The "Can I Run Planet Coaster" thread

[DaWu]

There's seriously something wrong with your computer if it's performing as badly as you say - or to put it in other words, it isn't the game. I know it hurts people to realise but it's a demanding game, all I use this game for is exploring massively detailed parks on Ultra settings, and I don't have issue. Talking 20mb+ parks. What settings are you running the game on?

There is nothing wrong. Use a big park and not a small one. On small ones I get 100fps too. For example load from the workshop this one: Six Flags New Orleans. The restoration of an abandoned park.
Tell me ur specs and ur fps. I get around 10-15. Unplayable and that park is not even really detailed.

 

[MagnitudeZero]

There is nothing wrong. Use a big park and not a small one. On small ones I get 100fps too. For example load from the workshop this one: Six Flags New Orleans. The restoration of an abandoned park.
Tell me ur specs and ur fps. I get around 10-15. Unplayable and that park is not even really detailed.

Well it depends where I am in the park and what I'm doing, if you have a lot in the screen in one go, you're going to get lower fps than, say, when you're zoomed up close on something.

Here I have a pretty decent overview of the park with 25 fps (hard to see but fps is shown top left above the help button):

And then here I'm up close watching Batman and The Joker duking it out, with 34 fps:

But obviously that's not the whole story, cause I'm stationary.

Here I am riding Batman, at 23 fps:

Biggest FPS drops I get are when I'm sweeping my camera around on an overview of the park, I'll drop to 16-17 fps, but even then It's really smooth.

All these pictures are taken with everything turned on and set to ultra/high/very high whatever top option is (don't have tilt shift turned on obv, but that's it). GTX 1080, i7-6600k @ 4.5ghz, 3440x1440. Obviously they're decent specs, and I don't want this to be a case of "I can run it lol so u shud be able to". But seriously, what graphics settings are you using to get 10-15 fps?

And in a game like Planet Coaster, people using fps as some sort of benchmark really bothers me. For exploring a park you don't need more than 12-13 fps, it still moves really fluidly. There's reason for this and it's the way our eyes process imagery. When people want 60fps on games it's pretty much for fps(first person shooter) only, and even then it's for the skilled people, normal humans won't notice lower.

Every film you've ever watched (with the exception of like, the Hobbit or something) is shot in 24 fps, but that's even faster than it needs to be, it could be slower and we'd still be able to view films without discomfort. The only place where I think fps comes in to it in Planet Coaster is if we hope to get VR support, because your peripheral vision has higher sensitivity to the fps, if you were to ride roller coasters at 24 fps in VR you'd feel quite ill, but doing it on my computer (even with UW filling some of my peripheral) is totally fine. I think maybe another lower-limit would be the fps at which the the guests and staff are animated at - I think animation is usually done at 30fps, but I don't actually know what it is in Planet Coaster, I think I do notice some sluggish activity on peeps below like 17 fps, but my eyes aren't really sensitive to stuff like this.

I think the issue you're really experiencing is input lag, which can affect fps, even halting it completely, that's what will make the game "unplayable" for you, not the low fps itself.

And remember, guests change everything - left the game running whilst writing this, now at 11k guests with 14 fps, but it's still "fluid" for me.

 

[LN]

Also do remember there is quite a gap between your i7-6600K and his i7-2700K.

 

[MagnitudeZero]

Of course (and sorry was a typo, 6700k - but for some reason I can't edit my own posts lol?), but limiting guests, and lowering graphics quality can go a long way to improving the game experience - and the point being that fps in this game isn't some be all or end all issue (but I can appreciate not wanting to ride rollercoasters at 10-15 fps). There's already people replying using the same i7-2700k cpu and lower gfx cards and saying it's fine with medium settings. And that park I was showing off was nothing, there's some beast parks out there - Emerald Gardens, Pixel Studios etc, and then even my computer will struggle - but these are max detail parks, the sheer scale of what is being rendered and shown on my screen all at once in real time, every piece moveable and editable, and I'm running it all ultra.

I take issue with DaWu saying "Dont buy the game. Its the flop of the year. Your fps will sink to 10 with 20% map filled and 5k guests", when that's clearly not true for everyone, but also the fact that LIMIT THE GUESTS THEN. Have no clue what settings he runs the game on, what his screen resolution is (which definitely matters in a game like this), etc, etc. All I see is someone who's thrown their toy out of the pram as soon as it's not working to their expectations (if you want 5k guests, get a cpu that can handle 5k guests - sorry but that's life).

 

[Chems]

You cannot compare the fps of a movie to the fps of a game. First of all, a movie is passive. When you run a game at lets say 24 fps, and you just watch it looks smooth, but as soon as you start to play (give input) it will not feel smooth again because with 24 fps everything responds slow. Secondly , movie frames contain 'motion', and games do generally do not. Some games feature motion blur, and it does make low fps feel somewhat smoother, but it is not perfect as it is simulated motion and not real, and you still have the input problem.

I agree tho that people have wrong expectations of the game in terms of performance. Considering what the game does, it actually runs pretty good. You can add as much polygons to the game as you want, so you really can't expect the game to "run at a stable 60 fps at all times". Of course, Planet Coaster offers us the freedom to add a lot of objects so it is very easy to get lost and just keep adding objects to your buildings. It is something I try to avoid and honestly it isn't difficult to add a lot of detail while keeping poly and object count low.

 

[MagnitudeZero]

Yeah I did mention that I think his issue is input lag - but at the same time the fps in this game isn't as much of an issue as it is in other games - I don't feel like the comparison of Planet Coaster to a film is that unfair, certainly not the way I use it (mostly just exploration), even if it does get choppy when panning the camera around in meaty parks, it doesn't making it "unplayable, if I had that experience in Overwatch or Tomb Raider It'd be unplayable, but not for this game - but even as a builder in bigger parks, I'll certainly get lag when opening a menu for the first time and it's loading all the object assets and stuff, but once it's initially loaded I'll have no problem in going back to the menu, placing objects etc, and when building tend to be focused on one small area also, which also is a factor in improving performance.

But Chems, you were the guy I was referring to when I was like "Some people are running the game with an i72700k with lesser card and doing just fine", so - how good exactly is your performance? I feel unfair if I'm saying "Everything's fine for me lol" but then I'm on a high end rig.

 

[LN]

Of course (and sorry was a typo, 6700k - but for some reason I can't edit my own posts lol?), but limiting guests, and lowering graphics quality can go a long way to improving the game experience - and the point being that fps in this game isn't some be all or end all issue (but I can appreciate not wanting to ride rollercoasters at 10-15 fps). There's already people replying using the same i7-2700k cpu and lower gfx cards and saying it's fine with medium settings. And that park I was showing off was nothing, there's some beast parks out there - Emerald Gardens, Pixel Studios etc, and then even my computer will struggle - but these are max detail parks, the sheer scale of what is being rendered and shown on my screen all at once in real time, every piece moveable and editable, and I'm running it all ultra.

I take issue with DaWu saying "Dont buy the game. Its the flop of the year. Your fps will sink to 10 with 20% map filled and 5k guests", when that's clearly not true for everyone, but also the fact that LIMIT THE GUESTS THEN. Have no clue what settings he runs the game on, what his screen resolution is (which definitely matters in a game like this), etc, etc. All I see is someone who's thrown their toy out of the pram as soon as it's not working to their expectations (if you want 5k guests, get a cpu that can handle 5k guests - sorry but that's life).

I agree on above and....

Limitations..... That's most people's problem. They don't want to be limited. Even if they have the best setup in the world. They still expect miracles.
I don't care about 60 FPS, I like my 15-30 fps. And I don't mind turning the graphics down. Because it still looks pretty.

This is just the new Crysis 1.
And why is that? Because we want the game to be as it is in its current state. But we want more!! More! More! More!

And if you want fancy graphics with 6 years old technology play a game from 6 years ago then.

 

[DaWu]

First I want to say thank to you for taking your time downloading the park and doing the test. For one 16-17fps is smooth for another one its giving headache.
Graphic Quality does not change much in this game. The peformance gain from going from Ultra to Low is 3-4 fps. I tested this. So I run pretty high settings on 1920x1200.
The most performance hitting thing are objects and not guests. I closed my park and let all guests leave. Brought me only 2-3 fps more. First when I startet to remove object after object I started to gain performance. There are many ways in coding to counter this. It seems like this game does not have any LODs at all.

For me besides building is watching a living park going is the fun PC can give me. When I have <20 fps its not enjoyable for me. I expect a game like PC to run a park like above on a high end machine with 50fps. Its not like we deal here with Crysis like graphics! The game is looking good but not award winning good. So for me personally its a flop. I will revisit the game when I upgraded to 7700k later this year but dont have much hope and wont do the upgrade for PC but for other reasons (more RAM, other games like FSX). I will post later 2-3 screens running the same park from my rig for comparison

 

[LN]

I expect a game like PC to run a park like above on a high end machine with 50fps.

I think this is the cause of the problems.

 

[Chems]

First I want to say thank to you for taking your time downloading the park and doing the test. For one 16-17fps is smooth for another one its giving headache.
Graphic Quality does not change much in this game. The peformance gain from going from Ultra to Low is 3-4 fps. I tested this. So I run pretty high settings on 1920x1200.
The most performance hitting thing are objects and not guests. I closed my park and let all guests leave. Brought me only 2-3 fps more. First when I startet to remove object after object I started to gain performance. There are many ways in coding to counter this. It seems like this game does not have any LODs at all.

For me besides building is watching a living park going is the fun PC can give me. When I have <20 fps its not enjoyable for me. I expect a game like PC to run a park like above on a high end machine with 50fps. Its not like we deal here with Crysis like graphics! The game is looking good but not award winning good. So for me personally its a flop. I will revisit the game when I upgraded to 7700k later this year but dont have much hope and wont do the upgrade for PC but for other reasons (more RAM, other games like FSX). I will post later 2-3 screens running the same park from my rig for comparison

It's not really just about the graphics. It's the combination the graphics with the amount of objects you can add to the game. I haven't tested the park you linked but have you checked how many objects it contains? Also, the game does have LoDs.

I get you don't like to play the at low fps, it is distracting and annoying. Personally it doesn't bother me all that much, I kind of accepted it as a reality of the genre. Even RCT3's framerate will drop significantly when you place a lot of assets, especially custom scenery since they are more detailed. So yeah, considering what the game does it is not badly programmed. Although it is difficult, the only thing you can do to keep a high fps is to keep track of your object count.

 

[Chems]

Yeah I did mention that I think his issue is input lag - but at the same time the fps in this game isn't as much of an issue as it is in other games - I don't feel like the comparison of Planet Coaster to a film is that unfair, certainly not the way I use it (mostly just exploration), even if it does get choppy when panning the camera around in meaty parks, it doesn't making it "unplayable, if I had that experience in Overwatch or Tomb Raider It'd be unplayable, but not for this game - but even as a builder in bigger parks, I'll certainly get lag when opening a menu for the first time and it's loading all the object assets and stuff, but once it's initially loaded I'll have no problem in going back to the menu, placing objects etc, and when building tend to be focused on one small area also, which also is a factor in improving performance.

You you are right, I missed the thing about input lag. But yeah, in a game like Planet Coaster you don't need a high fps to play it, although I understand it can feel bad. It can even cause motion-sickness afaik.

But Chems, you were the guy I was referring to when I was like "Some people are running the game with an i72700k with lesser card and doing just fine", so - how good exactly is your performance? I feel unfair if I'm saying "Everything's fine for me lol" but then I'm on a high end rig.

For me, the peformance is good, for others, the same performance could be bad, it's kind of a subjective thing. When my parks get bigger my fps will drop to 20-25, and I haven't really made mega parks with ridiculous amounts of details because I know the limits of my PC and rather not fry my GPU. [tongue] As a programmer myself I feel it is easy for me to accept the game's performance because I understand why the games runs the way it does (of course I don't know exactly how Frontier implemented their systems).

 

[MagnitudeZero]

First I want to say thank to you for taking your time downloading the park and doing the test. For one 16-17fps is smooth for another one its giving headache.
Graphic Quality does not change much in this game. The peformance gain from going from Ultra to Low is 3-4 fps. I tested this. So I run pretty high settings on 1920x1200.
The most performance hitting thing are objects and not guests. I closed my park and let all guests leave. Brought me only 2-3 fps more. First when I startet to remove object after object I started to gain performance. There are many ways in coding to counter this. It seems like this game does not have any LODs at all.

For me besides building is watching a living park going is the fun PC can give me. When I have <20 fps its not enjoyable for me. I expect a game like PC to run a park like above on a high end machine with 50fps. Its not like we deal here with Crysis like graphics! The game is looking good but not award winning good. So for me personally its a flop. I will revisit the game when I upgraded to 7700k later this year but dont have much hope and wont do the upgrade for PC but for other reasons (more RAM, other games like FSX). I will post later 2-3 screens running the same park from my rig for comparison

I actually already had the park - it's quite nice! But expecting 50 fps is not going to happen any time soon! In that same park, if I empty it of guests, turn every setting to either lowest or off, change my resolution to 1900x1080, zoom in to an arbitrary piece of ground and hit pause, I still only acheive 43 fps at max, and 35 fps when I'm panning around - but I'd not want to play with those settings, 100% take 18 fps over that any day!

 

[Ramm]

Have we found a way to benchmark parks yet?

Maybe like a demo some other games have, that your PC plays a certain scenario, going through camera angles and then at the end it compares your specs and minimum, average and maximum fps.

 

[Slasher1]

Hi guys.

I am considering buying a new notebook just to play Planet Coaster in 1080p and high settings, if possible. Do you know if this one will do it well?


Acer VX15

Intel Core i7 7700HQ 2.8 GHz - 3.8 GHz w/ Turbo Boost 6 MB Cache
16 GB (2 x 8 GB) tipo DDR4 Frequency 2133 MHz
1 TB HD (5400 RPM)
GeForce GTX 1050Ti com 4GB - GDDR5

 

[asianguruu]

Hello, I'm building a system for a friend and was wondering if this would be an appropriate setup.
he said that he wants to be able to play games on at least medium with good fps so i scrapped this together:
CPU: AMD - FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor
MB: Gigabyte - GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard
RAM: G.Skill - Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: 1TB western digital drive
GPU: 750 ti or 1050ti depending on budget
and that's pretty much it on things that would affect performance...
Thanks!

 

[Chems]

Hi guys.

I am considering buying a new notebook just to play Planet Coaster in 1080p and high settings, if possible. Do you know if this one will do it well?


Acer VX15

Intel Core i7 7700HQ 2.8 GHz - 3.8 GHz w/ Turbo Boost 6 MB Cache
16 GB (2 x 8 GB) tipo DDR4 Frequency 2133 MHz
1 TB HD (5400 RPM)
GeForce GTX 1050Ti com 4GB - GDDR5

With those specs you will be able to run the game on med-high without a problem.

 

[Slasher1]

With those specs you will be able to run the game on med-high without a problem.

Med, really?

Do you know what is the bottleneck of that notebook? I rather invest on something to play on high settings...

 

[discovery4919]

Hi all!
Can anyone please help me with this?

https://www.acer.com/ac/es/ES/content/models/laptops/aspirevnitro

Do these computers meet the recommended requirements to play Planet Coaster? What of them its the best? Do you know a better option? I need a new laptop but not only for games.. Thanks guys

 

[Chems]

Hi all!
Can anyone please help me with this?

https://www.acer.com/ac/es/ES/content/models/laptops/aspirevnitro

Do these computers meet the recommended requirements to play Planet Coaster? What of them its the best? Do you know a better option? I need a new laptop but not only for games.. Thanks guys

Hey Sesac7,

Both of those laptops should be able to run the game. The V17 Nitro is probably a bit better than the V15 because of its better processor. Their GPU's are both fairly weak, the 950m is a little bit better than the 945m, but the difference is small. Have you looked at the laptop Slasher mentioned in his comment? (the one I replied to before this comment). That one is better suited for gaming.

 

[Chems]

Hello, I'm building a system for a friend and was wondering if this would be an appropriate setup.
he said that he wants to be able to play games on at least medium with good fps so i scrapped this together:
CPU: AMD - FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor
MB: Gigabyte - GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard
RAM: G.Skill - Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: 1TB western digital drive
GPU: 750 ti or 1050ti depending on budget
and that's pretty much it on things that would affect performance...
Thanks!

That is a pretty low end system. I would definitely aim for a better CPU. preferably an I5 or ryzen or better. The GPU is fine, but do get the newest generation. The 750 Ti is a couple of years old now and way less powerful than the 1050 Ti. The rest is all good, but note that you will need DDR4 RAM if you choose to get a newer CPU (which you should because the fx 6300 is slow).