Frame Generation - really nice for watching epic battles

[Scoob]

Hey all,

I recently moved from a 3070 to a 5070Ti, so of course I was going to play around with Frame Generation. For X4, I'd say it works really well, but it of course has its down sides too. The obvious Elephant in the room is input lag, it can be pretty horrible. So, I'd certainly not recommend using frame generation in otherwise low-fps scenarios if you're flying a fighter yourself. Secondly, I do notice a degree of ghosting alongside the input lag.

However, where Frame Generation really shines is during the later game stages. For me, this consists of being very much a Fleet commander rather than a Pilot. I'm standing on the Bridge of my ships, or using an external view, watching battles unfold. Currently, I'm running a modified game - ReEmergence + others - which REALLY ramps up the fleet combat. It's during such battles that FPS can take a significant hit. I'm just watching said battles while giving orders, so 30, or even 20 fps in extreme situations, wasn't a problem as I wasn't flying anything myself. However, it wasn't the most comfortable thing to watch either.

Now, with Frame Generation enabled, battles that'd drop into the 30's, now stay at a very nice "120" fps. It very much looks smooth and, generally, visually remain fine when just looking around. I can feel the input lag if I walk around the bridge during a heavy battle, sure, but as I'm just watching how things play out, it's still a pretty nice experience.

So, what settings am I using? Well, I have stuff mostly on the highest settings while playing at 1440p. I have my fps limited to 120fps - this is what my Monitor is set to, any higher and HDR is disabled. HDR looks great. I set nVidia DLSS to "On" of course, along with Frame Generation set to 3x. Dynamic Frame Generation I set to off. As all it ever does is HALF my frame rate it seems. A legit non-generated fps of 120 goes directly to 60 if I enable it. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong lol. Finally, I turn Super Resolution off as this GPU doesn't need any assistance for "just" that fake 120fps.

With these settings, battles that would reliably see me down into the 30's, stay at that fake-but-nice-looking 120fps. I did try using 4x Frame Gen too, but it didn't really enhance the experience. Perhaps it might in even larger battles - say if fps would normally drop in to the 20s. I'll try it when I want to watch one.

I will say that, during said larger battles, CPU load still drops off a cliff, but at least the GPU is maintaining a nice frame rate.

In summary, when configured appropriately, Frame Generation is GREAT for watching the show. It's not so great if you want to fully take part in a larger battle. Flying a Destroyer, you're probably just fine. However, if you want to play in a nimble fighter, the input lag is likely to feel pretty horrible.

Anyway, thought I'd share my experience.

[Buzz2005]

thnx for this, good for my wallet but with this info im not changing my gpu, I want to be in the big fights

have a very similar system to yours 5800x3d and 6750xt amd gpu, big fights go to 20,30 but with me in them flying around, it's not choopy so don't have a problem getting involved but it does have those stop lags often

if frame gen has very noticeable input lag I see no point to change it

did you try to put framegen2x? wouldn't that lessen the input lag but still give double the fps?

[Scoob]

thnx for this, good for my wallet but with this info im not changing my gpu, I want to be in the big fights

have a very similar system to yours 5800x3d and 6750xt amd gpu, big fights go to 20,30 but with me in them flying around, it's not choopy so don't have a problem getting involved but it does have those stop lags often

if frame gen has very noticeable input lag I see no point to change it

did you try to put framegen2x? wouldn't that lessen the input lag but still give double the fps?

I'm particularly sensitive to low-fps, so anything below about 45 fps gives me eye strain and a headache if I watch for too long. 30 and especially 20 fps is just too low for even watching a battle for any length of time, let alone flying a fighter or something. 30fps input lag is truly awful. Unplayable for me IF I'm doing something where lag directly impacts me - like flying a Fighter in combat.

I do think I've got the settings just right for my system and preferences now though. Previously, I'd generally just set a 60fps frame limit target for the game and be quite happy with that. It didn't feel as nice as a 120fps limit - which even my prior 3070 could generally manage just fine, outside of battles - but it was perfectly fine.

When configured right, in X4 at least, Frame Gen isn't adding any more perceptible input lag - certainly not that I can notice. Without it, in a given scenario, I might be getting 30fps in a large battle, with 30fps of input lag making it horrible to Fly a Fighter for example. That's why I was generally content to watch and give orders, perhaps flying a Destroyer myself, as they're sluggish anyway. With frame gen, I'd still be getting that same 30fps lag, BUT all the visuals are smoother. Walking forwards on a platform or ship feels smooth, if I turn my view quickly I feel the lag. However, adapting to turn a bit more smoothly, things feel a lot better.

Regarding frame gen settings. At 120fps game limit, Frame Gen x2 means the game is actually running at 60fps, with half the frames being fake to hit that 120fps target. As mentioned, I'm pretty happy with 60fps in general from an input-feel perspective, and visuals look just fine. However if, say in a busy battle, frame rate drops to 90, that's when I had a problem. With Frame Gen x2 at 90fps reported, the game is actually running at 45fps - this is the point at which I start to feel it. Visually, perfectly fine - nice even - but the feel is off. To maintain that 120fps target, I moved to 3x Frame Gen. However, from what I'm seeing, x3 means up to 3x. So, if 2x is enough to hit that frame rate target of 120 (2x60 - aka 1 real, one fake) it'll run at 2x. However if things get particularly busy, say fps goes to 40, it can still hit that 120fps target by generating an extra frame - 3x40 = 120. Now, I can feel it when this happens, depending on what I'm doing. I've mostly bee standing on the bridge of one of my ships, dashing back and forth to look out of Windows to observe the firefights. Or perhaps going external view to focus on a particular ship.

I've been playing around with things a bit since getting the 5070Ti, and I'm currently pretty darn pleased with how frame gen is working. It doesn't help in situations - aka large battles - where you begin to feel in the input lag as well as see the low fps. You're still going to feel it. However, it really does help a lot with the visuals. I mean, I've been at a solid 120fps during really large battles. I'll give an example, modified game for more chaos:

I have a Battleship fleet consisting of six Battleships running a Protect Position near a Gate to Xenon space. Each ships has dozens of Turrets - beyond what you see in Vanilla outside of perhaps a Raptor. In addition, I have two Colossus Carrier Groups, each deploying 60 Intercept fighters. That's over 120 ships deployed in combat from my side alone. Then we have the Xenon. They regularly send a few dozen Fighter / Corvette class ships through the gate. Last night I had a Xenon I, several other Destroyers and at least 40 Xenon fighters arrive in-sector. This kicked off a HUGE furball. I'm standing on the bridge of the lead Battleship, watching huge volleys of Fire from it and other battleships. Large Turrets engaging capitals, with Medium turrets having a pop at everything. I'm also seeing the trails of dozens of my Fighters as they streak towards their next target, then literally thousands of projectiles spewing out from them. It's spectacular, and all happing at a visually-pleasing 120fps.

It's a bit weird really. When initially trying it - that auto settings SUCKS - the experience was HORRIBLE. No better fps - worse even - with absolutely awful input lag. Unplayable. However, after a little tinkering, I've gotten a really nice balance. I've not gained, or lost, anything in terms of Input Lag when things get really busy. I have however gained silky-smooth visuals. Being able to witness these epic fights play out at 120fps is something I never thought would be a thing. Ever. I was hopeful for Frame Gen - but ONLY for X4, little interest in other titles which natively run great - but worried about the input lag. In X4 though, it's not really a problem for me. Sure, I've LOVE 120fps with 120fps input responsiveness too - when things aren't busy, the game can readily natively do that and it feels very smooth indeed. While initially perhaps, seeing high fps visuals but feeling a low fps input lag is a bit odd, as things still look really smooth and as long as you're not mouse waggling like a mad-man. The overall experience is actually better than I expected.

X4 has always been the ONLY title where fps became bad. No amount of game fettling would help. There seems to be a saturation point - certain number of ships / projectiles / whatever - where both CPU and GPU load tank, alongside the frame rate. When these large battles get busy, I still see my CPU load drop markedly, however, Frame Gen fills in the gaps so things remain nice visually. There's still lag, but given the choice of input lag AND low fps, or Input lag and HIGH fps, I'm going for the latter.

Outside of X4, I was perfectly happy with the 3070 - still a great GPU, despite the 8GB VRAM "limitation". However, the market being what it is, concerns over 8GB VRAM, and some excellent black Friday pricing, I got the 5070Ti. I was also keen to try Frame Gen for myself. Generally, I can't see myself using it, not until the 5070Ti is old and struggling perhaps. However, in X4, it's a game-changer. I don't play many games currently - X4, Elite Dangerous, Fallout 4, Skyrim (yep, still going!), Empyrion and a couple of others. So, X4 is a large percentage of my Gaming time overall.

You know, I bet nVidia could have enabled some form of limited frame gen on 30 series. - I know people have forced it, with mixed results. However, that likely would have been enough for me to remain on the 3070 - something nVidia didn't want lol. Still, I'm happy with my purchase. Not cheap, plus I bought a water block for it too. However, I've not treated myself to any PC bits in like three years or there abouts. So, I was over due. I ideally wanted to wait for 60 series, or perhaps 50 super series for the extra VRAM, but the current market sorta forced my hand a little.

In summary: Frame Gen is genuinely good in X4. It does nothing but enhance the experience overall. The input lag that was always there at low fps is still there, but the smooth visuals actually make it not feel quite so bad. Now, in a title where quick reflexes were essential, I don't think Frame Gen would be as nice. However, in X4 it works very well indeed. I went in to this wanting to try Frame Gen for myself, but quite sceptical - I didn't get a 50 series for the Frame Gen. Indeed, I expect a new GPU to have the power to render stuff natively. Which it can. However, X4 really is a bit of a special case, due to the how, why and when performance drops. Frame Gen quite literally fills the gaps nicely.

If you're happy with where you are, no reason to spend money unless it pleases you to do so. I'd rather have NOT spent any money, and stuck with the 3070 another year or so. However, I think I made the right choice for me. Considering how much of my game time is X4, and how much nicer X4 is for me now. Worth it. Ask me again when my credit card bill arrives though lol.

I'm not flying a Fighter myself, but I am moving around on the Bridge and perhaps I'm just getting use to the Frame Gen "feel", but it's not that jarring. If I turn smoothly, it feels fine. If I jerk the mouse around 180 degree suddenly, I feel the lag more. Considering that in a ship, I'm going to be more smooth with turning anyway, based on ship characteristics, I don't think being in a Fighter will be so bad. Going to try it later.

[Scoob]

You know, I've been really happy with frame generation in larger battles I'm generally just watching. I've even taken part in a few of these battles with myself in a Fighter. Sure, there's input lag - no more than before - but the visuals remain nice and smooth. I was a total convert to the Frame Gen is great club, for X4 at least.

Playing this evening, another large battle and.... slideshow. Why has it stopped working? It was quite literally so great at 3x frame gen. At 3x frame gen (both for 120fps target) there's a little more input lag, sure, but still great for the visuals. However, right now, I'm seeing fps into the 20's with 3x frame gen! That implies that "real" frames are going as low as 7 fps... something that just doesn't happen natively. 20's in epic battles, sure, but 3x would manage a visually-smooth 60 previously. Perhaps, like with the base game, going beyond a certain point of epicness (when it comes to the size of the battle) still tanks things. However, after many hours of play, this is a first for me since enabling FG and getting it working well.

Interestingly, going from 3x to 4x Frame Gen doesn't help really. The fps gyrates between 50fps and 30fps, so it's clearly still struggling.

Going back to native - no DLSS, no frame gen - is seeing FPS drop as low as 12 - 15, suggesting that, typically, FG 4x should be giving around 48-50fps, but it's actually far less than that. Wonder why it's struggling is in this particular instance?

Framerate did recover a bit. I switched my view from one ship that was part of the battle to another and now, at 3x, I'm not going lower than 60fps (up to about 80), so things look fairly smooth. The instant the shooting stopped though, I'm back to 120fps solid. There are still LOTS of ships in the area - a MASSIVE fleet came through the gate, quickly destroying all defenders - but it's the shooting that hurts fps the most... and freaks out Frame Gen beyond a certain level it seems.

[LameFox]

Frame gen does ironically have a performance cost, so you might get more frames but your base framerate is lower. I didn't like it much when I tried it personally because although it's smoother I do kinda need those "real" frames, often more than I need smoothness.

I actually found it felt nicest when I already had a decent framerate, funny enough.

[Scoob]

Frame gen does ironically have a performance cost, so you might get more frames but your base framerate is lower. I didn't like it much when I tried it personally because although it's smoother I do kinda need those "real" frames, often more than I need smoothness.

I actually found it felt nicest when I already had a decent framerate, funny enough.

Yeah, I'm aware that there's a potential performance impact. However, up until that point, things had been working great.

Regarding my issues last night, I'm now pretty sure it was linked to a known issue in Windows 11. I had the performance tank again a little later, then the game crashed - which is very very rare these days. However, it was not X4.exe that caused the crash, rather it was dwm.exe (Desktop Window Manager) that threw a wobbly. A known issue with Windows 11. I went through the usual steps to ensure the integrity of my Windows 11 install. Then, upon reloading that save, things played out perfectly. Solid fps, no problems.

From my research, it seems that issues with dwm.exe aren't that rare with Windows 11. Something screws up, but can be fixed with manual commands - at least I assume it's the steps I took that fixed it, just your usual DISM stuff. Windows doesn't know it's broken its self lol. Looking through various reports of this, a common response was to "roll back to Windows 10", which doesn't suffer from the issue. Obviously that's not really an option any more... though, as an aside, my Windows 10 machines are still getting regular security updates. I've not signed up to any extended support and I certainly don't use a Microsoft account... go figure.

I did notice that X4.exe was using a LOT of RAM - my 32GB was almost totally full after a while. Total Private Bytes (which includes paged stuff) was over 36GB at one point. However, after "fixing" whatever W11 had broken, game played perfectly. I did wonder what might happen if my RAM got totally full - it really was just a few hundred MB from being full - but I guess Windows got better at managing things, as RAM usage dropped slightly. This is GOOD as it shows the game quite literally using all it can, but NOT crashing out when RAM gets full. Note that I run X4.exe as High Priority, which does see it use RAM more aggressively.

So, there was an extra variable affecting my experience with Frame Gen yesterday, a widely-reported issue with dwm.exe in Windows 11.

[Scoob]

One other artifact I've notices now I'm using Frame Generation - X4.exe is using a LOT more RAM than it previously would. It was fairly typical to be X4.exe using 20GB+ RAM (when run at High Priority) and that was fine. However, it's often now using 32GB+ with a lot more than that paged out to the swap file. I'm actually getting low memory situations, and the resultant issues that can cause.

Was playing just now and I started to get large fps drops. I alt-tabbed out and saw that I had low memory warnings in the event log. Indeed, PC was struggling to do regular desktop stuff and freezing. I ended up doing a restart.

Note that in these recent tests, I'm running the Star Wars Interworlds Mod, which pushes things a LOT harder than vanilla, or even a regular modded game such as ReEmergence.

As a test, I'm lowering game priority back to Normal rather than High. Previously, if High Priority wasn't used, the game would often not use enough RAM, which also led to regular low-fps situations / judders and memory was swapped in and out.

It's funny though, prior to playing with Frame Gen, I've never had the system run out of RAM like this, outside of weird bugs.

[alt3rn1ty]

You know, I've been really happy with frame generation in larger battles I'm generally just watching. I've even taken part in a few of these battles with myself in a Fighter. Sure, there's input lag - no more than before - but the visuals remain nice and smooth. I was a total convert to the Frame Gen is great club, for X4 at least.

Did you try the setting in NVidia Control Panel "Low latency Mode" set to ON (dont use Auto, its awful like the DLSS auto mode).

Playing this evening, another large battle and.... slideshow. Why has it stopped working? It was quite literally so great at 3x frame gen. At 3x frame gen (both for 120fps target) there's a little more input lag, sure, but still great for the visuals. However, right now, I'm seeing fps into the 20's with 3x frame gen! That implies that "real" frames are going as low as 7 fps... something that just doesn't happen natively. 20's in epic battles, sure, but 3x would manage a visually-smooth 60 previously. Perhaps, like with the base game, going beyond a certain point of epicness (when it comes to the size of the battle) still tanks things. However, after many hours of play, this is a first for me since enabling FG and getting it working well.

I also found that at 120 FPS Cap, which is why I previously (other topic) suggest 180 FPS cap which works great for me. Though I know for you it disables HDR on your setup which is something else you want. Think its going to be a toss up between the two.

Edit: Oh and CPU Priority at High will impact windows badly, try it at Above Normal, thats seems to be the sweetspot for me and this game.

[Virtualaughing]

Frame gen does ironically have a performance cost, so you might get more frames but your base framerate is lower. I didn't like it much when I tried it personally because although it's smoother I do kinda need those "real" frames, often more than I need smoothness.

I actually found it felt nicest when I already had a decent framerate, funny enough.

Yeah i have seen a vid. Gamernexus or jayz IDR. Frame generation does not mean smooth gameplay. Maybe they can give you more cinematic feeling but then the interaction rate will reveal their "fake-ness".

Now imagine that I sill play this game with i3570k sata ssd, ddr3 1600cl9, rx 580. After few hours i have to reload the entire game because the memory will gather leftovers n such.
I can fairly say that so much improved in the game since release. Quality control is more fluid.

[Scoob]

Did you try the setting in NVidia Control Panel "Low latency Mode" set to ON (dont use Auto, its awful like the DLSS auto mode).

Yes, I have low latency mode on. However, I will be sure to double-check that as I updated from the recent NV hotfix drivers to the latest release driver a couple of days ago. I've noticed that sometimes settings can change / be reset to defaults after a hotfix driver is used. I guess because they're less well tested than a regular release driver.

I also found that at 120 FPS Cap, which is why I previously (other topic) suggest 180 FPS cap which works great for me. Though I know for you it disables HDR on your setup which is something else you want. Think its going to be a toss up between the two.

Edit: Oh and CPU Priority at High will impact windows badly, try it at Above Normal, thats seems to be the sweetspot for me and this game.

I did actually try a 180 frame cap, but it didn't seem to be any better. That, with HDR being so nice, it was an easy choice. Generally just using 2x is perfectly fine.

It's funny, running X4.exe as high priority used to be the key to getting solid performance when using the Star Wars Interworlds mod - it's about as heavy as mods get. I did lots of testing back and forth between high and normal at the time. High allowed the game to use more RAM and removed the occasional severe hitching I'd been seeing. This was all with Windows 10 though. Seems that Windows 11 is far better at making use of RAM natively. Interestingly though perhaps, when just flying around, RAM usage was no more than previously. However, as soon as combat started - even a fairly small battle - I was seeing X4.exe's RAM usage going up by about 30MB every second.

I might try Above Normal, however, Windows 11 seems to make far better use of System RAM in X4 than Windows 10 does at Normal priority. Will likely tinker so more though. That was the thing, originally. I'd see excessive hitching in the game after playing for a short while. I checked, and could clearly see how X4.exe was having stuff paged out to disk, which it then needed again right away. Game was refusing to use more than about 8GB of actual RAM for the game. Setting High Priority for X4.exe transformed things. Game using 20GB+ during a longer play-session, no noticeable hitching. Infinitely better. I actually had a test save I was using, load it with the game at Normal Priority. Slide show. Under 5fps. Unplayable. X4.exe at High Priority and reload that save, solid 60fps. Smooth. A shocking difference. This was quite some time ago though.

Yeah i have seen a vid. Gamernexus or jayz IDR. Frame generation does not mean smooth gameplay. Maybe they can give you more cinematic feeling but then the interaction rate will reveal their "fake-ness".

Now imagine that I sill play this game with i3570k sata ssd, ddr3 1600cl9, rx 580. After few hours i have to reload the entire game because the memory will gather leftovers n such.
I can fairly say that so much improved in the game since release. Quality control is more fluid.

One of the things I noticed when tinkering with the Auto Frame Gen setting is it gives a massive lag spike when it turns on. I.e. I'll see a solid "real" 120fps in a given situation, lovely and smooth, decent input responsiveness. As things get busy (battle) I'll see that fps drop into the 90's and still be nice. However, there will be a large hitch in the fps, but it'll be reporting 120fps. Of course it's just switched to a real 60fps for the fake 120fps. That transition is so very jarring - at least in X4 it is - that it makes the feature totally pointless. Best to lock-in 120fps at 2x FG (for example) and suffer sub-60fps latencies if it dips below that. If I'm in a prolonged battle - quite common in SWI - I'll just pop FG up to 3x. So, game is natively managing 40 to give 120. Fine for watching a battle, less so if I want to fight in anything other than a Destroyer or other large, cumbersome ship.

To be clear, my current testing is in a Star Wars Interworlds modified game, which is so very much more demanding than a regular game during battles. I'm having epic fleet-on-fleet battles in my current ReEmergence modified game, and don't drop below that "fake" 120fps very often at all. Never if I use 3x Frame Gen (with a bit more input lag). SWI though is exceptionally taxing.

[Drusas]

5800X3D
5070 Ti
32GB RAM
FG 2x and capped at 120FPS.
Dyn FG off.
Very High graphical settings.

No mods. All DLC's except Hyperion.
9 in game days into playthrough.

Game plays good and not noticing lag as such. But more like stutters sometimes in combat. Sometimes a modest sized fight can stutter and other times a larger battle can be smooth and stutter free.

The stutter "seems" to accompany the red target box drawing around new targets.

Any tips for resolving these stutters?

Googling "x4 and Nvidia Low latency mode" and the consensus appears to be to leave it OFF.

[Scoob]

Looks like we have similar specs.

I'm only really getting the stutters in combat. When combat kicks off, I'm seeing X4.exe's RAM usage absolutely sky-rocket. It's been slightly better (less aggressive) since I changed from High to Normal Priority, but it still happens. Also, this issue seems vastly exaggerated when using the SWI Mod - likely simply because it does add a lot more ships, combat, and weapons. In my regular ReEmergence modified game, I'm not getting the same issues.

Note: I've "fixed" excessive stutter during battles by saving, exiting the game, re-launching and re-loading. It's almost like there's an extreme memory leak during heavy combat.

Last night, after some battles, I went off doing other stuff. Game was using half the RAM vs. what it was on combat, and fps remained a solid 120 (2x FG).

I might try the next battle without FG enabled, and see if that make any difference. It's a fact that Frame Gen uses more VRAM, but I wonder if that translates to more system RAM usage too. I'd not expect it, as I thought FG was all internal to the GPU.

Bottom line: Big Battles, where Frame Gen can be really nice to have, is also a situation where I see VERY heavy RAM usage. Even more extreme when the game is modified, but not exclusive to it, it seems.

[Scoob]

Did some more tinkering with settings...

I've set the game FPS limit to 180 FPS while using 3x Frame Generation. I've done this while preserving HDR mode. Basically, the Monitor is not going above 120hz - HDR on - but the game will do 180hz with vSync off. So, Windows is applying a hard 120hz limit, but the game doesn't know that. In theory, as silly as it sounds, this gives me some "spare frames" to hopefully keep things smooth-looking when real fps goes below 60. At 40 "real" fps, I should still generally see 120 and at, urgh, 20 "real" fps I should still see 60. Of course, it'll feel horrible at such a low fps, but I'm interested in seeing what it does to the visuals as I watch a huge fight.

Just tinkering more than anything, if a quick setting change makes a large-scale battle - and they really are rather huge in SWI - play out more smoothly, I'm all for it. It's a matter of moments to tweak the settings after all.

Btw: as I've observed X4.exe using crazy amounts of RAM - I have 32GB and it all gets used up when there's a fight going on - I do have a matching set of the same RAM in another PC. I was thinking of temporarily robbing that RAM - taking the gamer up to 64GB total - to see what happens. Caveat: AMD CPU's work "best" with just two sticks, especially if said sticks are dual-rank, like mine are. Doubling up can cause stability issues with faster memory kits. Running at JDEC, likely perfectly fine, but of course XMP/DOCP/whatever the latest acronym is are overclocked memory, exceeding the recommended specs. Usually just works(tm) with two sticks, not so much with four. Good that I can test this prior to spending any money... spent way to much of late as it is lol.

[alt3rn1ty]

Good news. I think I remember Maria (or one of the devs) during the beta introducing Frame Gen, that the game will take up as much memory as it needs out of the available pool .. cant remember if that was VRam or Ram or both, but definitely mentioned. During that beta I went from my old laptop to the current one and did notice that the new machine with both more VRAM + RAM was being utilised more. No great amount of testing done in this regard though, I was just pleased as punch the new machine handled X4 a lot better

[Scoob]

I've played more with frame gen and, for me, the "best" setting for solid performance I've found is quite literally to set 4x and disable the frame rate limit entirely. This will see the game running at a reported 300 - 450 fps much of the time, more if there's not much going on. However, the GPU will not go above 80% load, so there's some sort of cap. GPU rarely goes over 40c (water cooled) during gaming, Frame Gen doesn't appear to heat it up in that regard - it doesn't appear to be stressful. The impact of all those extra frames is that when things do get busy - large battles - you'll notice the real fps drop far less. I personally can see the obvious input lag, but when simply observing a large battle, things play out smoothly.

However, large battles + Frame Gen = RAM gets gobbled up really quickly! Teleporting away - somewhere quiet - will see the game recover some RAM, but less than you'd think. A quick Save / Reload cycle (best to exit the game between) will free up loads of RAM. I've read numerous times this is an artefact of frame gen, which is odd as I thought it would all be in VRAM rather than RAM. Regardless, the memory used is reported as being in use by X4.exe. To be fair though, as I'm currently running the Star Wars Interworlds mod (as well as a vanilla, and a ReEmergence modified game) there have been some really large and prolonged battles. So, I'm giving it the worst-case scenario I expect.

Like every single GPU I've ever had, most games - if running long enough - will use all of it. They don't need all of it, but if it's there, why not use it. Outside of rendering the Fog / Cloud effect, the 3070 doesn't really give worse "real" frames due to how the game is restricted. However, fake frames make for a very nice "spectator mode" in those huge battles, and don't actually impact flying a ship as much as you'd think. The easiest way to instantly notice any input lag is to be on foot and turn quickly - ships simply don't turn that quickly in flight, so flying them still fells quite nice.

That said, in a huge battle where the "real" frames get into the 20's - still 80+ with the fakes - I don't personally find flying a nimble fighter that nice. Larger ships are still fine though.

It is a strange disconnect at times, getting used to seeing those smooth-looking visuals, but sensing that mouse input isn't very responsive. As mentioned, I've changed how I move around on-foot in such instances, being slower and smoother with the mouse.

[alt3rn1ty]

Your experience with Frame Gen will probably prove valuable in the next beta next year ..
viewtopic.php?t=473843

[Scoob]

Your experience with Frame Gen will probably prove valuable in the next beta next year ..
viewtopic.php?t=473843

Yeah, I did watch the Xlog - always nice to hear from Bernd - and caught that bit. That, in part, is what prompted me to update this post. I'm generally pretty happy with what Frame Gen gives. Sure, it has an obvious down-side, but I'm now able to watch those epic space battles at a nice frame rate. Never though that'd happen.