X4 Performance Troubleshooting Suggestions

[H34Dru5H]

This statement concerning AMD CPUs:

'If using an AMD Zen2 or newer processors, the AMD balanced power plan should be chosen. This is required for optimal boost behaviour. AMD Zen and Zen+ should use the standard balanced power plan. Any sort of energy saving power plan may disable boost behaviour, significantly reducing CPU performance.'

This may not be correct as I upgraded from a 2600x to 5600x. At the time of upgrading I needed to update the bios but didn't think at the time to upgrade the chipset drivers as they were all ready quite recent. I can't remember now where I saw it but found info suggesting NOT to use the AMD balanced power plan for 5000 series CPUs but revert to the normal Windows Balanced plan and that latest chipset drivers should be installed.

After I installed the latest chipset driver, the AMD Balanced plan was no longer available and by default the Standard Balance plan was selected and recommended. Upon starting and playing X4 I was completely overwhelmed by how smooth everything had become. I had fairly ok fps before but suffered some stuttering and shimmering but now it's just 'wow! what happened there?' I'm dropping to 45fps standing in my own busy wharf, around 5fps better than before but panning around and ships in flight has completely smoothed out. And the other odd thing that struck me, GPU usage dropped from 80% to less than 50%, I have no idea why that is but it's all good.

[Imperial Good]

This may not be correct as I upgraded from a 2600x to 5600x. At the time of upgrading I needed to update the bios but didn't think at the time to upgrade the chipset drivers as they were all ready quite recent. I can't remember now where I saw it but found info suggesting NOT to use the AMD balanced power plan for 5000 series CPUs but revert to the normal Windows Balanced plan and that latest chipset drivers should be installed.

This is quite possibly the case. I do not own a Zen3 CPU to test it. I did notice the Zen 4 CPUs are missing that power plan so I guess AMD finally coordinated with Microsoft enough to turn the standard balanced power plan into the best power plan. I will update this in the main post.

Still what I said about bust frequency is correct. Anything targeting specifically energy saving (not balanced or performance) or a plan that caps maximum frequency can turn boost off which can massively affect performance.

[alt3rn1ty]

Just a heads up for anyone updating their Intel Graphics drivers ..

They are now bundling something else in the installer called

"Intel Computing Improvement Program"

I have seen this bundled with other Intel drivers before. DONT LET IT INSTALL!
It uses a LOT of CPU time when it periodically goes active.

And you dont need it .. But by default the Intel Graphics Driver installer will have you install it if you just click through.

Choose the Custom options, and make sure this damned thing does not install.
.


Intel utilising Graphics updates to install this extra by default is a bit off imho.

[bobucles2]

Quick question. I have an advanced save file. Started early march, 7 days game time, lots of buildup, totally modless. I heard you guys like getting save files, so is there a place to upload it? It's a beefy 150MB thing.

[CBJ]

See the very first thread at the top of the forum for information on how to provide savegames.

[alt3rn1ty]

Quick question. I have an advanced save file. Started early march, 7 days game time, lots of buildup, totally modless. I heard you guys like getting save files, so is there a place to upload it? It's a beefy 150MB thing.

See the very first thread at the top of the forum for information on how to provide savegames.

I think bobuckles2 is talking about the post one of the devs made a while ago (either here or on reddit .. somewhere), asking players to upload their bizarre X'verse and mad station builds. Forget how it was worded (something along the lines of "We are totally amazed by some of the universes you create, and would like to see more"), but there has never been a topic to support those uploaded saves links, I imagined at the time it would be something like the Screenshot competition sticky topic, but for people to show off their mad OTT builds.
Which is maybe why this "X4 Performance Troubleshooting Suggestions" topic has been used.
Unless bobuckles actually has a troubleshooting suggestion, which was not mentioned.

[bobucles2]

The top of the forum says "just do", so I guess here do:
https://limewire.com/d/XyA7Z#ldejrSbChK

It's a vanilla save with boron, terran, avarice, and split dlc.
Why would someone upload a save file to a performance troubleshooting thread? Who knows I guess, the factorio devs love this type of thing. Dunno if the same holds here.

[alt3rn1ty]

The top of the forum says "just do", so I guess here do:
https://limewire.com/d/XyA7Z#ldejrSbChK

It's a vanilla save with boron, terran, avarice, and split dlc.
Why would someone upload a save file to a performance troubleshooting thread? Who knows I guess, the factorio devs love this type of thing. Dunno if the same holds here.

My bold ..
You just did. Read the first post of this topic, it reads :

This topic provides suggestions and possible solutions to various performance and stability problems that some players may encounter while playing X4. Advice is also provided for players looking to maximize their system performance or confirm that their system is performing as expected.

.. and the first post contains a heap of advice for people to read through. Any follow up posts in this topic are usually to add to the knowledge to help people out troubleshooting.
So why you posted a link to a save in this topic is unclear.
My previous post was pointing out to CBJ that there is currently no appropriate topic (if what I think you are trying to do is correct), idk.

[Imperial Good]

Intel utilising Graphics updates to install this extra by default is a bit off imho.

Nvidia does the same with their GeForce experience program.

Intel Computing Improvement Program sounds like a data logger/gatherer. Intel likely uses this to help them figure out how their GPUs are being used and what parts of them they should focus on improving for future generations of GPU and driver. Outside the usual privacy/test subject concerns, nothing is fundamentally wrong with that.

What does sound wrong is the using a lot of CPU time part... I guess they have not optimised it properly for background use? Such as it should not run while fullscreen applications are running and when it does run it should be using lowest thread priority to avoid interfering significantly with other applications.

[alt3rn1ty]

Intel utilising Graphics updates to install this extra by default is a bit off imho.

~ What does sound wrong is the using a lot of CPU time part... I guess they have not optimised it properly for background use? Such as it should not run while fullscreen applications are running and when it does run it should be using lowest thread priority to avoid interfering significantly with other applications.

Yep I havent tested it this time so it may have improved, didn't give it chance to install, but its a re-emergence of a sneaky installation we have seen before, you may recall a conversation we had on page 1 of this topic ..

Spoiler

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I found something else recently which is a bit of a surprising CPU hog

Open Task Manager on Windows, and look for something called "Intel(R) System Usage Report", its a service that gets installed with some Intel driver packages.

It can take up to 20% of your CPU even when a game is running.

I did a search for it and found it can be installed by any of the following:

Intel® Driver Update Utility - I think this is now old, and probably superseded by ..
Intel® Driver & Support Assistant.
Intel® Computing Improvement Program.

If you have any of those 3 installed, they may have come as part of another Intel driver package, but the notification of these being installed was probably obfuscated in advanced install options or just installed by the machine vendor.

They all install "Intel(R) System Usage Report service" (and a few others not necessary for your machine), which gives Intel reports on system use to better "improve their future products".

They are not needed because anything the first two would update will be updated by Windows anyway if they are not installed, and the third is all about data gathering.
https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/ ... a-cip.html

If you find your machine revving up the fans a bit more than you would expect, alt tab out, launch Task Manager and if you have the "Intel(R) System Usage Report" service running see how much percentage of your CPU this service is grabbing to gather data about your machines use .. Its a bit of an eye opener.

Go looking for any of the above three in your Installations, uninstall them, and you will see "Intel(R) System Usage Report" service becomes removed aswell from Task Manager (unless something newer comes along at a later date after this post was written, I think those are the only ones currently which install that service) ..

.. and frees up the 20% use of your CPU it was hogging.

Just beware what you are uninstalling though, for Intel machines there are some drivers which are necessary for good running of your machine, so don't go uninstalling anything else without good research first.

The inclusion of this driver now in the Intel GPU Drivers is quite recent.

[barcharcraz]

I've been playing X4 and noticing I'm getting pretty poor FPS with no obvious bottlenecks. I'm getting 25-30 fps with no core being utilized over about 60%. Someplace earlier in the thread it was mentioned this was because of the sampling methodology used by performance monitoring tools, and X4 _is_ using 100% of the CPU during each frame. But if that were true there should be _some_ other bottleneck, and I'm seeing GPU utilization at <50%, basically no PCIe bus usage, maximum memory bandwidth usage of ~2Gbps.

If "using 100% of a cpu core" meant using 100% for some fraction of the time it would be impossible to _not_ use 100% CPU. I recorded a WPA trace and it didn't seem like threads were obviously sitting around in wait queues, but they could be spinning, or my profile interval could be too short.

Maybe there _is_ a bottleneck I'm not seeing?

Edit, the game is just limited in how much concurrency it can exploit. Maybe there's some cache effects going on too. I'll try turning off one of the CPU CCDs.

I've got a 2080 super and a Ryzen 9 3950x.

[Imperial Good]

If "using 100% of a cpu core" meant using 100% for some fraction of the time it would be impossible to _not_ use 100% CPU. I recorded a WPA trace and it didn't seem like threads were obviously sitting around in wait queues, but they could be spinning, or my profile interval could be too short.

The issue is that you are looking at percentage of time a core is scheduled with any thread and not the percentage of time the main thread, the thread that is limiting performance, is scheduled to a CPU core. If the main thread is de-scheduled, such as due to blocking on a synchronisation construct, there is no guarantee that when it is later re-scheduled that it ends up back on the same CPU core it used to be. If the CPU core it was previously scheduled on is now busy with another thread, the scheduler will likely put it on another available core. Since modern CPUs have core priorities due to hard-coded binning information, it will likely be scheduled on one of the best 3 cores in such a situation.

For example, a single threaded application could potentially end up loading 1 core to ~60% and another core to ~40% if it blocks frequently, but shortly, and the OS happens to schedule another CPU thread on the core in the meantime. This does not mean the application has 2 threads, or is only running 60% of the time but rather the thread is being scheduled between 2 core for 100% of the time.

Of course even schedule time of a single thread is not a perfect indicator. It may not be possible for the main thread to be scheduled 100% of the time as it may block while joining other tasks that were executed in parallel on many CPU cores.

A 3950X should be able to manage much more than 30 fps in a fresh start, low complexity scene. It is expected that such a CPU will be closer to 30 fps in a late game, high complexity, scene. I use a 3900X. I recommend checking your CPU is boosting correctly while playing, and that your memory DCOP is at 3200 MHz transfer rate since memory speed is very important for performance on these CPUs. The CPU should also be boosting on busy cores to well over 4.0 GHz.

[alt3rn1ty]

~ Upgrading the GPU is unlikely to yield a significant improvement to framerate in most scenes, although it would allow the player to play at higher resolution and enable higher visual settings such as ambient occlusion, screen space reflections, anti-aliasing and draw distance.

My bold.

IG the above quote needs a bit of an update. With the advent of X4 v8.0, the introduction of Frame Generation on an NVidia RTX 50xx makes a remarkable difference. I dont know if there is an AMD Radeon equivalent with similar capabilities, but the NVidia offering is significant.

Also have a look into the new Intel Ultra 9 CPUs':
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... ies-2.html
I have a 275HX (turned off the Efficiency cores in the BIOS), combined with an RXT 5070 Ti the game runs at 120 fps literally everywhere. For me thats unprecedented performance on a Laptop, I think similar hardware on a desktop would be amazing for X4.

Anyone looking at 13th or 14th Gen Intel I9 CPUs, I think its best to skip them as some are known to cause problems for X4 (noted in some Tech support topics over the last year).

[Imperial Good]

With the advent of X4 v8.0, the introduction of Frame Generation on an NVidia RTX 50xx makes a remarkable difference.

The statement still holds true for the base framerate. I will alter it to reflect that interpolated frames might be useful to some.

Anyone looking at 13th or 14th Gen Intel I9 CPUs, I think its best to skip them as some are known to cause problems for X4 (noted in some Tech support topics over the last year).

I think the desktop Ultra cores still have the same problem. Unlike their laptop variants which have reasonable power budgets, the desktop variants have very high power limits to the point that the temperature and current involved is prone to causing long term issues. I think the issue is a little better with the core ultras though since they improved efficiency and reduced peek power usage/performance a little. Will almost certainly be the case with the second generation of core ultra processors tough as hopefully they out perform the last generation of Core CPUs.

[Commander_Lock]

FINALLY I was able to solve my "seemingly audio-related" stutter (to be clear, these were framedrops, NOT simple audio stuttering, but still WERE audio-related) issue by modifying alsoft.conf in the game's folder and add the line:

Code: Select all

periods = 6

I was able to devise a test that's repeatable: start a new game, Stranded start. Talk to axiom in his cell, after that save the game (so you can reload it at this point if you want to). Now you just have to run down the hallway until he contacts you remotely -- takes like 10 seconds. If his audio causes frame stutters when he contacts you remotely, then that's the same thing I was experiencing elsewhere (i.e. I zoom and boom, first landed hit causes huge frame drop), and the above fix does fix that. Just quit the game and reload to test. it's repeatable, no need to reboot to clear the cache (I don't think this game caches much, or at least it defeats my attempts to pre-cache -- this engine is SUPER aggressive about limiting ram usage)... Just alt-tabbing might be enough, dunno. I got that setting from here: https://github.com/kcat/openal-soft/blo ... trc.sample

Basically it's the number of buffers. Maybe the default is 3... maybe it's 1... who knows. Afaict X4 uses an older version of that openal dll and default values change over time. If the default isn't 3, it's close to 3 or less. I still get the stutter when manually set to 3. Up to around 8 is playable without really noticing the audio delay. Each increment of the value is like another buffer that adds close to 20ms audio delay (depends on your audio frequency but it's close to 20ms). The max is 16, but that's causes really bad audio lag -- but it's cool that you can set the value high enough to be like "Yeah, that setting definitely has an effect." If the max was a sane value like 8, it would be hard to 100% Know if I'm wasting my time testing it. Anyways, 6 is totally fine -- >I< can't tell there's additional audio lag, seriously, at least during gameplay... I haven't tested cutscenes with lipsyncing and stuff (but I don't really gaf about that). I tried all other possible settings, and this is the ONE that fixes it (EDIT: I didn't try calculating a period_size that would be less than my target frametime, but I wouldn't expect that to work the way I'd want it to -- I'd probably have to modify the openal code).

Any OTHER stutters I have... maybe it's LOD loading. Maybe it's nvidia drivers changes (I can only go back so far with this newer video card, 4070ti super) with how vulkan over DXGI swapchain works (this is what I'm leaning towards). Maybe it's 7.0 performance regressions. But they're minor compared to this.

I spent SO MUCH TIME figuring this out. You're welcome.

Here's my complete alsoft.conf file in case any cares (it's setup for headphones, the section I marked with "HRTF stuff") -- I modified it to include all the settings I tested, but it's also tweaked for better positioning for scanning stations because the default values... kinda suck for positioning (with headphones, at least). These settings are WAY better for finding those things using your ears than the default settings, but if you don't use headphones you're gonna have to change/remove them (the settings between "HRTF stuff" start/end):

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[general]

## sources:
# Sets the maximum number of allocatable sources. Lower values may help for
# systems with apps that try to play more sounds than the CPU can handle.
# DJ: As low as 64 seemed to work ok. X4 default is 4096
#
# sources = 256
sources = 4096

## slots:
# Sets the maximum number of Auxiliary Effect Slots an app can create. A slot
# can use a non-negligible amount of CPU time if an effect is set on it even
# if no sources are feeding it, so this may help when apps use more than the
# system can handle.
# DJ: As low as 4 seemed to work ok. X4 default is 256
#
# slots = 64
slots = 256

## sends:
# Limits the number of auxiliary sends allowed per source. Setting this higher
# than the default has no effect.
#
# sends = 6

## rt-prio: (global)
# Sets the real-time priority value for the mixing thread. Not all drivers may
# use this (eg. PortAudio) as those APIs already control the priority of the
# mixing thread. 0 and negative values will disable real-time priority. Note
# that this may constitute a security risk since a real-time priority thread
# can indefinitely block normal-priority threads if it fails to wait. Disable
# this if it turns out to be a problem.
#
# rt-prio = 1
rt-prio = 1

## sample-type:
# Sets the default output sample type. Currently, all internal mixing is done with
# 32-bit float and then converted to the output sample type (as needed). Available
# values are:
# int8 - signed 8-bit int
# uint8 - unsigned 8-bit int
# int16 - signed 16-bit int
# uint16 - unsigned 16-bit int
# int32 - signed 32-bit int
# uint32 - unsigned 32-bit int
# float32 - 32-bit float
#
# sample-type = float32
sample-type = float32

## frequency:
# Sets the default output frequency. If left unspecified it will try to detect
# a default from the system, otherwise it will fallback to 48000.
#frequency =

## cf_level:
# Sets the crossfeed level for stereo output. Valid values are:
# 0 - No crossfeed
# 1 - Low crossfeed
# 2 - Middle crossfeed
# 3 - High crossfeed (virtual speakers are closer to itself)
# 4 - Low easy crossfeed
# 5 - Middle easy crossfeed
# 6 - High easy crossfeed
# Users of headphones may want to try various settings. Has no effect on non-
# stereo modes.
# DJ: Not good when I tried it -- muffled audio.
#
# cf_level = 0
cf_level = 0

## hrtf:
# Deprecated. Consider using stereo-encoding instead. Valid values are auto,
# off, and on.
# DJ: Leave this off.
#
# hrtf = auto
hrtf = off

# START ########################## HRTF stuff

## channels:
# Sets the default output channel configuration. If left unspecified, one will
# try to be detected from the system, with a fallback to stereo. The available
# values are: mono, stereo, quad, surround51, surround61, surround71,
# surround714, surround3d71, ambi1, ambi2, ambi3. Note that the ambi*
# configurations output ambisonic channels of the given order (using ACN
# ordering and SN3D normalization by default), which need to be decoded to
# play correctly on speakers.
#
# channels =
channels = stereo

## stereo-mode:
# Specifies if stereo output is treated as being headphones or speakers. With
# headphones, HRTF or crossfeed filters may be used for better audio quality.
# Valid settings are: auto, speakers, or headphones
#
# stereo-mode = auto
stereo-mode = headphones

## stereo-encoding:
# Specifies the default encoding method for stereo output. Valid values are:
# basic - Standard amplitude panning (aka pair-wise, stereo pair, etc) between
# -30 and +30 degrees.
# uhj - Creates a stereo-compatible two-channel UHJ mix, which encodes some
# surround sound information into stereo output that can be decoded with
# a surround sound receiver.
# hrtf - Uses filters to provide better spatialization of sounds while using
# stereo headphones.
# If crossfeed filters are used, basic stereo mixing is used.
#
# stereo-encoding = basic
stereo-encoding = hrtf

# END ########################## HRTF stuff

## periods:
# Sets the number of update periods. Higher values create a larger mix ahead,
# which helps protect against skips when the CPU is under load, but increases
# the delay between a sound getting mixed and being heard. Acceptable values
# range between 2 and 16.
# DJ: You want buffers, but not too many. 16 creates bad audio lag, so you
# want the highest number you can stand to fix stutters/skips, somewhere between 4 - 8.
# periods = 3
periods = 6

## period_size:
# Sets the update period size, in sample frames. This is the number of frames
# needed for each mixing update. Acceptable values range between 64 and 8192.
# If left unspecified it will default to 1/50th of the frequency (20ms, or 882
# for 44100, 960 for 48000, etc).
# DJ: Can just leave this alone and adjust periods instead.
#period_size =

## hrtf-mode:
# Specifies the rendering mode for HRTF processing. Setting the mode to full
# (default) applies a unique HRIR filter to each source given its relative
# location, providing the clearest directional response at the cost of the
# highest CPU usage. Setting the mode to ambi1, ambi2, or ambi3 will instead
# mix to a first-, second-, or third-order ambisonic buffer respectively, then
# decode that buffer with HRTF filters. Ambi1 has the lowest CPU usage,
# replacing the per-source HRIR filter for a simple 4-channel panning mix, but
# retains full 3D placement at the cost of a more diffuse response. Ambi2 and
# ambi3 increasingly improve the directional clarity, at the cost of more CPU
# usage (still less than "full", given some number of active sources).
#
# hrtf-mode = full

## hrtf-size:
# Specifies the impulse response size, in samples, for the HRTF filter. Larger
# values increase the filter quality, while smaller values reduce processing
# cost. A value of 0 (default) uses the full filter size in the dataset, and
# the default dataset has a filter size of 64 samples at 48khz.
#
# hrtf-size = 0

## default-hrtf:
# Specifies the default HRTF to use. When multiple HRTFs are available, this
# determines the preferred one to use if none are specifically requested. Note
# that this is the enumerated HRTF name, not necessarily the filename.
#
# default-hrtf =

## hrtf-paths:
# Specifies a comma-separated list of paths containing HRTF data sets. The
# format of the files are described in docs/hrtf.txt. The files within the
# directories must have the .mhr file extension to be recognized. By default,
# OS-dependent data paths will be used. They will also be used if the list
# ends with a comma. On Windows this is:
# $AppData\openal\hrtf
# And on other systems, it's (in order):
# $XDG_DATA_HOME/openal/hrtf (defaults to $HOME/.local/share/openal/hrtf)
# $XDG_DATA_DIRS/openal/hrtf (defaults to /usr/local/share/openal/hrtf and
# /usr/share/openal/hrtf)
# hrtf-paths =

## drivers: (global)
# Sets the backend driver list order, comma-seperated. Unknown backends and
# duplicated names are ignored. Unlisted backends won't be considered for use
# unless the list is ended with a comma (e.g. 'oss,' will try OSS first before
# other backends, while 'oss' will try OSS only). Backends prepended with -
# won't be considered for use (e.g. '-oss,' will try all available backends
# except OSS). An empty list means to try all backends.
# DJ: the following seems to work in windows: winmm, wasapi
#
# drivers =


##
## WASAPI backend stuff
##
[wasapi]

## spatial-api:
# Specifies whether to use a Spatial Audio stream for playback. This may
# provide expanded capabilities for surround sound and with-height speaker
# configurations. Very experimental.
#
# spatial-api = false

## allow-resampler:
# Specifies whether to allow an extra resampler pass on the output. Enabling
# this will allow the playback device to be set to a different sample rate
# than the actual output can accept, causing the backend to apply its own
# resampling pass after OpenAL Soft mixes the sources and processes effects
# for output.
#
# allow-resampler = true

##
## Ambisonic decoder stuff
## ## DJ: Not sure
##
[decoder]

## hq-mode:
# Enables a high-quality ambisonic decoder. This mode is capable of frequency-
# dependent processing, creating a better reproduction of 3D sound rendering
# over surround sound speakers.
#hq-mode = true

## distance-comp:
# Enables compensation for the speakers' relative distances to the listener.
# This applies the necessary delays and attenuation to make the speakers
# behave as though they are all equidistant, which is important for proper
# playback of 3D sound rendering. Requires the proper distances to be
# specified in the decoder configuration file.
#distance-comp = true

## nfc:
# Enables near-field control filters. This simulates and compensates for low-
# frequency effects caused by the curvature of nearby sound-waves, which
# creates a more realistic perception of sound distance with surround sound
# output. Note that the effect may be stronger or weaker than intended if the
# application doesn't use or specify an appropriate unit scale, or if
# incorrect speaker distances are set. For HRTF output, hrtf-mode must be set
# to one of the ambi* values for this to function.
#nfc = false

## speaker-dist:
# Specifies the speaker distance in meters, used by the near-field control
# filters with surround sound output. For ambisonic output modes, this value
# is the basis for the NFC-HOA Reference Delay parameter (calculated as
# delay_seconds = speaker_dist/343.3). This value is not used when a decoder
# configuration is set for the output mode (since they specify the per-speaker
# distances, overriding this setting), or when the NFC filters are off. Valid
# values range from 0.1 to 10.
#speaker-dist = 1

## quad:
# Decoder configuration file for Quadraphonic channel output. See
# docs/ambdec.txt for a description of the file format.
#quad =

## surround51:
# Decoder configuration file for 5.1 Surround (Side and Rear) channel output.
# See docs/ambdec.txt for a description of the file format.
#surround51 =

## surround61:
# Decoder configuration file for 6.1 Surround channel output. See
# docs/ambdec.txt for a description of the file format.
#surround61 =

## surround71:
# Decoder configuration file for 7.1 Surround channel output. See
# docs/ambdec.txt for a description of the file format.
#surround71 =

## surround714:
# Decoder configuration file for 7.1.4 Surround channel output. See
# docs/ambdec.txt for a description of the file format.
#surround714 =

## surround3d71:
# Decoder configuration file for 3D7.1 Surround channel output. See
# docs/ambdec.txt for a description of the file format. See also
# docs/3D7.1.txt for information about 3D7.1.
#surround3d71 =

##
## UHJ and Super Stereo stuff
## DJ: Not sure
##
[uhj]

## decode-filter: (global)
# Specifies the all-pass filter type for UHJ decoding and Super Stereo
# processing. Valid values are:
# iir - utilizes dual IIR filters, providing a wide pass-band with low CPU
# use, but causes additional phase shifts on the signal.
# fir256 - utilizes a 256-point FIR filter, providing more stable results but
# exhibiting attenuation in the lower and higher frequency bands.
# fir512 - utilizes a 512-point FIR filter, providing a wider pass-band than
# fir256, at the cost of more CPU use.
#
# decode-filter = iir
decode-filter = iir

## encode-filter: (global)
# Specifies the all-pass filter type for UHJ output encoding. Valid values are
# the same as for decode-filter.
#
# encode-filter = iir
encode-filter = iir

##
## Per-game compatibility options (these should only be set in per-game config
## files, *NOT* system- or user-level!)
##
[game_compat]

## default-error: (global)
# An error value returned by alGetError when there's no current context. The
# default value is AL_INVALID_OPERATION, which lets the caller know the
# operation could not be executed. Some applications may erroneously call
# alGetError without a current context and expect 0 (AL_NO_ERROR), however
# that may cause other applications to think earlier AL calls succeeded when
# they actually failed.
#default-error = 0xA004

## nfc-scale: (global)
# A meters-per-unit distance scale applied to NFC filters. If a game doesn't
# use real-world meters for in-game units, the filters may create a too-near
# or too-distant effect. For instance, if the game uses 1 foot per unit, a
# value of 0.3048 will correctly adjust the filters. Or if the game uses 1
# kilometer per unit, a value of 1000 will correctly adjust the filters.
#nfc-scale = 1

## enable-sub-data-ext: (global)
# Enables the AL_SOFT_buffer_sub_data extension, disabling the
# AL_EXT_SOURCE_RADIUS extension. These extensions are incompatible, so only
# one can be available. The latter extension is more commonly used, but this
# option can be enabled for older apps that want the former extension.
#enable-sub-data-ext = false

## reverse-x: (global)
# Reverses the local X (left-right) position of 3D sound sources.
#reverse-x = false

## reverse-y: (global)
# Reverses the local Y (up-down) position of 3D sound sources.
#reverse-y = false

## reverse-z: (global)
# Reverses the local Z (front-back) position of 3D sound sources.
#reverse-z = false

With 64gb of ram, maybe putting all the game files on a decent ramdisk would also work. Dunno, I only have 32gb. I'm super sensitive to stutters, so I always need to go on a friggin quest to solve stutters for every game I'm playing. Pre-caching won't work for this game (it aggressively clears the filecache).

Sidenote: Newer nvidia drivers (> 552.xx) automatically set this game to use the dxgi swapchain. Older ones didn't (527.xx, on a 1070ti, at least). And I'm drunk.

This really helped me also! Thank you! I've had some major stuttering issues the further I get into the game (400 hours atm) and they mostly happen when the NPC video comms panel pops up. I tried this along with some other tweaks and now it's 90% better

I'm on a lower end spec system and after trying various tweaks over the past week I can now do large battles without stuttering or major fps drops and I no longer get the stutters when being contacted on the vid comm. It's not perfect by all means and I do get the occassional random drop which I notice I can overcome by changing view to 3rd person and back and/or tabbing out and back into the game. Not sure why that fixes the slow down I also disabled on board audio as I use a Presonus Universal 24c sound module.

Anyway, I think this game is flipping brilliant! And glad I persevered to a) learn the functions and steep learning curve to get the most out of it b) try tweaks out until I found the soft spot for my rig. Thought I'd share my findings so others might benefit from trying them if they struggle with stutters and fps drops. Thanks to Egosoft for creating such a great game! and thanks to Daemonjax for the above tweak. Also thanks to all the various people who added their ideas which I tried and tested. Some worked well for me which I've added below.

My rig
=====
NVIDIA system information report created on: 09/22/2025 07:17:24
NVIDIA App version: 11.0.4.526
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 11 Home, Version 10.0.26100
DirectX runtime version: DirectX 12
Driver: Game Ready Driver - 581.29 - Wed Sep 10, 2025
CPU: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-11400F @ 2.60GHz - Turbo - 4.4GHz
RAM: 16.0 GB
Storage (4): SSD - 931.5 GB,SSD - 238.5 GB,+2 more

Graphics card
GPU processor: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050
Direct3D feature level: 12_1
CUDA cores: 2304
Graphics clock: 1477 MHz
Resizable bar: Yes
Memory data rate: 14.00 Gbps
Memory interface: 96-bit
Memory bandwidth: 168.024 GB/s
Total available graphics memory: 14294 MB
Dedicated video memory: 6144 MB GDDR6
System video memory: 0 MB
Shared system memory: 8150 MB
Video BIOS version: 94.07.91.00.65
Bus: PCI Express x8 Gen3
Display (1): LG Electronics LG TV SSCR2
Resolution: 4k x 2k, 1920 x 1080 (recommended)
Refresh rate: 60 Hz
Desktop colour depth: Highest (32-bit)
HDCP: Supported

I tested at an early mission where you go and defend the Terran defence base and you're asked to draw the xenons close to the base so the turrets will fire on them. For me it was running terrible and unplayable which is why I used it to try all the tweaks out. The frames dropped from 40 to 60 down to 10 and stuck between 10 and 24 during the battle.

My in-game settings are:

DLSS - Auto Quality
No Vsync
Borderless Windowed
1920 x 1080
Frame limit = 30
FOV = 65

Graphics on Custom
Texture - High
Shadows - low
Soft shadows - on
SSAO - off
Glow quality - low
UI Glow - low
UI Glow intensity - 10
Chromatic Aberration - off
Distortion - off
Parallax - low
Lod - 20
Effects - 20
Radar - low
Screen ref - off
Probes - off
Vol fog - off
Cockpit ref - 0
High qual capture - off

NVIDIA Control Panel Settings

Global - Shader cache size = 100gb

X4 settings altered
Anisotropic filtering - off
Anti aliasing gamma - off
CUDA GPUs - All
CUDA fallback - Driver
Low latency - off (tried on and turned off again)
Open GL compatibility - Prefer performance
Open GL rendering - NVIDIA RTX 3050
Power management - prefer max performance
Texture filtering anisotropic sample- off
Texture filtering neg LOD bias - Clamp
Texture filtering quality - high perfomance
Texture filtering trilinear opt - on
Vsync - off
Virtually prerendered frames - use app setting
Vulkan/OpenGL present method - prefer layered on DXGI swapchain

These settings really helped my setup.

Other tweaks:

I use Lossless Scaling (bought on Steam £6)
LSFG 3.1
Fixed (adaptive works too)
Multiplier = 2 (which makes game run as 60fps)
Flowscale = 50
Performance = on

Capture - DXGI
Queue - 1
Cursors - all off
No Scaling
Rendering - Default
Max frame latency - 2
HDR - on
G-sync - off (I don't have it)
Draw fps - on
GPU and Display - Auto

This makes the game run very smooth for me. It can produce some artifacts if the frame rate drops a lot but with everything tweaked I don't get that issue much anymore.

Process Lasso
I read to disable threaded optimisation but when I tested this in the mission I mentioned above the game runs better with all cores being used. I have an i511400F. Lasso definitely helps. I put all the usual/main settings for X4 to high priority. All cores on affinity, bitsum highest performance power, boost always on, foreground boosting on for X4 and Lossless Scaling and leave it do the rest, making sure Probalance and Smart Trim are enabled.

Mem Reduct
I believe this helps a lot too. It cleans the memory and you can get it to auto clean every few minutes. Without it, when playing X4 my 16gb memory is almost always utilised. With mem reduct it stays to around 50 - 60%.

Finally, I tweaked my bios 2 x TPD CPU wattages to 100 from 65, and use Intel XTU (had to disable memory integrity in win 11 to use it) to optimise power and current limits. My CPU isn't great but with those tweaks it has a bit more oommfff to it I have a stock cooler so stayed in safe zone with the TDP but if using a better cooler system those levels could go up to 175 watts. I also undervolted to 0.05v in bios settings for CPU Core/Cache Voltage.

These tweaks really helped me stay in the game and enjoy the more demanding moments. After doing the Terran defence base mission it progressed to following the Spear of Odin command ship to go wipe out the Yaki and right now I'm in Tharka's Cascade XV having a massive battle with the Xenons at mostly 30fps which I could not have done without tweaking my rig.

Hope this info helps others who might have a similar experience Good luck out there!

[alt3rn1ty]

Process Lasso
I read to disable threaded optimisation but when I tested this in the mission I mentioned above the game runs better with all cores being used. I have an i511400F. Lasso definitely helps. I put all the usual/main settings for X4 to high priority.

My bold - I do not use Process Lasso but does it support using AboveNormal instead? - Just humour me, but you may find the games FPS is just as good as when you have set the prority to High.

The reason I suggest this is because setting the CPU priority more than is needed risks badly holding up essential background processes on windows. Setting at Realtime greatly increase the chance of the system just crashing, and interrupts things like mouse input, keyboard input, and background disk flushing, all of which the game needs to be able to do. High holds up some important windows background tasks, but AboveNormal will give the game .exe enough priority to set it above whatever Windows is doing to slow down the game.

Instead of Process Lasso, you can also set the CPU Priority permanently: Open the spoiler ..

Spoiler

Show

Create a .bat file in the same folder as your X4.exe ..
You will need to enable seeing dot three letter file name extensions
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... dbbc75cb01
.. You can create a text file, then rename its three letter file name extension from .txt to .bat
Edit this .bat file with notepad.
All you want it to contain is the following line :

Code: Select all

Start /ABOVENORMAL X4.exe

Save it (as mentioned in the same folder as X4.exe). Now right click it and choose Show more options, then choose Send to Desktop (Shortcut), screenshot - https://i.imgur.com/fkOJfK9.png
Now you can launch the game from this new desktop icon, and it will have AboveNormal priority (Alt tab out and check it out in Task Manager).

[Commander_Lock]

Process Lasso
I read to disable threaded optimisation but when I tested this in the mission I mentioned above the game runs better with all cores being used. I have an i511400F. Lasso definitely helps. I put all the usual/main settings for X4 to high priority.

My bold - I do not use Process Lasso but does it support using AboveNormal instead? - Just humour me, but you may find the games FPS is just as good as when you have set the prority to High.

The reason I suggest this is because setting the CPU priority more than is needed risks badly holding up essential background processes on windows. Setting at Realtime greatly increase the chance of the system just crashing, and interrupts things like mouse input, keyboard input, and background disk flushing, all of which the game needs to be able to do. High holds up some important windows background tasks, but AboveNormal will give the game .exe enough priority to set it above whatever Windows is doing to slow down the game.

Instead of Process Lasso, you can also set the CPU Priority permanently: Open the spoiler ..

Spoiler

Show

Create a .bat file in the same folder as your X4.exe ..
You will need to enable seeing dot three letter file name extensions
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... dbbc75cb01
.. You can create a text file, then rename its three letter file name extension from .txt to .bat
Edit this .bat file with notepad.
All you want it to contain is the following line :

Code: Select all

Start /ABOVENORMAL X4.exe

Save it (as mentioned in the same folder as X4.exe). Now right click it and choose Show more options, then choose Send to Desktop (Shortcut), screenshot - https://i.imgur.com/fkOJfK9.png
Now you can launch the game from this new desktop icon, and it will have AboveNormal priority (Alt tab out and check it out in Task Manager).

Hi!
Yes Lasso does let you choose above normal also. It's pretty good and has lots of options and useful functions. I was using the free version but bought the full for around £15 as I think it's worth having, especially as I'm not very skilled at altering windows functions. Thanks for the heads-up on the bat file. It's good to know.

Unfortunately I'm still getting stutters when the npc vid comm pops up, typically with Dal and Delilah and it's worse when they are chatting one after the other. The stutters are much better since the tweaks but not totally eradicated which is a shame hoping to find a total fix for it but if it's down to my specs then I can just accept it and hope they dont pop up and talk too much going forward

[alt3rn1ty]

Unfortunately I'm still getting stutters when the npc vid comm pops up, typically with Dal and Delilah and it's worse when they are chatting one after the other. The stutters are much better since the tweaks but not totally eradicated which is a shame hoping to find a total fix for it but if it's down to my specs then I can just accept it and hope they dont pop up and talk too much going forward

The vid comm is notorious for affecting game performance for a lot of people.
Try a couple of changes to your settings:
DLSS - Balanced (I did comparison screenshots of all the modes when this was introduced, and the difference between the higher setting and this is barely noticeable, and the Auto setting can have hiccups imho)
Frame limit = 60 (I only suggest this because you should be able to get better than 30 on your machine)
Texture - Low (This game is not like other games where they cut down to a lower MipMap scale of texture, its selective in how it reduces texture load so the further away an object is the game selectively cuts down bump maps etcetera where they are harder to notice anyway, so you will not notice any visual difference up close and its cutting down on how much the game has to load in the background .. which is relevant to vid comms aswell because that little vid comm has to load in background assets from where the NPC is).

[Commander_Lock]

Unfortunately I'm still getting stutters when the npc vid comm pops up, typically with Dal and Delilah and it's worse when they are chatting one after the other. The stutters are much better since the tweaks but not totally eradicated which is a shame hoping to find a total fix for it but if it's down to my specs then I can just accept it and hope they dont pop up and talk too much going forward

The vid comm is notorious for affecting game performance for a lot of people.
Try a couple of changes to your settings:
DLSS - Balanced (I did comparison screenshots of all the modes when this was introduced, and the difference between the higher setting and this is barely noticeable, and the Auto setting can have hiccups imho)
Frame limit = 60 (I only suggest this because you should be able to get better than 30 on your machine)
Texture - Low (This game is not like other games where they cut down to a lower MipMap scale of texture, its selective in how it reduces texture load so the further away an object is the game selectively cuts down bump maps etcetera where they are harder to notice anyway, so you will not notice any visual difference up close and its cutting down on how much the game has to load in the background .. which is relevant to vid comms aswell because that little vid comm has to load in background assets from where the NPC is).

Oh wow! I tried what you recommended (apart from the 60fps) and it seems to have fixed it! I had Dal call a few times, comm'd a couple of random npcs, and accepted the various terraforming missions to bring up the video comm parts, and didn't have even 1 stutter!!! Amazing! Thanks a lot. Those two settings have done the trick. It feels like I tried everything other than those

I have it capped at 30 because lossless scaling doubles it and my TV is only 60hz. It feels and looks great now and without those annoying stutters I'm finally free to continue enjoying the game. Thanks again you're a star!