Update 19 reset (some of) my graphics settings. Which ones did it touch?

Highlander71

Highlander71
Every now and again an Elite Dangerous update will mess with my graphics settings. Not every time, but Update 19 did it again.

I have carefully managed my graphics settings so that E D runs well on my system. It's rather annoying that a game changes my setup after an update.

I am certain that when it happens, the following settings are affected:

  • Full screen mode will be set while I always use Borderless
  • My resolution is set to my display's maximum while I always use 1920x1080
  • My super sampling is set to 1.0 while I always use a higher setting

Do these special E D updates affect any other settings?
Can I export all of my graphics settings and restore them somehow?
 
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Tbh i’ve mostly seen tweaks and updates to rendering - for example, the “skybox” generated for each system has considerably more detail, especially visible in the detail of dust clouds as one heads towards the galactic centre.

…along with that I’ve had reduced framerates at times, as can be expected with an increase in render detail and thus GPU work - though this seems to be settling down.

Just btw, I’d suggest setting the game resolution to the display’s native/maximum resolution and then adjusting quality settings, supersampling or even using FSR to achieve your required frame rate - personally i find better graphics quality preferable, as long as it can hold at a reasonable number of fps - for ED that’s never over 60 tbh :]
 

Highlander71

Highlander71
I'm not fussed about changes in framerate to be honest. I understand that as the game develops, framerates may change with equal settings. I leave my framerate capped at 60fps in any case.

I don't know of any game that resets my chosen settings after an update though. If it were up to me, I would leave changing the game's settings to the player. It doesn't happen on every update, and I don't understand why it happens. Either it's intentional or it's an oversight by fdev.

Native resolution is a good suggestion if it didn't mean setting the game to 4K which slashes my framerate in half. I would likely have to reduce the quality by quite a margin. Moreover, streaming at 4K would mean my streaming software would cast the quality back to a lower resolution anyway. So I'd rather just play in 1080p.

Thanks for the response :)
 

Highlander71

Highlander71
Well, after manually restoring my settings last night, today I started Elite and the settings had been reset once again to some annoying, unwanted default.

What is going on? Does Elite not save my graphics settings anymore? No point in offering settings if I can't change them.
 

Commander Biscuit

Commander Biscuit
After the last big patch changed some of mine, I started screenshotting them for reference. Don't know if there's an export method or if I'd like to rely on one, given the changes happening that aren't making the patch notes. Could break something exporting an outdated settings file.
 

Neilski

Neilski
Highlander71 said:
Can I export all of my graphics settings and restore them somehow?
Click to expand...
You can back up the directory C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Graphics (or at least that's where mine is).
Restoring it is something I'd do with care, but if the settings change without warning you can at least compare new and old files and the remedy will likely be obvious.

I don't personally have trouble with the graphics options changing, but the bindings... oh boy, soooo much trouble with them that I actually permanently have them mirrored in the cloud (AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Bindings).

The other directory I permanently back up to the cloud (since years back) is AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\<xxxxx>, where <xxxxx> is the numbered directory where the visited stars info is cached (files VisitedStarsCache.dat and RecentlyVisitedStars.dat - can't recall if it's only the first of these which matters).
Not sure if FD have done the sensible thing in the intervening years and made that info retrievable from their servers, but last I checked, losing your Local AppData folder with that crucial "cached" info destroyed the client's knowledge of which stars you had previously visited, even though the game servers still know. (So yeah it's not really a "cache" by any normal definition of the word, but I will stop ranting now ;))
 

Highlander71

Highlander71
I have my C:\Users\<yourusername>\AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Graphics folder backed up because I want an easy way of switching between normal and VR settings. Sadly, the setting for Super Sampling isn't in there! It would be wonderful if Fdev paid a little attention to backup up and restoring settings, eh?

Luckily I have never had any trouble with bindings, but then I have given my bindings file a custom name. You have to copy that name into the xml file as well (it's somewhere in the first few lines of the file). That way my bindings have been safe from changing.

I didn't know about the .dat files at all! I'm going to have a look at that now! Thanks for mentioning that :)
 

thistle

T
Download EDprofiler which I dont think is supported any more but it works. Set up your graphics the way you want in game, then in EDprofiler you can save the current settings as a profile. Before you start the game the next time, run EDprofiler and apply the profile.

If any of that makes sense.

EDProfiler - A New Display Switcher/Robust Settings Profiler/Switcher/Detector!

Ok, this is a weird one. EDProfiler was working just fine until today, when I decided to check some VR settings. When opening the app I get and parsing error from .NET with an error code 0XC00CE56. Tried uninstalling and re-installing, same error. Tried to fix .NET install, no change. The whole...
forums.frontier.co.uk forums.frontier.co.uk
 

Highlander71

Highlander71
Thanks @thistle but I stopped using EDProfiler because it keeps messing up my super sampling setting. DrKai has completely abandoned the project. It's a shame because it was exactly what I needed to switch between setups. I'd love it if fdev supported setup profiles.

Thanks for suggesting it though.
 

XLA

XLA
I've got random and intermittent hanging now. :-( for 1 to 5 seconds. I've lost a SRV already as i could not thrust when required. This makes thargoid combat unplayable at the moment. I got a ticket in. Anybody else seeing this ? I am running the new nvidia Experience app too
 

Commander Biscuit

Commander Biscuit
XLA said:
I've got random and intermittent hanging now. :-( for 1 to 5 seconds. I've lost a SRV already as i could not thrust when required. This makes thargoid combat unplayable at the moment. I got a ticket in. Anybody else seeing this ? I am running the new nvidia Experience app too
Click to expand...

Similarish problem, but I have about 5 seconds of stuttering, and then a short hang at the end. Nvidia card, but my friend using a weaker AMD card isn't having the same problem.

There's no bottleneck during the stuttering btw, the card utilization actually drops.
 

varonica

varonica
Commander Biscuit said:
Similarish problem, but I have about 5 seconds of stuttering, and then a short hang at the end. Nvidia card, but my friend using a weaker AMD card isn't having the same problem.

There's no bottleneck during the stuttering btw, the card utilization actually drops.
Click to expand...

CPU choking then? What's your CPU usage during those events?
 

XLA

XLA
For me I checked a recording I made with stats from the Nvidia app running. This is from the hang. The CPU Figure is CPU Utilization.
1733263510007.png
 

Helmut Grokenberger

Helmut Grokenberger
XLA said:
For me I checked a recording I made with stats from the Nvidia app running. This is from the hang. The CPU Figure is CPU Utilization. View attachment 410514
Click to expand...
First, I think, as I said above, that figure is pretty useless. You need to see if one of your cores/threads is maxed out, the average CPU utilization is just that; average. Means for example if you have four cores/threads, and three are idling or at low percentages but one is running at 100%, you get the misleading figure of 25% utilization. But that one maxed core/thread might be running something important, and thus the stuttering. Also, the time resolution of those figures might be too low and missing spikes. I don't use that NVIDIA software crap, so I don't know if you can change any of that, sorry.

You never mentioned; what CPU and GPU are you running?
 

XLA

XLA
I got a NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3080. with a Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10980HK CPU @ 2.40GHz (16 CPUs), ~3.1GHz. 32GB of RAM. Windows 11. This machine was purchased to deal with Odyssey v1 code and did very well until recently. Ok so task manager is also giving CPU Utilization. I need to log this with something like Resource Monitor or do you have a better idea of capturing this?. I removed the Nvidia app (crap) as you put it first of all as it's new. i've put it back as ED still hangs without it on. i removed practically everything i have installed on this machine, tested and put stuff back.

If i forget to say it, thank you for your interest in helping me.
 

Neilski

Neilski
XLA said:
I got a NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3080. with a Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10980HK CPU @ 2.40GHz (16 CPUs), ~3.1GHz. 32GB of RAM. Windows 11.
Click to expand...
OK, so that CPU is pretty decent and isn't (in my view) likely to be struggling, unless of course it's overheating (not uncommon, but easily checked). Instead I'd be looking at other things on the machine which are probably deciding to run at inopportune moments and causing the stuttering.
 

Markov Chaney

M
Three observations on whether i9-10980HK might struggle with this version of ED:
1. My i5-12400F struggles with this version, but did not struggle with the previous version. I know it doesn't seem obvious from the model numbers and vintages but on a single core 12400F is substantially better than i9-10980HK especially on memory-intensive workloads. ED doesn't spread itself around cores very well (it's a sim, they never do) so single-core performance predicts performance pretty well.
2a. Again it's not obvious but i9-10980HK is a mobile part and therefore designed around thermals, not extreme performance. This is a common cause of stutters.
2b. If I use XTU to encourage the 12400F to stay in performance mode and focus on performance rather than thermals and power, my judders go away. That supports the theory that the 10980HK just ain't trying hard enough: could be worth giving XTU a go?

There's something in this update that does something weird with the CPU demand, causing contention and also failing to properly stress the CPU and get it to boost. When I do get slowdowns it's very obvious in the resource monitor that it's thrashing things around memory pretty ineffectively. You'll also notice lots of posts on here from people who had 2GB VRAM who used to be perfectly fine but struggle with this version, so I think there's just more memory pressure on the VRAM now, and when that gets too much there will be a lot of churn back and forth to the CPU, which is totally consistent with the kinds of frame drops and spikes people are seeing.
 
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