Odyssey Optimization Needs to be Fixed

Out of curiosity, Achenar 1 on my system:
[...]
Next time I see pixelated terrain textures, I'm definitely giving you a ping.

Let me ask you a question as our resident graphics guru. In these scenes, it's just you and your ship. What would cause the GPU to resort to low-quality textures? Surely there is enough RAM on the average GPU (mine has 6GB) to hold the few textures for the assets on the screen. Is the card holding onto other textures (say, from a recently visited station) and not freeing up memory for the surface textures? I just find it very odd in these particular scenes that the game resorts to low-quality textures, especially when on the same card I can render things like photorealistic Red Dead Redemption 2 scenery without any such issues.
 
Next time I see pixelated terrain textures, I'm definitely giving you a ping.

Let me ask you a question as our resident graphics guru. In these scenes, it's just you and your ship. What would cause the GPU to resort to low-quality textures? Surely there is enough RAM on the average GPU (mine has 6GB) to hold the few textures for the assets on the screen. Is the card holding onto other textures (say, from a recently visited station) and not freeing up memory for the surface textures? I just find it very odd in these particular scenes that the game resorts to low-quality textures, especially when on the same card I can render things like photorealistic Red Dead Redemption 2 scenery without any such issues.

I don't know exactly what the game is doing, but I assume it's generating texture atlases/mipmaps for every object/surface that it's going to have to draw, for every LOD level it thinks it will need and keeping them around until it thinks memory is needed for something better, then evicting lower priority assets. The game may be burning memory doing things it shouldn't and/or making poor decisions on prioritizing/evicting assets, but it's hard to compare it to a game where areas/scenes are largely fixed and assets pre-baked.

I can say that over the last several updates, VRAM utilization has fallen from about 14GiB to a bit over 8GiB on my 6800 XT, with similar settings, doing similar things, without much of anything in the way of missing textures or LODs.
 
Out of curiosity, Achenar 1 on my system:
LwEE3MX.jpg

PNZSJDh.jpg

tQq9OqN.jpg

sRIhwRS.jpg

RepAQtw.jpg





You can use both, just not without manually editing the game options or applying SS via some other method (DSR/VSR, for example).



If you want the game to never throw out LODs at maximum settings, you want 10GiB+ of VRAM.
The shadows of the DBX made it look like you had a new and exciting ship for a sec....
 
Out of curiosity, Achenar 1 on my system:
LwEE3MX.jpg

PNZSJDh.jpg

tQq9OqN.jpg

sRIhwRS.jpg

RepAQtw.jpg
The problem with low-res blend textures wouldn't be that bad if the game chose the detail textures in a smarter way or at least post-processed them accordingly. For example, consider this screenshot from Ch'i Lin 5:

QltXSoN.png


Looking fine, right? The pixel pattern is still there but almost invisible because the detail textures merge so well:

gHZTl2x.png


Btw, here's the blend texture from your location:

xK0j6S5.png


What's annoying is that we had this level of polish in Horizons, but now we're back to square one (pun intended).
 
If you want the game to never throw out LODs at maximum settings, you want 10GiB+ of VRAM.
I've a 5500 XT 8GB (Ultra+ and VSS 1440P) and I have never had this kind of texture since... many updates (around update 5 or 6, i can't remember exactly). But maybe i don't play long enough to see this problem appear.
However, if we compare the texture in your screenshot and Shakashiro's, we can recognize the colours pattern, which leads me to believe that some shaders/blends are not applied to the base texture in Shakashiro's case.
 
I've a 5500 XT 8GB (Ultra+ and VSS 1440P) and I have never had this kind of texture since... many updates (around update 5 or 6, i can't remember exactly). But maybe i don't play long enough to see this problem appear.
However, if we compare the texture in your screenshot and Shakashiro's, we can recognize the colours pattern, which leads me to believe that some shaders/blends are not applied to the base texture in Shakashiro's case.
If you see terrain textures that look OK, please let me know the coordinates.
 
the way it goes, only horizon has a future, if 90% of the players can't play the DLC due to poor performance,

i wonder where are you pulling this numbers from?

You're right, of course. I'm sorry for misleading everyone. Odyssey is a great DLC which performs amazingly on the vast majority of players' computers, well earning its overwhelmingly positive Steam review. I encourage everyone, if you haven't purchased Odyssey, stop what you are doing and buy it today!

You're like a 5yo that doesnt want to taste that food because it tastes bad, even tho the kid never ever tryed it before
It would be funny if it weren't sad
 
The problem with low-res blend textures wouldn't be that bad if the game chose the detail textures in a smarter way or at least post-processed them accordingly.

But it doesn't.

The solution, given what we have to work with, is to not use low resolution textures, and ensure the resources are available to keep them from being evicted.

I never see patterning as bad as in your examples, probably because I run quadruple ultra/ultra+ planet texture resolution, double the blend target resolution, 100% the terrain work setting, and have plenty of VRAM. The patterns are still there, but they aren't a problem because they are always of sufficiently high resolution to not be obtrusive. The performance cost of increasing texture resolutions is also negligible on higher-end hardware.

Of course, lower-end hardware gets the shaft; the minimum and recommended specifications are a total joke.

What's annoying is that we had this level of polish in Horizons, but now we're back to square one (pun intended).

Horizons had more polish than this originally. I still think pre-Engineer Horizons (2.0.x), before they started cutting geometry detail and replacing it with textures, was, overall, the best terrain has ever looked in this game.

It was also a bit slow on contemporary hardware, but that was also more than six years ago.
 
they didnt... someone offered them free steam cards to buy EDO... they went and used the steam cards on other games...
Hum... you're a bit remaking the story, here...

besides that, you can still refund an Odyssey copy, but you need to go through support - the automatic refund policy doesnt work since it doesnt count the game play time on the DLC, but on the main game
And it seems that he can't play for more than 2 hours to claim a refund.

Refunds on Downloadable Content
(Steam store content usable within another game or software application, "DLC")


DLC purchased from the Steam store is refundable within fourteen days of purchase, and if the underlying title has been played for less than two hours since the DLC was purchased, so long as the DLC has not been consumed, modified or transferred. Please note that in some cases, Steam will be unable to give refunds for some third party DLC (for example, if the DLC irreversibly levels up a game character). These exceptions will be clearly marked as nonrefundable on the Store page prior to purchase.
 
And it seems that he can't play for more than 2 hours to claim a refund.

Yes, 2h playtime is part of the refund policy.
Now i do agree 2h is a bit of a joke when it comes to Elite - when EDO launched, it took me almost 1h to play with the binds and settings and get in the EDO tutorial, then by the time the tutorial finished i was close of even past the 2h...
But yea, if someone is a bit quicker and focused, they can do the startup and the tutorial and get an idea well within the 2h...

BUT, then again, why refunding when it's not about your money? Unless it's a bit of vindicative trollish behavior - i hate this company and i wont give them my money... but not only that, i dont want other people give them money either... see where is this going?
 
But it doesn't.

The solution, given what we have to work with, is to not use low resolution textures, and ensure the resources are available to keep them from being evicted.

I never see patterning as bad as in your examples, probably because I run quadruple ultra/ultra+ planet texture resolution, double the blend target resolution, 100% the terrain work setting, and have plenty of VRAM. The patterns are still there, but they aren't a problem because they are always of sufficiently high resolution to not be obtrusive. The performance cost of increasing texture resolutions is also negligible on higher-end hardware.

Of course, lower-end hardware gets the shaft; the minimum and recommended specifications are a total joke.



Horizons had more polish than this originally. I still think pre-Engineer Horizons (2.0.x), before they started cutting geometry detail and replacing it with textures, was, overall, the best terrain has ever looked in this game.

It was also a bit slow on contemporary hardware, but that was also more than six years ago.
To properly compare, we need to go to the same places. Do you remember where on Achenar 1 you took those photos?

Maxing out all the settings had no effect for me. What I can say with confidence is that this is not an issue of delayed texture streaming or VRAM filling up over the course of gameplay. I can quit the game after landing, and the next time I load it up and log in, everything looks exactly as before. The detail textures themselves look fine up close; only the blending between them exhibits the pixel pattern. Running the screenshots through image filters as above shows that the pixelation exists everywhere, even in your screenshots. But it's only visible to the naked eye if the detail textures differ significantly in color and/or brightness.
 
To properly compare, we need to go to the same places. Do you remember where on Achenar 1 you took those photos?

I was at -72.4997, 147.8583...but I can go anywhere in the system.

Maxing out all the settings had no effect for me. What I can say with confidence is that this is not an issue of delayed texture streaming or VRAM filling up over the course of gameplay. I can quit the game after landing, and the next time I load it up and log in, everything looks exactly as before. The detail textures themselves look fine up close; only the blending between them exhibits the pixel pattern. Running the screenshots through image filters as above shows that the pixelation exists everywhere, even in your screenshots. But it's only visible to the naked eye if the detail textures differ significantly in color and/or brightness.

It's possible the game is evicting assets during loading, failing to generate them in the first place, or simply that whatever resolution you're using is too low ('Ultra' is still 2k planet texture resolution...I've been using 4-16k since before Horizons launched).

I tried to find the worst looking example I could when I took the screenshots above. I have never seen what's in your screens when using increased texture/blend resolution settings.

Edit: moved over to Achenar 2, specifically looking for areas of higher chroma contrast, and did find a spot where the pattern is more evident.
iu3LtY0.jpg


That's probably the worst looking LOD. The higher resolution is making the pattern finer, but it's definitely apparent.

Edit2: Some mitigations I tried...

Increasing texture resolution further - not much help as I'm already at point of diminishing returns.
Changing texture resolutions to non-power of two, then prime numbers, no perceptible improvement.
Increasing game resolution - no improvement, as the underlying texture resolution is the same.
Adjusting anisotropic filtering and driver texture filtering quality - predictably blurs textures at oblique angles, but no effect on the visibility of this pattern at near vertical angles.
Adjusting material quality - no change.

Any suggestions as to how the game might be forced to blend these patterns better on our end?
 
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Yes, 2h playtime is part of the refund policy.
Now i do agree 2h is a bit of a joke when it comes to Elite - when EDO launched, it took me almost 1h to play with the binds and settings and get in the EDO tutorial, then by the time the tutorial finished i was close of even past the 2h...
But yea, if someone is a bit quicker and focused, they can do the startup and the tutorial and get an idea well within the 2h...
In 2 hours, you'll be mostly bogged down by the difference in ergonomics, the poor performance and the most obvious flaws. The best way to get a biased opinion.

BUT, then again, why refunding when it's not about your money? Unless it's a bit of vindicative trollish behavior - i hate this company and i wont give them my money...
Or else, to sanction actions that one does not support. El famoso "vote with your wallet".

but not only that, i dont want other people give them money either... see where is this going?
I don't know if i should laugh or not. I prefer to believe that i don't understand what you mean here and so don't see where is this going.


But I guess Old Duck is old enough to justify himself and has already done so enough in the topic he opened specifically for this. Believe what you want but try to not make up the reality.
 
However, their crusade against FDev and Odyssey is childish to put it gently.
Your crusade against anyone and everyone who has the slightest critique of Odyssey is childish, to put it gently. I guess since nobody is talking about Obsidian Ant, you have to waste pages "discussing the poster rather than the post" on me instead. Hey OA, could you come back so Northpin has his old favorite white whale to hunt?

Defending myself yet again (because obviously the topic of this thread is "Old Duck's Steam Cards" rather than Odyssey's poor performance and ratings), a couple of people offered me some compensation as a reward for my work on a certain mod. At first I thought Odyssey would be a perfect reward, as like many I was tricked by that pre-alpha footage into thinking it was great. Then the game released and the truth came out and I realized, "That's no reward, that's punishment!" and I chose to reward myself with X4 Foundations instead (a decision allowed and even encouraged by those who gifted me a Steam card). And what a great reward that was!

Your little restaurant argument is utter nonsense. If Frontier offered a free demo of Odyssey (taste the food), I'd download it today. And while I might not have "tasted" the food, I can see it and smell it on the plate, and I can read the Yelp reviews giving this particular dish one out of five stars. Yet you think it's good sense to "buy this plate of smelly, slimy, green spaghetti anyway" because of your crusade for FDev. Of course even if I did and maintained my same opinion, you'd come up with a new conspiracy theory to devalue my opinion, just like you've done with Obsidian Ant and all the other people you've crusaded against way more than I crusade against Odyssey. Irony is you should be happy that I am promoting a Frontier product as an alternative to Odyssey (Horizons) rather than Space Engineers, X4 Foundations, or the upcoming and glorious looking Starfield. But crusaders often destroy the very holy land they are trying to protect, so I guess I'm not surprised.

But I guess Old Duck is old enough to justify himself and has already done so enough in the topic he opened specifically for this. Believe what you want but try to not make up the reality.
Keep defending me (thank you), because my ignore list just got bigger (which has the blessed side-effect of making this thread considerable smaller and back on topic).
 
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I was at -72.4997, 147.8583...but I can go anywhere in the system.



It's possible the game is evicting assets during loading, failing to generate them in the first place, or simply that whatever resolution you're using is too low ('Ultra' is still 2k planet texture resolution...I've been using 4-16k since before Horizons launched).

I tried to find the worst looking example I could when I took the screenshots above. I have never seen what's in your screens when using increased texture/blend resolution settings.

Edit: moved over to Achenar 2, specifically looking for areas of higher contrast, and did find a spot where the pattern is more evident.
iu3LtY0.jpg


That's probably the worst looking LOD. The higher resolution is making the pattern finer, but it's definitely apparent.

Now I'll see if I can fix it....
I manage to figure out how to use 3dmigoto (Spelling?) and had a look at the decompiled terrain shader code , unfortunately the HLSL compiler renames variables to save space so its unreadable to humans but from looking at the terrain here they use a big texture as detail map and paint details based on color , industry standard , I found this can result in blocky textures when using large amounts of textures at once , I think the GPU is trying to downsize the detail texture to save space or its using image compression and in the process resulting in this blocky look , either that or they just used a low resolution detail texture
 
I manage to figure out how to use 3dmigoto (Spelling?) and had a look at the decompiled terrain shader code , unfortunately the HLSL compiler renames variables to save space so its unreadable to humans but from looking at the terrain here they use a big texture as detail map and paint details based on color , industry standard , I found this can result in blocky textures when using large amounts of textures at once , I think the GPU is trying to downsize the detail texture to save space or its using image compression and in the process resulting in this blocky look , either that or they just used a low resolution detail texture

Whatever detail map they are using seems to be at least partially linked to the planet texture resolution, but adjusting this has limited effect. I haven't found any way to manipulate the game's LOD tables, other than using the settings in the configfile to drop the more detailed LODs, which is the opposite of what's desired.

There is also a "CoarseColourMipsToDrop" variable that sounded like it could have an effect on the detail map, but adjusting that didn't seem to change much of anything...not that I think dropping mips there would be beneficial, just trying to isolate potentially relevant settings and get a handle on FDev's nomenclature at this point.

Might have to look into 3Dmigoto or some other 3rd party tool to see if the detail map can be isolated and then filtered.
 
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