#Update minimum spec on store page

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

soft chasm
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At the moment it is extremely vague, listing the minimum cpu to be an "i3 2.4Ghz" which when i google, the first page is full of 10 year old cpus.

my cpu is an 8th gen i5, can do 2.4GHz and yet can not run the game anywhere near as well as it did at the start of the dive after i start mining. (and no its not the igpu being the bottleneck, i can see its usage going down as i mine, meaning its the cpu holding everything back)

the minimum spec should not be the rock bottom of what can technically run the game, but something that can give you a playable experience through most of the game.

the minimum spec should also be clearly labeled as a specific cpu or generation of cpu, so that people like me can look at it and not have to guess at what i3 the store page means.

i feel the UHD 730 is a good minimum for the gpu though, that was a good call.

Despite my frustration, i love the game and appreciate the work put into it.

burnt anvil
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I have a Ryzen 7 4700u (8 cores, 8 threads, 2.0 GHz base, 4.1 boost). I have to disable a whole lot of particles for the game to run at around 30 FPS. However, I'm reasonably certain it is a GPU bottleneck. My desktop has an RTX 3070 LHR with a Ryzen 7 5800X (8 cores, 16 threads, 3.8 GHz base, 4.7 boost), and doesn't stutter. IIRC, the game uses around 6 threads on both, and disabling particles substantially boosts the performance, which gives credit to iGPUs simply not being good enough if you expect high performance. There's a lot of particles being rendered by default, and a potato GPU probably can't cope with that.

It's probably still playable on an i3 as well, but you just need to sacrifice visual features if you don't have a GPU. ESPECIALLY if you have an Intel iGPU. AMD's iGPU is far better than Intel iGPUs (and I've used both; the difference is enormous). At least historically. Not sure about the most recent chips now that Intel is dipping into the GPU market, but 8th gen i5 predates that by a huge margin.

Without any more context, it sounds like you're asking for a minimum playable experience without having to turn anything off, and if that's the case, then you do indeed run into problems. When you disable the fancy visual stuff, the game becomes a lot more playable, and the hardware requirements tank

thorn junco
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In defense of developers everywhere, a pc meeting minimum specs should be able to run the game no problem at minimum graphics settings.

soft chasm
soft chasm
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I3 2.4GHz sounds clear, but there is much more than just gigahertz that goes into how a processor performs.

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I feel like the listed minimum gpu could be close to being accurate, but the cpu needs to be more clear as to what it actually is.

soft chasm
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Even if some i3 cpus that run at 2.4GHz can run the game, those on the first page of google cant and my much newer i5 cpus cant, therfore it needs to change

desert urchin
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What processor should I upgrade to? I've got a 5950x that runs the game poorly.

I like the idea of having a specific, known, model for minimum and recommended specs...

But you need to give up on this line of argument... Most of the stats you presented aren't even useful to the conversation.

Should we make the minimum the 5950x? Because I run 20-40 fps with that setup. And with low settings, 20-40 on my old 2.3ghz skylake.

Tldr: it's worth having a concrete minimum, but the info in your argument doesn't suggest any reasons the current description doesn't work

soft chasm
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Because my cpu is an i5 that can do at least 2.4GHz and cant run the game with over a minimum of even 10 fps with all of the graphics settings off when the listed cpu is an "i3 2.4GHz"

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Ignore everything else ive said if you want, but this is the core issue here.

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The igpu is not the bottleneck here as its usage goes down as more physics objects appear, overwhelming the cpu

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If it was, it would be at 100% usage

desert urchin
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that's why i asked for an upgrade suggestion for my 5950 😛
there are other things afoot here other than a somewhat vague min spec

pastel anvil
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There is a difference between "minimum specs", which is "if you are below that, game will not work for you" and "recommended specs", which are "you can play comfortably on these"

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Are you sure you are not confusing the two?

desert urchin
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i think a stable 24 is "minimum" in most specs... some 4k tv's run at that refresh rate, for instance...

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and i think 23 is what's used for mkv's/h264 these days... so that'd be a good aim point... as to which hardware... ... i think it might be worth resolving some of the current efficiency issues before readdressing minimum hardware specs

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still in early release... so i assume... "subject to change at any time without notice"

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but op is fairing worse than minimum currently with slightly better hardware

pastel anvil
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Our actual minimum target spec now is the Steam Deck. The specs listed should reflect that.

But, as you mentioned before, CPU clock speed is not actually a good measurement of the processing power. Technically I could list required singe-core mips, but that is not something that most players are aware they are having.

soft chasm
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Both fps and gpu usage

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Sorry, my cpu is above spec according to "i3 2.4GHz"

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Again im not expecting magical fix to make it playable.
I just want the minimum spec to be clearly labled so both the players looking at buying the game know what it is, and so you dont keep getting bothered by people like me with stuff that is clearly below spec thinking it isnt

pastel anvil
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did you check the recommended specs?

soft chasm
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Again, minimum specs usually means "most of the game is playable if you lower the graphics settinga"

pastel anvil
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also, 20-30 fps should be perfectly playable for this game and this is what the charts you are posting are showing. And I do have i3 2.4GHz on which I get a consistent 30 fps, so setting the bar lower would mean that I consider a computer that runs the game perfectly well to be below minimum specs.

soft chasm
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20 to 30 at the start of a dive yes

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But as i mine it gets to as low as 6

pastel anvil
soft chasm
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Thats as far as i saw it drop before i gave up

pastel anvil
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there is still a possiblity you have the game just misconfigured for your system

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what are your settings exactly?

soft chasm
soft chasm
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No shadows no lights no rocket plumes

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Nothing

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Dont have a screenshot of when it got to 6fps

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Those are the best i can do right now

pastel anvil
soft chasm
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Gimme a minute to see if i already posted one

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Cant turn my laptop on right now

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Apparently i didnt.
I had the sliders dragged to the left, bloom off and that dynamic whatever it was left on

pastel anvil
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fps limits?

soft chasm
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Tried both 30 and 60.
Didnt seem to change much

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Physics wise

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Tried physics fps at both 30 and 60

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All 30 did was make the autopilot jittery

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As it was explained that it kept overshooting

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The logs i sent you the other day might have included the 6fps dive

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To clarify, it got to 6fps after i did some mining

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In a somewhat dense area

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Maybe 8 large asteroids on the screen?
Many more if you count the chunks made from mining one of them

desert urchin
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i would recommend against the 30fps setting for physics. i haven't had any positive experiences with it and the rcs cycle rate is super low

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might not be able to pulse enough to work the ship

soft chasm
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I was told that by the time the next physics tick went by it would have overshot then spun back and overshot again etc.

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I simplified that quite a bit

desert urchin
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yea, i'm pretty sure that a visual minimum is 24 based on a few fps past what people can see as motion... but the number of physics calcs that need to happen in the background are .... an order of magnitude more than the visual computations.... so the slow physics tick negatively impacts the fbw ... and probably pulsed engines more than the other types

soft chasm
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Yeah.
This is why even though my igpu is under spec ive been pushing to either make the minimum spec more clear since according to "i3 2.4GHz" my cpu is at or above that, or get some answers.
Though my answer seems to he that this dev thinks that "minimum spec" means "the absolute rock bottom of what can technially run the game" when every other game ive played has used it as "it will be somewhat playable if you lower your graphics settings to minimum or close to minimum"
For example even though my old laptop was far below spec for space engineers, i could still run it at a playable framerate without too many stuttering and freezing issues.

desert urchin
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current minimums seem to be "steamdeck or equivalent" rn though

soft chasm
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Gimme a sec to check that

desert urchin
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#1055807262926585876 message

soft chasm
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Ah i see

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Sorry im wrestling with a slow old phone here

noble hull
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Iv got the same issue as GuessWho: It starts at 30~40fps.. but progressive play just tanks FPS into double digits after 10~20 minutes.

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Astrogating seems to restore most of the FPS.

sterile pendant
# noble hull Iv got the same issue as GuessWho: It *starts* at 30~40fps.. but progressive pla...

Similar for me, though I've also discovered that if I rapidly fly to a new area, it causes the number of objects and collision pairs to drop, associated with an increase in FPS. Then if I kill all momentum and wait, my FPS gradually drops, probably due to asteroids spawning out of view, because the number of objects and collision pairs increases on a decelerating curve, seeming to approach some limit.

Or something like that. I noticed it during some recent performance reporting. My machine is definitely bound by some CPU/MOBO bottleneck based on what koder said during our tests, no telling which unless some freeware magic analysis tool exists that's smarter than me. 🙂

By and large my biggest issue involves other ships showing up, but also there are enough collision pairs with a nearly-full Pelican cargo bay to lag me down to like 12 FPS (I think, this is big grain-of-salt memory, but close enough).

soft chasm
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Im assuming you were monitoring system temperatures and usage via something like hwinfo?

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Its not likely, but it could also be a power delivery problem.

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Thats if performance is far less than expected based on specs

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But then again they have not been very clear about recommended specs

ember gulch
# soft chasm

This looks odd to me. Is that four cores at 100%? Most of DV's burden is on a single core, as it comes from physics, which is not multi-threaded.

soft chasm
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Two cores four threads

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Didnt realise that was my old laptop when i sent that

ember gulch
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Still; if DV is bottlenecking you, you should see one core at 100%, and others relatively unutilized.

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Something else is eating the other core, and probably part of the one DV's running physics on, too.

soft chasm
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Sorry about that.
But im getting similar performance on my new laptop that has an 8th gen i5 with 4 cores 8 threads, so its not something else taking up the thread causing slowdowns like it probably was with the old i 5 6th gen dual core.

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I only tested the old laptop to see if it was just the new one

ember gulch
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Do you see a similar read, multiple processors at 100%?

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(Multiple cores)

soft chasm
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I only used task manager on the new one, didnt think to do per cpu usage on the overlay.
I dont recall seeing multiple threads at full usage

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Or even one thread at full usage

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I remember it spiking from half to around 80% on a thread

ember gulch
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I would update all drivers, then post a 'poor performance' bug report with logs as the #1019875051480289281 post guidelines detail. A screenshot of the performance profiler in-game would be useful, too.

soft chasm
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Ive put that in in other screenshots

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Koder has seen them, responded to them and didnt seem too concerned

noble hull
ember gulch
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I think his last post asked for a screenshot of your settings page.

soft chasm
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I remember someone saying it expected performance for my hardware

noble hull
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the game engine CAN do high performance.. it just has to be poked in just the right way

soft chasm
ember gulch
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But the logs would include your actual settings file, too.

noble hull
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most modern games run 30~60fps

soft chasm
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Sliders all the way ti the left, bloom off and the dynamic whatever it was left on

ember gulch
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Also, he's probably asleep at the moment.

soft chasm
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He has seen them and didnt seen to chase me up on it, which is why ive been pushing to either tell me what is wrong, or make it clear what the recomended specs are so that people like me can leave him alone

Screenshot_20221226-210537.jpg
ember gulch
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Actually, wait, no, he should be awake around now, probably, but may be busy. Well, it is a holiday.

soft chasm
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He also seems to see minimum specs as "rock bottom of what can technically run the game" when every other game ive played has used it as "you can play most of the game with graphics settings on or close to minimum"

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Space engineers could run fairly well on my old laptop despite being a dual core and being below specs

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Ksp too

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My cpu according to "i3 2.4GHz" is above specs

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Gpu is below spec but is also never hitting 100% usage

ember gulch
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What different developers dictate as their min spec is up to them. But coming from the days when you had to modify config.sys and autoexec.bat to profile a setup that could launch a game, min spec to me has always been "it will even start and can be functionally played" and recommended spec meaning "It's the gaming experience with at least the fidelity intended by the developer."

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I recognize that "min spec" has . . . lost meaning, since then, though.

soft chasm
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I get that point of view.
But its meaning seems to have changed based on every game ive played on my laptop that had it at far below specs

ember gulch
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I do recognize that the designation has lost meaning, over time.

soft chasm
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In the last 6 or 7 years i want to guess

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Im not trying to sound angry or highly annoyed, sorry if i do.
Ive had a long few weeks and am slightly dissapointed that i wont be able to play one of my most favorite games during the next 6 to 12 months

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There is more to it than that but ill not do that here, just know that im doing this because i really like this game and highly appreciate the effort put into it.
Im doing it more so that people below spec know that they are below spec and dont clog up the channel with stuff you cant fix and so that who are having problems and are at or above spec know its probably not their system.

ember gulch
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I haven't listened too closely to how it plays on steam deck, but I understand it runs well on that, and the min spec are based on that. Looking up, further, though, it looks like you're saying performance is fine at first, then decays? That's a whole different thing.

Loss of performance over time isn't really a min spec issue, it usually means you're bleeding performance somewhere. Either in our code, or the drivers, or maybe even heat buildup, something. The spec itself would be fine, in that case.

noble hull
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Considering every other game I play, generally takes hundreds if not thousands of hours of playtime before it hits 30fps... Im going to say its your code.

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(those games being ones where you build massive things, like space engineers, cosmoteers, factorio, etc where after hundreds/thousands of hours its processing massive amounts of physics/objects/pathfinding/etc)

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Games without such persistence rarely even dip below 30fps in the most intense scenes for me, especially 2d games

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(Cosmoteers does, but i'll give it a pass because by time it starts dipping below 30fps its trying to do pathfinding for 500 pawns)

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and thats just on my ships.. all the other ships in the universe have 100's more.

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(yes it actually simulates hundreds of people running around on your ship doing tasks, and you can watch them walk around your ship and respond to damage)

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(It also has battles involving like a dozen ships and hundreds of voxel destructable, movable asteroids)

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There is nothing delta-V is rendering or doing that should be so slow, if it was coded properly. Ie: Not using a draw call per thruster... particle. Literally taking as many draw calls to use your thrusters as the entire rest of the game combined.

ember gulch
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Well, I'll let the criticism stand, since the expert's here.

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Though I will, again, refer back to this:

image.png
noble hull
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Well, something with the game is interfacing with systems in such a way that the consistant 30FPS only lasts for less then 5 minutes on other peoples systems.

pastel anvil
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On some other people systems.

ember gulch
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I'm not denying that, but there's a lot of places that can come from. For example, we've found oodles of our problems trace back to AMD's bad handling of openGL.

There's no doubt that it could be in our code, but let's try not to be hypercritical on a Christmas Weekend.

noble hull
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Im running nvidia...

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so, ether its.. everyones handling of opengl

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or how delta-v handles opengl

ember gulch
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I gave one example, I'm not trying to accuse you of being the problem. A lot of interactions go on in the layers of hardware and software.

And I submit that "at least two people" does not indicate the problem is typical of most players.

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Obviously, we'd like to fix it, but I don't think it's so typical of the game's behavior that we need to change the standard for everybody. That might exclude steam deck, for instance, which reportedly does fine.

noble hull
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I submit that most people who play a game that dies to single digit FPS in 10 minutes, don't keep playing.

ember gulch
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I agree.

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I don't think it's a reason to tell every Steam Deck player they can't run the game when they can, though.

I might be a mite sensitive today. Hardware issues have me pissy today. Sorry.

noble hull
ember gulch
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I think if performance is bleeding, it's not really a performance issue. (Also, far as I know, the thrusters DO use partciles for both the graphics and the gas sim they produce, but don't quote me.)

If performance is DECLINING, it's again, not a min spec issue. It means we have to find out where we're bleeding performance.

noble hull
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I checked in render doc, its literally a draw call per particle. you can confirm this by just holding WASD and watching your render call count double

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Literally, 1 ships thrusters use as many draw calls as the entire rest of the game

ember gulch
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Koder will be able to comment on that, since programming isn't my contribution.

noble hull
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(and yes, performance does increase AMAZINGLY when I turn thrusters to 0)

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or just float, though that is kinda hard because some AI's always spawn when I come in on the edge of the ring

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@ember gulch I asked him, he said they are indivual game objects so that thrust can interact with things..

noble hull
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So just rendering the ship, its internal systems, the HUD is not likely the issue.

ember gulch
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No, performance issues usually come from physics, which we can't be multithreaded without rewriting godot's physics engine. Most often we see people CPU-bound.

noble hull
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I'll note iv seen collision pairs in the range of active objects^2 before

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that indicates that no broadphase culling of collision pairs is being used (at least, not to any useful degree)

ember gulch
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And yeah, the exahust from thrust are all individual particles it spits out; they create something of a gas sim so your exhaust can be deflected and act like a gas.

noble hull
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(O^2 is worse case for collision checks)

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also objects in godot, the collision layer is not checked first, so spawning thousands of exhaust objects.. meaning every exhaust object tries to collide with every other exhaust object..

ember gulch
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The more detailed stuff, again, Koder will have to comment on; everything I can relay comes from my conversations with him.

noble hull
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before the collision layer is checked and it goes 'oh nm that can't happen'

ember gulch
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Useful to put here, just don't expect any useful input from me. 🙂

noble hull
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Honestly while its a very cool idea to have a proper gas sim.. I doubt anyone would notice if the sim was instead 'instant' ray casts or on a much lower resolution (say, 1 object per 200mS, instead of having hundreds of objects per thruster)

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basically imagine your ship just shooting very short range lasers out its thrusters instead of thousands of particles. Its more or less the same thing (you can even have deflection and 2nd order behavior if you really want), but CPU wise its about 100x faster to do then spamming your poor physics engines with hundreds of objects extremely close to each other.

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(A particle effect would be rendered over the laser effect (Ray casts), potentially taking cues from it if the ray casts hit anything)

pastel anvil
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I wonder if you realize how hostile you come across now.

noble hull
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Sorry. I don't interact well with people.

pastel anvil
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I thought so. Me neither.
And don't worry, I have a coping mechanism for that.

Granted, that mechanism is "fsck it, I'm not doing anything more today", but it does prevent lasting damage 😅

Anyway, if the suggestion here is to "let's rise minimum hardware requirements to what koder's rig is right now, that will ensure everybody above minimum specs plays at 60fps" - well, this is technically possible, but I feel it's not a solution most people would welcome.

If it's about actually improving performance, this is a wrong thread.

noble hull
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Yea, sorry, im in the wrong thread.

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closes thread

soft chasm
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Which means i would need to fly completely manually, not using it at all.
If i tried to go back to the station or anywjere else via the astrogator menu the autopilot would kick in the match velocity and start freaking out again.

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Considering that most of the game is mining deep in the ring, i dont consider the 30fps at the start to represent anything about gameplay, therefore no the game doesnt run at 30 fps, it runs at 20 to 6 on my system

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I will provide more screenshots when i get home and can charge my laptop.

sterile pendant
ember gulch
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Earlier, it sounded like it started okay, then got worse and it never got better. I may have made an assumption there.

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But, we should really move it out of here. We're bloating up a thread with performance troubleshooting instead of the relevant discussion.

soft chasm
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I can do some more thorough testing when i get home, as im going from memory here

ember gulch
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Yeah, my concern is, are you bleeding performance somewhere, and it just stays bad no matter what, or is it actually connected to density? I've made a lot of incorrect assumptions myself based on expectations, so I'm ruling out alternatives.

But we should continue it in General or make a bug report thread for poor performance, and discuss there.

soft chasm
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Probably

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Once im home and have done more testing ill ping you there

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If i remember to that is, im not sure ill have a chance to sit down and relax for a while once im home.