Upgrade from AMD RX 7800 xt to Nvidia

[nelorourke]

Hi,

I'm looking to change my GPU to reduce shimmering on planets (tried the many tweaks recommended in graphics settings).

Would moving from AMD RX 7800 xt to Nvidia 4070 TI help improve graphics quality?

Or should I hold out for the 5000 series when the price settles?

Thanks!

Neil

 

[thistle]

If you mean the shadows jumping and disappearing/reappearing then improving your system won't make any difference, it's the game that's broken. Sadly.

 

[nelorourke]

If you mean the shadows jumping and disappearing/reappearing then improving your system won't make any difference, it's the game that's broken. Sadly.

Not so much the shadows but the general graininess of planet surfaces (that shimmers when moving towards them). I'm essentially looking for an upgrade that will improve graphics quality overall (especially in stations and on planets)

 

[Ozric]

Well the 4070 TI is ~40% better, so you will be able to run on Ultra at a smoother framerate.

UserBenchmark: AMD RX 7800-XT vs Nvidia RTX 4070-Ti

But I don't think that Elite really differs too much at the top end of the scale. I have a 6700xt and I'm running on Ultra at 4k. The benefit will be more noticed in other games, especially newer ones with their forced Ray Tracing, so I would base any purchase on them rather than Elite.

 

[Blaggerdy]

If your 7800xt is running at the same resolution as your monitor you should be able to test the best quality available by cranking up settings, even if below your ideal frames per second. I'd be doubtful another graphics card will be capable of better quality than that, just producing more FPS at the same settings. I don't know about planetary views, but my 4070 super card showed HUD text terribly until I changed a few settings from the default values

 

[forbiddenlake]

Well the 4070 TI is ~40% better, so you will be able to run on Ultra at a smoother framerate.

UserBenchmark: AMD RX 7800-XT vs Nvidia RTX 4070-Ti

But I don't think that Elite really differs too much at the top end of the scale. I have a 6700xt and I'm running on Ultra at 4k. The benefit will be more noticed in other games, especially newer ones with their forced Ray Tracing, so I would base any purchase on them rather than Elite.

Userbenchmark is NOTORIOUSLY anti-AMD, so much so that the site is banned from INTEL's subreddit.

4070 ti's still better, but it's closer to 20%. https://gamersnexus.net/gpus/amd-ra...hmarks-vs-5070-ti-5070-7900-xt-sapphire-pulse

 

[Morbad]

A faster GPU will allow higher display and texture resolutions, which will reduce visible aliasing, but the 7800 XT isn't exactly slow and the 4070 is not a huge upgrade.

What graphics settings are you using now and what tweaks did you try?

 

[Neilski]

Userbenchmark is NOTORIOUSLY anti-AMD

Agreed. It's bizarrely and hilariously anti-AMD, even to the level of self-parody.
I really wonder what goes through the mind(s) of the main person(s) behind that site, especially given that Nvidia have for the last few years been acting with such dubious ethics.

 

[nelorourke]

A faster GPU will allow higher display and texture resolutions, which will reduce visible aliasing, but the 7800 XT isn't exactly slow and the 4070 is not a huge upgrade.

What graphics settings are you using now and what tweaks did you try?

Hi,

Here's a folder containing my graphics settings and a video of me approaching a planet surface.

I would be interested to know if this represents 'good' for ED in VR.

ED Graphics – Google Drive

drive.google.com

Thanks

 

[TLY400]

Hello Neil, I can tell you about my recent upgrade from a Ryzen 7800 X3D with an RTX 50 SERIES, At 4K with everything on Ultra, I'm getting close to 100 fps. But right now I'm playing it with 6K DSR, HDR, ULTRA, at a frame rate of 70 fps, but of course, the sharpness is so great that the planets and ships are almost touchable,very impressive. I upgraded the system because I also like flight simulators, not cheap but I definitely think it was worth it.

 

[Morbad]

Hi,

Here's a folder containing my graphics settings and a video of me approaching a planet surface.

I would be interested to know if this represents 'good' for ED in VR.

ED Graphics – Google Drive

drive.google.com

Thanks

Hard to tell much from a heavily compressed 720p30 video, but you should enable SMAA or FXAA. The effect is subtle, but it is there, and has negligible performance impact.

Shimmering textures can be improved by increase planet texture resolution. Ultra planet textures are only 2.5k resolution. A 7800XT should handle 4k or 8k without appreciable slow downs.

Beyond that, the only real improvement will be to increase render resolution, which will only be a good trade-off if you have performance to spare.

Post the contents of your GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml file.

 

[Ozric]

Userbenchmark is NOTORIOUSLY anti-AMD, so much so that the site is banned from INTEL's subreddit.

How bizarre, especially when comparing AMD to AMD. I use the site as an overview and then dig in deeper elsewhere, but guess I'll stop that now Cheers

 

[Shurimal]

Just chipping in as a fellow 7800 XT user: this card can run E: D really well on my QHD 120 Hz monitor and Ultra settings with 1.25x supersampling enabled. No shimmering except for the E: D-s notorious hard specular reflections on geometry edges, and that's something you cannot fix with a simple GPU upgrade—it's the fault of the game engine itself.

 

[the100thmonkey]

How bizarre, especially when comparing AMD to AMD. I use the site as an overview and then dig in deeper elsewhere, but guess I'll stop that now Cheers

They have a couple of paragraphs on the front page of the site that basically say "AMD Sucks!!1!"

At least they're transparent in their bias.

 

[Neilski]

I use the site as an overview and then dig in deeper elsewhere, but guess I'll stop that now

I've been continuing to use the site for basic product comparisons (while ignoring the commentaries on certain/most products...), thinking that the performance data would be accurate, but maybe even that much isn't safe.

 

[nelorourke]

Hard to tell much from a heavily compressed 720p30 video, but you should enable SMAA or FXAA. The effect is subtle, but it is there, and has negligible performance impact.

Shimmering textures can be improved by increase planet texture resolution. Ultra planet textures are only 2.5k resolution. A 7800XT should handle 4k or 8k without appreciable slow downs.

Beyond that, the only real improvement will be to increase render resolution, which will only be a good trade-off if you have performance to spare.

Post the contents of your GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml file.

Hi,

Thanks for your help.

I can't see the settings, 'planet texture resolution' or 'render resolution'.

The GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml contains:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<GraphicsConfig />

Display Settings:
<DisplayConfig>
<ScreenWidth>1280</ScreenWidth>
<ScreenHeight>720</ScreenHeight>
<VSync>true</VSync>
<FullScreen>0</FullScreen>
<PresentInterval>1</PresentInterval>
<Adapter>0</Adapter>
<Monitor>0</Monitor>
<DX11_RefreshRateNumerator>60</DX11_RefreshRateNumerator>
<DX11_RefreshRateDenominator>1</DX11_RefreshRateDenominator>
<LimitFrameRate>true</LimitFrameRate>
<MaxFramesPerSecond>90</MaxFramesPerSecond>
</DisplayConfig>

And the Settings file:
<GraphicsOptions>
<Version>1</Version>
<PresetName>Custom</PresetName>
<StereoscopicMode>3</StereoscopicMode>
<IPDAmount>0.001000</IPDAmount>
<AMDCrashFix>false</AMDCrashFix>
<FOV>59.059959</FOV>
<HumanoidFOV>89.964325</HumanoidFOV>
<HighResScreenCapAntiAlias>3</HighResScreenCapAntiAlias>
<HighResScreenCapScale>4</HighResScreenCapScale>
<GammaOffset>-0.600000</GammaOffset>
<DisableGuiEffects>false</DisableGuiEffects>
<StereoFocalDistance>25.000000</StereoFocalDistance>
<StencilDump>false</StencilDump>
<ShaderWarming>true</ShaderWarming>
<VehicleMotionBlackout>false</VehicleMotionBlackout>
<VehicleMaintainHorizonCamera>false</VehicleMaintainHorizonCamera>
<DisableCameraShake>false</DisableCameraShake>
<HeadBobScale>0.800000</HeadBobScale>
<TerrainCheckerboardRenderingEnabled>true</TerrainCheckerboardRenderingEnabled>
</GraphicsOptions>

 

[nelorourke]

@Morbad @Shurimal . Thanks for your feedback.

I turned on FXAA and set super sampling to 1.25

Shimering has reduced but I wonder if I can improve on this and what still feels like a lowish resolution. Maybe I'm expecting too much ha ha!

Here's a new video with the performance now (captured at a higher resolution from my monitor)

Elite - Dangerous (CLIENT) 2025-05-28 21-33-26.mp4

drive.google.com

Thanks

Neil

 

[the100thmonkey]

<DisplayConfig>
<ScreenWidth>1280</ScreenWidth>
<ScreenHeight>720</ScreenHeight>

You seem to be running at 1280x720 resolution. I'm curious what your monitor resolution actually is, because this isn't 2007 and most displays nowadays are at least capable of 1920x1080. Your current GPU is capable of 4K (3840x2160) with judicious settings tweaks.

If you're really running a 720p display, upgrading to a 1440p one will make a massive difference. If you have a higher resolution display, setting the render resolution to match will make a massive difference, and won't cost you a penny.

 

[nelorourke]

Hello Neil, I can tell you about my recent upgrade from a Ryzen 7800 X3D with an RTX 50 SERIES, At 4K with everything on Ultra, I'm getting close to 100 fps. But right now I'm playing it with 6K DSR, HDR, ULTRA, at a frame rate of 70 fps, but of course, the sharpness is so great that the planets and ships are almost touchable,very impressive. I upgraded the system because I also like flight simulators, not cheap but I definitely think it was worth it.

Sounds great, is this in VR or a monitor? Also, which of the 50 series did you go for?

 

[Morbad]

I can't see the settings, 'planet texture resolution' or 'render resolution'.

That's because it hasn't been added yet. I just wanted to see if there was anything in your current file so I could integrate any custom setting you'd want to keep into the file I'm attaching to this post.

And the Settings file:
<GraphicsOptions>
<TerrainCheckerboardRenderingEnabled>true</TerrainCheckerboardRenderingEnabled>
</GraphicsOptions>

Set "TerrainCheckerboardRenderingEnabled" to "false" everywhere it shows up in the options files. That should significantly improve terrain texture quality, irrespective of terrain resolution.

After you've thoroughly disabled checkerboard rendering, saved the files, and checked for changes, if you still want to improve terrain texture quality replace your GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml file with the one I've attached to this post. Make sure you remove the .txt extension that I've added to allow the attachment.

This file will increase the Ultra preset's planetary terrain texture resolution from 2560^2 to 8192^2 and increase the work done per frame to compensate. If you notice texture loading issues when approaching planets, try increasing WorkPerFrame to 1024, or reduce the texture resolution to 4096.