I think so too.
Honestly, I think that is when we'll see the
start of it. If I were a betting man I'd say we'll have to wait till the end of december for most of the real improvements to arrive. U7 will bring very little performance improvements, U8 will bring some of the main chunks and U9 should bring enough. If January 1st performance is still crap that would indicate to me they simply can't get it right. Until than I'll assume they'll fix it before the year''s end.
Then add proper AA and we'll look at a very pretty and nicely running game.
Could be. Though it's a bit crazy to consider another 3-4 months wait before the game runs acceptably - despite being a bug-ridden mess CP2077 ran great on my PC from the get go, and looked lovely at the same time. The fact that Frontier are adding back CAS suggests to me they're nowhere near sorting out the underlying issues properly and will rely on band aids like it and FSR for the foreseeable future. And even with FSR enabled the game struggles to hit 60fps in concourses for me, while looking noticeably worse.
I'm curious though about the AA change - this was always a real eyesore in Elite, which only playing with SS above 1.0 and/or at 1440p sorted out even in Horizons.
Yup, they suck too. There is one gentleman here who is particularly annoying like that, but I don't think he means to be an obvious white knight.
I think I know who you mean, and while I'm inclined to agree they may not do it on purpose/to troll others, this "I'm alright Jack" attitude is just as irritating, I wish people like that would just remain silent on the topic if they don't have any issues if they don't have anything useful to say since others clearly do have problems (been playing again last night in the concourses and settlements, with FSR disabled at SS1.0 it still is such a janky, juddery mess it at times makes me literally feel queasy - and with FSR on, it's the aliasing and fuzzy text that does it instead).
But one small nuance: performance sensitivity is very much variable. Some people legit can feel sick when FPS frequently dips below 60FPS (on a non-VRR monitor), whereas others legit dont mind stupidly low FPS. Some folks might be perceived as 'haters' for sincerely complaining about what others may think is perfectly fine performance, while they themselves enjoy performance that to others surely cannot legit be enjoyable. Objectively speaking EDO runs poorly. Whether it is acceptable, perfectly fine, annoyingly poor or downright unplayable is subjective though, and all these opinions can be sincerely held by different people even if they were playing on the same rig.
I get that - and I'm one of the unfortunate ones who notices the difference between 120 and 60, and even 58 and 60. I used to play ED at locked 30fps because my laptop couldn't handle more, but since I upgraded to a proper PC I got used to the buttery smooth 60 very quickly. It's really more the variation in rates that makes things uncomfortable, if it was a lower but stable framerate I'd cope. Though given that Elite ran very well in Horizons, and that Odyssey's new environments aren't even remotely as complex and pretty as what I can experience in other games, I cannot accept the excuse some bring forward in that it justifies a higher strain on your hardware. I do wish that those who don't have these sensitivities would refrain from suggesting "it's not that bad get over it" but I suppose some people find it hard to see things from anothers' perspective, so
As for the lightning; its mixed. Sometimes EDO looks better than any space game I have seen, which perfect contrast on my OLED screen. Sometimes it looks ridiculously over-exposed, or incredibly dark. I dont feel it is working as it should, but its hard to make overall statements like 'EDO is better/worse than Horizons'. Its really very contextual. I dont have even remotely the expertise to respond to OP, and all I got from it was that rendering in 2021 is way more complex than it was in 1994.
There's some really weird stuff going on in EDO (the FSS heatmap when in vanity cam mode seems to emit light which reflects on your ship for example), and this dynamic lighting effect that is supposed to simulate your eyes getting used to bright/dark environments is way too aggressive and simple. If I look up and away from the cockpit UI (bright orange) things including gas giants suddenly become brighter. It really takes me out of the game, and sometimes this happens without any bright light source in your view (say you look into a different direction on the dark side of a planet, brightness changes willy-nilly). Or when you're docked at a planetary port during nighttime, when you appear from the docking bay towards the surface, the planet surface is bright as day, until you reach about 100-200m altitude when it goes back to pitch black again. There's countless more examples that would fill up the top 20 charts very quickly. But Frontier says it's fixed - all that proves is that they either don't play their own game, or they want to avoid fixing remaining issues, or it's by design (as shocking as that would be I'd have to accept that), possibly a bit of all 3.
On top of that there are many SFX that are either subdued, or missing completely - check out your ship in vanity cam while in normal space, and observe the difference when it comes to bloom and thruster effects, and engine trails. Horizons looks so much better here. Cosmetics I won't go into any further, this is particularly bad since these things cost money and when you compare the thumbnails to what the game renders, it's not the same. I'd almost call it false advertising but this isn't acknowledged by Frontier apart from them addressing a handful of paintjobs, while leaving the vast majority the way it is. Not cool.
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So those are just the visual issues.... what really makes me wonder whether I still play by January is whether they'll address the various issues with underlying game mechanics... for example, last night I went to Orrere (Anarchy system) and raided a settlement - no mission, just a random visit to mess about and gather some mats - switched off the alarm, and then picked off various NPCs. Not only did the game count each bounty (in an anarchy? the faction of the settlement wasn't one, but the controlling faction in the system is) despite me not leaving any witnesses nor were they able to radio in help, but the game also slapped some notoriety on my CMDR for good measure.
I logged off shaking my head - why did I bother to travel to Orrere in the first place then? Could've done it anywhere else and just face the music the same way (bounties + notoriety). It's just one example but these internal inconsistencies will likely remain in the game unless groups of players lobby for them, and even then it's pot luck whether anything is done about it or not. On top of wondering why I even went there to gather mats in the first place - I already have a good selection of pre-engineered gear that I can win High CZs with, and roflstomp entire settlements. But to what goal? And this is why the entire EDO section of gameplay content leaves me cold more and more. The spaceship stuff is as fun as ever but after thousands of hours and no recent updates to it it does get boring also, naturally.
So what was the point I was trying to make again? I forgot
Sorry for the wall of text, though glad I could get this off my chest so thanks for reading (or not)
