Returning to Game - ugh

[Cliché]

My system is now 9.5 years old, based on the i7-4790k with updated GTX 1080 and Rift S. I enjoyed it well enough until Odyssey came along. Other than a little NMS, I've barely even used the computer for the last 3 years. I decided to update everything and give it a go again. I nearly ran out of drive space, so I ordered a cheap nvme drive, and on a whim, based only on price and benchmark tables, I also picked up an RTX 4060, hoping for a 25-40% improvement to last me another couple years until I build a new system, hopefully with a 50-series card that outperforms the RTX 4090 in all ways, including price! Since I can't upgrage the cpu, I guessed that the new gpu wouldn't be too crazy of a match in performance.

Before I changed out the gpu, I dropped into ED and used the Oculus debug tool hud to check performance. I was getting 40fps in and around stations and on planets, and 80fps out is space. That was about how I remembered it and I don't have a problem with that.

Then I installed the RTX 4060 and tried again, and as far as I can tell, I'm actually getting slightly worse performance (increased timings), including artifacts when using the debug tool hud. I've made many changes to the quality settings and I just can't get anything that actually looks better than when using the GTX 1080.

I fully expect the RTX 4060 does outperform the GTX 1080 in pancake mode when playing other games, but I only like VR, playing ED, NMS, IL-2 and ATS/ETS2. Was I just an idiot acting on a whim? Has something happened to ED that wrecked VR even more than Odyssey? Is it just that the RTX card and ED don't play well together? Or maybe it's the cpu/gpu combo?

Maybe I can return it, or maybe I can get it working better with ED, or maybe when I try other games I will see the expected improved performance. Time will tell. Now that I have the space, I'm intalling the legacy version of ED as I write this.

Any thoughts or suggestions about what is happening here will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Globusdiablo]

My system is now 9.5 years old, based on the i7-4790k with updated GTX 1080 and Rift S. I enjoyed it well enough until Odyssey came along. Other than a little NMS, I've barely even used the computer for the last 3 years. I decided to update everything and give it a go again. I nearly ran out of drive space, so I ordered a cheap nvme drive, and on a whim, based only on price and benchmark tables, I also picked up an RTX 4060, hoping for a 25-40% improvement to last me another couple years until I build a new system, hopefully with a 50-series card that outperforms the RTX 4090 in all ways, including price! Since I can't upgrage the cpu, I guessed that the new gpu wouldn't be too crazy of a match in performance.

Before I changed out the gpu, I dropped into ED and used the Oculus debug tool hud to check performance. I was getting 40fps in and around stations and on planets, and 80fps out is space. That was about how I remembered it and I don't have a problem with that.

Then I installed the RTX 4060 and tried again, and as far as I can tell, I'm actually getting slightly worse performance (increased timings), including artifacts when using the debug tool hud. I've made many changes to the quality settings and I just can't get anything that actually looks better than when using the GTX 1080.

I fully expect the RTX 4060 does outperform the GTX 1080 in pancake mode when playing other games, but I only like VR, playing ED, NMS, IL-2 and ATS/ETS2. Was I just an idiot acting on a whim? Has something happened to ED that wrecked VR even more than Odyssey? Is it just that the RTX card and ED don't play well together? Or maybe it's the cpu/gpu combo?

Maybe I can return it, or maybe I can get it working better with ED, or maybe when I try other games I will see the expected improved performance. Time will tell. Now that I have the space, I'm intalling the legacy version of ED as I write this.

Any thoughts or suggestions about what is happening here will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Just stick to Legacy for VR. It's the better experience. A 4060 should be fine for Legacy VR.

Edit: The 4060 has performance on par with a 3060ti, so don't expect miracles. But running on low settings should keep it reasonably smooth:

UserBenchmark: Nvidia RTX 3060-Ti vs 4060

gpu.userbenchmark.com

You should be seeing approx. 20% improvement over 1080:

UserBenchmark: Nvidia GTX 1080 vs RTX 4060

gpu.userbenchmark.com

 

[nemolomen]

I don't play VR at all, in any way, in any game.

My rig is Ryzen 5600X 4.2GHZ, DDR4 3200 RAM, RTX 3060 12GB, 27" 1440p 165hz HP Omen G-Sync Compatible monitor.

With Ultra settings in Odyssey, I get 40 to 90 fps (capped at 90, typical space: 80 to 90, typical Odyssey settlement: 50 to 70)

My friends who play Odyssey in VR use either RTX 4080 or RX 7900 XTX GPUs with modern Intel/AMD processors and DDR5 RAM.

In your particular case though, I suspect your CPU and RAM are your current bottleneck with the newer GPU...Odyssey requires both to be better than what you have now, and top shelf if you want to play VR with great results.

With a more recent CPU and DDR5, I think you'll get better results with the 4060. But that requires a motherboard as well...but none of it is really cheap anyway...which is why my rig is only what I can afford...

o7

 

[Cliché]

Just stick to Legacy for VR. It's the better experience. A 4060 should be fine for Legacy VR.

Edit: The 4060 has performance on par with a 3060ti, so don't expect miracles. But running on low settings should keep it reasonably smooth:

UserBenchmark: Nvidia RTX 3060-Ti vs 4060

gpu.userbenchmark.com

You should be seeing approx. 20% improvement over 1080:

UserBenchmark: Nvidia GTX 1080 vs RTX 4060

gpu.userbenchmark.com

Yeah, Legacy is working as before, with 80 fps everywhere except in stations, so no real noticeable improvement. Then I tried NMS and it was playing the same as before on standard gfx settings. I tried enhanced and it was unplayable. And after I went back to standard it was buggy. Oculus Home now says my system is not up to running VR. I'm guessing it has to do with the 4060 not being on some list for the Rift.

I'll try some more when it's light out - I think my play area is too dark and causing tracking issues. Then I'll put the 1080 back in and compare. I suspect I'll be returning the 4060 if they let me. I really thought my CPU/memory had a little more headroom. I've never waited more than 6-7 years before upgrading before, but I'm still waiting for and HMD I want to buy first.

 

[GroG79]

I agree

Your i7-4790k is just too old

 

[Dragsham]

VR in elite is an unoptimsed mess. To counter it you need either plain old grunt ie a 4090 and a 7800x3d combo pimax etc which l saw on a friends rig which absolutely rocked.
Or like most of us mortals you compromise.
I'm still waiting for the right price.
Meantime my 3090fe, g2 reverb 9900k combo does the trick.
60fps almost everywhere.
But I had to overclock the cpu/gpu and wack up the power to the max.
Runs hot so lots of fans hehe.
Trouble with VR is you need a ninja rig to really get the best out of it.
Might upg to the pimax crystal light. But till windows 11 brick the reverb I don't see the point yet.

 

[Cliché]

Well, it was no better in the morning. NMS was doing weird things and ATS had terrible looking tears and artifacts. So I reinstalled the 1080 and ED Legacy was butter smooth. So nice compared to Odyssey. I'm just stuck in the starter systems as mostly harmless, but that's OK. NMS performed an update between card change overs and is now unplayable at the lowest settings with only a few fps. It always ran well before with the 1080. ATS lost my controller bindings so F that, but it looked about as I remembered.

The 4060 is going back.

 

[Alec Turner]

My system is now 9.5 years old, based on the i7-4790k with updated GTX 1080 and Rift S. I enjoyed it well enough until Odyssey came along. Other than a little NMS, I've barely even used the computer for the last 3 years. I decided to update everything and give it a go again. I nearly ran out of drive space, so I ordered a cheap nvme drive, and on a whim, based only on price and benchmark tables, I also picked up an RTX 4060, hoping for a 25-40% improvement to last me another couple years until I build a new system, hopefully with a 50-series card that outperforms the RTX 4090 in all ways, including price! Since I can't upgrage the cpu, I guessed that the new gpu wouldn't be too crazy of a match in performance.

Before I changed out the gpu, I dropped into ED and used the Oculus debug tool hud to check performance. I was getting 40fps in and around stations and on planets, and 80fps out is space. That was about how I remembered it and I don't have a problem with that.

Then I installed the RTX 4060 and tried again, and as far as I can tell, I'm actually getting slightly worse performance (increased timings), including artifacts when using the debug tool hud. I've made many changes to the quality settings and I just can't get anything that actually looks better than when using the GTX 1080.

I fully expect the RTX 4060 does outperform the GTX 1080 in pancake mode when playing other games, but I only like VR, playing ED, NMS, IL-2 and ATS/ETS2. Was I just an idiot acting on a whim? Has something happened to ED that wrecked VR even more than Odyssey? Is it just that the RTX card and ED don't play well together? Or maybe it's the cpu/gpu combo?

Maybe I can return it, or maybe I can get it working better with ED, or maybe when I try other games I will see the expected improved performance. Time will tell. Now that I have the space, I'm intalling the legacy version of ED as I write this.

Any thoughts or suggestions about what is happening here will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I recently replaced my entire PC. Prior to that I had GTX 1080 and an i5 4690k, of a very similar age to yours. I had the distinct impression that cpu was the bottleneck in Odyssey and that just upgrading my gpu would be a complete waste of time, hence the brand new system (which now runs locked at 144fps pretty much everywhere in Odyssey, all settings to max/ultra, 1.5x supersampling). I play flat screen at 1440p but I'm sure VR would be fine as well. I won't lie, it was a stupid amount of money (£2k) but after 10 years of playing ED and loving it as much as ever (plus an unexpected work bonus) I decided what the hell. Anyway, I can't know for sure but I wonder if you're suffering what I suspected I might ... CPU bottleneck?

 

[Alec Turner]

Forgot to say, when I ran the task manager performance monitor thing with EDO running on the old PC I could see all cores absolutely flat out 100% utilisation. They weren't graphs, they were just solid blocks of blue!

 

[Cliché]

I recently replaced my entire PC. Prior to that I had GTX 1080 and an i5 4690k, of a very similar age to yours. I had the distinct impression that cpu was the bottleneck in Odyssey and that just upgrading my gpu would be a complete waste of time, hence the brand new system (which now runs locked at 144fps pretty much everywhere in Odyssey, all settings to max/ultra, 1.5x supersampling). I play flat screen at 1440p but I'm sure VR would be fine as well. I won't lie, it was a stupid amount of money (£2k) but after 10 years of playing ED and loving it as much as ever (plus an unexpected work bonus) I decided what the hell. Anyway, I can't know for sure but I wonder if you're suffering what I suspected I might ... CPU bottleneck?

Yeah, the consensus seems to be CPU bottleneck.

I just wish I knew that I'd never be able to upgrade the CPU when I bought it. Not that it would have made a difference. When I saw ED on youtube I just had to get into the beta and people said the 4790k was the best CPU available. I cheaped out with a GTX 970, but quickly bought another and ran them in SLI and had beautiful 1440p at ultra settings at 60 fps. But once you go VR you can't go back - at least for me.

 

[Alec Turner]

Yeah, the consensus seems to be CPU bottleneck.

I just wish I knew that I'd never be able to upgrade the CPU when I bought it. Not that it would have made a difference. When I saw ED on youtube I just had to get into the beta and people said the 4790k was the best CPU available. I cheaped out with a GTX 970, but quickly bought another and ran them in SLI and had beautiful 1440p at ultra settings at 60 fps. But once you go VR you can't go back - at least for me.

I think 9.5 years ago the 4790k probably was the best CPU available and similarly the GTX 1080 (which I also upgraded to after starting with a 970) was equally right up there at the top (and perfectly capable of running VR games, even AAA titles like Half Life Alyx). But sadly I guess times change. I too have had to come to terms with the fact that my 10yr old cutting edge gaming PC is now several generations of CPU and GPU behind and that it couldn't realisticaly be upgraded piecemeal.

If you're at all interested then I have an entire forum thread devoted to my upgrade.

Building a new PC for Elite: Dangerous Odyssey (hardware discussion)

Edit: purchased build (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/building-a-new-pc-for-elite-dangerous-odyssey-hardware-discussion.620979/page-10#post-10346775) — I've had my current i5 / GTX 1080 based PC for 8 years now. I got it from PCSpecialist, really liked their service and have been...

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