frontier,

Client performance has degraded since during every major release since alpha. Hitching and stuttering, particularly in hyper space and supercruise is really ruining the experience for me and many others. In 1.3 you added the ability to cache the shaders to improve the stuttering, but in my case and many others. This didn't solve anything, in fact in some areas it has been made worse. Also opening the system map grinds my system to a complete halt, surely the textures can be loaded in a better way? My GPU's both have 4GB of memory and I haven't seen this game exceed 2GB VRAM usage, I assume the hitching is caused by texture loading and swapping? So is the Cobra engine capable of handing this game stutter free?

Cobra engine is native 64bit. But us PC users are stuck with a 32bit client. You wont see the game utilize more than this address space. This follows through to what the 32bit libraries (directx) can map in vram as well.

FD has stated that this isn't the cause of thrashing / slowdowns etc. I'm not convinced though but haven't done any analysis to verify if texture thrashing is occuring.

it's probable that a lot of the pausing of the client is due to networking latency issues, which have significantly changed since 1.3 dropped.

 

[CornishCracker]

No such cpu exists, unless you meant 4790K? which is actually an i7 or 4690K which is i5.

I'm on 4790K with GTX750ti and overall the game is much smoother with 1.3 compared to 1.2. I still get some stutters in supercruise around planets/stations but much better than it was. Now with 1.3.05 the client feels pretty stable overall.

Yeah I got my numbers mixed around, retribution for not proof reading my forum post. I'm not sure if the issue is made worse with SLI systems.

- - - Updated - - -

I have a GTX980 and it runs just fine (4K 60fps)

What about when you try and access the system map? You can't tell me that doesn't require some more optimisation?

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I have an AMD 270x have everything on ultra with zero stutter. And my CPU is an i5 2500K overclocked, so nothing special. I do have 8 GB ram though which may help.

 

[Elgered]

I think stutter is an I/O problem (network and disk), not an issue of graphics or computing performance.

Try excluding the game-directory from on access realtime scanning (AV) and on the network side, google for "TCP-Optimizer" and disable QoS if possible.

 

[Scudmungus]

Ok Frontier. Weh du yuh see yourself in 5 yrs? -.o​

 

[[VR] Frank_G]

I am actually pretty impressed with the client performance. I can only speak from a mac point of view though... During all beta phases i constantly monitored and documented GPU / CPU / RAM usage and performance... and the only things i noticed during the beta, were reduced usage and increased performance... Since 1.3, performance got a big boost again. There is almost no stutter left (occasionally when switching instances) and the game delivers solid 60 fps at ultra settings throughout, even on my 3 year old system.

 

[rightsideupsidedown]

For the record, my PC specs are below. There relatively good for today's standard and this is the only game where I encountered game breaking performance issues.
CPU: Core i5 4970k
GPU: GTX970 x2
RAM: 16GB DDR3 2,400Mhz

Can you post your Power Supply Unit Wattage and what type of CPU cooling are you using (what temps are you getting under load)? Wattage is really important when running SLI.
There may be a update for your motherboard to address performance issues with SLI and its support of specific cards.
It sounds like a bandwidth related issue though. I get a little delay opening commodities, SC approaching planets or system map while data loads from network.

In my experience of working with GeForce products is that if you don't have an Nvidia GeForce direct product meaning you purchased a EVGA, PNY, Xfx etc. versions of GeForce graphics card... installing GeForce driver updates can cause unstable performance and crashes. I have always accepted updates in the past through auto update or gotten them directly from their site. This is over the span of using four different GeForce cards from the companies listed above. The driver updates from GeForce caused problems/crashes. If I uninstall all updated drivers and reinstall the driver that came with the cards out of the box the issues disappear or improve. Depending on the card sometimes you can accept a few updates to a certain update version then after that point all heck breaks loose in games you normally didn't have problems with.

I have yet to own a GeForce card direct from Nvidia so I can not say how the updates affect those cards.

 

[Brujah]

It's funny, but I have a mid-ranged gaming PC and I have virtually no stuttering. Along with that, I have seen graphical improvements all along with the patches. It would be interesting to figure this kind of thing out. Why some some big systems have issues, and some mundane systems plod along without issue.

Same. I think the problem must be fairly rare, unfortunately, which means it won't get fixed for you (OP) any time soon.

This is my rig:
Core i5 3570K
GTX 670
2x4GB G.Skills RAM
Samsung 840 Pro SSD (which is where the game is installed).

Could it be to do with the SSD?

 

[CornishCracker]

Can you post your Power Supply Unit Wattage and what type of CPU cooling are you using (what temps are you getting under load)? Wattage is really important when running SLI.
There may be a update for your motherboard to address performance issues with SLI and its support of specific cards.
It sounds like a bandwidth related issue though. I get a little delay opening commodities, SC approaching planets or system map while data loads from network.

In my experience of working with GeForce products is that if you don't have an Nvidia GeForce direct product meaning you purchased a EVGA, PNY, Xfx etc. versions of GeForce graphics card... installing GeForce driver updates can cause unstable performance and crashes. I have always accepted updates in the past through auto update or gotten them directly from their site. This is over the span of using four different GeForce cards from the companies listed above. The driver updates from GeForce caused problems/crashes. If I uninstall all updated drivers and reinstall the driver that came with the cards out of the box the issues disappear or improve. Depending on the card sometimes you can accept a few updates to a certain update version then after that point all heck breaks loose in games you normally didn't have problems with.

I have yet to own a GeForce card direct from Nvidia so I can not say how the updates affect those cards.

I have a Corsair HX750i 750W modular power supply with a Corsair h90i hybrid water cooler. The CPU is overlocked to 4.5Ghz and never exceeds 60c under max load.

My motherboard is the ASUS Maximus VII Ranger.

The GPU's are both EVGA GTX970 Superclocked, I run k-boost to ensure the cards are running at full voltage too.

So even though we have installed the game, are the textures/data loaded from the server instead of our hard drives?