Feedback X4 is an unoptimized non scalable mess

[Tidaar]

Because I loved this game I went and invested in new hardware, yeah I am a real dummy!

Double the performance than my previous system in GPU, CPU , memory and SSD. I hoped that when I reload an advanced game save I will be able to enjoy X4 performance wise. I stopped that save game because I was getting below 30 FPS and below 15 on map when entering my sectors where I built my economy. I was excited to fly around the stations and enjoy the experience with the new hardware.

To my disappointment I got the same results, still the same bad performance, in fact the exact below 30 FPS and 15FPS. As a bonus I also get crashes now due to game having issues with RTX 3x series even after using latest drivers. I believed in this team and I kept saying to myself give it another year man its a small crew they will figure it out eventually. It has been 3 years now and game is not optimized. I know you did some performance improvements, and I appreciated that but its not enough.

I can't say how sad I am that I am forced to put this game aside. I cannot play it the way it was meant to be played or advertised. A lot of dedicated players find workaround for your shortcomings such as don't build big stations or avoid sectors where you built a lot of stuff. Its a sign that they love the game but have given up on what this game was meant to deliver initially.

Ultimately the truth is that this game is not optimized to scale and it has nothing to do with our machines. I cannot in good conscience recommend this game anymore.

P.S. If you are looking for constructive feedback please check the forums, its filled with save games below 30 FPS.

Ranting off

[Max Bain]

I can feel with you .
But why havent you checked the forum before buying several new components? There are several threads here mentioning that the game is extremely CPU demanding and a 30XX GPU will gain you no fps at all in comparison to the generation before or even the 10XX generation.
I did that and upgraded only my CPU from a Ryzen 3600 to a new 5600X and I got about 20% fps gain and about 30% in save and load times (still using my old 1070 GPU). I knew that more cores would not give me more fps at all because X4 is running on mostly two cores. Average fps is between 50 and 100.

So what is your CPU now? Maybe thisis your weak spot?
I dont know what your game is, but on my hardware the game is running well but I dont build mega stations and had no huge space battle (way more than 100 ships involced) so far.

Just one tip: deactive antialias (or use only FXAA). This option alone eats the most fps in X4 and I wonder why Egosoft does not deactivate this option or at least write a warning.

[Midnitewolf]

I can feel with you .
But why havent you checked the forum before buying several new components? There are several threads here mentioning that the game is extremely CPU demanding and a 30XX GPU will gain you no fps at all in comparison to the generation before or even the 10XX generation.
I did that and upgraded only my CPU from a Ryzen 3600 to a new 5600X and I got about 20% fps gain and about 30% in save and load times (still using my old 1070 GPU). I knew that more cores would not give me more fps at all because X4 is running on mostly two cores. Average fps is between 50 and 100.

So what is your CPU now? Maybe thisis your weak spot?
I dont know what your game is, but on my hardware the game is running well but I dont build mega stations and had no huge space battle (way more than 100 ships involced) so far.

Just one tip: deactive antialias (or use only FXAA). This option alone eats the most fps in X4 and I wonder why Egosoft does not deactivate this option or at least write a warning.

Yeah I was going to ask the same question. Games like this tend to be CPU bound, not GPU bound so I would be interested to know if his hardware upgrade included a CPU upgrade and fast RAM or just a GPU upgrade.

Also, his problem might be mods. Mods, depending on what it does can have huge CPU processing requirements, especially anything that changes AI. You add just one new instruction or script for the AI to perform on a ship and you multiply this by every ship in the game, you end up with a huge amount of instructions that the CPU now has to calculate. Also, AI mods tend to modify more than one instruction, more like dozens so the drain is real.

[Old Drullo321]

Hi.

First, you didn't mention your old and new hardware and if you did a proper reinstall of your OS or just continue with the hardware change. I don't want to imply anything but on the internet, wo do the strangest thing or believe they invest in a good hardware upgrade but then it is suboptimal, or buy some kind of bad pre-factored PC and then just change one thing and think they are good for.

Second, I think hardware/performance related issues belong into the technical support forum.

Third, not all performance, crash or bug related issues are always related to either the software or hardware. Sometimes drivers are at fault too, as you can see in every drivers changelogs. There were (and maybe still are?) some issues Egosoft can't really do something about, e.g. stuff with the newest Nvidia GPUs.

Fourth, there is or was a big thread about expecting performance and/or benches by the users, probably in the technical support forum. Maybe it was even in the german section, sorry, can't find it at the moment. There was a pretty big list and what you can expect with some (new) hardware and what you can't. I would say, the generell agreement was, that if you have like the latest two generations of Intel or AMD CPUs middleclass or upwards (~350€ upwards), and either an older high-end GPU or some newer middleclass you won't gain that much as you might expect, especially not on the multi-threading side.

While I'm no expert on the graphic department, I do think there maybe some optimizations possible in certain areas but in generall I don't think the game isn't optimized. It is more or less a design decisions that lead us to maybe sub-optimal results. In comparison to previous titles (X3:AP or before) the game nearly simulates everything instead of half-cheating / creating things on the fly if you are away. That leads to a more realistic simulation and economy, but also to more CPU-heavy calculatings and also very large savegames and long save/load times. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to defend Egosoft here, neither blame them. Specific decisions leads to certain outcomes. Even with more optimization you can't expect wonders.

PS.: My specs are Ryzen7 3700X@Default, Nvidia 1080 Ti@Default@PT 150%, 32GB DDR4@3600, 1TB NVMe SSD, CPU/GPU watercooled, WQHD Resolution, Gsync, max. 120FPS Limit. Both DLC, current save ~70FPS, Empty space ~110-120FPS down to 29-37 FPS in the Terran Plot Getsu Fune defence. Stations often only arround 50-60, Map 40-50 FPS

[Shinra Vanity]

I changed from full screen to borderless window and it seemed to help

I have no idea why

[Skeeter]

I dunno if these did it but i suddenly got smoother fps.

Limited in amd drivers 60fps/use enhanced sync
changed mouse polling from 1000 to 250
Use wise registry cleaner multiple times till no more reported reg tweaks and did the system tune up thing on it too.

Helped speed up my system a bit and x4 seemed smoother at least on terran stations.

[KextV8]

Game is cpu bound. You need as much single threaded power as you can get. AMD CPUs are typically behind intel ones on this. Its almost mandatory to overclock them to get to the same performance you'd get out of the box with a similarly priced Intel one.

I'm playing on a 970 and a heavily overclocked i7 2600k(4.8 ghz OC) from 2011 and doing okay. When I lower my overclock my frame rate drops noticeably. My newer computer with a second gen ryzen 5 and a 2060 that I built for my girlfriend doesn't do any better than my old computer.

In short, if you want to up your performance you gotta overclock cpu or get a better one. But you shouldn't overclock if you don't know what you're doing cause there's a very real risk of damaging your system.

[abisha1980]

get a Ryzen 7 X3800 or above you will enjoy this game a lot more
btw the Ryzen is really good for anything to be honest best buy i have done in years

also i not recommend spending money on Nvidia they kind of sell you crap for lot of money with little to none return

[Tidaar]

I can feel with you .
But why havent you checked the forum before buying several new components? There are several threads here mentioning that the game is extremely CPU demanding and a 30XX GPU will gain you no fps at all in comparison to the generation before or even the 10XX generation.
I did that and upgraded only my CPU from a Ryzen 3600 to a new 5600X and I got about 20% fps gain and about 30% in save and load times (still using my old 1070 GPU). I knew that more cores would not give me more fps at all because X4 is running on mostly two cores. Average fps is between 50 and 100.

So what is your CPU now? Maybe thisis your weak spot?
I dont know what your game is, but on my hardware the game is running well but I dont build mega stations and had no huge space battle (way more than 100 ships involced) so far.

Just one tip: deactive antialias (or use only FXAA). This option alone eats the most fps in X4 and I wonder why Egosoft does not deactivate this option or at least write a warning.

GPU settings make no difference, whether max high settings or deactivating antialias.
CPU is 10870H. Better than my older I5. Here is the game save for info: https://gofile.io/d/YX7azq.
I asked a friend of mine to run the save on a powerful desktop version with 2080 TI and I9. Guess what? Same story. CPU is till used like 30% of the time so no scaling.

[Tidaar]

I can feel with you .
But why havent you checked the forum before buying several new components? There are several threads here mentioning that the game is extremely CPU demanding and a 30XX GPU will gain you no fps at all in comparison to the generation before or even the 10XX generation.
I did that and upgraded only my CPU from a Ryzen 3600 to a new 5600X and I got about 20% fps gain and about 30% in save and load times (still using my old 1070 GPU). I knew that more cores would not give me more fps at all because X4 is running on mostly two cores. Average fps is between 50 and 100.

So what is your CPU now? Maybe thisis your weak spot?
I dont know what your game is, but on my hardware the game is running well but I dont build mega stations and had no huge space battle (way more than 100 ships involced) so far.

Just one tip: deactive antialias (or use only FXAA). This option alone eats the most fps in X4 and I wonder why Egosoft does not deactivate this option or at least write a warning.

Yeah I was going to ask the same question. Games like this tend to be CPU bound, not GPU bound so I would be interested to know if his hardware upgrade included a CPU upgrade and fast RAM or just a GPU upgrade.

Also, his problem might be mods. Mods, depending on what it does can have huge CPU processing requirements, especially anything that changes AI. You add just one new instruction or script for the AI to perform on a ship and you multiply this by every ship in the game, you end up with a huge amount of instructions that the CPU now has to calculate. Also, AI mods tend to modify more than one instruction, more like dozens so the drain is real.

I run no mods. CPU temp stable at 70C , usage on 1 single core is less than 50%. So my CPU is not capping performance. Voltage not an issue whether I feed it 45 or 100 temp high max is 85 C.

[aquatica]

Game is cpu bound. You need as much single threaded power as you can get. AMD CPUs are typically behind intel ones on this. Its almost mandatory to overclock them to get to the same performance you'd get out of the box with a similarly priced Intel one.

Isn't AMD now faster on games as well? At least the newest ones.

In any case, I have an issue myself. Vega 56 just doesn't cut it at 1440p even on medium. I know this because I use the OSD on Radeon's Drivers to see GPU UTIL at 100% on several occasion. CPU util rarely goes above 70%. I have R7 3700x on stock (with tiny weeny bit of undervolting Vcore to drop 20% in temps, eh).
FOG seems to be the biggest issue. CPU bottlenecks on huge battles (like when HOP mopped the floor with PAR using 18+ Odyssey and all those funky friends and fighters, and I was there collecting the loots) but other than that, it's OK.

FPS drops gradually, 3 days into the game and I have trouble getting 60fps, in an emptyish sector it's smooth and nice.

@Tidaar
I've had similar issues with I5-2500K back in the day. Upgrading BIOS helped, new instructions or some such. It appeared as the pipeline were completely clogged and CPU was more waiting to get stuff to do rather than not able to do it. Also the latest microcode updates that fix those stupid security issues Intel has had, have dramatically reduced their effectiveness.

[Tidaar]

Hi.

First, you didn't mention your old and new hardware and if you did a proper reinstall of your OS or just continue with the hardware change. I don't want to imply anything but on the internet, wo do the strangest thing or believe they invest in a good hardware upgrade but then it is suboptimal, or buy some kind of bad pre-factored PC and then just change one thing and think they are good for.

Second, I think hardware/performance related issues belong into the technical support forum.

Third, not all performance, crash or bug related issues are always related to either the software or hardware. Sometimes drivers are at fault too, as you can see in every drivers changelogs. There were (and maybe still are?) some issues Egosoft can't really do something about, e.g. stuff with the newest Nvidia GPUs.

Fourth, there is or was a big thread about expecting performance and/or benches by the users, probably in the technical support forum. Maybe it was even in the german section, sorry, can't find it at the moment. There was a pretty big list and what you can expect with some (new) hardware and what you can't. I would say, the generell agreement was, that if you have like the latest two generations of Intel or AMD CPUs middleclass or upwards (~350€ upwards), and either an older high-end GPU or some newer middleclass you won't gain that much as you might expect, especially not on the multi-threading side.

While I'm no expert on the graphic department, I do think there maybe some optimizations possible in certain areas but in generall I don't think the game isn't optimized. It is more or less a design decisions that lead us to maybe sub-optimal results. In comparison to previous titles (X3:AP or before) the game nearly simulates everything instead of half-cheating / creating things on the fly if you are away. That leads to a more realistic simulation and economy, but also to more CPU-heavy calculatings and also very large savegames and long save/load times. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to defend Egosoft here, neither blame them. Specific decisions leads to certain outcomes. Even with more optimization you can't expect wonders.

PS.: My specs are Ryzen7 3700X@Default, Nvidia 1080 Ti@Default@PT 150%, 32GB DDR4@3600, 1TB NVMe SSD, CPU/GPU watercooled, WQHD Resolution, Gsync, max. 120FPS Limit. Both DLC, current save ~70FPS, Empty space ~110-120FPS down to 29-37 FPS in the Terran Plot Getsu Fune defence. Stations often only arround 50-60, Map 40-50 FPS

Help me stay objective then by running the save provided and let me know what FPS you are getting in game and map. If you are getting higher than 30 FPS average then I will bow to you my friend and say I was wrong.

My Specs are CPU 10870H (up to 100 Watts, temp high 85C), GPU 3070RTX (up to 140 Watts, temps high 70C), 1TB NVMe2 SSD , 32GB DDR4@2900. Alienware R4m15.
I get in a new game till mid game FPS 120 in general and 60FPS busy fights and lowest I have seen was 45FPS on map. All this with max GPU settings.

[CBJ]

...usage on 1 single core is less than 50%. So my CPU is not capping performance.

You are being misled by Windows here. The game will almost always max out at least one core most of the time, but Windows has a tendency to balance the load on the cores by switching which core it is that is being most heavily used in any given frame. The result is that it looks like a couple of cores are running at 50% instead of one at 100%. I can assure you that we've tested this thoroughly with more reliable tools, and that the game IS limited by the CPU in most situations. I won't go over yet again the reasons why spreading the load across even more cores isn't as simple as some people to think, and why "just run each sector on a different thread" doesn't work, but I will reiterate that we never stop looking for ways to improve performance and make use of more CPU cores.

All that having been said, 30fps is definitively NOT normal for your CPU/GPU combination, at least in "normal" situations that don't involve things like station mega-complexes, and I strongly suggest you look at whether there are driver installation issues, as a number of people have reported that they have resolved problems with unexpectedly poor performance that way. I'll take a look at your save to see whether it falls into the category of "normal" though.

[Waltz99]

not sure if this would help you in this situation but I also been having low fps problems.
I also bought a complete new pc just to be able to play this game, because I'm also an x-series lover.

I seem to have fixed my FPS problems with setting the volumair fog to a lower setting then it was.
SInce I did this, the FPS drop doesn't seem to happen to me anymore. Even though there are also other problems I hope this could help part of it.

[Max Bain]

GPU settings make no difference, whether max high settings or deactivating antialias.
CPU is 10870H. Better than my older I5. Here is the game save for info: https://gofile.io/d/YX7azq.
I asked a friend of mine to run the save on a powerful desktop version with 2080 TI and I9. Guess what? Same story. CPU is till used like 30% of the time so no scaling.

I just checked your savegame and I have about 30-35 fps when I am looking towards your stations and about 45 when I look backwards (playing with 1440p here).

You have a lot of stuff there in that system in combination with a dense asteroid field.
I tried the other sector where you also have stations and stuff Nopileos Fortune where I got above 50 fps even next to the station.

I can only suggest to decentralize your stations in Heretics End into several sectors if you want better fps in that specific sector.

[Tidaar]

To be clear the FPS really depends on far in the game you are. To stay objective try running the save provided and let me know what you are getting. Tested it on 3 systems and I get same results. Now that is the point in the game that I want to continue playing and even if I start a new game its all good but eventually I know I will reach that stage in the game and it will not be pretty. If running that save was pushing my system to max then I would say ok I reached my CPU upper limit and GPU limit. But its not the case and that is what frustrates me. My system tells me give me more and spank me baby while the game goes nah stay at 30FPS.

[Tidaar]

GPU settings make no difference, whether max high settings or deactivating antialias.
CPU is 10870H. Better than my older I5. Here is the game save for info: https://gofile.io/d/YX7azq.
I asked a friend of mine to run the save on a powerful desktop version with 2080 TI and I9. Guess what? Same story. CPU is till used like 30% of the time so no scaling.

I just checked your savegame and I have about 30-35 fps when I am looking towards your stations and about 45 when I look backwards (playing with 1440p here).

You have a lot of stuff there in that system in combination with a dense asteroid field.
I tried the other sector where you also have stations and stuff Nopileos Fortune where I got above 50 fps even next to the station.

I can only suggest to decentralize your stations in Heretics End into several sectors if you want better fps in that specific sector.

Thanks for testing. Which bring me to my point why would I change how I build stuff if my system can take it? Have you tried the map btw? Curious what you are getting there.

[Max Bain]

GPU settings make no difference, whether max high settings or deactivating antialias.
CPU is 10870H. Better than my older I5. Here is the game save for info: https://gofile.io/d/YX7azq.
I asked a friend of mine to run the save on a powerful desktop version with 2080 TI and I9. Guess what? Same story. CPU is till used like 30% of the time so no scaling.

I just checked your savegame and I have about 30-35 fps when I am looking towards your stations and about 45 when I look backwards (playing with 1440p here).

You have a lot of stuff there in that system in combination with a dense asteroid field.
I tried the other sector where you also have stations and stuff Nopileos Fortune where I got above 50 fps even next to the station.

I can only suggest to decentralize your stations in Heretics End into several sectors if you want better fps in that specific sector.

Thanks for testing. Which bring me to my point why would I change how I build stuff if my system can take it? Have you tried the map btw? Curious what you are getting there.

In the map I got about 10fps less. I cant check again because I have already switched back to my saves, which are highly modded and therefore testing others saves always takes a bit of time to disable my mods and so on.

[KextV8]

Isn't AMD now faster on games as well? At least the newest ones.

No. Don't get me wrong, their chips are great or I wouldn't have bought one. But for just pure single threaded horsepower, Intel still provides the better product. X4 uses multiple threads but its the Simulation thread that is bogging down the game, as it has to do more and more as you uncover the galaxy and more assets are created.

I may be wrong but I think there's basically three modes when it comes to how much calculation resources get used by an asset. In sector: full simulation uses the most. Out of sector: uses the least. And on map, where it uses an in-between amount because its being watched so it does more than out of sector but not full simulation in sector. Why opening up map will cause a significant dip, especially for people who have large satellite networks. It puts a ton of assets into that higher mode when you open map and watch them.

[Old Drullo321]

My Specs are CPU 10870H (up to 100 Watts, temp high 85C), GPU 3070RTX (up to 140 Watts, temps high 70C), 1TB NVMe2 SSD , 32GB DDR4@2900. Alienware R4m15.
I get in a new game till mid game FPS 120 in general and 60FPS busy fights and lowest I have seen was 45FPS on map. All this with max GPU settings.

Before going into details, let me sum up some previous post from you and others.

1. Go into every detail about your PC/Laptop specs. Just saying someone has an i9 CPU doesn't say anything. It is just some marketing chatter. You can't directly compare laptop and desktop PC with each other and an i9 CPU isn't automatically faster or slower then an i7 or any AMD CPU. It depends on architecture, specific modell, power target and cooling. Especially the last generation of Intel mobile GPUs are just "cheating" and can't really provide the performance you would expect if you look only at benchmarks because a combination of power target and cooling throttles them very fast. And an i7 2500K or anything related is a really old piece of hardware nowadays and I won't expect it to be running modern titles in a decent way.
I'm following several reputable online hardware websites (english/german) and I buy hardware based on performance, power consumption, performance/consumption and performance/price. I didn't limit myself to any company so I had GPUs from Nvidia and AMD/Ati aswell as CPUs from Intel and AMD. Don't want to go ito detail as it is not part of the discussion but since Zen+ (Ryzen2000) AMD is the better choice.

2. Aside from hardware, while you provided a savegame for comparison, you didn't provide neccessary details, we could only assume based on the savegame and maybe hardware specs:
* What is your resolution? FullHD (1k), WQHD (2k), UltraHD (4k)
* Which are you detailled graphic settings. Those settings are not backed into the savegame, rather your personal settings. If I load your save, just based on that, the experience may vary. Do you mean max. GPU settings = maxed ingame settings?
* Which DLCs do you have.

a) Even if the game is heavily CPU dependant, resolution can make still a difference in FPS. For example i get arround 4-5 more FPS when switching from WQHD to FullHD
b) It does matter because more sectors means more background calculation. I just assume you do not hav the CoH DLC. So when I load your save, my system has to do more calculation then yours

3. FPS != FPS. Frametimes matter alot if you want to experience a smooth performance. While two systems / CPUs can provide (nearly) the same performance and your FPS ingame counter displays the same FPS. And again, benchmarks and test for the last three generations just showed, even if a specific Intel CPU may provide 2-3 more FPS, the Frametimes were just worse. Also, just from own experience, having a FPS below monitor refresh rate, having software/hardware support for Freesync or Gsync does help alot in having a better game experience.

##

My test case:
* Your savegame
* My hardware (see above), WQHD, mid-to-max settings (tested ingame, didn't make a difference)

Loaded save or looking at the mega wharf complex: ~ 35FPS
Same sector but looking into nothing or lower density zones: ~45 FPS
Onboard same miner in a remote paranid sector: ~ 110 FPS

Doing the same with only FullHD. 0-5 more FPS

All that having been said, 30fps is definitively NOT normal for your CPU/GPU combination, at least in "normal" situations that don't involve things like station mega-complexes, and I strongly suggest you look at whether there are driver installation issues, as a number of people have reported that they have resolved problems with unexpectedly poor performance that way. I'll take a look at your save to see whether it falls into the category of "normal" though.

I wouldn't say so. The creator uses one of the newer Intel Laptop CPUs. While the performance in a best-case scenario (aka laboratory) looks good, it heavily depends on the laptop manufactorers own settings (power settings, power target, cooling) how good theese CPUs can perform and alot of tests and benchmarks have shown that they are more or a "cheaty" paper tiger. Also 45W laptop CPU isn't like whatever 90+w desktop dependant, especially if those Intel CPUs are notorious for consume 250-300W on load to reach them same or worse performance then comparable Ryzen 3000 or Ryzen 5000 CPUs. So I wouldn't wonder if the same goes for this Dell/Alienware laptop (throttling). By the way, with my specs I don't be far ahead but I think with Gsync it doesn't feel that bad what others experience. Would be interested if others achieve way more FPS with comparable hardware.