Framerate issues. Help?

[Jernzzy]

Okay so I'll start off by giving my system specs:

OS : Windows 10 64-bit(latest updates)
Processor: Intel Core I5 6600k
Graphics Card: MSI R9 390x(latest drivers)
RAM: 16GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX
Storage : Samsung SSD 850 Pro

I'm pretty sure I meet at least the minimum requirements of running this game decently. However, I'm getting abysmal frames around asteroids and in stations. I've also noticed that my FPS around asteroids don't change at all by decreasing graphical settings such as: Lowering resolution to (1280x720) and reducing all other graphics settings to its minimal values. No matter what graphic settings I change, my frames around asteroids remains around 13-19 FPS.

@Ultra preset No AA, No Vsync
FPS around asteroids: 13-19 FPS
FPS around stations: 30-40 FPS
FPS in freespace: 70-90 FPS

Any help would be much appreciated! Thank you

[Requiemfang]

Okay so I'll start off by giving my system specs:

OS : Windows 10 64-bit(latest updates)
Processor: Intel Core I5 6600k
Graphics Card: MSI R9 390x(latest drivers)
RAM: 16GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX
Storage : Samsung SSD 850 Pro

I'm pretty sure I meet at least the minimum requirements of running this game decently. However, I'm getting abysmal frames around asteroids and in stations. I've also noticed that my FPS around asteroids don't change at all by decreasing graphical settings such as: Lowering resolution to (1280x720) and reducing all other graphics settings to its minimal values. No matter what graphic settings I change, my frames around asteroids remains around 13-19 FPS.

@Ultra preset No AA, No Vsync
FPS around asteroids: 13-19 FPS
FPS around stations: 30-40 FPS
FPS in freespace: 70-90 FPS

Any help would be much appreciated! Thank you

I have a 1060 with 6gigs of vram and I get stable frame rates until I go into a sector with massive asteroid fields. It's the high polygons on the roids that are causing your fps to tank. Stations I get a slight impact but it's not as bad as asteroid fields.

[KextV8]

Okay so I'll start off by giving my system specs:

OS : Windows 10 64-bit(latest updates)
Processor: Intel Core I5 6600k
Graphics Card: MSI R9 390x(latest drivers)
RAM: 16GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX
Storage : Samsung SSD 850 Pro

I'm pretty sure I meet at least the minimum requirements of running this game decently. However, I'm getting abysmal frames around asteroids and in stations. I've also noticed that my FPS around asteroids don't change at all by decreasing graphical settings such as: Lowering resolution to (1280x720) and reducing all other graphics settings to its minimal values. No matter what graphic settings I change, my frames around asteroids remains around 13-19 FPS.

@Ultra preset No AA, No Vsync
FPS around asteroids: 13-19 FPS
FPS around stations: 30-40 FPS
FPS in freespace: 70-90 FPS

Any help would be much appreciated! Thank you

Please post a picture of your graphics settings. You should be getting much better results than that. I'm on a gtx 970 and maintain 60 even stations/rods. Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the 390x was very comparable to the 970, even stronger in many software tests.

[Jernzzy]

Okay so I'll start off by giving my system specs:

OS : Windows 10 64-bit(latest updates)
Processor: Intel Core I5 6600k
Graphics Card: MSI R9 390x(latest drivers)
RAM: 16GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX
Storage : Samsung SSD 850 Pro

I'm pretty sure I meet at least the minimum requirements of running this game decently. However, I'm getting abysmal frames around asteroids and in stations. I've also noticed that my FPS around asteroids don't change at all by decreasing graphical settings such as: Lowering resolution to (1280x720) and reducing all other graphics settings to its minimal values. No matter what graphic settings I change, my frames around asteroids remains around 13-19 FPS.

@Ultra preset No AA, No Vsync
FPS around asteroids: 13-19 FPS
FPS around stations: 30-40 FPS
FPS in freespace: 70-90 FPS

Any help would be much appreciated! Thank you

I have a 1060 with 6gigs of vram and I get stable frame rates until I go into a sector with massive asteroid fields. It's the high polygons on the roids that are causing your fps to tank. Stations I get a slight impact but it's not as bad as asteroid fields.

Ah I see. But wouldn't lowering the resolution and reducing other graphical settings help the frames even just a little? Because mine doesn't change at all unfortunately. Is there nothing I can do to help the frames but get a new graphics card?

[Jernzzy]

Okay so I'll start off by giving my system specs:

OS : Windows 10 64-bit(latest updates)
Processor: Intel Core I5 6600k
Graphics Card: MSI R9 390x(latest drivers)
RAM: 16GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX
Storage : Samsung SSD 850 Pro

I'm pretty sure I meet at least the minimum requirements of running this game decently. However, I'm getting abysmal frames around asteroids and in stations. I've also noticed that my FPS around asteroids don't change at all by decreasing graphical settings such as: Lowering resolution to (1280x720) and reducing all other graphics settings to its minimal values. No matter what graphic settings I change, my frames around asteroids remains around 13-19 FPS.

@Ultra preset No AA, No Vsync
FPS around asteroids: 13-19 FPS
FPS around stations: 30-40 FPS
FPS in freespace: 70-90 FPS

Any help would be much appreciated! Thank you

Please post a picture of your graphics settings. You should be getting much better results than that.

Here ya go! https://imgur.com/iNgCbq7

[Reprisal]

With a 7700K/1080Ti at 1440P I get around 110FPS in freespace at ultra.

Lowering the settings seemingly does nothing to improve the framerate. It's GPU limited.

[Jernzzy]

With a 7700K/1080Ti at 1440P I get around 110FPS in freespace at ultra.

Lowering the settings seemingly does nothing to improve the framerate. It's GPU limited.

You mean CPU limited? Anyways, how are your frames holding up around asteroids? Are they decent? Or do they drop as well?

[KextV8]

Here ya go! https://imgur.com/iNgCbq7

I am really scratching my head on that one. I'm running a "weaker"(not really with overclocking) CPU and GPU than you with identical settings almost, except I have AA on, and getting far better performance. That should NOT be the case, something funky is going on with your machine. Can you post up a DxDiag? Just the System and Display pages. Remember to edit out the identifying stuff like your Computer Name.

Short Term: Try lowering shadows, and Texture Quality. You shouldn't HAVE to, but a test to see if that helps at all. That will at least let us know whether to look at your GPU or CPU as the culprit.

Potential Fixes:
Check power settings to see if your GPU is being starved in the name of efficiency.

Check power settings to see if your CPU is being starved in the name of efficiency.

Check settings to see if your GPU/CPU are underclocked. If not, can you post what it's set to Turbo at?

Random Shots in the dark:
I'm assuming your machine has integrated graphics as well, intel and all. I wonder if its causing conflicts with your GPU. It has for me in the past, weirdly enough. Try disabling your integrated graphics completely.

[Reprisal]

With a 7700K/1080Ti at 1440P I get around 110FPS in freespace at ultra.

Lowering the settings seemingly does nothing to improve the framerate. It's GPU limited.

You mean CPU limited? Anyways, how are your frames holding up around asteroids? Are they decent? Or do they drop as well?

60-63FPS in asteroids. Asteroids may be CPU limited at the GPU is only at 40%.

No, in freespace I'm GPU limited.

[KextV8]

No, in freespace I'm GPU limited.

If you are GPU limited, then reducing settings like shadows/texture quality would increase your frame rate. If you do that and your frame rate does NOT increase, then you are most likely CPU bottlenecked. Your CPU can only feed your GPU data so quickly. With a 1080Ti, I could see that being bottlenecked by a CPU while the CPU is also having to run the simulation in the background, even at 1440p. In most games, that wouldn't be the case, but in a game like X4 where the simulation of the universe is very cpu heavy and continues to grow in load with the game length(more specifically player assets), even very powerful CPUs that normally you wouldn't think could bottleneck can do so.

[Jernzzy]

Here ya go! https://imgur.com/iNgCbq7

I am really scratching my head on that one. Can you post up a DxDiag? Just the System and Display pages. Remember to edit out the identifying stuff like your Computer Name.

Short Term: Try lowering shadows, and Texture Quality. You shouldn't HAVE to, but a test to see if that helps at all.

Potential Fixes:
Check power settings to see if your GPU is being starved in the name of efficiency.

Check power settings to see if your CPU is being starved in the name of efficiency.

Check settings to see if your GPU/CPU are underclocked. If not, can you post what it's set to Turbo at?

Random Shots in the dark:
I'm assuming your machine has integrated graphics as well, intel and all. I wonder if its causing conflicts with your GPU. It has for me in the past, weirdly enough. Try disabling your integrated graphics completely.

Here's a screenshot of my DxDiag: https://imgur.com/a/bJ6vFPe

Both my CPU and GPU are not underclocked nor overclocked in any sort of way. Running default factory clocks on both of them. Lowering any graphical settings doesn't change my FPS around asteroids at all!

[Reprisal]

No, in freespace I'm GPU limited.

If you are GPU limited, then reducing settings like shadows/texture quality would increase your frame rate. If you do that and your frame rate does NOT increase, then you are most likely CPU bottlenecked. Your CPU can only feed your GPU data so quickly. With a 1080Ti, I could see that being bottlenecked by a CPU while the CPU is also having to run the simulation in the background, even at 1440p. In most games, that wouldn't be the case, but in a game like X4 where the simulation of the universe is very cpu heavy and continues to grow in load with the game length(more specifically player assets), even very powerful CPUs that normally you wouldn't dream could bottleneck can do so.

Normally it should, but it doesn't in this game.
I never reach my framerate cap (165FPS) yet sometimes none of the CPU cores or GPU are at full load. An easy way to test this is by opening the menu at freespace, the simulation is paused yet I'm only getting 119 FPS at 68% GPU load and 32% CPU load. Core 7 is the only outlier at around 80% load.

[KextV8]

Here's a screenshot of my DxDiag: https://imgur.com/a/bJ6vFPe

Both my CPU and GPU are not underclocked nor overclocked in any sort of way. Running default factory clocks on both of them. Lowering any graphical settings doesn't change my FPS around asteroids at all!

That tells us you are being CPU Bottlenecked, if your frame rate doesn't improve while lowering gfx settings. Default clock speed on your CPU is 3.3ghz with a turbo of 3.9 ghz. Your easiest solution other than upgrading is to overclock your CPU I'd think. And that, I don't wanna be responsible for it if you cook it lmao, so you gonna have to look that up on your own as far as what kinda settings to try. Be very careful if you are running a stock cooler on it, you won't be able to push it much.

For reference, I'm running overclocked at 4.5 ghz on a 2600k.

[Reprisal]

Here's a screenshot of my DxDiag: https://imgur.com/a/bJ6vFPe

Both my CPU and GPU are not underclocked nor overclocked in any sort of way. Running default factory clocks on both of them. Lowering any graphical settings doesn't change my FPS around asteroids at all!

That tells us you are being CPU Bottlenecked, if your frame rate doesn't improve while lowering gfx settings. Default clock speed on your CPU is 3.3ghz with a turbo of 3.9 ghz. Your easiest solution other than upgrading is to overclock your CPU I'd think. And that, I don't wanna be responsible for it if you cook it lmao, so you gonna have to look that up on your own as far as what kinda settings to try. Be very careful if you are running a stock cooler on it, you won't be able to push it much.

For reference, I'm running overclocked at 4.5 ghz on a 2600k.

Default clock speed is 4.2ghz with a boost to 4.5ghz. I'm not OP. I have it watercooled but the 7700K is so ridiculously spiky it can jump from 40C to 90C in an instant.

[KextV8]

Default clock speed is 4.2ghz with a boost to 4.5ghz. I'm not OP. I have it watercooled but the 7700K is so ridiculously spiky it can jump from 40C to 90C in an instant.

XD yeah, I know you aren't. I quoted the other guy

I never reach my framerate cap (165FPS) yet sometimes none of the CPU cores or GPU are at full load. An easy way to test this is by opening the menu at freespace, the simulation is paused yet I'm only getting 119 FPS at 68% GPU load and 32% CPU load. Core 7 is the only outlier at around 80% load.

Most likely what is going on is that your CPU monitor is telling you something misleading. Core 7 is likely the one feeding your GPU, and since you have almost certainly have hyperthreading on it makes the monitoring software confused as to how much load is actually available from that core. Instead, core 7 is actually 100% under load with the majority working and the rest stalled out waiting but reserved unable to process forward because its waiting for something else to finish. If you turn hyperthreading off, you'll probably see that core 7 is completely utilized.

Something that has a slight chance to help you though is to go into nVidia Control Panel, Manage 3D Settings, Program Settings, find X4: Foundations, find the setting Threaded optimization, force that to on.

[Requiemfang]

Here's a screenshot of my DxDiag: https://imgur.com/a/bJ6vFPe

Both my CPU and GPU are not underclocked nor overclocked in any sort of way. Running default factory clocks on both of them. Lowering any graphical settings doesn't change my FPS around asteroids at all!

That tells us you are being CPU Bottlenecked, if your frame rate doesn't improve while lowering gfx settings. Default clock speed on your CPU is 3.3ghz with a turbo of 3.9 ghz. Your easiest solution other than upgrading is to overclock your CPU I'd think. And that, I don't wanna be responsible for it if you cook it lmao, so you gonna have to look that up on your own as far as what kinda settings to try. Be very careful if you are running a stock cooler on it, you won't be able to push it much.

For reference, I'm running overclocked at 4.5 ghz on a 2600k.

Default clock speed is 4.2ghz with a boost to 4.5ghz. I'm not OP. I have it watercooled but the 7700K is so ridiculously spiky it can jump from 40C to 90C in an instant.

I have a i7-7700HQ and I never go above 85 now since I applied liquid metal and setting my fans at max speed manually. Before that I was going over that, water cooled is good to have but without the proper thermal paste compound you'll still be going into high temp. Btw I'm running a predator helios 300 gaming laptop in case you're wondering.

[Jernzzy]

Here's a screenshot of my DxDiag: https://imgur.com/a/bJ6vFPe

Both my CPU and GPU are not underclocked nor overclocked in any sort of way. Running default factory clocks on both of them. Lowering any graphical settings doesn't change my FPS around asteroids at all!

That tells us you are being CPU Bottlenecked, if your frame rate doesn't improve while lowering gfx settings. Default clock speed on your CPU is 3.3ghz with a turbo of 3.9 ghz. Your easiest solution other than upgrading is to overclock your CPU I'd think. And that, I don't wanna be responsible for it if you cook it lmao, so you gonna have to look that up on your own as far as what kinda settings to try. Be very careful if you are running a stock cooler on it, you won't be able to push it much.

For reference, I'm running overclocked at 4.5 ghz on a 2600k.

Problem is, my CPU utilization ranges from 40%~60% during gameplay around the asteroids! So I don't think it could be a CPU bottleneck, could it?

[KextV8]

Problem is, my CPU utilization ranges from 40%~60% during gameplay around the asteroids! So I don't think it could be a CPU bottleneck, could it?

That's the thing about CPU Utilization monitors. They... don't represent what you think they do. It could very well be that what is actually going on is the individual core that is responsible for feeding the GPU is under a full load, with a portion of it actually calculating and the rest stalled but reserved waiting for something else to finish. So, it might look like your CPU isn't bottle necked, but it is.

In gaming, a CPU bottleneck presents itself just like your situation. When you have an FPS issue that lowering graphics settings does not improve, you're being bottlenecked by the CPU 9 times out of 10.

When you have a GPU bottleneck instead, your FPS issues improve or worsen when you change graphics settings.

For X4:Foundations, the simulation running in the background eats a lot of CPU time, and continues to grow as the player's asset list grows. May I ask how much stuff you have, and did you have this problem when you started a new save? That might actually be something to test. Try a new save and see if the issue improves. If it does, then that's exactly what is going on.

[Jernzzy]

Problem is, my CPU utilization ranges from 40%~60% during gameplay around the asteroids! So I don't think it could be a CPU bottleneck, could it?

That's the thing about CPU Utilization monitors. They... don't represent what you think they do. It could very well be that what is actually going on is the individual core that is responsible for feeding the GPU is under a full load, with a portion of it actually calculating and the rest stalled but reserved waiting for something else to finish. So, it might look like your CPU isn't bottle necked, but it is.

In gaming, a CPU bottleneck presents itself just like your situation. When you have an FPS issue that lowering graphics settings does not improve, you're being bottlenecked by the CPU 9 times out of 10.

When you have a GPU bottleneck instead, your FPS issues improve or worsen when you change graphics settings.

For X4:Foundations, the simulation running in the background eats a lot of CPU time, and continues to grow as the player's asset list grows. May I ask how much stuff you have, and did you have this problem when you started a new save? That might actually be something to test. Try a new save and see if the issue improves. If it does, then that's exactly what is going on.

Just tested it on a new save and the problem still persists unfortunately Funny thing about it tho, not all asteroid fields give me a dip in performance. For example the ones in Argon Prime or Black Hole Sun doesn't give me a massive performance dip. Its still playable at around 40 FPS but the ones at Second Contact II Flashpoint gives me 19 FPS. I don't really know what the difference is but thank you for your help anyways! I'll probably seek a new CPU now haha!

[KextV8]

Just tested it on a new save and the problem still persists unfortunately Funny thing about it tho, not all asteroid fields give me a dip in performance. For example the ones in Argon Prime or Black Hole Sun doesn't give me a massive performance dip. Its still playable at around 40 FPS but the ones at Second Contact II Flashpoint gives me 19 FPS. I don't really know what the difference is but thank you for your help anyways! I'll probably seek a new CPU now haha!

Before going for a new CPU, you might want to try a very gentle overclocking to see if that yields any improvement. You really shouldn't need a new CPU, yours is significantly above min spec. Something is going on and I'm not sure what it is. Honestly at this point you might want to hit up Egosoft's Technical support forum.

One last thing and this will sound silly, but do you have Windows Defender/Microsoft Security Essentials, whatever it's called on Windows 10 set for Real-time Protection? If you do, try adding X4: Foundations to both its excluded processes list and excluded files/locations list.