Source
r/X4Foundations•
whtml

Can't stand it and i really tried to like it

There is just so much that i don't like compared to X3/tc. A game that i've sunken hundreds of hours into.

  • The UI is atrocious, it used to be hard to learn but now it's hard to use even if you know where things are. Everything seems to be hidden about 5 sub-menus deeper than necessary. The information content per menu is extremely low. Organizing multiple ships is enraging.
  • The AI was never great before but somehow, we made a huge step back. Using crew is a pain.
  • The ship designs are fewer, less detailed and completely uninspired compared to previous iterations. There is no variety when it comes to equipment as well.
  • Setting up different weapons on your ships used to be fun, and quick. Now there seems to be no way but to trade in your weapons for different ones and wait for that weird installation time?
  • The game seems to be completely single threaded.. in this day and age.. one thread out of 16 is at 100%, so the game sometimes lags while the CPU is actually at ~7%
  • could go on but..

I'm sorry but i don't see much of an improvement over previous games. (not counting rebirth) Everything seems tedious and much more time intensive than it should be. It feels like fighting an uphill battle against poor design more than actually going against the challenges of the game itself. In the end of the day it feels like a waste of time, no matter how much i wanted to like a new X-game.

Posted Dec 14, 2018, 7:44 PM UTC

214
Ximrats•

It's single threaded? I hadn't noticed my core usage but goddamn thatd answer a few questions. That's not really acceptable in this day and age, not at all

2
linolafettAdmin•

The game is 100% certain not single threaded!

6
whtmlOP•

It certainly does seem rather heavy on one particular thread though, while basically not showing on the others. A Ryzen 2700x should be enough, shouldn't it?

0
suleoe•

The game is multithreaded but thread load is not balanced. The background simulator (update-universe) thread does most of the work. If that thread can't parallelize any universe-update work (and I am not sure it can unless it's designed to, in which case it wouldn't be just one thread), then, as the universe entities grow in numbers, the simulator will become more and more demanding on CPU and eventually impact your frame rates, regardless of which processor you have.

With that said, CPUs with better single-core performance will do better in this game, since there's little to no benefit in increasing the # of cores past 4 (i.e. the actual number of game threads). As such, Intel CPUs will probably fare better.

3
Ovaron•

90% one thread and ~40% on five others with my 1700. It's definitely multithreaded.

Edit: And that's just flying around the outside of a station. I went over into an asteroid field... Two threads immediately pegged, and SIX others started climbing.

1
Grimloki•

It's multithreaded...

" There are two main threads running "in parallel but synchronized to each other" (update-universe and cpu-side-rendering queuing commands into the gfx-driver) and multiple "worker"-threads doing "jobs" in parallel (e.g. loading/processing assets). Besides that you have the graphics-driver running in parallel and the gpu doing work behind that .

At some point there is going to be a bottleneck on one of these either way (cpu-update-universe, cpu-rendering or cpu-side-gfx-driver and then the gpu-side-rendering). If the bottleneck is on the gpu-side, then it'll just limit what the driver can push into it (cpu-side), and that in turn will limit what the cpu-side rendering can push into the driver).

If the singlecore performance of the cpu is slow, then it's going to limit the update-universe thread, and since it (has to) run in sync with the cpu-rendering that thread will have to wait for the update-universe-thread to finish - so effectively that is going to be the bottleneck in your specific case."

- from some old thread 'bout Rebirth's engine. Shares it with X4

1
ghostspectrum•

That's what I'm saying. No damn wonder this game makes my R5 2600 scream when I'm barely doing anything.

0
Thatdude878787•

IMO all the releases have started somewhere like this. Egosoft games age like a fine wine. Even Rebirth was tolerable after that first year or so.

1
TreauxGuzzler•

Your first and second points are really good. I can't debate them. The third point is also very good, but as much as I like the X3 designs, I imagine they don't port over well into this engine. Your fourth point, weapon setup, yeah it was nice in X3. I think you can get around it by ordering them while not in the seat to go get the upgrade. Your last point is something to which I hadn't paid any attention. The engine apparently supports multi-core tasks, so it should at least be tasking more than one of your threads.

​

You're absolutely right about the lack of improvement past X3. It isn't an improvement there. It is a massive improvement over X:R at launch, where I made the same decision you seem to be making now. I'm very optimistic on this game, though. Egosoft appears to not only be putting in a lot of effort, but quickly identifying the most pressing issues and fixing them, in quick succession. The game has gone from one where it was impossible for me to play longer than 15 minutes due to crashes to one that has the basic shape of an X game, with improvements promised. Based on the quick fixes and impressive accessibility of what appears to be their staff on this subreddit, I personally think the game is not only roughly playable, but worth waiting for continued improvements and extra content. Try checking back in a while, maybe after an expansion comes out?

1
linolafettAdmin•

I would gladly welcome you back after 2.0 or the first expansion :)

5
whtmlOP•

Yes, i'll check back again later. Although some things, i feel won't really be fixed, such as the ship designs being really boring. The UI might be improved upon, but as far as i'm concerned it needs a complete overhaul. I sure hope they won't ask for paid DLC anytime soon, because they're definitely not done making the core game.

As a side node: Vulkan isn't an engine, it's a graphics API. The game itself doesn't appear to utilize multiple cores, which again, is kind of an embarrassment in this day and age.

1
gigglephysix•

ikr - real time weapon installation, real money paintjobs, real life cryptography - videogames become so radically less videogames these day. Also whippersnappers, my lawn, etc.

1
Snarfblast•

I agree with pretty much everything you said, some very strange and not fun or interesting changes were made and I struggle to understand how they came to these decisions. Here come the downvotes....

1
Literate_Illiterate•

I don't think I agree with you about the UI. Yes it's not fantastic and there is work to be done, but personally I think it's a huge improvement. The whole thing just seems a little more... Idk fluid? Yes there are some sticking points but I think with some time it will be truly great.

As to the ship design, I can't really disagree with you. I really enjoy a lot of the S/M class designs, but all of the L/XL combat ships just kind of bore me. The Paranid ones just remind me of tugboats and that's a weird thing to visualize while slinging death from its bridge. While I appreciate the design consistency between races, a little bit more variety, and some extra sexiness would be phenomenal.

For all the single core stuff, I personally haven't checked, but a lot of other people are saying it is multithreaded, so ima trust them

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