Graphics Settings For Odyssey

[Faded Glory]

Hello VR forumites, if there are any left...

Well, I've not really bothered with Odyssey (or ED much tbh) since it was released - for reasons - but I got the itch to fly a spaceship again, and thought maybe I'd head out exploring for a bit, give me a chance to get used to some of the new UI, maybe venture out of my ship into the letterbox occasionally even, get my on foot controls figured, as I'm really not a FPS gamer, but might as well be able to walk around since we can...

So, updated Odyssey, bought an Artemis suit (really hope that's the most appropriate one for exploration!), jumped into my Krait Phantom and headed out.

First thing that strikes me is that 9 times out of 10, when I jump into a system I'm getting one or two pauses, a second or so each. Horrible. So if anybody can suggest what that's all about I'd be grateful. Well, I popped into the graphics settings and had a look. I think the game may have set a bunch of them for me since it knows what my PC is, and it's all pretty high, with a bunch of Ultra settings too. When it's not stuttering it does look Ok, good even. But maybe that's the issue, it's set too high plus there's a bunch of settings that I don't seem familiar with - so wondered whether anybody (I guess with a similar setup to mine) would be kind enough to give a rundown of their settings, and if they have any specific things about particular settings to explain...

All a bit wishy washy, I know, and I'll be happy to come back with a list of settings that I may be unclear about, but any suggestions would be appreciated.

So, my setup: - i7 10700k, RTX3080, 36GB RAM, M.2 SSD. Reverb G2 HMD. I kind of think that should be able to play ED at pretty decent settings (I don't obsess about FPS, just base it on whether it feels smooth, which other than the aforementioned stutters and some - less - when using menus and maps it does) and indeed most things look really crisp and sharp. I mean it plays MSFS at pretty reasonable settings which I think is more demanding graphically than ED.

I use SteamVR to enable VR and have set some of the settings in that down a bit from what I recall, although I don't run the game via Steam, straight through the standard FD launcher.

 

[CMDR Temunjin Boras]

I'm not sure about the pause after jumping into a system. I haven't noticed that happening. I went through a similar deal when starting Odyssey initially though. Some of the settlements would drop my framerate down to ~3 FPS (which is unplayable). Things have gotten better with recent updates but yeah the defaults are still rough.

I worked through some VR graphics settings last weekend which might help. My setup is VR on linux with a Valve Index at 120FPS but downsampled to 50%. It has a 5700XT AMD card with a 2990wx cpu, 64GB of ram, and a normal HDD. The GPU drivers are much worse on linux so you can probably bump up from what I have.

In the past there was a youtube video from cmdr Exigeous on graphics that was great! Most of it probably still holds up but the graphics have changed. I think there's still an outstanding anti-aliasing bug which will make things look more jagged regardless of AA mode. Most of the other settings should be similar though.

My cpu could handle some extra render work so I bumped up the numbers there. Using 2x instead of 4x should help if these settings don't work out of the box. The worker threads and spare cores should probably be decreased too. YMMV but it's worth a shot.

I added the AppConfig and VRMedium settings that I'm using. It's all by hand so I added some XML comments in the files. There's probably a better way to change the graphics settings on Windows like with Dr. Kaii's graphics settings tool. The AppConfig part will still need to be done manually AFAIK.

My settings aren't going to be the best possible but hopefully the comments make it clearer what each part does. I just got it to a good enough state and stuck with that. It seems like a good idea to share VR settings since there could be some new tweaks which aren't obvious.

If you're going to experiment with graphics it will also help to turn off the GPU loader which appears on startup. That option should be in the menu for graphics settings in-game. It makes the startup a lot faster.

On a weird note my cmdr is now in old man mode. With the super sampling turned down I have to lean forward to read text because it can get too fuzzy. The asteroid fields for haz res sites can also get blocky since that's taxing on the gpu. I like to think that my cmdr has developed glaucoma.

Edit: looks like the attached files aren't uploading for some reason. I'll inline them here. It makes things sort of long though.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<RenderOptions PresetName="VRMedium">
    <FOV>60.000000</FOV>
        <!--
            Here's the YT vid for graphics settings
             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7efYzpquIs
        -->
        <!-- Medium, sets the quality textures (surface of cockpit/SRV, non-terrain stuff) -->
    <TextureQuality>1</TextureQuality>
        <!-- High, can't remember what this does... -->
    <TextureQualityEx>2</TextureQualityEx>
        <!-- Improves render from a long distance, this is maxed out -->
    <LODDistanceScale>1.999999</LODDistanceScale>
        <!-- FXAA, doesn't have a big impact since I think it's currently bugged (see bug reports) -->
    <AAMode>1</AAMode>
        <!-- Shadows off to avoid costly drawings, we don't need no stinkin' shadows
             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx6TBrfCW54
        -->
    <DirectionalShadowQuality>0</DirectionalShadowQuality>
        <!-- Off, something with shadows -->
    <SpotShadowQuality>0</SpotShadowQuality>
        <!-- Off, ambient occlusion is off too since it's minor effect for my tastes -->
    <AOQuality>0</AOQuality>
    <BlurEnabled>false</BlurEnabled>
        <!-- Off, affects the lighting -->
    <BloomQuality>0</BloomQuality>
        <!-- Low, background star/nebula resolution on the galmap screen -->
    <EnvmapQuality>0</EnvmapQuality>
        <!-- Ultra, atmosphere rendering from supercruise -->
    <MaterialQuality>3</MaterialQuality>
        <!-- High, for space and skybox detail -->
    <EnvironmentQuality>2</EnvironmentQuality>
        <!-- Low for now, Creates the engine trails, fancy weapon effects, lens flares from suns -->
    <FXQuality>0</FXQuality>
        <!-- Minor difference on galmap, off helps keep it smooth -->
    <GalaxyMapQuality>0</GalaxyMapQuality>
        <!-- (Big effect) super sampling, I'm downsampled to 0.875 for smoother gameplay, 120 FPS
             TODO: test running 1.25 here with downsampled HMD super sampling

             forum post readers: stick with 1.0 here unless there's a good reason not to
        -->
    <SSAAMultiplier>0.875</SSAAMultiplier>
        <!-- Low, depth of field effect for the external camera focus bokeh -->
    <DOFEnabled>0</DOFEnabled>
        <!-- High, terrain quality like planet surfaces -->
    <TerrainQuality>2</TerrainQuality>
        <!-- Ultra, blending for drawing distant objects (I think that's what this is) -->
    <TerrainLodBlendingQuality>2</TerrainLodBlendingQuality>
        <!-- (Big effect) yikes I have no clue but it tanks my VR perf -->
    <GpuSchedulerMultiplier>0.0</GpuSchedulerMultiplier>
        <!-- Medium, stuff on surfaces like rocks -->
    <SurfaceMaterialQuality>1</SurfaceMaterialQuality>
        <!-- Medium, sampling for surfaces -->
    <SurfaceSamplerQuality>1</SurfaceSamplerQuality>
        <!-- Medium quality, for fancy neutron and white dwarf cones -->
    <JetConeQuality>1</JetConeQuality>
        <!-- Medium quality, allegedly lighting and fog but not really noticeable -->
    <VolumetricsQuality>1</VolumetricsQuality>
        <!-- Medium, does something to texture quality -->
    <TextureFilterQuality>1</TextureFilterQuality>
</RenderOptions>

<AppConfig>
    <Display>
        <ScreenWidth>1280</ScreenWidth>
        <ScreenHeight>720</ScreenHeight>
        <FullScreen>false</FullScreen>
        <VSync>true</VSync>
        <PresentInterval>1</PresentInterval>
        <Adapter>0</Adapter>
        <Monitor>0</Monitor>
        <DX11_RefreshRateNumerator>60</DX11_RefreshRateNumerator>
        <DX11_RefreshRateDenominator>1</DX11_RefreshRateDenominator>
        <LimitFrameRate>false</LimitFrameRate>
        <MaxFramesPerSecond>30</MaxFramesPerSecond>
        <!-- If you are looking for the SSAA setting this has moved in to Settings.xml in the save directory
          ** typically: C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Graphics.
          ** If this file does not exist you can generate it by entering the graphics options screen in game
          ** and hitting apply. You can then add <SSAA>X</SSAA> when X is the SSAA amount (1 by default) -->
    </Display>

        <!--
            changes made here for graphics:
             - StackSize 4x default
             - WorkerThreads 32, was 6
             - JobQueueSize 2x default
             - MinSpareCores 6, was 0
             - UseThreadPriorities set to 1, was 0
        -->
    <Threads
        RenderThreadStackSize="4194304"
        WorkerThreadStackSize="4194304"
        NumWorkerThreads="32"
        RenderJobQueueSize="20480"
        KernelJobQueueSize="20480"
        MinSpareCores="6"
        OptimiseForPerformance="1"
        UseThreadPriorities="1"
        PerformanceScaling="1"
    />

    <Files
        MaxLoadRetries="10"
    />

    <!--
        In the <PlanetNoiseTextures> tag:
        - On Windows, Enabled="auto" is equivalent to Enabled="1".
        - On OSX, Enabled="auto" is equivalent to Enabled="1" unless the GPU
          model name shown in the game's 'graphic options' screen is (ignoring
          case) one of those listed in the <AutoDisableOnOsx> child tags of the
          <PlanetNoiseTextures> tag.
        - The 'ShaderWarmingEnabled' attribute which was previously here has
          been removed as it is no longer read by the game: this preference can
          now be set on the graphic options screen where it is labelled 'Shader
          preparation on startup'.
    -->
    <PlanetNoiseTextures
        Enabled="auto"
        ShaderWarmingDialogAnimTimeInMs="600">

        <AutoDisableOnOsx>ATI Radeon HD 2400</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>ATI Radeon HD 5770</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>ATI Radeon HD 5870</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>ATI Radeon HD 6800 Series</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>AMD Radeon HD 6970M</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>AMD Radeon HD 6870 Series</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>AMD Radeon HD 6xxx</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>Intel HD Graphics 3000</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>NVIDIA GeForce GT 120</AutoDisableOnOsx>

    </PlanetNoiseTextures>

    <TerrainTiming TimerMode="Default" />
    <TerrainSettings PermitFmaOptimizations="true" PermitNativeDoubles="true" PreferNativeDoubles="false" />

  <Network
    LogToDebug="1"
    Port="0"
      upnpenabled="1"
    LogFile="netLog"
      MaxUpRate="750000"
    DatestampLog="1"
    ProtocolOffset="0"
    InternalProd="false"
    BytePadding="3"
    Oodle="OodleDictionary4.bin"
  >
        <!-- if you need to connect to a specific server, include a line like this
             where id is your 'regular' EDServer and id2 is a mission server
             (omitting id2 will cause using id for both the regular and the mission server): -->
        <!-- <edServer id="892" id2="892" /> -->
  </Network>
  <GameObjects />
</AppConfig>

 

[Faded Glory]

I'm not sure about the pause after jumping into a system. I haven't noticed that happening. I went through a similar deal when starting Odyssey initially though. Some of the settlements would drop my framerate down to ~3 FPS (which is unplayable). Things have gotten better with recent updates but yeah the defaults are still rough.

I worked through some VR graphics settings last weekend which might help. My setup is VR on linux with a Valve Index at 120FPS but downsampled to 50%. It has a 5700XT AMD card with a 2990wx cpu, 64GB of ram, and a normal HDD. The GPU drivers are much worse on linux so you can probably bump up from what I have.

In the past there was a youtube video from cmdr Exigeous on graphics that was great! Most of it probably still holds up but the graphics have changed. I think there's still an outstanding anti-aliasing bug which will make things look more jagged regardless of AA mode. Most of the other settings should be similar though.

My cpu could handle some extra render work so I bumped up the numbers there. Using 2x instead of 4x should help if these settings don't work out of the box. The worker threads and spare cores should probably be decreased too. YMMV but it's worth a shot.

I added the AppConfig and VRMedium settings that I'm using. It's all by hand so I added some XML comments in the files. There's probably a better way to change the graphics settings on Windows like with Dr. Kaii's graphics settings tool. The AppConfig part will still need to be done manually AFAIK.

My settings aren't going to be the best possible but hopefully the comments make it clearer what each part does. I just got it to a good enough state and stuck with that. It seems like a good idea to share VR settings since there could be some new tweaks which aren't obvious.

If you're going to experiment with graphics it will also help to turn off the GPU loader which appears on startup. That option should be in the menu for graphics settings in-game. It makes the startup a lot faster.

On a weird note my cmdr is now in old man mode. With the super sampling turned down I have to lean forward to read text because it can get too fuzzy. The asteroid fields for haz res sites can also get blocky since that's taxing on the gpu. I like to think that my cmdr has developed glaucoma.

Edit: looks like the attached files aren't uploading for some reason. I'll inline them here. It makes things sort of long though.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<RenderOptions PresetName="VRMedium">
    <FOV>60.000000</FOV>
        <!--
            Here's the YT vid for graphics settings
             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7efYzpquIs
        -->
        <!-- Medium, sets the quality textures (surface of cockpit/SRV, non-terrain stuff) -->
    <TextureQuality>1</TextureQuality>
        <!-- High, can't remember what this does... -->
    <TextureQualityEx>2</TextureQualityEx>
        <!-- Improves render from a long distance, this is maxed out -->
    <LODDistanceScale>1.999999</LODDistanceScale>
        <!-- FXAA, doesn't have a big impact since I think it's currently bugged (see bug reports) -->
    <AAMode>1</AAMode>
        <!-- Shadows off to avoid costly drawings, we don't need no stinkin' shadows
             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx6TBrfCW54
        -->
    <DirectionalShadowQuality>0</DirectionalShadowQuality>
        <!-- Off, something with shadows -->
    <SpotShadowQuality>0</SpotShadowQuality>
        <!-- Off, ambient occlusion is off too since it's minor effect for my tastes -->
    <AOQuality>0</AOQuality>
    <BlurEnabled>false</BlurEnabled>
        <!-- Off, affects the lighting -->
    <BloomQuality>0</BloomQuality>
        <!-- Low, background star/nebula resolution on the galmap screen -->
    <EnvmapQuality>0</EnvmapQuality>
        <!-- Ultra, atmosphere rendering from supercruise -->
    <MaterialQuality>3</MaterialQuality>
        <!-- High, for space and skybox detail -->
    <EnvironmentQuality>2</EnvironmentQuality>
        <!-- Low for now, Creates the engine trails, fancy weapon effects, lens flares from suns -->
    <FXQuality>0</FXQuality>
        <!-- Minor difference on galmap, off helps keep it smooth -->
    <GalaxyMapQuality>0</GalaxyMapQuality>
        <!-- (Big effect) super sampling, I'm downsampled to 0.875 for smoother gameplay, 120 FPS
             TODO: test running 1.25 here with downsampled HMD super sampling

             forum post readers: stick with 1.0 here unless there's a good reason not to
        -->
    <SSAAMultiplier>0.875</SSAAMultiplier>
        <!-- Low, depth of field effect for the external camera focus bokeh -->
    <DOFEnabled>0</DOFEnabled>
        <!-- High, terrain quality like planet surfaces -->
    <TerrainQuality>2</TerrainQuality>
        <!-- Ultra, blending for drawing distant objects (I think that's what this is) -->
    <TerrainLodBlendingQuality>2</TerrainLodBlendingQuality>
        <!-- (Big effect) yikes I have no clue but it tanks my VR perf -->
    <GpuSchedulerMultiplier>0.0</GpuSchedulerMultiplier>
        <!-- Medium, stuff on surfaces like rocks -->
    <SurfaceMaterialQuality>1</SurfaceMaterialQuality>
        <!-- Medium, sampling for surfaces -->
    <SurfaceSamplerQuality>1</SurfaceSamplerQuality>
        <!-- Medium quality, for fancy neutron and white dwarf cones -->
    <JetConeQuality>1</JetConeQuality>
        <!-- Medium quality, allegedly lighting and fog but not really noticeable -->
    <VolumetricsQuality>1</VolumetricsQuality>
        <!-- Medium, does something to texture quality -->
    <TextureFilterQuality>1</TextureFilterQuality>
</RenderOptions>

<AppConfig>
    <Display>
        <ScreenWidth>1280</ScreenWidth>
        <ScreenHeight>720</ScreenHeight>
        <FullScreen>false</FullScreen>
        <VSync>true</VSync>
        <PresentInterval>1</PresentInterval>
        <Adapter>0</Adapter>
        <Monitor>0</Monitor>
        <DX11_RefreshRateNumerator>60</DX11_RefreshRateNumerator>
        <DX11_RefreshRateDenominator>1</DX11_RefreshRateDenominator>
        <LimitFrameRate>false</LimitFrameRate>
        <MaxFramesPerSecond>30</MaxFramesPerSecond>
        <!-- If you are looking for the SSAA setting this has moved in to Settings.xml in the save directory
          ** typically: C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Graphics.
          ** If this file does not exist you can generate it by entering the graphics options screen in game
          ** and hitting apply. You can then add <SSAA>X</SSAA> when X is the SSAA amount (1 by default) -->
    </Display>

        <!--
            changes made here for graphics:
             - StackSize 4x default
             - WorkerThreads 32, was 6
             - JobQueueSize 2x default
             - MinSpareCores 6, was 0
             - UseThreadPriorities set to 1, was 0
        -->
    <Threads
        RenderThreadStackSize="4194304"
        WorkerThreadStackSize="4194304"
        NumWorkerThreads="32"
        RenderJobQueueSize="20480"
        KernelJobQueueSize="20480"
        MinSpareCores="6"
        OptimiseForPerformance="1"
        UseThreadPriorities="1"
        PerformanceScaling="1"
    />

    <Files
        MaxLoadRetries="10"
    />

    <!--
        In the <PlanetNoiseTextures> tag:
        - On Windows, Enabled="auto" is equivalent to Enabled="1".
        - On OSX, Enabled="auto" is equivalent to Enabled="1" unless the GPU
          model name shown in the game's 'graphic options' screen is (ignoring
          case) one of those listed in the <AutoDisableOnOsx> child tags of the
          <PlanetNoiseTextures> tag.
        - The 'ShaderWarmingEnabled' attribute which was previously here has
          been removed as it is no longer read by the game: this preference can
          now be set on the graphic options screen where it is labelled 'Shader
          preparation on startup'.
    -->
    <PlanetNoiseTextures
        Enabled="auto"
        ShaderWarmingDialogAnimTimeInMs="600">

        <AutoDisableOnOsx>ATI Radeon HD 2400</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>ATI Radeon HD 5770</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>ATI Radeon HD 5870</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>ATI Radeon HD 6800 Series</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>AMD Radeon HD 6970M</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>AMD Radeon HD 6870 Series</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>AMD Radeon HD 6xxx</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>Intel HD Graphics 3000</AutoDisableOnOsx>
        <AutoDisableOnOsx>NVIDIA GeForce GT 120</AutoDisableOnOsx>

    </PlanetNoiseTextures>

    <TerrainTiming TimerMode="Default" />
    <TerrainSettings PermitFmaOptimizations="true" PermitNativeDoubles="true" PreferNativeDoubles="false" />

  <Network
    LogToDebug="1"
    Port="0"
      upnpenabled="1"
    LogFile="netLog"
      MaxUpRate="750000"
    DatestampLog="1"
    ProtocolOffset="0"
    InternalProd="false"
    BytePadding="3"
    Oodle="OodleDictionary4.bin"
  >
        <!-- if you need to connect to a specific server, include a line like this
             where id is your 'regular' EDServer and id2 is a mission server
             (omitting id2 will cause using id for both the regular and the mission server): -->
        <!-- <edServer id="892" id2="892" /> -->
  </Network>
  <GameObjects />
</AppConfig>

Thanks for the response.

I did take a look at the video, and while it was for Horizons, it did at least explain a number of settings and I made a few small adjustments based on that. I also dropped my ED render quality down in SteamVR by 10% (to 70% from 80%) and things seem a little smoother. I'll do a bit more testing and if it seems genuinely better then I'll post my adjusted graphics settings here in case it's able to help someone else.

I should note that for reasons that I cannot explain, the long(ish) pauses / stutters that I was getting on jumping into a system went away by themselves, but I then noticed that any time I moved my head text / graphics in the cockpit were jittery. Having made the changes just now, that seems smoother.

 

[Faded Glory]

Ok - I've done a bit of testing, and I think my settings as they are seem pretty reasonable now. It's certainly not perfect, and one thing I notice is that hyperspace jumps seem to affect performance negatively as in things feel a bit jumpy / stuttery during a hyperspace jump, and immediately after in the new system, but seem to settle down after a few moments. This doesn't seem particularly intuitive, but it is what happens, and after a few moments in a system head movements cause no noticeable stutter in the HUD.

Opening the galaxy and system maps likewise, on a few occasions I still get a significant stutter, but the majority of times it's no more than a small 'bump' and then the map opens.

Text and the HUD are nice and sharp as one would expect with a G2.

Performance on planets on foot is fine, but on the first occasion I approached a planet to land it was awful, really noticeable jumps and stutters. The second planet I went to land on it was smooth as butter. Both were HMCW's with atmosphere, and both in the same system.

I won't say it's perfect, and I hope that FD make some real improvements to frame rates and graphics performance. Again, I don't actively monitor fps, but in the main the game feels pretty smooth other than the stutters that I have mentioned here, and at no time do I feel even the slightest nausea, then again, I've been playing in VR for quite a few years now.

Anyway, I'll post my graphics settings below. As above, I use SteamVR to run ED in VR (not through Steam), and in that, global render scaling is 100% and for the Elite Dangerous application specific page I have set render scaling to 70%.

Spoiler

Obviously can't say that these settings will work for anybody else. I use my PC exclusively to play games, so very little else going on while I am playing, no email, no web browsing, no other apps running except a small hardware monitoring utility, and it's a relatively high end PC.

i7 10700k
RTX 3080
32GB RAM
M.2 SSD (1TB)