First, the geo topic, and then some off-topic responses. I'm not sure that putting the planet calculation on the CPU would be viable: Frontier might have gone with the GPU because they need it to be much more parallel. It would be very interesting to know how exactly it works, but I don't think we'll ever know. However, I wonder why the generation is tied to the frame rate though... Console "optimizations", maybe? I hardly know much on such a matter.
Anyway, what Iskariot said about more agency in game mechanics is spot on. FD's proposed change is also going against what they wanted the Chapter Four stated goals to be - and to be frank, this is still Chapter Four's legacy. The POI scan shouldn't have been implemented this way, and it shouldn't have made it out of beta this way. But hey, it did, so here we are today, with something that needs to be fixed. (Alongside plenty other things, just with the FSS.)
Let's not forget though that the skeleton crew assigned to the live game might not have the authority and/or skill to make changes to planet generation. Orvidius mentioned sites being likely moved if that is altered, but that has already happened once, so I don't think Frontier would shy away from doing it again if that were required. Personally, I don't remember much of an outcry about this back then. However, even if one happened, there are less people exploring now than there were at that time, so a new outcry would be smaller.
I do wonder though if decoupling the geo/bio generation from the terrain generation process wouldn't produce "worse" sites. Not their content, but their placing.
It'll be interesting to see what Frontier will end up doing after all this feedback now. Will they spend a bit more effort to produce a better fix, or will they ignore it again and put out what they originally said unchanged? We should soon see.
Going to the responses then:
You asked me a question, not to answer you would be rude.
You're right, I seem to have forgotten there that I did. Thanks for saying this, I'll remember it the next time you don't answer a question I asked you.
Let's see then...
I left the bubble at the beginning of DW2 and still not back in the bubble. How many, I don't know, probably thousands though.
I asked two figures: how many systems and how many bodies. I'm sure you're aware that the game provides exact statistics for you, but let's see then... The DW2 roster says you're flying a Krait Mk II with only 50 ly jump range, and you've yet to get back to the bubble... Assuming you're exploring somewhat and not just heading straight back, the "thousands" you refer to is probably two thousand systems, maybe three. Over a year - well, eleven months. As for bodies, you did say elsewhere that you don't scan everything, so I guess that the answer would be about the same there.
This is going to be a bit personal, but I have to say, I'm curious. How do you personally rate yourself as, would say you explore below the average, around the average, or above it? Responses to such questions can be quite enlightening. (For example, according to a 2017 study by the AAA, 73% of drivers in the US consider themselves to be better-than-average drivers. Although that question was about skill, not about how much they drive.)
Yes, you are right. I forgot about that. When I started to play ED I had the same computer ( i7-4770K) but the graphics card was a NVidia GTX-680. The whole GUI was like molasses. I then changed to a 1070 and everything went smooth, like having a new computer. I wonder how much faster it gets when I change to a 1080ti.
Judging from personal experience, and actual hardware capabilities: I don't think you'll notice a change in GUI rendering speeds. I was about to say that your GTX 680 wouldn't have met the minimum requirements for Horizons, but now that I checked them again, turns out it technically would.
In any case though, depending on your screen resolution and refresh rate, that GTX 1070 is probably plenty enough for Elite. 1070 to 1080 Ti is certainly smaller a jump (in performance) than 680 to 1070 was.