Odyssey - CPU limited or GPU limited?

[Draven Darken]

I’m at least contemplating buying Odyssey in a couple of months, if FD improves upon it in the coming months (in terms of FPS, planet appearance and bugs), because I have an interest in making another ED video series IF it is practical to do so with my current hardware, but there would be very little point in it if I can’t show the newest EDO stuff (on-foot movement, base interiors, etc.)

But my system is a little lopsided in terms of CPU/GPU balance, as I have a five year old i7-6700k CPU combined with an RTX 3070. I‘ve always run EDH at 1440p resolution and would want to continue doing so since that’s my monitor’s native resolution. The obvious question I wish to put to the forum is how EDO (in its current state) might run on such a system. But to ask it in a more specific and useful way: when players run EDO on a relatively balanced middle-tier system (e.g., something like a 6700k + 1070 or 1080), are they finding their FPS to be limited by the GPU maxing out, or the CPU?

I’m hoping to hear that the bulk of the load on such a system might be on the GPU side, since that’s where my gaming system’s extra muscle is, and in such a case I’d hope to at least have a chance to achieve somewhat reasonable performance with EDO (e.g., 40 FPS or better, enough to allow mostly smooth 30 FPS video capture for use in videos).

Your thoughts and musings would be much appreciated.

 

[Athlon-uk]

If it’s socket LGA 1151 just upgrade the cpu, easy upgrade, I think you can go up to an i9 9900K but double check this.

 

[Draven Darken]

It’s an MSI z170a M9 Gaming motherboard. The information I have says it can only handle a maximum of a i7-7700k, which would only yield a few percent of improvement, and also is a pretty expensive CPU to get these days I think.

 

[Bottom Hat]

I don't know the answer mate, but I will make one comment you might find helpful.

People on here seem to report such wildly different results between lower end kit and 5k rigs, that I don't know if it's possible to draw a reliable conclusion.

If you're like me and don't have much spare cash, it's difficult to know whether any of it is worth upgrading at the moment until they work out their optimizations, providing they can, before the pencilled console release.

It's also difficult to know if some people on here are talking out of their bottom holes, to stir things up, especially recently as it has been incredibly salty and that here to say the least - sure it's not antisocial media, but it's a lot of fog in with the facts.

Sorry I can't be more help, but I thought an honest reply would help too, as I suspect you might get a load of bull as answers to your post too (not the ones above). A bit of a minefield I'm afraid

 

[Draven Darken]

I don't know the answer mate, but I will make one comment you might find helpful.

People on here seem to report such wildly different results between lower end kit and 5k rigs, that I don't know if it's possible to draw a reliable conclusion.

If you're like me and don't have much spare cash, it's difficult to know whether any of it is worth upgrading at the moment until they work out their optimizations, providing they can, before the pencilled console release.

It's also difficult to know if some people on here are talking out of their bottom holes, to stir things up, especially recently as it has been incredibly salty and that here to say the least - sure it's not antisocial media, but it's a lot of fog in with the facts.

Sorry I can't be more help, but I thought an honest reply would help too, as I suspect you might get a load of bull as answers to your post too (not the ones above). A bit of a minefield I'm afraid

Thanks, and yes, I was pretty much expecting a wide range of responses based upon the heat of the moment as regards the state of EDO. I was mainly hoping to see at least one or two responses that would give me a hint of whether EDO tends to be more demanding of the CPU or of the GPU, as I haven’t really seen that discussed in the performance threads I’ve scanned (except for some discussion about lowering CPU clocks to prevent GPU overheating, which is a different topic to my thinking).

With the console release being a ways down the road yet, I have been hoping my 3070 might allow me to squeeze enough performance out of the current version to make capturing video from the game possible this fall, since I am expecting to have a good window starting in about two months in which to get a head start on a new video series. Holding off until next year could potentially introduce new issues with scheduling amongst my cast of actors, as that would be a long time to try to maintain their availability … but then again, if FD never addresses at least the worst EDO issues then the series may not get made at all. This post was/is my attempt to determine whether it is even worthwhile for me to risk it this year.

P.S. - yes, I’m like you in that money isn’t plentiful anymore. I retired from my day job a year ago and am now on something a lot closer to a fixed income than I used to be. Hence my hesitation to even spend the $40 on EDO without having at least some confidence that I’m going to get my money’s worth out of it (in terms of making video content).

 

[alexzk]

i7 4470 (more then 7 years old) was used for about 30% with 1050 card. I think, GPU memory is most limiting, then GPU. Also resetting BIOS to "default optimized" made game smoother. Not sure how that works, I think it disables VTd by default.

 

[leonardofelin]

EDO tends to be more demanding of the CPU or of the GPU

I'm on the AMD side (lower single core performance) and my 3800x holds it together with EDO pretty well. It's never above 50-60%.
My GPU (RTX 2080 Super) is usually around 100% on foot. Lower when in space (but still higher than in Horizons).

 

[Draven Darken]

i7 4470 (more then 7 years old) was used for about 30% with 1050 card. I think, GPU memory is most limiting, then GPU. Also resetting BIOS to "default optimized" made game smoother. Not sure how that works, I think it disables VTd by default.

I'm on the AMD side (lower single core performance) and my 3800x holds it together with EDO pretty well. It's never above 50-60%.
My GPU (RTX 2080 Super) is usually around 100% on foot. Lower when in space (but still higher than in Horizons).

Thanks. Both of you seem to be indicating that your GPU has been the performance bottleneck, which if true is what I was hoping would be the case.

 

[Fizzatron]

But my system is a little lopsided in terms of CPU/GPU balance, as I have a five year old i7-6700k CPU combined with an RTX 3070. I‘ve always run EDH at 1440p resolution and would want to continue doing so since that’s my monitor’s native resolution. The obvious question I wish to put to the forum is how EDO (in its current state) might run on such a system. But to ask it in a more specific and useful way: when players run EDO on a relatively balanced middle-tier system (e.g., something like a 6700k + 1070 or 1080), are they finding their FPS to be limited by the GPU maxing out, or the CPU?

I think it's a great question and may have a large part to play in the disparity of performance, everyone is listing their GPU but not CPU.. My son and I have pretty recent (within last two years) admittedly midrange six core i7 GTX1660ti & RTX2060 (respectively) laptops and our performance is generally fine - I'm running it fine at 1080 (my laptop's screen res) with FLStudio still running in the background.

So it did get me wondering that not having a newer CPU isn't a larger part of the issue others are experiencing. I read briefly on the Star Citizen forum that the game is very CPU heavy and I wonder, now that Elite has legs, the same mightn't be true for Elite now.

 

[leonardofelin]

Thanks. Both of you seem to be indicating that your GPU has been the performance bottleneck, which if true is what I was hoping would be the case.

The 6700k is an awesome processor. I had it for years before upgrading (nice opportunity travel to the US allowed me to upgrade pretty much everything).
Also, since it's a k CPU, you could overclock it a little bit.

 

[Straker]

It all depends on the game in question but generally speaking 1080 resolutions won't stress your GPU that much and if your refresh rate supports it then your CPU will be tasked more by having to feed your GPU with these higher frequencies. As you are in 1440 then the GPU will start to spend more time processing each frame meaning the CPU will be required less. This is generic information and it depends on what other stuff the game is tasking the CPU with along with how well the game is multithreaded.

If I were you, I'd be upgrading my CPU but at your resolution the best advice like Bottom Hat said, is to wait and see what Frontier do regarding optimisations if money is a factor.

 

[Draven Darken]

The 6700k is an awesome processor. I had it for years before upgrading (nice opportunity travel to the US allowed me to upgrade pretty much everything).
Also, since it's a k CPU, you could overclock it a little bit.

Heh, that’s very true (both that it’s still a pretty decent processor, and that an OC is possible). I’ve been reluctant to do any overclocking since I want for this system to last a good long while, and if EDO is sufficiently GPU-limited then doing an OC might not even gain me anything. But it is a consideration to be sure.

So far, seems like 2 votes for possibly GPU limited and 1 vote for possibly CPU limited. Anyone else have observations about this?

 

[Bottom Hat]

Thanks, and yes, I was pretty much expecting a wide range of responses based upon the heat of the moment as regards the state of EDO. I was mainly hoping to see at least one or two responses that would give me a hint of whether EDO tends to be more demanding of the CPU or of the GPU, as I haven’t really seen that discussed in the performance threads I’ve scanned (except for some discussion about lowering CPU clocks to prevent GPU overheating, which is a different topic to my thinking).

With the console release being a ways down the road yet, I have been hoping my 3070 might allow me to squeeze enough performance out of the current version to make capturing video from the game possible this fall, since I am expecting to have a good window starting in about two months in which to get a head start on a new video series. Holding off until next year could potentially introduce new issues with scheduling amongst my cast of actors, as that would be a long time to try to maintain their availability … but then again, if FD never addresses at least the worst EDO issues then the series may not get made at all. This post was/is my attempt to determine whether it is even worthwhile for me to risk it this year.

P.S. - yes, I’m like you in that money isn’t plentiful anymore. I retired from my day job a year ago and am now on something a lot closer to a fixed income than I used to be. Hence my hesitation to even spend the $40 on EDO without having at least some confidence that I’m going to get my money’s worth out of it (in terms of making video content).

Yeah I'm just sorry I can't give you an exemplary answer really, or at least an accurate one. I was hoping also that your [very good and interesting] question didn't get swamped over with any "mine is better than yours" type of arguments that I've seen in other threads, and it seems from the respondents so far that you are getting good answers with examples.

I hope you get to draw a good conclusion from this, and like others have said, it'll be interesting to see if there is a balance and consolidation between the two factors and how they affect results, again as others have said.

I'll be watching this thread for sure mate

 

[the100thmonkey]

If it’s socket LGA 1151 just upgrade the cpu, easy upgrade, I think you can go up to an i9 9900K but double check this.

Nope. There is no upgrade path for a 6700k.

 

[Fizzatron]

It all depends on the game in question but generally speaking 1080 resolutions won't stress your GPU that much and if your refresh rate supports it then your CPU will be tasked more by having to feed your GPU with these higher frequencies.

Wait, hasn't that got to be good news for all the Elite Dangerous players who are running in 1080? I mean, after seeing reviews on Steam stating; "Don't try Odyssey unless you have a 2080ti" and stuff like that, this maybe sounds like the reason as to why I'm experiencing similar performance as Horizons on my RTX 2060, right?

 

[fus roh potato]

Games aren't just limited by CPU and GPU bottlenecks. In some rare cases, they are bottlenecked by SPU spughetti

 

[buzzx]

I think you will be ok with that setup if they sort out the bugs and get it stable. From all that Ive seen in my extensive testing its definitely more GPU intensive. Im running i7-9700k and i never really see the CPU getting maxed out as per below. Theres just something broken with EDO at the moment in terms of graphics and rendering. It can be running fine but at some point it goes pear shaped. As soon as you drop down to a settlement for example its stutters really bad. Even some type of planet types with certain textures or rocks can cause it to tank the frame rate. In saying that I can play for 30 minutes without a problem sometimes. An exit to menu and back again can fix it but on some planets it just cant handle a particular texture or pattern or something, nothing fixes it.

 

[Captain Willard]

All will become known when EDH and EDO consoles are merged. Wait till then.

 

[Draven Darken]

I think you will be ok with that setup if they sort out the bugs and get it stable. From all that Ive seen in my extensive testing its definitely more GPU intensive. Im running i7-9700k and i never really see the CPU getting maxed out as per below. Theres just something broken with EDO at the moment in terms of graphics and rendering. It can be running fine but at some point it goes pear shaped. As soon as you drop down to a settlement for example its stutters really bad. Even some type of planet types with certain textures or rocks can cause it to tank the frame rate. In saying that I can play for 30 minutes without a problem sometimes. An exit to menu and back again can fix it but on some planets it just cant handle a particular texture or pattern or something, nothing fixes it. View attachment 249468

Good information there, thanks very much. Your CPU sure didn’t appear to be working very hard in the screenshot, although I suppose it could be a single thread that maxes out while the others are near idling. (I don’t know how much multithreading EDO uses, or how well.)

 

[Straker]

Draven Darken, one thing I should have mentioned is that last year I used to have an Intel Core i7-6700 (non K version) in use with my RTX 2080 @3440x1440. In December I upgraded my platform to a Ryzen 5 5600x, which I am very happy with. Now, using Horizons I didn't notice a huge performance increase running at my native resolution of 3440x1440, which is exactly as I expected. Sure it felt a little better but it wasn't like getting a video card upgrade. I really wish I had recorded some actual FPS comparisons for you but like I said above, at this resolution it's going to be more about your video card than your CPU, though that doesn't mean the CPU+RAM aren't important.

Now when it comes to Odyssey, I'm in the same basket as everyone else, ie frame rates are low and inconsistent depending on what you are doing and what you have done in game during your session. It's impossible to say anything really meaningful at the moment but just give generalised pointers.

Horizons as of the end of last year was a more mature product and Odyssey has just gotten its legs - so to speak. I remember when Horizons first came out there were some real performance issues - particularly with respect to the game tanking FPS after you went on a planet and then did something else that normally performs ok. Odyssey is doing this exact same thing for me at the moment. So for example, I might get a sudden consistent drop in FPS but if I exit the game and reload it at the same place then the FPS goes back to normal. It's inconsistent and unpredictable.