Can we reduce the guests?

I was wondering if we could limit the amount of guests in alpha 2 to avoid the lagging issue most people have? As this is annoying and ruins the game play for me, its not nice to ride a coaster with a slight lag [down]
 
I was wondering if we could limit the amount of guests in alpha 2 to avoid the lagging issue most people have? As this is annoying and ruins the game play for me, its not nice to ride a coaster with a slight lag [down]

Sounds like you have a low end rig and are already on low graphics, like me. So your having a frame rate issue.

The good news is they are also working on performance issues as well it's just not getting talked about as that isn't sexy.
 
Considering everybody want more guests this is a odd request.... I hate to break it to you but it's time to update your pc or lower the graphics.
 
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You could build fewer rides - I think it's set to 200 guests per ride, fill out your park more with scenery etc, With the new Alpha soon, you can do large caverns, dark rides etc. This 200 number is currently fixed until the simulation work comes into play in Alpha 3, then it might depend on your park on what draws in the crowd.

In the mean time, for the rest of the year save up some money, sounds like you might need to upgrade your rig to something better, but also note that optimisation on the game is one of the last things frontier will do.
 
Considering everybody want more guests this is a odd request.... I hate to break it to you but it's time to update your pc or lower the graphics.

That's what I'm doing. It runs OK for me with a very full park but I want better.

Games have always fueled the computer industry and is what makes people buy better and better machines. This is the first game in a long time that is driving me to save for the big gaming rig.
 
I would assume we will be able to adjust overall population with Low, Medium, High density guest options or similar in the future so that people with different machines can play it.

It would make sense that at the moment the number of around 200 per ride would suggest a medium density park. It would be similar to the way the Total War series handles number of people in units so that everyone can play but people with higher spec machines can maximise the effect.

Regards,

Adam
 
I would assume we will be able to adjust overall population with Low, Medium, High density guest options or similar in the future so that people with different machines can play it.

It would make sense that at the moment the number of around 200 per ride would suggest a medium density park. It would be similar to the way the Total War series handles number of people in units so that everyone can play but people with higher spec machines can maximise the effect.

Regards,

Adam

I don't know. The number of peeps effect the economy. And this is an economy game that's built on the back of a theme park simulation. Reduce peeps and they have to go in and reduce costs of building rides and scenery for the various settings. Or we charge more but the would have to have completely different AI for every peep density setting.
 
I don't know. The number of peeps effect the economy. And this is an economy game that's built on the back of a theme park simulation. Reduce peeps and they have to go in and reduce costs of building rides and scenery for the various settings. Or we charge more but the would have to have completely different AI for every peep density setting.

You make a very valid point. So here are two quick thought solutions

One
They could possibly code a multiplier if needed, so if we have it set to "low" guest numbers we can have X% of income range increased per person who is willing to spend more on a single ride/item than if we have "medium" guest numbers and thus the flow of monies/management is the same.

So lets say that guests density is 30% less at low compared to medium, then we multiply their spending by 30% to even the figures out then the income would look the same and thus any scenario numbers are the same.

Two
Or it works that if you select low density then the objects requirements are reduced to match also as needed. Be it number of guests per month, income annually etc. Yes it requires coding and some time but if you only have 3 settings then once the main details are done then the relative figures are just that, arbitrary figures we use to understand what is going on. The AI would not need to be different then.

So if at Medium density you need to have 10,000 guests in a year to visit, at Low you only need to have 7,000 guests visit. Or if you have to earn £1 million in a year at medium density, instead you have to earn £700k in a year instead.

It would be a very fine line to get it right and certainly not easy but maybe a potential solution.

A guest off options for while you build in sandbox mode would be handy also as this would mean that we don't have to worry about running simulation of the guests while we are building the initial part of the park and haven't joined main street to entrance for instance.

Regards,

Adam
 
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You make a very valid point. So here are two quick thought solutions

One
They could possibly code a multiplier if needed, so if we have it set to "low" guest numbers we can have X% of income range increased per person who is willing to spend more on a single ride/item than if we have "medium" guest numbers and thus the flow of monies/management is the same.

So lets say that guests density is 30% less at low compared to medium, then we multiply their spending by 30% to even the figures out then the income would look the same and thus any scenario numbers are the same.

Two
Or it works that if you select low density then the objects requirements are reduced to match also as needed. Be it number of guests per month, income annually etc. Yes it requires coding and some time but if you only have 3 settings then once the main details are done then the relative figures are just that, arbitrary figures we use to understand what is going on. The AI would not need to be different then.

So if at Medium density you need to have 10,000 guests in a year to visit, at Low you only need to have 7,000 guests visit. Or if you have to earn £1 million in a year at medium density, instead you have to earn £700k in a year instead.

It would be a very fine line to get it right and certainly not easy but maybe a potential solution.

A guest off options for while you build in sandbox mode would be handy also as this would mean that we don't have to worry about running simulation of the guests while we are building the initial part of the park and haven't joined main street to entrance for instance.

Regards,

Adam

Yea. I'm not a coder so I don't know how hard or easy it would be. But you second point is you in sandbox you can not attach it to the entrance and you won't get guests or just build while paused.

I can almost guarantee that the solution we will be provided is buy new computers. So far I know I have bought 3 new computers strictly to play a newly released game. Keep in mind I'm old so I have been around since the beginning of home computers.
 
Yea. I'm not a coder so I don't know how hard or easy it would be. But you second point is you in sandbox you can not attach it to the entrance and you won't get guests or just build while paused.

I can almost guarantee that the solution we will be provided is buy new computers. So far I know I have bought 3 new computers strictly to play a newly released game. Keep in mind I'm old so I have been around since the beginning of home computers.

If you don't attach the entrance you still get the guests but they all appear in the tunnel out of view and the game starts to try and work its flow path to everything and then errors out and the simulation runs again and again on a loop which is what causes lag and slow down in FPS at times.

To just be able to turn them off would mean that this wasn't happening. The reason I don't and I feel others don't build in pause is also because you can't switch between day/night mode at this time so to be able to do all the lighting then you would need to un-pause and as soon as you do that then all the guests turn up.

And yes they may suggest that buying a new computer is the solution. I don't personally have an issue by way, am just suggestion solutions for others that do as lets be fair, the more it can run on other machines the better really.

My PC is coming up to its 2nd year since being built and runs it fine at moment so I won't be upgrading till next year at earliest myself tbh as holding out for the increased GPU grunt that we will see when the 1080Ti of similar drops.

Regards,

Adam
 
Well it is true that even an above average gaming PC has trouble running this game.

Unless you got like one of the newest i7's and gtx 980ti the game is bound to be laggy, even on lower settings
 
Well it is true that even an above average gaming PC has trouble running this game.

Unless you got like one of the newest i7's and gtx 980ti the game is bound to be laggy, even on lower settings

Well, they are working on performance, but not by the exclusion of features, but with resource management. I guess I'm lucky, the game runs really well for me on low settings. I have a several year old hp Envy 700 I got from Costco with no upgrades. and didn't have a frame rate issue till my park got this large with max guests.

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Well it is true that even an above average gaming PC has trouble running this game.

Unless you got like one of the newest i7's and gtx 980ti the game is bound to be laggy, even on lower settings

Tbf I am on a newer i7 4790k and GTX980 (Non ti) but it runs fine at 4k tbh for me so far although I have only played maps with up to 2000 people.

Regards,

Adam
 
From a Park Management perspective I actually don't think it would be too bad an idea to be able to set guest capacity (perhaps guests could complain of overcrowding and long wait times if you allowed too many guests into too small a park for example, and similarly staff could complain if they feel they are overworked due to the crowds being to big). It could be a management feature that has a knock on beneficial effect for those with slower PCs.

I build my computers so am tailoring a machine specifically for Planet Coaster, but even if capacity was not somehow made a part of management, in sandbox mode it might be nice to be able to set capacity regardless as thematically dense parks with no financial limitations, plus high guest count, could slow down even powerful set ups.
 
From a Park Management perspective I actually don't think it would be too bad an idea to be able to set guest capacity (perhaps guests could complain of overcrowding and long wait times if you allowed too many guests into too small a park for example, and similarly staff could complain if they feel they are overworked due to the crowds being to big). It could be a management feature that has a knock on beneficial effect for those with slower PCs.

I build my computers so am tailoring a machine specifically for Planet Coaster, but even if capacity was not somehow made a part of management, in sandbox mode it might be nice to be able to set capacity regardless as thematically dense parks with no financial limitations, plus high guest count, could slow down even powerful set ups.

During sandbox would be fine. Let us limit it and frankly turn off management completely because money isn't an option anyway
 
Well My PC specs are above the requirements to run the game, but still the CPU is at 97% and Ive heard many people with very high spec getting the same issue. the lag is not really bad but bad enough to ruin the game, My specs are.....

Geforce GTX950
I7 2600K 3.4 GHZ
16GB RAM
WINDOWS 7

Can anyone tell me if these specs should cause lag, because according to Planet Coaster they shouldnt cause any lag issues.
 
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Well My PC specs are above the requirements to run the game, but still the CPU is at 97% and Ive heard many people with very high spec getting the same issue. the lag is not really bad but bad enough to ruin the game, My specs are.....

Geforce GTX950
I7 2600K 3.4 GHZ
16GB RAM
WINDOWS 7

Can anyone tell me if these specs should cause lag, because according to Planet Coaster they shouldnt cause any lag issues.

Well there are a few things to note really on that front.

It is Alpha and the minimum are just that to run the game and performance may be below what they are aiming for until they have fully optimised it and released it officially.

Further to that it was explained during one of the live streams that the CPU working at 97% or similar is not necessarily the cause of the lag. They have according to the dev team developed a very sophisticated coding that can fully utilise the CPU potential.

In short the game does all the graphical rendering first as required via the CPU and then completes the simulation for the guests movements (the fluid system) and this will max out the CPU where possible to get the best performance needed but should not cause the lag/stutter according to Frontier.

Some questions to ask are:

  1. Are you running it on low, medium or high?
  2. What resolution? 1080p or 1440p etc.
  3. Full screen, Borderless or Window mode?
  4. What size park/guest numbers?

In the future we should see improvements in performance as minor bugs and code that cause the stutter/lag is found and sorted but it depends on a lot of things that may change in the future too. Am sure someone else will come along and explain this better for you though.

Regards,

Adam
 
Well thats the thing because it doesnt matter if on high medium or low graphic setting it still lags the same, and the CPU still runs at 97%, so not sure if its just a bug as alpha version, as they stated on the live stream it should not lag at all which is not true.
 
Well thats the thing because it doesnt matter if on high medium or low graphic setting it still lags the same, and the CPU still runs at 97%, so not sure if its just a bug as alpha version, as they stated on the live stream it should not lag at all which is not true.

They didn't say it shouldn't lag at all, just that the CPU isn't the culprit but they are aware that some stuff does cause it, specifically some scenery parts were/are. It may be something specific in your park causing the issue rather than the high CPU use for instance.

Regards,

Adam
 
We haven't seen what the management side of PC is going to bring but I would hope for a more realistic simulation. Park guests in previous titles of RCT were a constant number because the park never closed, some scenarios were based off how many guests you had in your park. If that was changed to guest throughput then your park could close overnight and over the course of a day your park could attract over 2000 guests, that way you would only struggle at peak times of the day. This would also allow a deeper simulation of your workers where you could employ cleaners, etc during closing times to do the bulk of the work when there are no guests, you could shut down all your rides and service them for the next day.

I really hope they approach the simulation of the park management a little more realistically then we have seen in past games. This would make for a better gaming experience all round. Besides this there is still optimizations to come which should reduce the load on hardware for mid to low-end computers, luckily for me I fall into the top-end but optimizations make it even better in those areas as well.
 
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