Tips to improve performance in map when dealing with your empire?

[ezra-r]

I am very well in the late game doing an impossible terraforming mission. I am trying to manage many buy and sell manually and the map constantly hiccups when I move around and order the trades.

Specifically even slower with trading layer on, I just activate the products I need. I am not saying it should be quick-smooth since I know it a lot of data. But I keep having constant hiccups when I am dealing with property and ordering manual trading for specific wares which degrades the joy of the game.

cpu is a ryzen 9 3900x with overdrive on for more performance (and liquid cooling) which rarely reaches 70ºC or 80% usage report by open hardware monitor, and gpu is a 4070ti, normal gaming is fine, even battles with dozen of ships can be enjoyable, just the map tends to bring the game down to a crawl.

So, any tips?

Cheers.

[Falcrack]

Oddly enough it has been reported, and I have confirmed it to be true, that if you sit down in one of the non-captain ship seats and activate the map, you get much better fps in the map than if you are standing or sitting in the captain's chair. I don't know why this is the case, but it seems to make a big difference.

[MarcusInVR]

I found pausing the game when opening complex maps also helps... but of course, then the game is halted.

[Scoob]

It may sound counter-intuitive, but I got better performance in a variety of things when I enabled ECO mode on my own 3900X. Seems the lower power limit (65w vs. 105w) and the fact that X4 only works a couple of cores particularly hard kept temps sufficiently low to stay under the 50c boost threshold, leading to better overall performance. Not a huge improvement, but I'll take it.

In stress tests / benchmarks (such as Prime 95 or R23) that present all-core workloads, I'd generally see a 200mhz all-core boost vs. "regular" 105w mode. Really surprised me, but using less power to remain cooler really allowed the 3900X to boost to its full potential.

Note: 3900X was water-cooled via a custom loop, which certainly helps a lot with temperatures.

Note 2: PBO and ECO mode together seem to be the key which, again, seems counter-intuitive.

I've now moved to a 5800X3d (easy swap in as also AM4 of course) which gives a massive boost in X4, far beyond my more optimistic expectations. The 3900X is now in a Work / Server PC, where it's very happy lol

[Mightysword]

It may sound counter-intuitive, but I got better performance in a variety of things when I enabled ECO mode on my own 3900X. Seems the lower power limit (65w vs. 105w) and the fact that X4 only works a couple of cores particularly hard kept temps sufficiently low to stay under the 50c boost threshold, leading to better overall performance. Not a huge improvement, but I'll take it.

Counter intuitive indeed ... but also what I did last week. I think what we perceive as "better" performance is more like consistent performance. My motherboard keep boosting my I7 10700k 3.6GHZ to 4.8GHZ that push my temp to the 90-100 range (with liquid cooling). My computer has never shut down due to overheating, but what happen is it will keep throttle the CPU between 3.8 to 4.8GHZ to keep the temp in limit range, and I feel this is what cause the stuttering.

So last week I decide to switch it to eco mode from performance mode, also reduce the task utilization in Window Power management to 90%. Now my CPU never boost past 4.2GHZ, but it's also constantly stay cool between 55C to 85C depending on the games, and it's just a lot smoother across the board. I probably gonna try to put it at 95% and see if it's still consistent.

[Scoob]

Modern CPU's have changed a lot over the past couple of generations vs. earlier ones. As far back as my old Q6600 @2.4 ghz, moare powah (with good cooling for the day) meant a 50% increase to 3.6 Ghz. It ran at that speed it's entire life as my gamer, and still works to this day. The 2500k and 2600k that replaced it ran at between 4.6 and 4.8 Ghz water cooled for years, moare powah once again being key, with excellent cooling keeping things in check. Newer stuff changed that. The 3900X did respond well to moare powah (PBO) allowance allowing me to get the most out of it. However, I had massively over-engineered cooling * that kept things in check. Yet, lowering the power use (65w cap) really did help. With the 5800X3d, using PBO2 negative offset for each core and lowering various power limits allow it to boost to its full potential at all times.

Not meaning to go off-topic here, but just to highlight how modern CPU's can behave a little differently, and the "moare powah" approach isn't always the way any more.

* I built an external water-cooling loop for the 2500k in 2011. It consists of a 360x360x50 external rad with res and a decent D5 vario Pump. It was designed to be used with the 2500k and 2x570's in SLI - later 2x680 - back in the day. However, when I got the 3900X it was paired with an Air Cooled 1070 - which had the BEST air cooler I've ever had on a GPU, so didn't need a water block - so that huge rad was doing just the CPU. It now does the 5800X3d and 3070 - that GPU ran warm and noisy, so water was required.

With AMD, my experience is with the 3900X and 5800X3d exclusively the pat three years, often reducing the power will lead to HIGHER core clocks sustained for longer. While one might seen gains with overclocking via voltage increases, with good cooling, the gains made by reducing power are equal. For example, my 3900X could all-core clock to 4.4 Ghz, while staying under AMD's recommended 1.325v limit. It'd get a little warm doing this, but it was fine. Conversely, enabling Eco mode - literally one click - saw it boost to about 4.35 Ghz all-core, while using less power and staying cooler at stock vCore. Single Core boost was 4.65 Ghz, which it could readily hit on two Cores, with several other Cores busy, though not heavily loaded. It really did shock me.

Note: good cooling is key though. The same 3900X is now in another system using the Stock air cooler. This cooler is actually pretty decent but, at the same ECO power settings, the 3900X is now a 3.8 Ghz all-core CPU - it approaches 70c - with single core still managing 4.6 Ghz.

[ezra-r]

I found pausing the game when opening complex maps also helps... but of course, then the game is halted.

I think I will have to get used to this sadly, because I have different ways of tweaking the cpu and I always get the same performance with little difference.

-

It's kind of amazing to see your game running at 40-60 fps , open the map and see it lose 20fps instantly and when making trades see it get to even 1-3 fps.

[Raptor34]

Oddly enough it has been reported, and I have confirmed it to be true, that if you sit down in one of the non-captain ship seats and activate the map, you get much better fps in the map than if you are standing or sitting in the captain's chair. I don't know why this is the case, but it seems to make a big difference.

Didn't they fix that last patch?

[Falcrack]

Oddly enough it has been reported, and I have confirmed it to be true, that if you sit down in one of the non-captain ship seats and activate the map, you get much better fps in the map than if you are standing or sitting in the captain's chair. I don't know why this is the case, but it seems to make a big difference.

Didn't they fix that last patch?

I wasn't aware of any such patch.

[Raptor34]

Oddly enough it has been reported, and I have confirmed it to be true, that if you sit down in one of the non-captain ship seats and activate the map, you get much better fps in the map than if you are standing or sitting in the captain's chair. I don't know why this is the case, but it seems to make a big difference.

Didn't they fix that last patch?

I wasn't aware of any such patch.

That particular thread iirc had a dev come in to ask whether it's fixed after a patch was deployed.

[CBJ]

Version: 6.00 HF 3 (498552) - 2023-05-04

• Fixed excessive UI performance loss in various situations.

[Alan Phipps]

I think the moral here is that every player system and set-up is different and there is no 'one size fits all' silver bullet for faultless performance in every situation. I have a very mid-range and now probably old hat self-designed rig and my X4 vanilla gameplay with all DLCs is absolutely fine. I see others with very modern and far more powerful rigs complaining about poor performance and even poor stability in-game - and not just those with doom fleets and mega-complexes. <shrugs>

[Falcrack]

I think the moral here is that every player system and set-up is different and there is no 'one size fits all' silver bullet for faultless performance in every situation. I have a very mid-range and now probably old hat self-designed rig and my X4 vanilla gameplay with all DLCs is absolutely fine. I see others with very modern and far more powerful rigs complaining about poor performance and even poor stability in-game - and not just those with doom fleets and mega-complexes. <shrugs>

People with very expensive, high end rigs tend to vocally complain about perceived performance issues that people with mid range rigs would not bother to complain about.

[KextV8]

Delete the factories and ships you dont need anymore. Delete the satellites you dont need anymore. It will bring your fps roaring back.

[ezra-r]

...I've now moved to a 5800X3d (easy swap in as also AM4 of course) which gives a massive boost in X4, far beyond my more optimistic expectations. The 3900X is now in a Work / Server PC, where it's very happy lol

Are you sure? According to this it should not perform much better: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/34 ... -7-5800X3D

Perhaps something new in the 5800X3D that makes it much more ideal for X4?

[ezra-r]

I think the moral here is that every player system and set-up is different and there is no 'one size fits all' silver bullet for faultless performance in every situation. I have a very mid-range and now probably old hat self-designed rig and my X4 vanilla gameplay with all DLCs is absolutely fine. I see others with very modern and far more powerful rigs complaining about poor performance and even poor stability in-game - and not just those with doom fleets and mega-complexes. <shrugs>

Quite true my friend. I even forgot to mention that I play 3440x1440, I don't recall having these many issues playing 1080p, although this might be a cpu bound issue, it seems everything can tip balance and performance.

[ezra-r]

I think the moral here is that every player system and set-up is different and there is no 'one size fits all' silver bullet for faultless performance in every situation. I have a very mid-range and now probably old hat self-designed rig and my X4 vanilla gameplay with all DLCs is absolutely fine. I see others with very modern and far more powerful rigs complaining about poor performance and even poor stability in-game - and not just those with doom fleets and mega-complexes. <shrugs>

People with very expensive, high end rigs tend to vocally complain about perceived performance issues that people with mid range rigs would not bother to complain about.

People are not as stupid as you imply, 1-3 fps affects everyone the same, the matter here is the reason why, which could be very well the amount of ships and stations in my late game + opening the map and do manual trades, I am sure a new game won't give me this much trouble.

--

In any case here is my latest save. -> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QI6lD4 ... sp=sharing

The HQ is at the south of the map and there are lots of L trader ships ready for you to help the HQ get the resources needed for the Terraforming mission. Feel free to give it a ride and enjoy.. or suffer.

Note: In case anyone new comes here wondering, this is not a rant, I am well aware of the state of my game and I am not complaining much, this thread is just looking for tips, and the PAUSE one seems to be a really good one

[Scoob]

Are you sure? According to this it should not perform much better: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/34 ... -7-5800X3D

Perhaps something new in the 5800X3D that makes it much more ideal for X4?

100% sure. It's quite literally night and day. 30fps situations are now regularly a (vSync limited) 60fps. This CPU has far exceeded my expectations in X4. That extra cache is significant, really significant, X4 loves it.

Don't get me wrong, the 3900X was a decent CPU - a marked improvement over my ageing 2600k @4.8 Ghz - but 30 fps situations were common when a moderate fight broke out. With the 5800X3d, that same fight will be at least double (I limit to 60) the performance. It's nuts, in a good way.

Note: I generally run a modified game, which pushes things a bit harder - loads more ships and stations, more variety of ships, mods that make conflicts more common etc. - and it's still running wonderfully. Situations where my game drops below 60fps - even on the Map - are pretty rare, and involve larger battles (general fps) or lots of ships moving (map fps).

I cannot emphasise enough what an incredible improvement the 5800X3d has made. I imagine the 7800X3d is even more impressive due to IPC gains with the new generation.

Note 2: Of course, v6.0 has certainly helped performance, but I did play it om the 3900X first AND I also loaded an older v5.10 HF3 game with the Star Wars Interworlds mod applied and it ran great too.

[ezra-r]

Are you sure? According to this it should not perform much better: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/34 ... -7-5800X3D

Perhaps something new in the 5800X3D that makes it much more ideal for X4?

100% sure. It's quite literally night and day. 30fps situations are now regularly a (vSync limited) 60fps. This CPU has far exceeded my expectations in X4. That extra cache is significant, really significant, X4 loves it.

Don't get me wrong, the 3900X was a decent CPU - a marked improvement over my ageing 2600k @4.8 Ghz - but 30 fps situations were common when a moderate fight broke out. With the 5800X3d, that same fight will be at least double (I limit to 60) the performance. It's nuts, in a good way.

Note: I generally run a modified game, which pushes things a bit harder - loads more ships and stations, more variety of ships, mods that make conflicts more common etc. - and it's still running wonderfully. Situations where my game drops below 60fps - even on the Map - are pretty rare, and involve larger battles (general fps) or lots of ships moving (map fps).

I cannot emphasise enough what an incredible improvement the 5800X3d has made. I imagine the 7800X3d is even more impressive due to IPC gains with the new generation.

Note 2: Of course, v6.0 has certainly helped performance, but I did play it om the 3900X first AND I also loaded an older v5.10 HF3 game with the Star Wars Interworlds mod applied and it ran great too.

Wow, checking the specs the 5800X3d has just more L3 cache.

As in:
3900X L1 Cache 768KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache 64MB
5800X3d L1 Cache 512KB L2 Cache 4MB L3 Cache 96MB

So the extra L3 helps tons with X4? I will have to keep an eye on that on my next purchase, thanks a lot for the tip, much appreciated.

---

As an added note I must say , game just loaded goes better, it degrades over time (as also happened with previous X games), when I load in an empty area I can get 100 fps.. same area after a long while does not reach 60fps.

[Scoob]

Wow, checking the specs the 5800X3d has just more L3 cache.

As in:
3900X L1 Cache 768KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache 64MB
5800X3d L1 Cache 512KB L2 Cache 4MB L3 Cache 96MB

So the extra L3 helps tons with X4? I will have to keep an eye on that on my next purchase, thanks a lot for the tip, much appreciated.

---

As an added note I must say , game just loaded goes better, it degrades over time (as also happened with previous X games), when I load in an empty area I can get 100 fps.. same area after a long while does not reach 60fps.

There are a number of factors vs. the 3900X. The 5800X3d is a SINGLE CCD/CCX, whereas the 3900X is FOUR CCX's over two CCD's - each CCX needing to use RAM to communicate with each other over the infinity fabric. That also means the L3 cache is effectively split in four - so 16mb per CCX. This can introduce lag as stuff is worked on over several cores that need to talk to each other - aka, a typical gaming workload. Think of it as little snags, which can lower overall FPS potentially, but are more noticeable in terms of things not being quite as smooth as the FPS counter might suggest. Having that entire 96mb cache available to all Cores with no delay is a big deal on the 5800X3d. It was marketed as a Gaming CPU and, for once, the marketing appears to be spot on.

3900X to 5800X3d also benefits from IPC gains of the newer generation. which is about 15 - 20% IIRC. The 5800X3d runs a little hotter than the 3900X - there's not much in it for me, but then I have really good water cooling. Also, the 5800X3d can be tweaked with "PBO2" - a third-party tool - to reduce power use slightly, resulting in lower temperatures and better performance. I did the tweaks on mine, and saw the results.

So, yeah, the 5800X3d has proven to be a damn fine CPU for X4. For other titles, well, perhaps they're a little smoother, but I only had issues in X4 when it came to being CPU bound. The 5800X3d still appears to be in stock (in the UK at least) and prices have generally been trending down. I got mine for £320 from my usual online store I trust, some Amazon sellers were as low as £290 - but I went with the guys I trust.

Oh yeah, game does degrade over time. I was thinking a couple of weeks ago how the 5800X3d wasn't performing as well as it once did, then I did a save / reload and all was well once more. That was a particularly long X4 session with no save/reload in between though.