Performance issues.. any suggestions?

[ThatTennoDan]

So lets get the details out of the way..
Game version is 2.60 or 3.00b1
No Mods of any kind.

My Rig:
Windows 10 Pro (Build 1909) (Fresh Install with just Steam, Drivers and X4 installed)
2 TB NAND SSD (OS & Steam)
128GB DDR4 2667mhz RAM
TR2 2990WX 32-Core 64-Thread CPU (All cores enabled)
2x EVGA RTX 2080Ti with NVLink/SLI activated.
1920x1080@144hz Resolution Monitor. (Ultra Graphics Preset in game)

Now there should be no need for a DX report.

Anyway.. I am trying to get a consistently playable FPS. At this moment the best I seem to be able to get is a fluctuating 45-72 fps. I know with my rig, it should be waaaay smoother.
Idk if I need to reduce CPU cores, deactivate NVLink, change some settings around for such OP hardware.. I really don't know. Do I need to run Linux, pick me a distro you know its good on. I'll seriously do whatever is needed.
I honestly built this rig.. spent like 10k USD to do it, really.. just to have an amazing X4 experience. But have been saddened by this lack of expected performance.
This machine was designed to be able to push past the minor issues an be so OP it wouldn't really be noticeable FPS wise.

So please Egosoft, help me out here. I basically invested 10k into this amazing game. All I want is for it to run smooth, and look pretty doing it.
I mean.. I'd even go as far as to request adding support for these types of top-tier rigs if is not already. This game is fantastic an High-End PCs should be able to enjoy it at its fullest potential

[Buzz2005]

what x4 needs is not core and thread counts but pure mhz per core, more the better

I would recommend to OC the CPU as I read it can easily go to 4.2Ghz, read about it first!!!!
guess if its 10k it has good cooling?

Did you buy this PC before x4 was out? I don't mean to be rude or anything but there was a number of threads here about performance and the conclusion was the game needs faster cores not many of them

another thing is updating your drivers, and I mean all of them no just gpu

[ThatTennoDan]

what x4 needs is not core and thread counts but pure mhz per core, more the better

I would recommend to OC the CPU as I read it can easily go to 4.2Ghz, read about it first!!!!
guess if its 10k it has good cooling?

Did you buy this PC before x4 was out? I don't mean to be rude or anything but there was a number of threads here about performance and the conclusion was the game needs faster cores not many of them

another thing is updating your drivers, and I mean all of them no just gpu

Huh.. Well I know when I limit the CPUs to 8 active via Ryzen Masters "Game Mode" it somehow reduces fps or remains about the same. And, on that setting it does clock up to 4.2ghz on demand.
This is kinda why I finally turned to here to look for some answers to why it almost seems worse lol.
My CPU cooling is pretty decent for whats really available for TR2 sockets lol. It is liquid cooled at least.
I bought X4 when it was new, day 1 I think, or close to. But recently came into some money I could use to buy a new development class rig, so.. I did of course. Bought what seemed to be the best of the best out there on exactly that day for an AMD rig. I figured cause it ran pretty good on my old setup, this supreme upgrade would only make it better playing a game like X4 that is able to utilize more than most games can.
And I have everything up to date, that was my first thing tried to resolve it.

[CBJ]

First of all, I need to point out that this isn't the sort of the game in which you can expect smooth framerates at all times. Unlike most games, we don't limit what can be going on in a given location at a given time. This means that regardless of your hardware, you will always be able to find (or create) a situation that slows the framerate down. Unlike most games, we also simulate the entire game universe in the background. This means that sometimes the framerate may occasionally slow down a bit because of things going on that you can't even see. Depending on where you are, and what is happening in the game, your framerate WILL vary, so you are better off focusing on whether you are happy with your experience of the game than on the underlying numbers.

So, now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let's focus on how best to optimise your experience.

• The game can't fully benefit from SLI. This is because it's a Vulkan game which means that, unlike DirectX games, it can't automatically benefit from multiple GPUs. We would, of course, like to improve this situation at some point in future, but there are other improvements that have higher priority right now. You don't need to do anything about this, other than to bear in mind that having two graphics cards won't necessarily mean you get better performance than with one.
• There are a small number of graphics settings that can bring even today's fastest hardware to its knees. If you've selected the very highest AA settings, for example, then even a 2080 may not be able to keep up, and may even run out of memory. For normal gameplay situations, where performance is more important than pure image quality, you may need to pick AA settings that are a couple of notches below maximum.
• Once you've got the graphics settings right for your hardware, the game is normally CPU-bound. As Buzz2005 indicated, the game will normally benefit much more from more clock speed than more cores, at least after the first 4-6 cores. I would never go as far as actually recommending overclocking, because it can limit the life of your hardware, but if you know what you are doing and want to try it then that is, of course, an option.
• There are one or two other system issues that can affect performance. One example is that we have seen a lot of people reporting problems with the NVidia sound drivers installed with their graphics card, causing problems particularly on station platforms where there are large numbers of sounds (and where performance will already be somewhat lower than in space because of all the details such as NPCs that are around). If you've installed these drivers, it's worth removing them completely and making sure that the game is using your on-board sound device instead.

[Imperial Good]

So please Egosoft, help me out here. I basically invested 10k into this amazing game. All I want is for it to run smooth, and look pretty doing it.
I mean.. I'd even go as far as to request adding support for these types of top-tier rigs if is not already. This game is fantastic an High-End PCs should be able to enjoy it at its fullest potential

You were sold the wrong system to play games. For ~$3,000 you could get a system with a single RTX 2080 ti and Intel Core I9 9900K (now KS, but that was not likely an option for you back then) which will run X4 with 40-80% higher FPS.

X4 is mostly CPU limited. Specifically single core performance which is where Intel has the advantage. Even though the I9 9900K/KS has just 8 cores, 16 threads and 2 memory channels, it is a single NUMA node with a lot higher single threaded performance. Since the simulation tries to be kept at a constant speed, only the remaining processing time can be used to draw frames and hence if one increases average instructions per second by even a small amount one can get many more frames per second.

The ThreadRipper line of AMD CPUs are aimed at productivity applications which scale well with core count. Especially older ones had multiple NUMA nodes which limit performance for memory and thread coupling when operating between NUMA nodes. As such I would say your performance is acceptable for them, as that is a reasonable frame rate compared with the 10 year old I7/I5 I have run X4 on in the past. Of course that performance really does not justify the cost, hence why you were sold the wrong system if you only intended to use it for gaming as you could get higher frame rates for significantly less money with a I9 9900KS or Ryzen 9 3900X.

[ThatTennoDan]

First of all, I need to point out that this isn't the sort of the game in which you can expect smooth framerates at all times. Unlike most games, we don't limit what can be going on in a given location at a given time. This means that regardless of your hardware, you will always be able to find (or create) a situation that slows the framerate down. Unlike most games, we also simulate the entire game universe in the background. This means that sometimes the framerate may occasionally slow down a bit because of things going on that you can't even see. Depending on where you are, and what is happening in the game, your framerate WILL vary, so you are better off focusing on whether you are happy with your experience of the game than on the underlying numbers.

So, now that the disclaimer is out of the way, let's focus on how best to optimise your experience.

• The game can't fully benefit from SLI. This is because it's a Vulkan game which means that, unlike DirectX games, it can't automatically benefit from multiple GPUs. We would, of course, like to improve this situation at some point in future, but there are other improvements that have higher priority right now. You don't need to do anything about this, other than to bear in mind that having two graphics cards won't necessarily mean you get better performance than with one.
• There are a small number of graphics settings that can bring even today's fastest hardware to its knees. If you've selected the very highest AA settings, for example, then even a 2080 may not be able to keep up, and may even run out of memory. For normal gameplay situations, where performance is more important than pure image quality, you may need to pick AA settings that are a couple of notches below maximum.
• Once you've got the graphics settings right for your hardware, the game is normally CPU-bound. As Buzz2005 indicated, the game will normally benefit much more from more clock speed than more cores, at least after the first 4-6 cores. I would never go as far as actually recommending overclocking, because it can limit the life of your hardware, but if you know what you are doing and want to try it then that is, of course, an option.
• There are one or two other system issues that can affect performance. One example is that we have seen a lot of people reporting problems with the NVidia sound drivers installed with their graphics card, causing problems particularly on station platforms where there are large numbers of sounds (and where performance will already be somewhat lower than in space because of all the details such as NPCs that are around). If you've installed these drivers, it's worth removing them completely and making sure that the game is using your on-board sound device instead.

Thank you for the info. Although weirdly having the 2 GPUs active is helping somehow. Right now after some testing was able to get acceptable fps on average when all the CPU cores are active rather than limited to 8 as many games seem to prefer.
I am glad to know that SLI improvements may be in the works at some point as well. But of course there are bigger worries right now. I will remove Nvidia Sound Drivers as I am sure those were installed with the Video Driver.
I am also looking into Ubuntu or whatever Linux distro you guys recommend for the game. Not all versions of Linux are equal after all. If that may improve things.
I know this system is not exactly the best for gaming to begin with as it also is for development and programming, but still hopeful. X4 is kinda different than most games I've ran on this machine, most want 8c/16t w/1 GPU active but X4 seems to be on a whole different level.
(Oh and I know this isn't a place to report bugs, but I need to speak up about a couple small things I have been seeing since the early days of X4. On "Leak Fix" Missions, fixing one leak always counts as two. And.. the Nemesis Sentinel/Vangaurd has a major issue with drift after disengaging the travel drive. It just keeps going, the slowdown is just too moderate for its weight and speed I think.) Beyond that, I say keep up the great work on this unique title. 3.00 already shows much promise, I just hope defense drones return to their stations now. Having a large amount sitting outside of a station that was once attacked but no longer threatened was pretty devastating to sector performance.

[radcapricorn]

I am also looking into Ubuntu or whatever Linux distro you guys recommend for the game. Not all versions of Linux are equal after all. If that may improve things.

Right now the 3.0 beta has some performance issues (stuttering/freezing) which look to be Linux-specific, so you may want to hold off on that

On "Leak Fix" Missions, fixing one leak always counts as two.

This one is known and IIRC is intentional to "help" against leaks that may spawn inside station geometry. I.e. it's a crutch.

the Nemesis Sentinel/Vangaurd has a major issue with drift after disengaging the travel drive.

All bigger ships have that. Just kill travel drive with full stop (i.e. backspace or whatever you bind it on your controllers), that one actively counteracts the drift.