Is the ship you fly impacting the performance of the game?

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

I have never read any post about this topic, so I thought I should ask here.

It seems that the specific ship you fly does have an impact on the performance of the game. I've been almost exclusively flying an Imperial Cutter since I bought it in mid-December. I always display the framerate on my screen so I have a pretty good idea of the performance. Then, add to the mix the significant number of times I've been doing hyperspace jumps, or opening the galaxy map or, with the poor performance, opening the options, and, finally, exiting the game.

Yesterday, in order to increase my influence and my ranks with the Federation, I decided to fly my Python to give me more missions. I started my game session in my Imperial Cutter, did a trip that was 10 hyperspace jumps to drop my cargo and then came back to my home base. I then switched to the Python and made the 16 jumps to Sol. I didn't restart the game or go to the main menu. It was in Solo all the time.

At the first hyperspace jump, I immediately noticed that it had been significantly shorter. I then checked my framerate on my low spec system. I was now getting 5-10 fps more than what I usually do with the Cutter. In open space, with the Cutter I usually get 25-30 fps. Now, with the Python, I was getting 30-35 fps, 40 while doing a hyperspace jump. All the subsequent hyperspace jumps appear significantly shorter. Dropping from supercruise at a station was also significantly shorter.

So, even though I don't have hard evidence, it seems that the ship you fly has an impact on the performance, the Imperial Cutter being the worst for me so far.

Did anybody else notice that?

 

[CMDR Byr Goefin]

It would stand to reason that the more sky visible, the more processing power needed.

 

[dementia]

Can't say I've noticed what the OP is reporting. My guess is that his system may be so close to the bone in terms of specs that the slightest change tips it over the edge.

Kantos Kan: Can you provide your machine specs.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

Can't say I've noticed what the OP is reporting. My guess is that his system may be so close to the bone in terms of specs that the slightest change tips it over the edge.

Kantos Kan: Can you provide your machine specs.

Sure. It's a Mac laptop running Windows 7 Pro 64-bits. i7 at 2.3GHz with a lowly AMD Radeon HD6750M (1GB DDR5).

 

[Soothsayer]

I sincerely doubt that the handful of pixels required to render larger ships could even remotely impact the game's overall performance.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

I sincerely doubt that the handful of pixels required to render larger ships could even remotely impact the game's overall performance.

It never occurred to me that it would be but, if you think about it, the ships are made of polygons. The larger the ship and the more polygons are needed to render, the more performance impact it has. Even though you see only a small part of your ship when you fly, I wouldn't be surprised that it's completely rendered for some inefficiency reasons. I had the framerate displayed all the time, I'm not blind, I saw the increase and everything was snappier in the game. For example, opening the galaxy map was almost instantaneous on the Python while it takes between 15-30 seconds when flying the Cutter.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Sure. It's a Mac laptop running Windows 7 Pro 64-bits. i7 at 2.3GHz with a lowly AMD Radeon HD6750M (1GB DDR5).

Not sure what's happening there but I can run ED on lowest settings on my Acer 5740g (google the aweful spec!) I only get about 25fps in space (10 in a dock!).
I've never noticed it change by using a different ship.
I do get wierd stuttering when approaching planets though, but only in supercruise.

 

[fruitbat]

It would stand to reason that the more sky visible, the more processing power needed.

Pretty sure its the other way round. The sky will be being rendered regardless. Then the cockpit overlayed, the more polygons in the cockpit , lighting effects etc, the more hp required.

 

[Noddie]

I've thought I've noticed this a couple of time. I have 2 possible explanations;

1/ If you have an agile, fast moving ship it's more noticeable if there is a stutter as the movement "jumps" further. IE it isn't actually performing any worse, it's just more noticeable because of what is going on.

2/ (And more what is being talked about here). The selected ship model does take up a certain amount of memory for things like the engine sounds and textures (I don't know if the flight model varies much in size, but I doubt it), but the textures and sounds could vary a bit in size. It's possible that if you're constrained in memory (system or graphics) that loading a larger ship model in will cause the system to slow down.

As has been pointed out, visibility of external components (eg the lasers in the Vulture) and the size of the ships "windows" could also effect performance if you're got a larger proportion of the screen to render so the machine has more work to do. If that was combined with 2/ then I would imagine the effect could be quite significant if the PC is in any way marginal. Mine is a little, especially post-horizons, so I accept this.

Try dropping a detail level if you're all that fussed. The extra smoothness of "High" over "Ultra" is often worth a lot of than the modest increase in detail.

 

[777Driver]

The Cutter has optimization issues, this was reported in Beta by a number of people. I run a beast rig in VR, the Cutter definitely causes a slight performance hit in stations and on planets, my system is fine with any other ship in any situation.

 

[CMDR Kantos Kan]

The Cutter has optimization issues, this was reported in Beta by a number of people. I run a beast rig in VR, the Cutter definitely causes a slight performance hit in stations and on planets, my system is fine with any other ship in any situation.

Thanks for validating my observations, 777Driver! That proves I'm not crazy!

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I've thought I've noticed this a couple of time. I have 2 possible explanations;

1/ If you have an agile, fast moving ship it's more noticeable if there is a stutter as the movement "jumps" further. IE it isn't actually performing any worse, it's just more noticeable because of what is going on.

2/ (And more what is being talked about here). The selected ship model does take up a certain amount of memory for things like the engine sounds and textures (I don't know if the flight model varies much in size, but I doubt it), but the textures and sounds could vary a bit in size. It's possible that if you're constrained in memory (system or graphics) that loading a larger ship model in will cause the system to slow down.

As has been pointed out, visibility of external components (eg the lasers in the Vulture) and the size of the ships "windows" could also effect performance if you're got a larger proportion of the screen to render so the machine has more work to do. If that was combined with 2/ then I would imagine the effect could be quite significant if the PC is in any way marginal. Mine is a little, especially post-horizons, so I accept this.

Try dropping a detail level if you're all that fussed. The extra smoothness of "High" over "Ultra" is often worth a lot of than the modest increase in detail.

About your 2nd point, yes, that makes sense. The Cutter's cockpit is more detailed than the Python's cockpit. There are a few lights around the scanner (which sometimes interferes with the blips representing ships on the scanner) that are flashing all the time.

I'd be curious to do some testing with a ship without any bobbleheads and then a configuration of the same ship but with all the bobbleheads you can have. I'm sure these would impact the performance on a low spec system. Of course, if you're getting 100+ frames per second, you won't notice anything...