Create a RAM disk for better performance if you've RAM to spare.

[Grunt]

I run at extreme visual and notice now there can be a slight initial chunking when you swing your view around for world objects that haven't been loaded yet (because you haven't looked at them yet). I'm running the game off a dedicated dual SSD -S3 set so I was a little surprised to see any chunking. I imagine on a mechanical it would be pretty ugly.

A configuration option to pre-cache the cosmos (or as much as will fit) would be good for those with ram to spare.

In the mean-time (or if that never happens) an alternative method is just create a RD and sym link the root folder from the RD into your steam steamapps common folder.

I've used this technique for years and it works extremely well. You just need to make sure you back up the RD, and also make sure you've got plenty of space available in case future update grows the game to 2x or 3x it's current size.

For backing up you can just create a custom windows backup schedule pointing at the RD with an aggressive schedule and forget about it letting it do it in the background. You'll just need to reload the RD on a reboot.

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Updated: Forgot to mention for those that want a bit easier and flexible control over the RD contents you can certainly use Microsoft SyncToy[www.microsoft.com]. Can be used to set up an automatic sync between a folder (or an entire RD) and copy everything from it to a folder, and then in future automatically copy any new / changed / deleted content detected on the RD to the other folder.

You can then create a task with TaskScheduler to run the above however often you want. The combination is power in your hands if you want it.
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I currently have mine at 3gigs and will expand it as necessary based on updates and how the game content grows.


For the RD itself I use ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver which can be found here[www.ltr-data.se].

It's completely free, incredibly reliable, easy to use, has its own control panel slot, provides an immense amount of flexible options etc.

For sym link I use hardlink shell extension x64 which can be found here[schinagl.priv.at].

It makes it instantly simple to move content whereever you want it (including to an RD) then drop links to it back to original locations. Things that use those locations (such as steam using a game root folder) work fine because they see the folder as just a folder sitting there. In reality the folder is actually somewhere else (sitting on an RD...)

[Kroska]

might need a youtube instructional video for this one, haha.

[Johari]

Don't attempt it if you're not technologically inclined.
It's easier to just install an SSD, anyway. And you can put your OS on it.

[nitnoid2002]

Originally posted by Kroska:

might need a youtube instructional video for this one, haha.

Or some 8x10 glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one.

[Grunt]

Information on the tools, and the techniques, are available in abundance with a little research and that's exactly what I'd rather folks do. Research it, so they personally understand it, then they'll "know what they're doing, and why they're doing it" and also know what to look out for. If someone doesn't have a notion to go research a bit for themselves then well.... that's too bad for them :)

[Grunt]

Originally posted by ownomics:

Don't attempt it if you're not technologically inclined.

That's true, but research and comprehension of the material is how they can "get there". Just takes a little effort.

It's easier to just install an SSD, anyway. And you can put your OS on it.

Not sure why this part was posted since I explicitly said I originally had it on a dual SSD set (RAID-0 with over 500MB/s read throughput) and at max settings I saw what I described.

Only an RD can entirely eliminate it. SSD make HDD seem like slow pieces of ♥♥♥♥. RD makes SSD seem like slow pieces of ♥♥♥♥, etc. It's all relative. Until SSD's use MUCH, much faster ram technology they'll never even be close to the speed of a true RD. But, they're hella faster than HDD and are awesome replacements for any mechanical hard drive. They can make even an old slow piece of crap computer responsive.

[YouTube.com/StoneLegion]

Yeah RamDisk is a great idea for smaller games like this. Auto Save or Saving in General will also be less painful and impactful :) Love doing it for pretty much all the smaller sandbox games that have some kind of procedural generation as well like Minecraft.

[Grunt]

^ yep bingo. And if you've enough ram (32g) you can help the other side of the equation too. Good example is ArmA series. It's possible with its graphics settings to easily (by far) exceed 1gig and 2gig GPU causing it to thrash disk for resources damn near every step. Having the entire thing on a 20gig+ RD can mitigate or even eliminate the problem, so someone with low GPU memory but high system memory can offset it for better experience etc.

[ChaosSound]

I only run on a mechanical HD and I don't notice any chunking playing at max graphics on the largest asteroid field.

[Grunt]

That's interesting because I do on my rig. 3960X hexa 6-cores @ 4.8ghz, 2x EVGA GTX Titans -6G each, 32G quad channel 2133 RAM, all SSD including a dedicated RAID-0 set for games, design and other intensive work.

So I guess "notice" and "chunking" are relative to the user, unless your rig is better than mine or you're using a tiny resolution?

[ChaosSound]

Running 1920x1080, Intel i7 2.6, some random HDD, 12 gigs of ram, gtx 560TI SC

[Grunt]

Hmm that's not a piece of junk seems a decent mid range or just under but for this game enough for local. Not sure what a huge MP game would run like for you but the engine has a lot of optimization work to be done (hopefully).

But anyway for me, if I load a new game and I whip the view around, I can see it quickly (but noticable to me) chunks to load even on an R0 SSD set, because nothing is loaded yet. RD = simply smooth, at all times, no matter what. That's what I like and an RD can help get it.

[Grunt]

Failed to mention an important free sync option earlier so I updated the post.

[YouTube.com/StoneLegion]

An Idea, Why not install Aus ROG Ramdisk. I think it works for all Windows PC's not just Asus MB's. Has all the options in one for the lazy.

[Grunt]

I use their ROG OC Key hardware and a second monitor with my R4E and it works well but in general they've had some issues with their software (AI Suite for example) that made "trusting them" a stretch, for me anyway. They getting better? Assuming so or you'd not have posted it :)

[4onen]

The reason for the stuttering when you swing your view isn't actually a concern of RAM or hard disk speed.
The issue is VRAM. The RAM on your video card.
That ram is usually far more limited than the motherboard general RAM, but also not usually used for games this complicated. Whenever you look around it loads a different set of objects from RAM to VRAM, so those objects can be put on screen.

Each object in SE (excluding dropped components) is a grid of voxels, as opposed to a fixed shape model. In normal games, they load the model once and can just blend its shape and vertecies using animations when necessary. In SE, each object is so complicated that they can't (graphically) afford to keep the whole models in VRAM. They took the best path at this time, shuffling the voxels over from RAM whenever they're needed. It's slower, but it's better than having far more limited numbers of objects in the worldspace.

The biggest bottleneck in the game speed (graphically, physics are a CPU story) is not the processer, not the GPU, not the RAM and not the VRAM, but the size of the bus carrying information between the RAM and the GPU, which is limited to the bitrate of the computer (64-bits per clock cycle on 64 bit computers, 32-bits per clock cycle on 32 bit computers.)

TL;DR: Computer bitrates are too d*** small for this kind of graphical wonderland.