A little ago I made post complaining how Odyssey would crash at 0 planet generation while I was able to run Horizons 3.8 just fine. Well, it looks like FDev did one hell of a job optimising the game because I can run it pretty well now (rare FDev W). There is still an issue with Odyssey and H4 crashing at planet generation but I believe I've come across a workaround.
I still get this message (I got it on H3.8 too) when trying to run either Odyssey or H4 and if I leave the game without doing anything, both Odyssey and H4 will go into a black screen at planet generation. For Odyssey I've found that's the point of no return and you gotta restart the game but leaving H4 alone for a bit makes it load up.
I discovered that if you open something like Discord on the background and send a message or two while Odyssey goes into planet generation phase, it doesn't crash into a black screen and instead just stays stuck on the planet generation screen at 0 percent (I remember reading the crash being related to processor interrupts and some people recommended spamming the Windows button so that maybe it). If you get the crash report I showed above but your Odyssey doesn't have a black screen, it means you have succeeded and all you have to do is leave the game alone for 10-15 minutes (it might be less, I've never measured) to load and you are good to go. Afterwards, you should be able to play the game just fine with the settings of your choice. I run Odyssey on High with a few tweaks here and there to get better performance on foot but I generally can run it at around 25-30 FPS on foot and it runs even better while flying around in space.
I use a Dell Inspiron 15 3501 work laptop to play and my specs are:
- Intel i3-1115G4 Processor (6MB Cache, up to 4.1GHz)
- 8GB dual channel RAM (4+4) at 2666 MHz
- Intel UHD 620 with 128MB dedicated graphics
- 1 TB 7200 RPM HDD (which I run Elite off of) and a 128GB M.2 NVME as a boot drive
- I also have a laptop cooler because the cooling on this laptop is complete ass (it would help keep your game smooth if you do too)
If you have similar or better specs than mine you should be able to run Odyssey just fine.
I'm currently out in the black and I wanted to make sure that Odyssey wasn't running all nice and well only because I was out in bumfuck middle of nowhere so I played the ground tutorial which has a settlement and on-foot combat. The tutorial which ran at like 5 FPS on the lowest possible graphics before (custom graphics to be able to go lower than low preset) ran very well on high graphics and I didn't experience lag even during the firefight so, FDev really has done a marvelous job with optimisation. It maybe different for actual ground combat but I don't plan to do it too often since the main reason I play Elite is because it's not some generic FPS shooter. Anyways, I'm glad I was finally able to get started on exobiology since it will keep me entertained in my journey out in the black and I wish all you CMDRs the best of luck running Odyssey on your respective potatoes.
Pro-tip when it comes to low-spec gaming: Always go for dual channel RAM. If your laptop doesn't have it then, buy another stick and slot it in (check what manufacturer your current RAM is and your current RAM speed, and enable XMP if possible). It makes a night and day difference in performance and my current laptop went from not being able to handle 4 Firefox tabs at once to being able to handle a lot of demanding games like a champ.
Anyways, I shall end my TED Talk with some screenshots I've captured from Odyssey;
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/zta1ot/simple_guide_to_running_odyssey_on_a_potato/
