Here is a quick question for the intelligentsia of the forum, if the GPU is not the limiting factor to the performance why was the graphics quality reduced from the "beta"? (re. previous posts concerning reduction in quality vs. pre release screenshots)
This has been answered many times:
The time from the rendering of one frame to the rendering of the next frame—the reciprocal of the frame rate—has two parts: The time spent in rendering the frame and the time spent calculating the new position and attitude of every moveable object so that the rendering of the next frame can begin.
The first is done mainly in the GPU, with some necessary work by the CPU. The less capable graphics cards require more work by the CPU. The time required for rendering can be reduced by reducing the quality via the graphics options, or by reducing the quality of the textures and effects. The less capable the card, the greater the gain in performance.
The length of the second period is determined entirely by the speed of the CPU, memory, and disk.
Because of the computational demands of the sea model, the dynamics of all the ships, and the AI ships—which are all on autopilot instead of following a pre-defined path (as in ’08)—the second period has the greater influence on frame rate.
Also, when the earlier graphics quality was reduced “for performance reasonsâ€, that does not necessarily mean it was done to improve the frame rate. Rather, it was done to reduce the memory burden.