Help for running PZ on more powerful hardware...

Sclurp · Mar 16, 2022

This isn't something I think should go on the issue tracker, instead I wanted to seek out help from anyone playing Planet Zoo on a more beefy PC. I was on a 970 before and was having a nice enough time with some medium settings with the frame rate being fairly solid, no issues bar PZ's usual start-up crash we've all experienced from time to time...Since upgrading my PC though, I've been having issues with PZ and not in terms of FPS or visual fidelity but the game crashing and needing the PC to be restarted (can't even get to task manager).

My specs are:
RTX 3080Ti
Intel i7-12700K
32GB Ram

Any help would be appreciated. I've been trying to test out games to see what this PC can do and I've not had issues with the likes of Cyberpunk (funnily enough) and other demanding games.

P.S. All drivers are up to date and system has been updated.

Imagin · Mar 16, 2022

I recently built a new PC and have been playing PZ just fine. Haven't crashed yet. I have similar specs:

CPU - Intel Core i9-11900K
MB - ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XIII HERO
GPU - ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 V2 OC Edition
RAM - 64GB CORSAIR Vengeance LPX (2 x 32GB) DDR4 3200

I'm running Windows 11.

ZSHplays · Mar 16, 2022

Sclurp said:
This isn't something I think should go on the issue tracker, instead I wanted to seek out help from anyone playing Planet Zoo on a more beefy PC. I was on a 970 before and was having a nice enough time with some medium settings with the frame rate being fairly solid, no issues bar PZ's usual start-up crash we've all experienced from time to time...Since upgrading my PC though, I've been having issues with PZ and not in terms of FPS or visual fidelity but the game crashing and needing the PC to be restarted (can't even get to task manager).

My specs are:
RTX 3080Ti
Intel i7-12700K
32GB Ram

Any help would be appreciated. I've been trying to test out games to see what this PC can do and I've not had issues with the likes of Cyberpunk (funnily enough) and other demanding games.

P.S. All drivers are up to date and system has been updated.

Did you upgrade your PSU along with the new hardware?

Imagin · Mar 16, 2022

Oh yes, that GPU requires tons of power - I had to plug 3 cables from the power supply just to get it to work properly - and you can't use a pigtail either, has to be a full cable. I actually bought custom PSU cables for this build because of the size of the case and GPU. Here's my full parts list:

CASE
Corsair 5000D AIRFLOW

MOTHERBOARD
ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XIII HERO
serial number - M6M0KS041922X3G

PSU
Corsair CP-9020180-NA RMX Series RM850x 80 Plus Gold Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

PSU Cables
Corsair CP-8920228 Premium Individually Sleeved PSU Cables Pro Kit

CPU
Intel Core i9-11900K

COOLER
CORSAIR HYDRO SERIES H150i PRO RGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler

RAM
CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 64GB (2 x 32GB) DDR4 3200 (PC4-25600) C16 1.35V

GPU
ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 V2 OC Edition 10GB GDDR6X PCI Express 4.0 x16 Video Card ROG-STRIX-RTX3080-O10G-V2-GAMING

FANS
10 x Corsair ML120 120mm PWM Magnetic Levitation Fan (CO-9050049-WW)

SSD DRIVE
2 - SAMSUNG 870 QVO Series 2.5" 4TB SATA III V-NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

M2 DRIVE
Western Digital SN850 1TB Gen 4

SPEAKERS
Logitech Z625 Powerful THX Sound 2.1

USB EXPANSION CARD
Rivo PCI Express Riser USB 3.0 Card 5-Port PCI Extender Card

ZSHplays · Mar 16, 2022

OK cool, just checking as I once had crashes in PZ (and other games) when I got a new gfx card but didn't bother with a new PSU, not a mistake I've made again haha

Imagin · Mar 16, 2022

I hope you can figure this out, it must be very frustrating.

GRAMPERS62 · Mar 16, 2022

Besides updating drivers one needs to check runtime updates for things like C++ VC++ Seems like there were others but can't remember at the moment. Also Windows update should be up to date. Some older motherboards require a bios update for the 20 and 30 series cards as well so worth checking even on new builds.

Sclurp · Mar 17, 2022

Thank you for the replies...
Sorry by upgrade it makes it sound like I plonked a new graphics card in but I bought a new PC and with a power supply fit for a gaming PC as I wanted to invest in something that'll serve me well with streaming and what not.

So everything is up to date and something that worked with Monster Hunter Rise (which was my only other game that was crashing too) that I might try with PZ is: configuring the Nvidia 3D settings to have maximum power allocated to the game when it's running as opposed to it fluctuating. I'll also limit the FPS on PZ so it doesn't wildly bounce around as well. Planet Coaster was absolutely fine and I was getting 75-80FPS with no issues...PZ I loaded up a zoo that was fairly detailed but ran well enough on my old PC, so should be fine, but yeah everything was fine with performance but the game crashed suddenly.

I notice, thanks to Steam's overlay fps counter, that when you are loading up a map my frame rate jumps up to 500fps and then when the game loads it obviously goes back down to something that's not insane XD...Not sure if that's an ish?