Good Game, bad performance!

[Tammy25]

Good Game, bad performance! I love Planet Zoo, it's diverse, inspiring, and a bombshell in terms of design.
But not a bomb in terms of performance. I don't like to say that I have a high end PC, but I thought that would be sufficient.
The game is advertised with minimalist PC system requirements, but that's not true at the back and front.

My PC is easily above this requirement:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600, 32 GB DDR4 RAM 3200 MHz, RTX 2070 Super 8 GB, 256 GB SSD + 1 TB SSD & 2x 1 TB HDD.

I like building a lot at Planet Zoo. Also very detailed. But where at the beginning with 5 enclosures and a nice border of details you still have about 50 FPS on medium, including reduction of the visitors to 3K, according to the advice of Frontiersupport only 2K. Hardly a new 4-5 enclosure built, only 35 FPS. And with the next only 20-25. And that's where I'm bouncing around. No, it's not nice to have done all the workarounds that the nice support team suggested. Nothing. Still 20-25 FPS max. The map is built up to 1/3, with themed enclosures and little dense sidewalks. At the moment there were about 200 animals present, including some babies (crocodiles throw 6-8 babies, peacocks too)

Frontier says the game is very CPU heavy, and I didn't see better performance on better CPUs. I tested the park (savegame sandbox) on other PCs that were cleaner and had little installed, and the park has exactly this 22 FPS. No matter where. Why are we given such large maps, so many options and no-limit animals when you can't use them? And the support says that you shouldn't build a lot and bring in fewer animals and visitors, that is the way it is intended (I am happy to provide support responses).
It's not fair on the developers to give us a game like this, but expect the bugs to be ours. And also not to give a fair game that you shouldn't push to the limit (according to support).
It would be nice if Frontier, or whoever, would work on adapting the game to medium-sized PCs as well. The CPU is 80% busy with me, but my graphics card is very bored. The RAM of the PC is also only loaded at approx. 13 GB with games, Discord and Steam in the background. I don't even dare to beautify something between the enclosures anymore.

Or am I playing the game wrong? Can't I build as I want? Do I have to buy a € 30,000 PC? You tell me. I have lost the pleasure and the fun. And I don't want to have a thousand small zoos, but my beautiful, large zoo, which unfortunately has become unplayable. Thank you for reading!

 

[Tammy25]

I forgot, here is a picture of the map of my zoo. And you see, the zoo is very empty.

PS: For some inexplicable reason, I can't include a screenshot of the game here, or it just won't preview me.

 

[LN]

PS: For some inexplicable reason, I can't include a screenshot of the game here, or it just won't preview me.

Probably the file size is too big.

Why are we given such large maps, so many options and no-limit animals when you can't use them?

People wanted large maps and don't want Frontier to restrict them for what they want to do in the game, and now people complain about not being able to completely fill the map because of loss of performance.

Other people also hold around a 100 animals of a single specie (Flamingo), which is an awful lot.
Don't overdo the number of animals, as animals and guests are the limiting factor for performance.
Around 25-30 FPS is quite normal for this game.

 

[Karen F]

This game does require a very powerful computer system. I have a very good gaming laptop but i still have to be careful about how I build. For example: i use as little as possible special effects, i try to keep my builds simple with few objects and i don't run any movies in my zoo (billboards). All of these things slow down the game. And i limit the number of guests and animals. There is nothing more you can do. But i agree that it shouldn't be like this. We should be able to build the zoo of our dreams without running into these issues.
Currently i run a zoo with 300 animals and 5000 guests without any problems so far.

 

[HeatherG]

Photos would need to be 1MB or less to be able to add them in a post

 

[Red Anders]

Or upload them to a file sharing site such as Imgur and embed the image into the post, which does not impose any restrictions.

 

[HeatherG]

That's definitely the easiest way!

 

[Tammy25]

My map: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vA-J2iAHKvgQmiRS-O6qEHejP7GrQ5AV/view?usp=sharing
I wanted to beautify a lot between the scene enclosures, but I can forget. And I didn’t want an enclosure that was drawn apart, but rather such compact scenes for the respective country / element / area.

 

[12344321]

I forgot, here is a picture of the map of my zoo. And you see, the zoo is very empty.

PS: For some inexplicable reason, I can't include a screenshot of the game here, or it just won't preview me.

My zoo is too detailed and large....so I literally dont have ANY animals or people in the zoo.

I have an rtx 2070 and this is the only way I can keep the performance up. By having no animals or guests in my zoo sim.

Also, the amount of issues people have been experiencing recently is reminiscent of the early launch days....not sure what's happening behind the scenes. I already lost one zoo completely last October.

 

[LN]

My map: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vA-J2iAHKvgQmiRS-O6qEHejP7GrQ5AV/view?usp=sharing
I wanted to beautify a lot between the scene enclosures, but I can forget. And I didn’t want an enclosure that was drawn apart, but rather such compact scenes for the respective country / element / area.

One of the things the game seems to struggle with is terrain as well. I guess this one was generated with the height map feature?

Havent used it so far so i cannot say anything in terms of performance difference.

Looks like a really nice park so far

 

[NL_Mutso]

The game is advertised with minimalist PC system requirements, but that's not true at the back and front.

Don't look in the steam forum for JWE2, loads of people are complaining about JWE2's demand for higher minimal requirements

My PC is easily above this requirement:
AMD Ryzen 5 3600, 32 GB DDR4 RAM 3200 MHz, RTX 2070 Super 8 GB, 256 GB SSD + 1 TB SSD & 2x 1 TB HDD.

Specs better than mine, but FPS-wise performs very similar. In 2 years time the game actually improved a lot on performance.
It's more noticeable with my Day1 zoo, which runs very smoothly compared to the 1st half year. (basic zoo, all species in zoo with 8-8.5K visitors.

My zoo is too detailed and large....so I literally dont have ANY animals or people in the zoo.

That's one way of playing the game .

 

[12344321]

Don't look in the steam forum for JWE2, loads of people are complaining about JWE2's demand for higher minimal requirements


Specs better than mine, but FPS-wise performs very similar. In 2 years time the game actually improved a lot on performance.
It's more noticeable with my Day1 zoo, which runs very smoothly compared to the 1st half year. (basic zoo, all species in zoo with 8-8.5K visitors.



That's one way of playing the game .

Yeah...it sucks. But it works.

It's the only way I can play this game on an RTX 2070 due to the severe performance issues with planet zoo.

It's $50 in Steam but what they don't tell you is you need a $2000 computer to play it. So the game actually costs $2,050. For that price you'd think performance wouldn't be an issue....but it still is.

 

[Tammy25]

Don't look in the steam forum for JWE2, loads of people are complaining about JWE2's demand for higher minimal requirements

I have JWE2, but this isn't about JWE2, it's Planet Zoo. And it is about the system requirements before buying a game, which is specified. It is best to state that a more expensive CPU would be required for larger maps xD
btw. JWE2 runs great on the highest setting with a full build Map.

 

[NL_Mutso]

I have JWE2, but this isn't about JWE2, it's Planet Zoo. And it is about the system requirements before buying a game, which is specified. It is best to state that a more expensive CPU would be required for larger maps xD
btw. JWE2 runs great on the highest setting with a full build Map.

I know, just want to point out when you post higher system requirements - people still are able to complain.
I'm fully on your side, advertise the requirements more accurate or a bit higher because meeting minimum requirements is not an enjoyable ride but the recommended ones are on the low side as well.

Interesting, your JWE2 comment, wouldn't expect JWE2 to run great on the highest setting and PZ 'struggling'. You'd expect similar issues with both.

It's the only way I can play this game on an RTX 2070 due to the severe performance issues with planet zoo.

What's your CPU? If it's balanced or same quality - that's rough.
I know some people who were able to play RDR2 at the highest setting with no issues and refunded PZ because it's too laggy. Something you wouldn't expect with a management game.
Performance has been issue since start. I experienced an improvement after all updates but a mix of big zoo, lots of animals an lots of visitors is still a bit wonky.

 

[ElectricMonk]

Why are we given such large maps, so many options and no-limit animals when you can't use them? And the support says that you shouldn't build a lot and bring in fewer animals and visitors, that is the way it is intended (I am happy to provide support responses).
It's not fair on the developers to give us a game like this, but expect the bugs to be ours. And also not to give a fair game that you shouldn't push to the limit (according to support).

You want the map size limited so that the game runs better on your computer if you fill the entire map, have lots and lots of animals and lots of guests. What about people who do have better computers and can run it fine? Why should they be limited by your specs?

 

[XT]

It's your water and terrain. Both of those require constant recalculations by the computer because they are volumes that affect other items such as animal transversal areas and guest sight and movement. Even though no animals and guests are currently interacting with those volumes, the computer has to check every single ... time (whatever the program's interval is). There's no work-around and your frustrations are common - while there are few/no limits in the program, it's so CPU intensive to use some of the features (basically anything that requires the system to calculate guest or animal movements or interactions) that even super powerful computers choke before the entire map is richly detailed. If you wanted to test it (but wreck your zoo), get rid of the water and the mountains and see what the performance is like then.

 

[Tammy25]

To fix my problem, you tell me to adjust my zoo for performance, not my creativity?

I still have a slightly older map, everything smooth except for a self-created little hill in the middle. I only built 1/4 of the map, and I've built this zoo since it was released. And there the performance (In comparison to my newer one) is even worse, without big lakes and big mountains, with only a little hill!

Frontier Support 5.jpg

drive.google.com

Frontier Support 6.jpg

drive.google.com

And yes, there is a self-made crane in the middle. Doesn't say, that it eats up all of my performance.

Frontier Support 8.jpg

drive.google.com

Actually, the developers should try to optimize the game so that it works comfortably on every system. And no, where do I request a smaller map? I asked why they give us such a huge map? It would be better to have different sizes to choose from, as other games do. I don't know anyone, not even with a 20k € PC, who can play the game with a fully developed map of this size at full FPS. I also see all the streamers losing performance, most of them even have their settings on the lowest, or either build only one enclosure each for presentation, or only a tiny part of a map with enclosures and animals.
And what is a zoo game without animals and visitors?
And let's be honest, the game should encourage and demand creativity, but unfortunately at the expense of technology, which not everyone can afford. But some of them don't understand, so I won't touch the game until the developers finally make progress!
That's how long I've been playing JWE2 because it works perfectly on my system.

 

[Tammy25]

You want the map size limited so that the game runs better on your computer if you fill the entire map, have lots and lots of animals and lots of guests. What about people who do have better computers and can run it fine? Why should they be limited by your specs?

Sorry, but you don't understand me! I say in quote of my first thread: "Why are we given such large maps, so many options and no-limit animals when you can't use them?"
And i wish a other one, not a little map alone, i wish more option for maps. (small, medium, large or something).

 

[LN]

Every single time I'm amazed how people just tend to say, O, they should optimize more, like it's some simple thing to do. (And I'm sure they are constantly optimizing, but with really small steps).

And JWE2 is not quite comparable with Planet Zoo (JWE2 for example runs fully on DX12, and Planet Zoo does not, because many people don't have hardware that supported Dx12 at the time of release).

 

[ElectricMonk]

Why are we given such large maps, so many options and no-limit animals when you can't use them?"

Ok, I’ll answer that then:

Because some people can use them.