Is something wrong with Elite Dangerous?

[risa2000]

After one year I booted up ED just for some testing and noticed two things:

1. There seem to be so many big (and bright) stars visible in the sky box that it almost seems like a distraction (for example other ships are harder to spot). Is it something new (I do not remember the stars being so “pronounced” a year ago.)?

2. When running ED I observe an intermittent stuttering, which I believe is visualized in SteamVR Advanced Frame Timing as spikes:

This is captured from 72Hz, but when I tried 90Hz config (with lower res to fit into the frame time), I observed the same behavior. It is recorded in the game menu (hangar), so it does not represent a gameplay, but I believe it represents the stutter.

I know there has been a long discussion about microstuttering from some firmware version, related to Pimax “optimization” of frame time, but I do not remember if it has been fixed, or not.

For the record, I am currently running R5 5600X, 32GB RAM and 1080Ti.

[scud68]

I have noticed the same albeit with a slightly different shape. I see a wave effect.

[jojon]

@risa2000

• There seem to be so many big (and bright) stars visible in the sky box that it almost seems like a distraction (for example other ships are harder to spot). Is it something new (I do not remember the stars being so “pronounced” a year ago.)?

Could it be that you previously had a modified GraphicsConfiguration.xml with increased bitmap size for the skybox, but which has now been overwritten with deafult values by a game update? A higher resolution galaxy background, coupled with sufficient supersampling to make use of it, does a lot to reduce the “cotton balls drawn with crayons” look Frontier has chosen for the stars. (Just be glad they didn’t remain as in the beta: Back then they were that old pillow-like fat four-point starburst shape (EDIT: …which looked distinctly 2D, even viewed on monitor)). :7

I’ve long since kind of come to view CPU spikes as an annoying and inevitable part of VR life in general… If you figure out what is going on, don’t be shy about sharing your findings.

@scud68

I have noticed the same albeit with a slightly different shape. I see a wave effect.

Not sure what you mean here, but especially with a frozen frame, I can sometimes see the distortion between adjacent fresnel lens segments, as I look around, panning across the still image (EDIT: It “ripples”, so to speak)… :7