Elite Dangerous Setup Guide - Lets make it Dark Again :)

I’ve followed your setting and mod with a new rtx 2080 but even lower in PiTool 1.0. I’m getting 12-14 FPS in stations and not much better in the space. Does this sound right for this GPU or is something holding it back? My CPU and Ram should be fine at this point. GPU is up near 95-99% usage. CPU (6700k) is between 20-30% usage.

@Yata_PL

And I love the affect of making ED dark again. :+1:

That doesn’t sound right to me. Try running this tool to see if something is amiss: https://www.userbenchmark.com/

My system (i7 8700K, 16GB, 2080) is fairly similar to yours, so your benchmark should be close to this: Asus TUF Z390-PLUS GAMING (WI-FI) Performance Results - UserBenchmark

It generates an on-line report. Click on the “? in a circle” icons for more info. It spotted a memory configuration issue on my PC. I got up to a 30% framerate increase in complex areas in ED (like stations and planet surfaces).

If your benchmark is similar to mine, try reducing graphics quality in ED. Also, in ED, set Super Sampling to 1.0. You should let PiTools and SteamVR handle the SS.

1 Like

Mines not looking so good but the worse thing is a storage drive. What do you think i have to do?

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/14174532

Review this info, to see what might apply: https://www.userbenchmark.com/Faq/What-is-the-UBM-PC-status/94

Your system drive (Intel X25-M 120GB) is full (only 6GB free). This is a HUGE issue. Get rid of stuff you aren’t using (or move it to another drive). For best results, you should try to keep AT LEAST 10% free space on a drive (any drive). In this case, try for 12-18GB free space, since it’s your system drive.

Your Samsung SSD is also too full. An M.2 SSD is a great choice, however, you should always get an “NVMe” drive (if you can afford it). NVMe is a bus interface which is MUCH faster than SATA. Most M.2 slots are compatible with NVMe and SATA, but you should check your motherboard manual to be sure.

Consider getting an NVMe SSD card (of at least 512GB) and use it as your system drive. Just clone your current system drive to the new SSD. Most SSDs come with cloning software (or there’s a download link). This will GREATLY improve your boot time and applications should start a lot faster too. I’ve installed ED to my system NVMe drive and found that, in ED, dropping out of supercruise near a station didn’t kill my framerate anymore (loading asset files from disk is MUCH faster now).

It looks like your system RAM might be misconfigured. Mine was. Refer to your motherboard manual, to verify which sockets the RAM should be installed. I moved one RAM stick, to get the 30% increase I mentioned earlier. You might want to investigate your RAM timings. These can be set in the BIOS, which you can modify when you boot your PC, typically by pressing a specified key (shown on-screen) like Del or F2.

After making the changes above, run the benchmark again. Your CPU score should go up, if you’ve improved the memory performance. If it’s still low, take a look at the BIOS CPU settings and see if anything looks amiss. (Google anything you don’t understand.)

If you don’t have a motherboard manual, you can download one from any reputable motherboard manufacturer.

2 Likes

Thanks, Neal! I’ll check it out.

1 Like

never fill up a SSD to almost full.
performance turns into custard. :scream:

3 Likes

You’re welcome. I’m always glad to help another ED CMDR. o7

I just noticed something else in your report: “High background CPU usage (26%). High background CPU reduces benchmark accuracy. Find active processes with Windows task manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC).”

Did you have a browser or other app running when you ran the benchmark? If so, you should exit all apps and run the benchmark again.

If you still see a lot of background CPU usage, you might have malware on your system. Another possibility is that there have been some reports of PiTool or PiPlay constantly trying to connect to the internet. I don’t think you need to have either one running, after you’ve used PiTool to adjust your VR settings.

Also, your RAM timings are definitely sub-optimal. You have Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3000 MHz memory, but your memory is clocked @ 2133 MHz, which is only 71% of its optimal speed.

3 Likes

How do I fix the ram. I went into bios and everything looked ok. They appear to be in the correct slots. I’ll run the benchmark again with a fresh restart and everything closed.

My results improved. My ram is back up to 3000. I changed a performance setting in the bios. That must have worked. What do you think of this benchmark?

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/14175799

CPU background use is still high. Hmmm, i’ll have to figure it out.

Agreed, your benchmarks have improved quite a bit.

Your system drive is still too full, but the CPU drain is concerning. That could easily be malware. Bring up TaskManager and sort the Processes by CPU (click the CPU column header). Look at anything over 1 or 2%. Do you recognize what’s running? Does anything look suspicious?

1 Like

The highest users are Pimax with a couple between 1-2% and anti malware by Microsoft using around 15%.

My benchmarks are much better but I’m still get 14 FPS in Starports and 25 FPS in space. I also have light leakage so not sure if it’s my headset that is the bottleneck but I will say that after using the Yata PL mod, I’m am getting Elite looking beautiful in the Pimax. Like really beautiful!! Just need to get my FPS up so I can play it properly.

I will say my right panel is not rendering correctly. Giving me a slightly different image in each eye which creates a weird effect. It is probably a leaky defective panel.

Thanks again for all your help, Neal!

1 Like

Make sure and double check that you are not duplicating SS in game( HMD Q & SS should be 1.0) with PiTool and Steam Vr app. YOUR LOW FPS VALUES looks like you are oversampling to high.

Also are you ex Rift user ? Please check SS in oculus tray tool if so.

2 Likes

I have a fairly old cpu, ram, MB combo and am getting good FPS in Elite (on my Vive that is - think around 80 but will need to double check) with Yata_PLs suggested settings.

Have just run user benchmark and was quite happy with the results.

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/14182044

Most interesting is that my 8 year old CPU is 93%, not bad considering the 9900k is 120%! Been wondering when I should upgrade but not sure I would see much benefit for the money.

I have 2 1080s and had to disable SLI (and GSYNC) for the test.

EDIT: @neal_white_iii - looking at your benchmark, when I do upgrade I think i’ll just copy your setup - some excellent scores there!!

2 Likes

I have finally get myself to try @Yata_PL config. I basically left it as it is, with only changing the hud color to green, putting LensFlares quality in to 0 and changing ShadowQuality in custom.fxcfg to 3.

I noticed though that on the original screenshot with EDProfile GalaxyMap is set to “Medium”, but the values given in GraphicsConfigurationOverride.xml are for “High” settings. I originally tried to use High setting as the override would suggest, but got unbearable stuttering in the map, so I put it back to “Medium”, but then I guess the override values are ignored, right?

I also went ahead and tried 12288 texture size for the galaxy skybox (GalaxyBackground->TextureSize) as suggested by @jojon but get massive stuttering in hyperspace jump animations as well as them starting taking much longer than usual, so I put it back to 2048 as in @Yata_PL config.

Besides that I have PiTool Rendering Quality set 1.0, SteamVR global manual SS override set to 120% and in-game HMD quality and SS to 1.0. I get occasional stutter, but so far nothing that would distract me from the game enough.

On the side note, yesterday I bought Imperial Courier as I wanted something nicer to look at (compared to the old rusty Viper Mk3), and noticed two blue lights in the front tip of the cabin, which shined in the dark as some kind of gunsight. They also had randomly flashing blue auras around them, which made them quite annoying, when in space.

Then I noticed that I have accidentally turned on bloom setting. Once turned off, they still shine, but are no longer flashing, which was quite a relief as I was seriously considering selling the ship. Now if I could turn off those lights completely :slight_smile:.

3 Likes

Have both in-game hmd & SS at 1.0, PiTool at .75 and Steamvr at 92%. I even just turned off manual override and let steam adjust resolution. It still have the extremely low FPS but looks amazing. There’s gotta be a setting somewhere. Runs fine in my Vive Pro, which looks great too except more pixels!

And thank you for your mods! Really appreciate it.

Your 6 core CPU is definitely performing well, but your RAM is only running at 66% of it’s rated speed (1066 vs 1600 MHz). If you tweak the timings in your BIOS, you should see a significant improvement in your overall system speed, especially in games and other demanding tasks.

Thanks. I’m very happy with my overall performance.

I assume you mean Windows Defender. That’s way too high, unless it’s actively scanning for malware. Mine is almost always at 0%. This might be due to your nearly full drives.

I’ve been procrastinating moving my OS to a new drive but I guess I’ll have to take some time and bite the bullet. I took this OS drive from a previous computer so I would have windows.

1 Like

Yep when overclocking the CPU I had to ease back on the RAM speed to maintain system stability. But i did that years ago, will take another look.

1 Like

Have you installed also 3dMigoto mod to remove haze ? If so, you have to change so called “hunting” value to 0 in d3dx.ini file?
I read that with default “1” game stutter and ppl loosing performance…

1 Like