(Updated) RX 580 Series: Tips to improve performance without compromising quality. (N00bs mostly, Please provide feedback. Accuracy of the post helps everyone)

[The.Spaz.]

About two years ago my mobo and GTX 970 crashed and burned, ironically playing this game, which I had painstakingly built myself. I had to build on the quick and cheap and ended up with a RX580 card which is slightly beefier (if clunky) than my original card (with slightly older CPU). Prior to burning out, the 970 ran NMS quite well on my Panasonic 32 inch TV maintaining a smooth 60fps. Experiences with with RX hasn't been quite so that smooth. Its not that the card isn't capable but you do need to fiddle with the settings a bit to get it to do what you want. Below I will list my my PC build before I start making my suggestions.

Disclaimer: Reader beware, poster tends to ramble!
Display - Panasonic 32 inch (1920 x 1080 @ 60fps)
GPU - Radeon RX 580 Series - Primary/Discrete
CPU - Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9400F CPU
@ 2.90GHz 6 Cores

If you have your settings on ultra and are having issues with frequent sharp drops (pauses) in gameplay as you pan your camera these are a few things that bumped my my FPS from 45 FPS to 60 FPS. The images are a lot sharper and there is a lot less texture pop in (although portion of the jank is just the nature of the game's current iteration). Also Open GL sucks! Its now outdated format of 3D rendering and it never did have good support and even less so today. Its generally best to allow your GPU's software handle a few key processes directly but not all of it. Unfortunately its a sharing of load between two systems and you have to pick and chose which best does the job at a particular task. Many will argue that changing settings via the GPU software will not matter but my feedback is best on practice and it tells me different. If any of these settings help you please provide feed back for confirmation. I would also like feedback from those that didn't benefit so I can keep this as accurate as I can.

Update: After further experiments, I have come to more definite conclusion for optimal settings to use for those that have similar build to mine. You will see updated annotations through out the page from hence forth, some will reinforce earlier suggestions and some will debunked)

1) Fire up NMS and load up a saved game. Once in the game proceed to the options menu.

Disclaimer: Poster uses Ultra/custom settings and has maximum resolution/FPS set to 1920 x 1080p / 60 fps. This limits me from using advanced settings like freesync. If you are using a more high end settings, you may want to experiment with your settings further to get the optimum results.

UPDATE: After further testing, it seems that the Adrenaline software does offer slighty better FPS but at the cost of quality. There are sharp pixel like lines across mountains and sharp edges and the cell shading seems a bit more pronounced. The in game Anti - aliasing should be left at x 8 as it offers better quality (I will eventually try out x16). Also select between TAA and TAA + FXAA. TAA givers sharper quality while FXAA is faster but blurry. The combination of two can be used if preffered. I have left my settings at TAA+FXAA which doesn't seem too bad.

2) (Disregard) Firstly, click on the graphics option menu and observe your game settings. You can adjust these as you wish but turn off anti-aliasing and then press apply. If your settings uses a preset profile (mine was set to ultra), it will now turn to custom.

3) Next enter the video settings menu and once again observe your settings and adjust them as you wish but turn off Vsync and apply.

4) Now back out and quit the game.

5) Now fire up your Radeon Catalyst Software. Make sure its updated to the latest version

6) Select the Gaming tab and find NMS from the list.

7) Enter NMS and select Tune Game Performance.

8) Once there, Leave tuning controls on automatic. Set auto tuning to GPU overclocked.

9) Back out of Tune Game Performance page and scroll down. You should see a few setting options under the game compatibility listing of your hardware.

10) Select Graphic Profile and select gaming.

11) Disable "Radeon Enhanced sync" and turn on "wait for vertical refresh" to "always on". This will handle the screen tearing issues in the game and smooth out the framerates better.

12) From there expand the advanced options.

UPDATE: Disregard suggestion 13 below. As pointed out above, the in game rendering does a better job. Tessellation should be left on enhanced. Anti - Aliasing filtering should be set to "Enhance Application Settings" while Anisotropic filtering can be disabled.

13) (Disregard) You can once again experiment but besides leaving tessellation mode to AMD enhance I have set everything to maximum settings or enabled. I generally leave anisotropic settings to 8 and anti-aliasing to x 8 EQ. (Further experimenting seems to point sticking between x4, x4EQ to x8 etc. On higher settings the original issues seem to recur with hitching frames.)

UPDATE: Disregard suggestion 14 for reasons mentioned above. Instead set "Texturing Filter Quality" to "Standard". This seems to give a little more boost to performance but no discernable difference to quality.
14) (Disregard) Make sure Anti-Aliasing is set to override application settings.

Launch NMS, and give the game for a spin.

UNRELATED BUG (FIXED)
(Disregard) There seems to be an issue where I am not able to progress past the Hello Games logo screen. A quick search points to a new update made to Discord software where the ingame overlay is causing issues to load. Simply deactivate this feature or turn off discord altogether.

UPDATE: As of time of this writing the issue with screen not continuing past the Hello Games logo has been resolved (along with number of previous issues with game performance). Stands to reason a patch has been applied to the game from the server side of things or there was a stealth patch no one is aware when it was applied. TLDR: Don't worry about it.

[nMate]

Does that increase fps

[The.Spaz.]

Originally posted by nMate:

Does that increase fps

It has improved my FPS average. For a while now I was just dealing with constantly hitching frames and texture loadings. This definitely reduces those annoyances. Just simply using the AMD catalyst software to gauge the FPS mine went up from 41 FPS to 62FPS. Although the catalyst monitors the average per hour performance you need to at least play the game for solid 2 hrs for it to update its readings. Either way if your game was preforming like mine you will definitely notice a huge change with the naked eye itself.

I am still playing around with vsync and Anti Aliasing on the catalyst software to see if I can improve the performance even more. As I understand it, 4x - 8x is the best bet for this card. It tends to struggle a little bit at x16.

[Trombita]

UPDATE: There seems to be an issue where I am not able to progress past the Hello Games logo screen. A quick search points to a new update made to Discord software where the ingame overlay is causing issues to load. Simply deactivate this feature or turn off discord altogether. [/quote]

...have RX480, have the issue with stuck at logo screen.(not always) I do not have any discord software, so i`m not sure the discord software is the culprit ??

[The.Spaz.]

Originally posted by Trombita:

UPDATE: There seems to be an issue where I am not able to progress past the Hello Games logo screen. A quick search points to a new update made to Discord software where the ingame overlay is causing issues to load. Simply deactivate this feature or turn off discord altogether.

...have RX480, have the issue with stuck at logo screen.(not always) I do not have any discord software, so i`m not sure the discord software is the culprit ?? [/quote]

It is entirely possible there could be more factors than just discord. Like I said, I just randomly encountered this issue for the first time and did quick search that led me to a thread in reddit where someone pointed out that discord overlay was the culprit. I turned off discords overlay along with all others for extra measure and the game fires up fine. So maybe its just related to overlays in general? What I can figure out is this, if you don't see steam/radeon/discord popups with a few seconds of the Hello Games logo, chances are that the game will not progress. Although minimizing the screen with alt tab does push it to the menu screen but the frame freezes and you just have to manually shut down the game and try again.

[Trombita]

Originally posted by The.Spaz.:

Originally posted by Trombita:

UPDATE: There seems to be an issue where I am not able to progress past the Hello Games logo screen. A quick search points to a new update made to Discord software where the ingame overlay is causing issues to load. Simply deactivate this feature or turn off discord altogether.

...have RX480, have the issue with stuck at logo screen.(not always) I do not have any discord software, so i`m not sure the discord software is the culprit ??

It is entirely possible there could be more factors than just discord. Like I said, I just randomly encountered this issue for the first time and did quick search that led me to a thread in reddit where someone pointed out that discord overlay was the culprit. I turned off discords overlay along with all others for extra measure and the game fires up fine. So maybe its just related to overlays in general? What I can figure out is this, if you don't see steam/radeon/discord popups with a few seconds of the Hello Games logo, chances are that the game will not progress. Although minimizing the screen with alt tab does push it to the menu screen but the frame freezes and you just have to manually shut down the game and try again. [/quote]

i`m almost positive, it has something to do with recent AMD drivers. Something to do with scaling.
I have zero problems, if i set my game resolution to match my display resolution (UHD) Unfortunately , FPS is just too low in that resolution for me. So i lower the res for either 1080P or 1440P, but either gives me the stuck at logo. From there, i have to alt/tab out several times, than it suddenly starts working....most of the time. Could be even a recent game or windows update..Started about the same time we got the last small game update. The very same day i have got a couple of windows updates, and a driver update for the RX480... since then, i`m keep rolling back updates, drivers etc... can`t put my finger on it. Disabling radeon and steam overlay does not help either.....

[The.Spaz.]

Turns out I spoke too soon... Seems if you turned off your computer at any point the issue just comes back. The alt/tab only worked once for me after that the screen would just freeze up everytime. I am able to skip to the menu selection screen if I alt/tab out and back in but the screen freezes up but not the game. I can actually hear the selections being made, I can alt/tab out and back in to update the screen but it will just freeze again till I al/tab out again. So in my case the game more often won't work than it does currently.

I don't know if its the AMD update itself. I actually had a few sessions with the game after I updated the software and it was fine till 2 days ago I was suddenly having issues making the game go past the Hello Games Logo. Waited a whole hour and nothing. The Discord angle made sense since that software has a tendency to update in the background...

I eventually ended up re-installing steam. This actually ruined all the shortcuts I had created for the games on my library but NMS ran without an issue. I didn't want to stop the game for fear that the next time I will not be able to log in again. This was all last night, its morning now so I am going to give the game a try and hope that it starts without a hitch.

[The.Spaz.]

So... the game definitely works even if the screen is bugged. If you are able to get past the menu screen, the game loads fine and you can play it. Its a pain in the ass but its one way to make the game work I suppose. I had to keep using the tab/alt combo to exit in and out of the screen and scroll the mouse over to the proper save file and presto!

[Trombita]

Originally posted by The.Spaz.:

So... the game definitely works even if the screen is bugged. If you are able to get past the menu screen, the game loads fine and you can play it. Its a pain in the ass but its one way to make the game work I suppose. I had to keep using the tab/alt combo to exit in and out of the screen and scroll the mouse over to the proper save file and presto!

^^^this is how i play most days. But for whenever reason, game sometimes loads up without a hitch,,,,, ???? That is what i don`t get..... Do you have the same problem on your native resolution too?

[The.Spaz.]

Originally posted by Trombita:

Originally posted by The.Spaz.:

So... the game definitely works even if the screen is bugged. If you are able to get past the menu screen, the game loads fine and you can play it. Its a pain in the ass but its one way to make the game work I suppose. I had to keep using the tab/alt combo to exit in and out of the screen and scroll the mouse over to the proper save file and presto!

^^^this is how i play most days. But for whenever reason, game sometimes loads up without a hitch,,,,, ???? That is what i don`t get..... Do you have the same problem on your native resolution too?

I do. My TV maxs out at 1440x 1080p @60fps. This really is a very recent issue for me seeing as how I just figured out what to do which you apparently have been doing for a while now. But as far as without the hitch goes yeah thats how its generally supposed to work. Like I said, if you have any overlays turned on it should start popping up with in seconds of the Hello Games logo, if that doesn't happens means the screen is going to get stuck. Not sure what is doing it, I reinstalled steam and that didn't help either. I don't know about you but I generally expect to see my cotroller profile steam notification to pop up right when Hello Games logo comes up. Its like something is blocking this notification from popping up correctly all of a sudden.

[Trombita]

Not using controller anymore. (for NMS) I do see the radeon thingy popping up, sometimes. Whenever it pops up, game starts fine,you are right about that. Than again, sometimes it starts up fine, even without that thing popping up......?...... Drives me nuts... Right now i`m using 1440P in borderless window mode, us alt-tabbing out and back easier , (in windowed ) and also, for whatever reason, i can not set 1440P in fullscreen mode, game loads up in scaled down 1440P with big black frame around it..... One of these days, i have to check, if problem persist with last year`s AMD drivers,before the new controller app design ?

[The.Spaz.]

Wow that is odd. Sounds like the game's display failed to update and your settings are still stuck in windowed mode. I guess thats an option I am not going to use, I think Hello Games might have to look into this.

Have you tried deleting the config file inside steam? That generally resets everything to default and you can try from there?

[Trombita]

the stuck in windowed mode only applies to the 1440P res. So it`s not a big deal. I can always set it to 1080P, i just prefer higher res. Too bad my rig is not capable of running the game in UHD, with decent frame rates... That would solve all these problems...(for me)

[The.Spaz.]

There was a time when framerates, graphics and resolution mattered quite a bit to me but since then I have jumped back and forth between consoles and PC, I am not too picky about games running on highest settings possible BUT if its a PC I handcrafted and built, I would expect it to earn its weight while its still in fashion. Since my original specs burnt to the ground and this is a replacement that is more or less somewhat on similar in power (this one has a slightly better GPU but an older CPU) levels but on a more current hardware (GDDR 5) I would be pretty levid if I had to deal with 1440p (the only res I play on PC these days) in windows mode. So I can see myself doing whatever I can to find the solution or just simply move on to a new game and wait till things get patched. No way in hell I am settling for anything less. This bloody card was billed as slightly beefier card to the 970 especially with 8gb of mem compared to the 3.something in the 970 and that card ran games beautifully!! I will be damned if this one doesn't run it atleast at the same level.

[The.Spaz.]

Originally posted by Trombita:

Not using controller anymore. (for NMS) I do see the radeon thingy popping up, sometimes. Whenever it pops up, game starts fine,you are right about that. Than again, sometimes it starts up fine, even without that thing popping up......?...... Drives me nuts... Right now i`m using 1440P in borderless window mode, us alt-tabbing out and back easier , (in windowed ) and also, for whatever reason, i can not set 1440P in fullscreen mode, game loads up in scaled down 1440P with big black frame around it..... One of these days, i have to check, if problem persist with last year`s AMD drivers,before the new controller app design ?

Hey, Think NMS got a stealth update on the server side or atleast I didn't get any notification for an update. Eitherway it seems like the issue with the screen not continuing past the logo seems to have been resolved. Either that or I seem to be on a lucky streak with the game running like it should.

[Trombita]

was rather a big update (in terms of new content/fix issues) I think yesterday i have got both good starts and usual stuck at logo too.... May i ask what AMD catalyst version you use ?