I'm still in the process of testing out various situations with this, but basically, I'm seeing large fps drops in SC, and randomly when in stations.
So going back to Gamma 2.00 and prior, basically with 1 280x running on all low settings and Oculus quality set to half way, I would never encounter the fps dropping down from the 75fps it was running at, excluding some transition loading screens. The only exception was that when the NPC count got to 10-12 then I would drop down to about 65-70fps, yet my GPU and CPU would not be near max usage. CPU would usually be around 40-50% on all 4 cores, and the GPU fluctuated a lot, but never went over 85% usage typically.
As we got each update come in, the fps appeared to drop more and more, requiring me to lower the Oculus quality in order to maintain a constant 75fps everywhere (I could sustain this about 95% of the time, including in asteroids and stations), but with this latest release, it has bottomed right out at times.
So upon jumping back in with the release today, I headed to LHS 3447 in Open Play to see what was happening. when I entered the system and was in SC, I had a lot of NPCs loaded in and some players as well, and this appeared to destroy my fps to the point it was like VR in the 80s almost. Now I didn't notice till after, but Bloom had been turned back on, as the game appears to reset the Oculus quality and Bloom upon restart, but this fps drop took me down to a low point of 8fps and an average of 10fps. Now I have a strong stomach for doing pretty much anything in VR and being fine, but this was just aweful, although somewhat amusing. This was the only case of it going that low, but it will frequently drop fps to 60 or so when in SC and NPCs start to pop up. I thought it was maybe the star system itself being the cause, but I can be in a system with 20+ stars and planets without issue, but once I get a few NPC pop in, then we are off to Judder Town, this can happen in star systems with just a couple stars or planets, once the NPCs start to pop up.
I have seen similar problems when in stations, with these settings so low, I can easily have 75fps constantly, but while sitting there docked, I'll get a fps hit below 75, and will only see that some additional NPC have spawn into my instance, although some times, they have yet to be rendered on screen, as they are still outside the station.
The thing is though, that when I checked the CPU and GPU stats during this massive drop in fps, the CPU was still around 50-60% usage, and the GPU actually had taken a vacation, as even though I was struggling at 10fps, the GPU usage was bouncing between 0 and 20% during this. I thought maybe this is a case of the CPU having an issue and maybe being the bottleneck with trying to load in all the NPCs and players, but I can drop out of SC into regular speed and have a capital ship with 20-30 NPC and other real players, and I have no issues with fps. Also upon monitoring the CPU clock, temperature and usage load, I see no signs of any kind of throttling. CPU will hit a max of 64c and GPU will hit about 75c, although other games do get the GPU up to around 80-83c.
So, I'm wondering if anybody else has seen anything similar to this behaviour? I can't see the CPU being the bottleneck atm, as its a i5 2500k running at 4.7Ghz, so it can keep pace with the newer i5s out there, and although I have seen the GPU hit 98% load at times, it frequently is lower than that, and can be having fps issues even when its not fully under load.
There are still variables in this that might be at play, so want to test out a few other things first. I'm just trying to reach the golden mark of a constant 75fps, and want to know if this is a case of something to do with my hardware, software, or if its the game itself with just needing more optimization. All else fails, I guess I will look at throwing money at the issue, but would rather hold off a new GPU till the 980Ti and 390x are out.
EDIT: forgot to clarify, the reason I'm posting in this section, as this issue is when playing using the Rift DK2. So these fps issues introduce judder every time. I have done no testing on a regular monitor.
So going back to Gamma 2.00 and prior, basically with 1 280x running on all low settings and Oculus quality set to half way, I would never encounter the fps dropping down from the 75fps it was running at, excluding some transition loading screens. The only exception was that when the NPC count got to 10-12 then I would drop down to about 65-70fps, yet my GPU and CPU would not be near max usage. CPU would usually be around 40-50% on all 4 cores, and the GPU fluctuated a lot, but never went over 85% usage typically.
As we got each update come in, the fps appeared to drop more and more, requiring me to lower the Oculus quality in order to maintain a constant 75fps everywhere (I could sustain this about 95% of the time, including in asteroids and stations), but with this latest release, it has bottomed right out at times.
So upon jumping back in with the release today, I headed to LHS 3447 in Open Play to see what was happening. when I entered the system and was in SC, I had a lot of NPCs loaded in and some players as well, and this appeared to destroy my fps to the point it was like VR in the 80s almost. Now I didn't notice till after, but Bloom had been turned back on, as the game appears to reset the Oculus quality and Bloom upon restart, but this fps drop took me down to a low point of 8fps and an average of 10fps. Now I have a strong stomach for doing pretty much anything in VR and being fine, but this was just aweful, although somewhat amusing. This was the only case of it going that low, but it will frequently drop fps to 60 or so when in SC and NPCs start to pop up. I thought it was maybe the star system itself being the cause, but I can be in a system with 20+ stars and planets without issue, but once I get a few NPC pop in, then we are off to Judder Town, this can happen in star systems with just a couple stars or planets, once the NPCs start to pop up.
I have seen similar problems when in stations, with these settings so low, I can easily have 75fps constantly, but while sitting there docked, I'll get a fps hit below 75, and will only see that some additional NPC have spawn into my instance, although some times, they have yet to be rendered on screen, as they are still outside the station.
The thing is though, that when I checked the CPU and GPU stats during this massive drop in fps, the CPU was still around 50-60% usage, and the GPU actually had taken a vacation, as even though I was struggling at 10fps, the GPU usage was bouncing between 0 and 20% during this. I thought maybe this is a case of the CPU having an issue and maybe being the bottleneck with trying to load in all the NPCs and players, but I can drop out of SC into regular speed and have a capital ship with 20-30 NPC and other real players, and I have no issues with fps. Also upon monitoring the CPU clock, temperature and usage load, I see no signs of any kind of throttling. CPU will hit a max of 64c and GPU will hit about 75c, although other games do get the GPU up to around 80-83c.
So, I'm wondering if anybody else has seen anything similar to this behaviour? I can't see the CPU being the bottleneck atm, as its a i5 2500k running at 4.7Ghz, so it can keep pace with the newer i5s out there, and although I have seen the GPU hit 98% load at times, it frequently is lower than that, and can be having fps issues even when its not fully under load.
There are still variables in this that might be at play, so want to test out a few other things first. I'm just trying to reach the golden mark of a constant 75fps, and want to know if this is a case of something to do with my hardware, software, or if its the game itself with just needing more optimization. All else fails, I guess I will look at throwing money at the issue, but would rather hold off a new GPU till the 980Ti and 390x are out.
EDIT: forgot to clarify, the reason I'm posting in this section, as this issue is when playing using the Rift DK2. So these fps issues introduce judder every time. I have done no testing on a regular monitor.
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