HUD seriously drops framerates - any way to turn PART of it off

Lucrativus · Post by **Lucrativus** » Sat, 29. Oct 05, 23:48

I have been playing around with the game and have had the usual jerky movements in well populated areas.

BUT, I turned off the HUD and lo and behold the movements and general display were perfectly smooth and beautiful even with SETA on in fairly foggy/misty areas. Turn the HUD back on and we are back to the jerks.

Is there any way to get rid of all the small icons floating around the edge of the display (other ships, factories and whatever else) but leave the centre part on the screen (the targetting reticule, speed etc).

This would drastically improve the display smoothness.

(Running AMD XP 2600, 1 gig ram, FX5600 gfx card.)

Blood-Reaper · Post by **Blood-Reaper** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 00:11

Hey, it worked... Went from 16fps to 26fps when i switched hud off.
Now, release a patch that optimizes the hud so we wont have to switch it off... Or at least give us the option to switch off all the ship pointers at the edge.

alkasteveh · Post by **alkasteveh** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 00:13

The boxes everywhere are a touch on the distracting side as well, so having the option to turn them off (and back on if need be) would be a boon.

hex40k · Post by **hex40k** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 00:27

Id like the boxes to be reduced to just around the corners of the object and to be quickly toggleable, huge blue squares are distracting, but i could See how they could be useful for quick target ideniftication in combat situations, or when you are hunting for specific classes of ship and want to check if they have escorts ect and dont want to deal with the sector map.

XenonBuster · Post by **XenonBuster** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 01:46

just tried it myself
HUD on 11fps
HUD off 33fps
definitely hogging the system

mq · Post by mq » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 02:08

Without the HUD the game is smooth even with Sinza/Seta 10x turned on. Maybe in the next patch the refresh rate of the hud should be lowered

Without the Hud the games runs as smooth as i would expect from a P4, 3GHz, 1GB Ram and 6800LE with 16/6 Pipelines.

big thx,
mq

Tall_Graham · Post by **Tall_Graham** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 02:16

Hey Lucrativus cool spot. Well done

Maybe Egosoft will give you a job!

Badyk · Post by **Badyk** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 02:36

Dunno about a job, but I'll buy ye a pint if you're ever in the area!

Tried d'abling the HUD, lo and behold it smoothed right out. Good work

Johnmorton · Post by **Johnmorton** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 02:20

How do you turn the HUD off please, read the mnaual, must have missed it DOH. please help.
Well done with spotting that frame rate saving tip.

mq · Post by mq » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 02:22

Simply press Shift-h to en-/disable it.
It set it to "h" only so it is easier to press it often

Johnmorton · Post by **Johnmorton** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 02:30

Thankyou

Jack_Uzi · Post by **Jack_Uzi** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 02:33

This is really good idea hopefully for upcoming patch/es.

redeye · Post by **redeye** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 03:00

Works a treat.

Flying around CBSW was giving me 15-30 FPS with HUD.

Removed HUD and I am getting 30-80 FPS.

Nice work.

Jugalator · Post by **Jugalator** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 03:02

Wow, my framerate went from 13-14 fps to 34-36 fps in the default start view after the briefing.

I turned around to look at ship/station crowds and even then it was clearly playable.

And that's in that populated sector...

Amazing, the HUD ate over half, about 60%, of my framerate...

lukethegordie · Post by **lukethegordie** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 03:04

Yeah theres a 20+ fps gain. unfortunatly you cant play without a targeting retcal and radar. With a bit of a code clean up and an half hud option theres hope yet

Jugalator · Post by **Jugalator** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 03:09

Btw, when testing this, I also noticed something really strange in the menu where you pick difficulty. As I picked "Normal", the picture and text to the right of the selections popped up, and my framerate dropped in half! I have no idea why, as it's just a static text/picture... Picking "Custom" to remove that picture made it shoot up again. Just bringing it up just in case any of that overlay effect is used elsewhere in the game. NPC talk portraits and info overlays come into mind.

Alkali · Post by **Alkali** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 03:20

YUP turning off the HUD is the biggest framerate change from one thing that I've tried yet - believe me I've been working hard on it! This is GREAT! - We need to make sure EGOSOFT take notice of this and get an optimized HUD in the 1.3 patch.

lukethegordie · Post by **lukethegordie** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 03:21

I Just hope the devs take note. I know next to nothing about programming (HTML is as far as i got) but even i can see theres alot of unessary detail put in and some areas(please pardon the expression as the game itself is great,

and i know the devs havent had time yet. im not getting at you dude/et's) sloppy coding.

This is as i said a great sign as it proves the engine itself may not be as demanding as i thought it was.

ccso · Post by **ccso** » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 04:34

How can you check the FPS in X3?

mq · Post by mq » Sun, 30. Oct 05, 04:37

Try Fraps (www.fraps.com afaik), but notice that fraps consumes some fps itself

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

HUD seriously drops framerates - any way to turn PART of it off

HUD seriously drops framerates - any way to turn PART of it off