Hows performance after patch 11 ?

[Morbad]

Found a medium conflict zone at large research settlement and can comfirm that a large part of the CPU limited frame rate issues are due to the settlement itself, rather than just the NPCs. The NPCs certainly have a significant performance impact themselves, as when the conflict was over, my frame rate still rose by about 20, but looking at certain parts of the settlement, even when they were occluded, still resulted in relatively low frame rates and reduced GPU utilization (indicating a CPU and/or memory bottleneck).

Same phenomena is also present outside of CZs, but frame rates are high enough that I start to become GPU limited at my usual settings, so the CZs make it much more apparent.

This is the same issue we've been reporting since the alpha, where problems with sloppy assets, that need too many draw calls to begin with, are compounded by a lack of occlusion culling that forces them to be rendered through walls and terrain.

U11 may even have made this worse.

I've had this happen to me frequently when I've left Odyssey running for many hours (4-6+)

This does look like it could be some sort of memory leak, but it could also be a sign of hardware instability.

 

[ebbrell]

Lets face it fdev need to do something, even sitting in a ship inside a station is taking a hit of fps compared to horizons.

What extra is being drawn to chase it, different station which look the same inside perform differently, depends on what station is near too.

Its like the external objects are being drawn as well even through you cannot see them inside station

 

[Morbad]

Recorded some CZ footage at different settlement sizes...small one just finished processing:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLPJG-umPI4

 

[Frop]

This is the same issue we've been reporting since the alpha, where problems with sloppy assets, that need too many draw calls to begin with, are compounded by a lack of occlusion culling that forces them to be rendered through walls and terrain.

Oh, definitely, you can stand in a completely secluded room in a settlement and depending on which direction you look at (either the blank planet surface or the rest of the settlement), framerates vary massively. It's just, as you said, sloppy.

 

[Frop]

Recorded some CZ footage at different settlement sizes...small one just finished processing:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLPJG-umPI4

That helmet breathing effect remains terrible and the still broken "negative occlusion" of some of the transparant effects (like the water droplets) is pretty annoying as well. I'm probably not describing that very well, but as soon as there's something "volumetric" in front of something transparant, it just sticks out a like sore thumb (the ring of lights at the end of a station visible through the mail slot smoke, helmet visors through dust clouds, et cetera).

 

[Darth Ender]

Oh, definitely, you can stand in a completely secluded room in a settlement and depending on which direction you look at (either the blank planet surface or the rest of the settlement), framerates vary massively. It's just, as you said, sloppy.

what's even weirder, is that the framerate will swing over 30% while just altering your view from a given point ...and then it will swing back while still staring at the thing that caused it to swing down (usually). But absolutely no change is happening on screen to anything. that's a 30% hit in fps, not just 30fps when you're getting 150 or something. absolutely nothing on screen to take responsibility for it.

 

[CMDR The Riz]

This does look like it could be some sort of memory leak, but it could also be a sign of hardware instability.

A memory leak was my first guess, but a hardware malfunction was at the back of my mind. If that odd bug is indicative of instability, I am concerned as this is a laptop RTX 2070 with no overclock...

 

[Morbad]

Medium sized settlement, high intensity CZ:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97DsWVr15fw


Large settlement, medium intensity:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEtny5Ge02g


Performance significantly worse than the small settlement, and the larger one has major dips in frame rate even after the conflict ends, just visually scanning the settlement. GPU is also under utilized, indicating a CPU/memory performance limitation (probably all those draw calls for garbage that should be occluded).

It's not unplayable by any means, but its damn annoying and perceptibly less than smooth at times.

A memory leak was my first guess, but a hardware malfunction was at the back of my mind. If that odd bug is indicative of instability, I am concerned as this is a laptop RTX 2070 with no overclock...

Unfortunately a lot of stock systems are not even close to unconditionally stable, especially laptops.

I would test for CPU/memory and GPU stability, both individually, and together.

 

[RedWhenExcited]

+1 for seeing the FPS-degradation-over-time thing - found that logging out to the desktop and logging back in will immediately fix the issue for another few hours. To continue the common thread - I'm also on laptop. RTX 3070 mobile

 

[dubsdj]

Try this:
In a station on foot when its running fine, go to the taxi booth and book a taxi then see if you notice a massive dip in performance.

 

[RedWhenExcited]

Try this:
In a station on foot when its running fine, go to the taxi booth and book a taxi then see if you notice a massive dip in performance.

No real difference so far as I could see

 

[Frop]

+1 for seeing the FPS-degradation-over-time thing - found that logging out to the desktop and logging back in will immediately fix the issue for another few hours. To continue the common thread - I'm also on laptop. RTX 3070 mobile

Next time this happens, could you check if it's the chat bug that still pops up occasionally (chat bugs out, often with "TEST" appearing until you open the chat box and the FPS goes back to normal)?

 

[Morbad]

On a mostly unrelated tangent, I have been investigating whether or not AMD's new drivers have been correctly enabling b-frames on their AVC encoder. Since the files created by any method I've tried lack b-frames, I have my doubts, but I've still stumbled on some very promising AMF AVC encode settings and have also noticed that the OBS plugin is now working correctly.

Maybe @Rat Catcher will find these settings useful:

Spoiler

Edit: note that those settings are for 1440p60 recording...4k will overload the encoder without significant changes.

Should match my previous HEVC settings in quality, at lower bit rate, and cut YouTube processing time significantly by adhering more closely to their requested upload format.

Also, most anything that uses the RTSS overlay can be captured by OBS' game capture mode if one enables "Microsoft Detours API hooking" in the RTSS settings.

Whatever has been changed with regards to the AMF encoder is making me lean slightly towards that 5800X3D upgrade, as the prior crappiness of AMD's hardware encoder has been one of the main reasons I felt I could leverage a 5950X (for software x264) in a gaming-oriented build.

Try this:
In a station on foot when its running fine, go to the taxi booth and book a taxi then see if you notice a massive dip in performance.

Haven't noticed this myself.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbDbjBMM-4Q

 

[Rat Catcher]

On a mostly unrelated tangent, I have been investigating whether or not AMD's new drivers have been correctly enabling b-frames on their AVC encoder. Since the files created by any method I've tried lack b-frames, I have my doubts, but I've still stumbled on some very promising AMF AVC encode settings and have also noticed that the OBS plugin is now working correctly.

Maybe @Rat Catcher will find these settings useful:

Thanks! I'll have a play around using those settings next recording session,

 

[Erei]

So far I've only observed it in surface ports and it happens when I get there with my own ship, Apex or Frontline. I've also found a single settlement which occasionally fails to spawn any NPCs either.

While I didn't have the issue myself, I had an issue where the quest item/NPC doesn't spawn and I need to relog. For larceny mission and once for an assassinate mission (where the guy fled).
It might be related ?

 

[Sara Lyons]

So I'm back to playing around with Ody after rebuilding an entirely new PC.

Old:

• i7 4790k, 4 core 8 threads
• 16gb DDR3
• 1070ti
• 1080p 144hz

New:

• Ryzen 9 5900x 12 core, 24 threads
• 32gb DDR4
• 3060ti
• 1080p 144hz

This was enough to brute force my way through all the terrible optimization into playable framerates. With vsync off for unlimited fps, I can get just under 400fps flying in space.
Walking around stations of any size I never fall under 60fps. Ground CZs are between 50-60fps. Walking in my FC I got around 180fps.

So that's what it took me to make Ody playable in all situations

 

[CMDR The Riz]

Unfortunately a lot of stock systems are not even close to unconditionally stable, especially laptops.

I would test for CPU/memory and GPU stability, both individually, and together.

I ran a few benchmarks and aside from my CPU running a bit warm for my liking, nothing obvious jumped out at me.

I then ran EDO for a half hour running a pair of missions; the first was a Protect mission at a large Research Settlement and the second was a Massacre Mission that bugged out at a large Mining Settlement. I had FrameView monitoring my setup in the background, and this is what it saw:

Spoiler: Graphs

Sadly, the MsBetweenDisplayChange field used to determine displayed FPS bugged out and didn't record for the majority of the session, so there's no FPS chart. I also tried capturing the on-screen display from FrameView with OBS, but that didn't work either. Regardless, here's the video I took of that session:

Source: https://youtu.be/OOINGTpWCKI

 

[Postal]

So I'm back to playing around with Ody after rebuilding an entirely new PC.

Old:

• i7 4790k, 4 core 8 threads
• 16gb DDR3
• 1070ti
• 1080p 144hz

New:

• Ryzen 9 5900x 12 core, 24 threads
• 32gb DDR4
• 3060ti
• 1080p 144hz

This was enough to brute force my way through all the terrible optimization into playable framerates. With vsync off for unlimited fps, I can get just under 400fps flying in space.
Walking around stations of any size I never fall under 60fps. Ground CZs are between 50-60fps. Walking in my FC I got around 180fps.

So that's what it took me to make Ody playable in all situations

meanwhile in VR I get 80 FPS in space, 40ish in stations, and 25 to 40 flying over settlements with my 3080ti, ryzen 7 2700x, and 64gb of ddr4

weird thing is with oculus ASW off it doesnt matter what my HMD quality is set at. Could be .5 or 2.0. I am still locked on those frame rates.

 

[Morbad]

I ran a few benchmarks and aside from my CPU running a bit warm for my liking, nothing obvious jumped out at me.

Benchmarks are one thing, but to get an idea if the system is able to handle sustained loads without throwing errors, one should run some stress tests able to max out load for protracted periods of time, and are able to flag errors that might otherwise go unnoticed.

I'd recommend TestMem5 using the 1usmus_v3 profile for system memory testing and y-cruncher (loops of the HNT test, specifically) for both memory and CPU testing.

GPU testing is a bit more tricky as few applications report errors short of those serious enough to produce visual artifacting or outright crashes. MSI Kombustor and OCCT have artifact checkers, but their loads aren't equivalent to most gaming tests and it's hard to find settings that won't just be throttled to uselessness by power limiters...they generally won't produce false positives, but they can miss some fairly obvious errors. That said, running OCCT's GPU memory test simultaneously with y-cruncher (limiting the number of processors to use on the latter to your number of logical cores, minus 2 and keeping memory utilization to about 75% of your total) should reveal any blatant stability issues very quickly.

I then ran EDO for a half hour running a pair of missions; the first was a Protect mission at a large Research Settlement and the second was a Massacre Mission that bugged out at a large Mining Settlement. I had FrameView monitoring my setup in the background, and this is what it saw:

Spoiler: Graphs

View attachment 299319
View attachment 299320
View attachment 299321
View attachment 299322

Sadly, the MsBetweenDisplayChange field used to determine displayed FPS bugged out and didn't record for the majority of the session, so there's no FPS chart. I also tried capturing the on-screen display from FrameView with OBS, but that didn't work either. Regardless, here's the video I took of that session:

Source: https://youtu.be/OOINGTpWCKI

Performance isn't bad, all things considered, but it is curious to see that shutting down the settlement did nothing at all to improve frame rate. What timestamp on the video corresponds precisely to that dip in GPU utilization?

meanwhile in VR I get 80 FPS in space, 40ish in stations, and 25 to 40 flying over settlements with my 3080ti, ryzen 7 2700x, and 64gb of ddr4

weird thing is with oculus ASW off it doesnt matter what my HMD quality is set at. Could be .5 or 2.0. I am still locked on those frame rates.

That's because you are even more CPU limited.

 

[sgurr]

I don't have enough experience with DDR5 to know much about the properties of the various ICs, PCBs, and binnings, but the performance sweet spot seems to be around 5200MT/s. Even mid-range boards support DDR5-6400+.



I've noticed the dip in performance when powering up settlements. It's quite significant, even without fires.



Anything refering to CPU or memory performance is refering to non-GPU-limited scenarios, which in my case, is anything up to and including 1440p ultra (at those settings my 6800 XT tend to bounce around 40-70% utilization in a high intensity CZ) that features populated settlements.

I went from this:

To this:

And gained a solid ~5% to average frame rates in the process, with a more noticeable improvement at the low-end. It was about the same difference as 400MHz+ of CPU clock speed on a Vermeer (Zen 3) part, which is a considerably larger differential than you'll see in the gaming clocks between, say, a 5600X and a 5950X.

The game still scales well with CPU clock increases, but improving memory performance seems to overtake CPU clock in importance after about 4.4GHz, on this platform. And this is all at the same FCLK, UCLK, and MEMCLK. The difference is correspondingly larger with a larger difference in the performance of the memory subsystem.

Going from some cheap 2400-3200MT/s, for example, to even budget 3600 stuff, then spending a little effort tuning it, would probably be one of the more economical upgrades that could be done for this game on AM4, if one already has a Vermeer. I suspect the situation is similar for any system that isn't GPU limited where a reasonably fast CPU has been paired with mediocre memory.

Have you manually tuned those Morbad?

I've just gotten some faster ram in an effort to help with Odyssey, might even be the same as yours. I'm happy putting in the recommendations of the 1usmus tool but I wouldn't know where to begin going beyond that.
Going to be benchmarking over the weekend.
(am also waiting for 5800x3D reviews before deciding whether to change the cpu from 3700x)

Sorry if I've missed it here but do you think resizeable bar with ryzen/radeon makes an appreciable difference in Odyssey vs ryzen/nvidia?