I delved into VRAM and the differences between the 4060Ti and 5000 series graphics cards and monitored hardware performance while running Star Citizen.

The VRAM was certainly impacting on the resolution and the image quality I could select, but generally it was RAM and CPU which Star Citizen was hammering.

A 5070 Ti was about the only upgrade option that made much sense – but at $1,300+ AUD it is a bit of an investment just to make one game look better.

I then read and watched multiple guides on setting changes you could make to get Star Citizen to run smoother. By the end of several more hours of investment and ensuring I closed anything else on my system using resources, I might have got the game to run just well enough to be acceptable.

So, the next step is to try and play it.

One of my first thoughts was – oh no – not another game designed to be played on a console. The suboptimal maps, the reuse of a limited number of keys, an irritating pie/radial menu. It makes for a much poorer game to play on a PC.  Except Google tells me the game has never been available on a console and there were no current plans for it to be done. So, UI sadists or an approach to sabotage the now for a future which is not yet planned.

So far all I have got out of Star Citizen is a list of irritations.

I went to a console and was able to call my ship out of storage.  I went to the appropriate elevator, but it did not list my private hanger. I went to one of the external hangers which was available – but I almost suffocated to death because I was not wearing a helmet. Oddly I did not at first notice I was dying as the process was rather sedate. Finally, I worked out that when you press F to activate the elevator controls, you can then use the mouse wheel to scroll through all available hangers.

Once on my ship and in the pilot’s chair I remembered you had to use ALT N to request permission to undock.  It didn’t work. I powered up my ship and tried ALT N again. It didn’t work. I lifted the ship up off the docking bay floor and tried ALT N again. It didn’t work. I then retracted the landing gear with N and tried ALT N again. Permission was granted and the doors opened. I thought I understood the sequence, but it works differently any time I try. Sometimes the Air Traffic Controllers don’t hear the request. Sometimes there is a long delay before they respond, give you permission, then point out they have already given you permission as all your overdue attempts are processed. 

The same when you come into land. It can take well over a minute for them to allocate you to a hanger. If in that time you get too close to the station, they threaten to impound your ship because you are in a restricted area or blocking flight paths.  When you move away the threat remains, although the timer tends not to tick down.

You press N to lower and raise your landing gear. You press and hold N to do an automatic landing.  Except sometimes the automatic landing doesn’t work and your landing gear goes up and down.

Currently I am watching YouTube clips to understand how to use the map properly and find some trustworthy and repeatible sequence for docking and undocking.

I get the feeling there are a lot of quirks in the game that people who have been playing for a while just work around without thought. Brand new players are left thinking WTF!?