Will Star Citizen ever be in a playable state?

Stacey · May 7, 2020

I've been playing this game since 3.1.

Since then I've upgraded my cpu, gpu, storage and memory 3 times.

This game is still in such a terrible state in regards to optimisation.

The only time you will ever see 60+ fps is in outer space looking at nothing.

For instance, New Babbage, I believe the most recent area to be included in the game runs at a mighty impressive 24-42fps at 1920x1080 with added stutter

This is currently running on a :

MSI RTX 2080 Super Gaming X Trio,
Ryzen 2700x 4.3ghz, (depending on temps)
G-skill 16gb 3200mhz CL14 ram,
Samsung 970 Pro nvme 500gb

I understand this game is attempting something new but man, this is depressing.

Deleted member 45130 · May 7, 2020

I understand your pain. I'm in a similar position albeit with an i7 9th gen and a 2070 and it still never quite gets to 60fps.

Hopefully they will pin down the scope of the game soon and start to optimise. Right now it just feels like all they are doing is adding more and more instead of optimising what they already have.

Javier23 · May 7, 2020

I haven't been following the development closely, but just do the math seeing how it has been coming along. It's one of those things that's gonna be worked on indefinitely. By the time they run out of money, they'll slap a 1.0 on it and people will have either moved on long ago already or have had their fill, so I don't expect many to be particularly disappointed.

_zoipi · May 7, 2020

Chris Roberts will die before even getting out of alpha. This is the greatest scam ever seeing how it always has more and more and is asking for more.

ThroughtheVoid · May 7, 2020

if by playable you mean never complete then yes

Dictator · May 7, 2020

THe game is pretty CPU limited as I have covered on DF - it is running against the wall against what DX11 can do. So your FPS problem should be much alleviated when they port the game to VUlkan, which is currently in progress (you can examine the game .exe to even see the variables to turn on vulkan are already packaged in 3.8 or 3.9).

Corralx · May 7, 2020

Why is everyone standing still and not moving? Is that how the game looks?

Deleted member 46948 · May 7, 2020

I think it is playable already, or so the fans keep telling me.
If you mean "will it ever be what was promised", then no.

Stacey · May 7, 2020

Corralx said:
Why is everyone standing still and not moving? Is that how the game looks?

Those are npcs, they're there as a "fill the world with life" effort, you cant interact with them.

Dictator said:
THe game is pretty CPU limited as I have covered on DF - it is running against the wall against what DX11 can do. So your FPS problem should be much alleviated when they port the game to VUlkan, which is currently in progress (you can examine the game .exe to even see the variables to turn on vulkan are already packaged in 3.8 or 3.9).

I'll take a look at your video, thanks.

Deleted member 203 · May 7, 2020

it seems to be scope creep - the game, so i expect not. they also seem to fetishize graphics to an extreme degree, focusing on absurdly tiny details instead of delivering a polished product.

Foxnull · May 7, 2020

No, it's just an elaborate scam. No game should need that amount of money ever.

Ganyc · May 7, 2020

Stacey said:
I've been playing this game since 3.1.

Since then I've upgraded my cpu, gpu, storage and memory 3 times.

3.1 was released in march 2018. Since then you upgraded your cpu, gpu, storage and memory 3 times?

For instance, New Babbage, I believe the most recent area to be included in the game runs at a mighty impressive 24-42fps at 1920x1080 with added stutter

is the ryzen that bad? i get better frames with an 6700k in 1440p. Are you playing on high or very high settings?

Corralx said:
Why is everyone standing still and not moving? Is that how the game looks?

it's a server and a tickrate problem/bug, i think.
That is why it's an alpha.

Foxnull said:
No, it's just an elaborate scam. No game should need that amount of money ever.

do you now what a scam is?

Stacey · May 7, 2020

Ganyc said:
3.1 was released in march 2018. Since then you upgradet your cpu, gpu, storage and memory 3 times?

is the ryzen that bad? i get better frames with an 6700k in 1440p. Are you playing in high or very high settings?

it's a server and a tickrate problem/bug, i think.
That is why it's an alpha.

1. Yes, from 1050 to 1060 6b to 2080 super, then from amd fx to ryzen 1600 to ryzen 2700x and finally from 500gb 5200rpm to 250gb sandisk ssd to 1tb samsung 970 pro nvme..............and as an added bonus this included doubling my ram and upgrading my psu and motherboard twice.

EDIT: actually thats upgrading twice, but what i meant was i have had 3 systems since i bought the game.

2. Very High at 1080p

Breqesk · May 7, 2020

I'm more worried about the economy than the system optimisation, honestly. I'm sure they'll be able to get it to an acceptable level of performance eventually, but I just don't see how they're ever going to get it to the point where buying new ships with in-game currency feels balanced, having established that most of the ships are worth 100+ actual dollars.

This is a big part of the reason why the only bit of the package I'm still kinda excited for is Squadron 42.

WellbornWarrior · May 7, 2020

That's why I avoid Early Access games untile they're done, let alone Star Citizen.

Ganyc · May 7, 2020

Stacey said:
2. Very High at 1080p

then try high settings, that should improve the framerate a bit.

Galava · May 7, 2020

A fix for the stutter is to get more RAM. 16 is nice, but people have reported that 32GB RAM is a godsend for the stutters.

Almeister · May 7, 2020

It's been what, 7 years since the hangar module was first released? Pretty crazy.

Star Citizen is impressive though, can't wait for Squadron 42.

VaporSnake · May 7, 2020

Eh it's pretty playable right now, moreso than it's ever been imo. You only run into truly terrible performance near the big cities where you won't be doing much more than walking around/buying stuff anyway. Definitely couldn't hurt to upgrade the ram though, SC is a massive ram hog.

Deleted member 45414 · May 7, 2020

I think they'll be done with development right around the heat death of the universe, so if you can wait until then, it should be good to go.

Galava · May 7, 2020

atm the game really performs more or less the same on many different rigs. I have an i5-6600k with just 4 threads and rtx 2060 and runs more or less like OP reports.

Here you can see how the game performs on multiple rig configurations.

RSI Public Telemetry

robertsspaceindustries.com

Phoenixazure · May 7, 2020

I mean it's playable. I deliver boxes to earn currency, it's got a food/water meter, and I've been dogfighting npcs and people. Had my ship blow over in a blizzard which was a hilarious scenario and got lost spelunking in a cave

A better question would be is it a proper game and I'd say not really. There's enough systems there to make your own fun but not exactly a full featured game. Gorgeous as hell thouvh

Galava · May 7, 2020

OP talks about being playable performance-wise, not really feature of gameplay-wise ;) The title could've had better wording

Deleted member 18944 · May 7, 2020

Here's my take as someone who plays this game on underspecced laptop - Even as an alpha, it is much more feature rich than games like Elite Dangerous (2k hours in that).

The more I read Blood, Sweat, and Pixels by our local Press Sneak Fuck, the more I realize that just blaming mismanagement on games that aren't making deadlines just isn't taking into account all of the ways this game can get delayed further, or development hiccups can occur.

I understand a lot of people feel ripped off or mislead, it's a justified feeling.

I do not Feel that way. I wished they marketed it differently, but tbh I don't think they'd get the funding if they advertised it as "greatest tech demo ever".

zer0_X · May 7, 2020

No, never.

Nekyrrev · May 7, 2020

Can't wait for the Vulkan integration, it's gonna be a game-changer.

It still runs better then ever on my end at the moment but there's clearly still some work to do on the optimization-side of things.

Stacey · May 7, 2020

I should reiterate that i mean performance not feature set in regards to "playable".

signal · May 7, 2020

Was watching Lirik play some yesterday. I'll never not be impressed by the scale of everything. The world seems a little dead but things like taking the train through the city or launching off the planet still look pretty amazing.

Muad'dib · May 7, 2020

_zoipi said:
Chris Roberts will die before even getting out of alpha. This is the greatest scam ever seeing how it always has more and more and is asking for more.

Greatest scam where the money given to the project is actually invested into the project? If this is a scam it's the most amateurish scam I've ever seen, lol.

As for the OP, I doubt we're hitting stable 60FPS anytime soon with the amount of physics calculations happening, like Crysis the game is being made as future proof.

KKRT · May 7, 2020

Cities are currently perf limited by a lot of factors, but they're working on them.
Fly to some moon or just outside of a city and you'll get pretty good performance. I get around 70-80fps on Daymar for example on gtx 1080.

---

Breqesk said:
I'm more worried about the economy than the system optimisation, honestly. I'm sure they'll be able to get it to an acceptable level of performance eventually, but I just don't see how they're ever going to get it to the point where buying new ships with in-game currency feels balanced, having established that most of the ships are worth 100+ actual dollars.

You can already buy and rent ship in-game and its not too grindy.

Jraphics Horse · May 7, 2020

Stacey said:
I should reiterate that i mean performance not feature set in regards to "playable".

Matter of perspective. Frame rate is better than the average space game I played in the early 90s.
But for a game who's kickstarter brags about using 10 x the polygons compared to other games, I'd keep your expectations low.

Breqesk · May 7, 2020

KKRT said:
Cities are currently perf limited by a lot of factors, but they working on them.
Fly to some moon or just outside of city and you'll get pretty good performance. I get around 70-80fps on Daymar for example on gtx 1080.

---

You can already buy and rent ship in-game and its not too grindy.

how long does it take to earn enough to buy, say, a Freelancer?

Outrun · May 7, 2020

HairyFist87 said:
I understand your pain. I'm in a similar position albeit with an i7 9th gen and a 2070 and it still never quite gets to 60fps.

Hopefully they will pin down the scope of the game soon and start to optimise. Right now it just feels like all they are doing is adding more and more instead of optimising what they already have.

As a project manager, general scope is the first thing that should have been pinned down.

VaporSnake · May 7, 2020

Breqesk said:
how long does it take to earn enough to buy, say, a Freelancer?

Right now everyone has a free freelancer in their garage, but not too long. I'd say around a week of casual grinding would get you a freelancer.

I'm currently working on a prospector, it costs 2 mil in game, I'm at 750,000 after 3 days of playing maybe 2-3 hours a session.

Breqesk · May 7, 2020

VaporSnake said:
Right now everyone has a free freelancer in their garage, but not too long. I'd say around a week of casual grinding would get you a freelancer.

I'm currently working on a prospector, it costs 2 mil in game, I'm at 750,000 after 3 days of playing maybe 2-3 hours a session.

ah, that sounds surprisingly reasonable. (also, is the free Freelancer a permanent thing if you log in now, orrrrr... 😅 )

VaporSnake · May 7, 2020

Breqesk said:
ah, that sounds surprisingly reasonable. (also, is the free Freelancer a permanent thing if you log in now, orrrrr... 😅 )

The free freelancer was to alleviate a bug a few months ago so....I guess they could revoke it at any time, hard to say, seems like they just forgot about it lol.

If it's not there next time you play though, remember you can rent vehicles for cheap. You can rent a freelancer max and make your money back in a couple of cargo runs.

KKRT · May 7, 2020

Breqesk said:
how long does it take to earn enough to buy, say, a Freelancer?

It cost 33,952 UEC to rent it for a day, you can earn easily within couple of hours with starting ship and you can buy it for 1,697,600 UEC which you can probably earn within a week or so.
Remember that many ships are multicrew ships, so its even easier to buy them as a group.

tATu · May 7, 2020

For the sake of the people that have poured so much time and money into the game I honestly hope so.

Also wouldn't mind one day having the game reach a point where it proves naysayers wrong (myself included to some degree). The vision of the game is amazing, and if they come even close to it, it would be one of the best games ever

Breqesk · May 7, 2020

VaporSnake said:
The free freelancer was to alleviate a bug a few months ago so....I guess they could revoke it at any time, hard to say, seems like they just forgot about it lol.

If it's not there next time you play though, remember you can rent vehicles for cheap. You can rent a freelancer max and make your money back in a couple of cargo runs.

ah fair--i don't bother keeping the client installed most of the time since i don't have much SSD space and i don't really wanna spend a bunch of time playing before they implement some kind of persistence between patches, so i haven't really been keeping up.

KKRT · May 7, 2020

Breqesk said:
ah fair--i don't bother keeping the client installed most of the time since i don't have much SSD space and i don't really wanna spend a bunch of time playing before they implement some kind of persistence between patches, so i haven't really been keeping up.

There is already a persistence between patches. They save your UEC and items you bought.
They can however still wipe it if there will be some severe exploiting or bug they need to fix, but they said, they're try not to and wipe will be the last measure.

Breqesk · May 7, 2020

KKRT said:
There is already a persistence between patches. They save your UEC and items you bought.
They can however still wipe it if there will be some severe exploiting or bug they need to fix, but they said, they're try not to and wipe will be the last measure.

do you get to keep ships between patches, or do you just get the UEC value reimbursed?

NuMiQ · May 7, 2020

Breqesk said:
ah fair--i don't bother keeping the client installed most of the time since i don't have much SSD space and i don't really wanna spend a bunch of time playing before they implement some kind of persistence between patches, so i haven't really been keeping up.

Well the good news here is that we have 'some kind of persistence' since the last patch.
Earned aUEC and bought ships and items now persist between patches. There's still some bugs, but my stuff has all carried over from the last few builds.
Keep in mind there are no guarantees and we'll probably see wipes at some point, but for now its much more feasible to save up for an expensive ship over a new patch dropping.

*edit Beaten by KKRT like an Aurora taking on a Super Hornet

KKRT · May 7, 2020

Breqesk said:
do you get to keep ships between patches, or do you just get the UEC value reimbursed?

You keep ships, weapons and clothes as well.

Breqesk · May 7, 2020

NuMiQ said:
Well the good news here is that we have 'some kind of persistence' since the last patch.
Earned aUEC and bought ships and items now persist between patches. There's still some bugs, but my stuff has all carried over from the last few builds.
Keep in mind there are no guarantees and we'll probably see wipes at some point, but for now its much more feasible to save up for an expensive ship over a new patch dropping.

*edit Beaten by KKRT like an Aurora taking on a Super Hornet

KKRT said:
You keep ships, weapons and clothes as well.

well, that's promising, thanks! i might try playing for a month, just to see what it's like. prob. won't stick with it properly until it comes out of Early Access, though.

Deleted member 2809 · May 7, 2020

I think good performance comes with the 10k$ supporter tier

Skade · May 7, 2020

Corralx said:
Why is everyone standing still and not moving? Is that how the game looks?

It's a server issue, the AI breaks when the server is under too much stress, wich happens quite quickly. The NPCs are usually working fine for a few hours after a patch release or when you manage to stumble on a fresh server (wich is relatively rare). Server meshing that would fix many issues related to server performances as well, like desynchronisation issues.

It "should" be fixed when they'll have finalized their implementation of server meshing into the game (wich is apparently being tested right now with the prison).

As for the general playability, it's quite ok really. Only the big landing zones are really framerate killers. And Lorville was as bad as New Babbage last year. So New Babs will get hopefully be optimized in further patches.

I mean, usually, the optimisation is one of the last things done on a game dev cycle. SC is doing optimisation passes on the regular. It's was almost impossible to go over 20 fps when 2.0 released. And it was just Olisar and a few space stations at the time. It's really not that bad today.

NuMiQ · May 7, 2020

Breqesk said:
well, that's promising, thanks! i might try playing for a month, just to see what it's like. prob. won't stick with it properly until it comes out of Early Access, though.

If you're looking for others to play with, feel free to give our org a look. We're not the most active, running a small discord for communication, but at least try and get some groups going around new patches.
Upside is, we don't expect you to be too active either, so it's very low pressure :) You can find the link in the Community Thread. (here: https://www.resetera.com/threads/star-citizen-community-ot-long-term-investment.404/)

PS9 · May 7, 2020

They've only had seven years to optimize a public build.

Breqesk · May 7, 2020

NuMiQ said:
If you're looking for others to play with, feel free to give our org a look. We're not the most active, running a small discord for communication, but at least try and get some groups going around new patches.
Upside is, we don't expect you to be too active either, so it's very low pressure :) You can find the link in the Community Thread. (here: https://www.resetera.com/threads/star-citizen-community-ot-long-term-investment.404/)

thanks! will do, once i'm finally free of these deadlines.

Phoenixazure · May 7, 2020

Breqesk said:
thanks! will do, once i'm finally free of these deadlines.

Yea I got to get on that too. In one of my drunk birthday purchases I've been steadily upgrading my starter ship and now have a fucking Carrack of all things and would love to take that out for a spin with a proper crew. Kind of wild how I could drive this 3 floor sized ship with a mini ship parked in its hangar over the train system that another bunch of people could be taking the train at the same time.

Will Star Citizen ever be in a playable state?

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