There is a lot of confusion regarding stuttering vs performance and the resulting information being provided to FD is often performance based and is muddying up the waters of the stutter pool so to speak. This post is an attempt to separate the two so players who aren't familiar, or maybe new to online, or don't have a tech background have a better understanding of what is going on and be able to provide FD with more targeted information.
Tweaking your graphics options may appear to lessen or mask the stuttering, this is not the case. It is just the illusion of a system performing smoother than it was before this is a performance boost.
There is an excellent tool here that can be used to demonstrate the different types of display issues: http://www.testufo.com/#test=stutter...max=12&pps=720 Thanks Main Sequence!
Stuttering:
Often viewed as a micro stutter or skipping of the entire skybox. The entire scene and or objects literally stop for a few milliseconds or more in severe situations. It is usually accompanied by a sharp sudden drop in frame rate ranging from 5-30 fps and then immediately returning to a stable fps.
Micro Stuttering:
Microstutter is the - much less publicized - light 'judder' felt by many players that feels just like a framerate drop (though the game reports no FPS drop). It crops up intermittently for no apparent reason, even when lazily rotating the ship far from any celestial bodies, and only seems to effect ship movement, never head look. A dedicated thread for this issue is found here- https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=86133 Thanks, LOTGS.
Performance:
Is typically defined as the overall level your gaming system performs based of off fps (frames per second), quality of the graphics rendered, and sound clarity. Overall graphic settings have the most impact on your fps. With everything set to max or "Ultra" a fps of 60 or higher should be able to be maintained at all times on a high end PC.
Frame Rates:
FPS is the go to measure of how well your system is running the game based off of your in game graphic settings and can be fine tuned with graphic control panels A steady fps of 60 is the typical benchmark most players aim for. Anything higher than 60fps is basically overkill as your eyes are simply not fast enough to notice any difference in the clock cycles. In some cases not capping or setting a frame rate limit just makes your video card (GPU) run hotter, as it is cycling much faster to render anything higher than 60. Is it typically viewed as best practice to cap your fps at 60 for stable game play. (Yes this is subjective)
Hyperjump:
When you jump from one system to the next you will often see what looks like stuttering in the cool looking graphics. This is not micro stutter, it is simply your hard drive loading up the next system into memory, normally referred to as hard drive thrashing. This is the equivalent of a loading screen like in other popular games, Elites just looks better as it is animated and has great sound effects. You will see your fps fluctuate quite a bit while the next system is loading and it will stabilize once loaded.
Lag:
This is often confused for many things, but in general it is the is lack of response from the server to your actions in game, for example you press the boost button/key and then a few seconds later your ship boosts. Normally with good network connections and a good performing server along with a good PC setup it will be nearly instant. Lag is caused by many factors and can often be seen as stuttering, it is not the same thing even though they act similarly. I would recommend looking up lag on the wiki or google it's fairly extensive.
P2P (Peer 2 Peer) can cause a lot of lag as the network connections from individual players are not the same and it is usually relegated to the weakest ping. A good write up can be found here for more detalied info on P2P networking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer
Stuttering vs Performance in a RES: When you encounter stuttering in a RES zone for example, the ships you are fighting will appear to skip along on their forward path, and then return to normal, your fps should mirror this activity, it is very quick in most cases but it can greatly affect your aiming and shots fired. This not to be confused with lag, or performance issues. You may also notice that the asteroids start/stop their rotations briefly, this is stuttering. Performance problems in a RES zone typically manifests in the form of reduced fps (constant), slow and or sluggish feel sometimes called chunky to the overall scene. If you are flying in a RES zone with an fps of 35 or lower you have performance issues. Lowering some of your graphic settings, especially shadows, texture, AA and model draw distance will help this.
Sometimes when you jump into a system the Sun doesn't smoothly come into view. This is mostly caused by a long load time during hyperjump it is still loading as you drop in. This can be caused by lag, a low performance PC, old n moldy HD. Stuttering can occur as you are leaving the sun, especially if ships are in the area, and or jumping into the system.
Approaching a planet with a station, outpost, RES zones, or rings. Stuttering happens on approach to these planets typically without fail (for those affected), you will see the system skip as you get closer and closer, sometimes it can get pretty bad here as it appears there is some hard drive thrash along with stuttering just before you drop out of supercruise.
You can easily monitor suttering just by watching something move, a ship, a station rotating it is very easy to identify. When you drop out of SC watch the station rotate.
Stuttering appears to be primarily limited to populated systems where ships, station models are being rendered. If you are out exploring beyond the inhabited bubble and get stuttering around planets, note if it is everytime or an occasional event, it may be lag, or a possible performance issue. I personally get zero stuttering out exploring, but horrendous stuttering inside the populated bubble.
I hope this helps clear some confusion up. No need to post your system specs, this affects Xbone users as well. FD is working on the issue, so when you are providing information to them when reporting a problem regarding stuttering please make sure you are accurate with your details.
And when reporting a possible fix for stuttering best be 100% sure it's resolved and not just an increase in your overall performance. Much Thanks!
Please feel free to add in anything I may have missed, and I will add it to the main post.
Aces High!
Tweaking your graphics options may appear to lessen or mask the stuttering, this is not the case. It is just the illusion of a system performing smoother than it was before this is a performance boost.
There is an excellent tool here that can be used to demonstrate the different types of display issues: http://www.testufo.com/#test=stutter...max=12&pps=720 Thanks Main Sequence!
Stuttering:
Often viewed as a micro stutter or skipping of the entire skybox. The entire scene and or objects literally stop for a few milliseconds or more in severe situations. It is usually accompanied by a sharp sudden drop in frame rate ranging from 5-30 fps and then immediately returning to a stable fps.
Micro Stuttering:
Microstutter is the - much less publicized - light 'judder' felt by many players that feels just like a framerate drop (though the game reports no FPS drop). It crops up intermittently for no apparent reason, even when lazily rotating the ship far from any celestial bodies, and only seems to effect ship movement, never head look. A dedicated thread for this issue is found here- https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=86133 Thanks, LOTGS.
Performance:
Is typically defined as the overall level your gaming system performs based of off fps (frames per second), quality of the graphics rendered, and sound clarity. Overall graphic settings have the most impact on your fps. With everything set to max or "Ultra" a fps of 60 or higher should be able to be maintained at all times on a high end PC.
Frame Rates:
FPS is the go to measure of how well your system is running the game based off of your in game graphic settings and can be fine tuned with graphic control panels A steady fps of 60 is the typical benchmark most players aim for. Anything higher than 60fps is basically overkill as your eyes are simply not fast enough to notice any difference in the clock cycles. In some cases not capping or setting a frame rate limit just makes your video card (GPU) run hotter, as it is cycling much faster to render anything higher than 60. Is it typically viewed as best practice to cap your fps at 60 for stable game play. (Yes this is subjective)
Hyperjump:
When you jump from one system to the next you will often see what looks like stuttering in the cool looking graphics. This is not micro stutter, it is simply your hard drive loading up the next system into memory, normally referred to as hard drive thrashing. This is the equivalent of a loading screen like in other popular games, Elites just looks better as it is animated and has great sound effects. You will see your fps fluctuate quite a bit while the next system is loading and it will stabilize once loaded.
Lag:
This is often confused for many things, but in general it is the is lack of response from the server to your actions in game, for example you press the boost button/key and then a few seconds later your ship boosts. Normally with good network connections and a good performing server along with a good PC setup it will be nearly instant. Lag is caused by many factors and can often be seen as stuttering, it is not the same thing even though they act similarly. I would recommend looking up lag on the wiki or google it's fairly extensive.
P2P (Peer 2 Peer) can cause a lot of lag as the network connections from individual players are not the same and it is usually relegated to the weakest ping. A good write up can be found here for more detalied info on P2P networking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer
Stuttering vs Performance in a RES: When you encounter stuttering in a RES zone for example, the ships you are fighting will appear to skip along on their forward path, and then return to normal, your fps should mirror this activity, it is very quick in most cases but it can greatly affect your aiming and shots fired. This not to be confused with lag, or performance issues. You may also notice that the asteroids start/stop their rotations briefly, this is stuttering. Performance problems in a RES zone typically manifests in the form of reduced fps (constant), slow and or sluggish feel sometimes called chunky to the overall scene. If you are flying in a RES zone with an fps of 35 or lower you have performance issues. Lowering some of your graphic settings, especially shadows, texture, AA and model draw distance will help this.
Sometimes when you jump into a system the Sun doesn't smoothly come into view. This is mostly caused by a long load time during hyperjump it is still loading as you drop in. This can be caused by lag, a low performance PC, old n moldy HD. Stuttering can occur as you are leaving the sun, especially if ships are in the area, and or jumping into the system.
Approaching a planet with a station, outpost, RES zones, or rings. Stuttering happens on approach to these planets typically without fail (for those affected), you will see the system skip as you get closer and closer, sometimes it can get pretty bad here as it appears there is some hard drive thrash along with stuttering just before you drop out of supercruise.
You can easily monitor suttering just by watching something move, a ship, a station rotating it is very easy to identify. When you drop out of SC watch the station rotate.
Stuttering appears to be primarily limited to populated systems where ships, station models are being rendered. If you are out exploring beyond the inhabited bubble and get stuttering around planets, note if it is everytime or an occasional event, it may be lag, or a possible performance issue. I personally get zero stuttering out exploring, but horrendous stuttering inside the populated bubble.
I hope this helps clear some confusion up. No need to post your system specs, this affects Xbone users as well. FD is working on the issue, so when you are providing information to them when reporting a problem regarding stuttering please make sure you are accurate with your details.
And when reporting a possible fix for stuttering best be 100% sure it's resolved and not just an increase in your overall performance. Much Thanks!
Please feel free to add in anything I may have missed, and I will add it to the main post.
Aces High!
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