Optimization and Lagg

[Achterwerk]

Today i'm posting a topic about the bad optimization of the game again, because the devlopers aren't even trying to optimize the game.
At the start of a new park, I get around 120 fps, thats nice, but when I start to build more and try to make the park look good, the FPS drops to around 40 and it just looks bad. I'm forced to play at low settings, with my GTX 780ti and an i5. It is just bad.

My question to the developer is, why don't you guys even try to optimize the game better? It would make the experience SO MUCH BETTER.

 

[gregorburns]

So you are suggesting that the developers attempt the impossible?

Perhaps before coming here to rant about lack of optimisation, you might want to consider why those low frame rates occur. Do you honestly think it's down to bad coding? Or a side effect of having more and more objects to render in your park?

If you know of a way to render tens of thousands of objects without taking any time whatsoever out of a render frame, feel free to suggest it. They are always open for suggestions.

You might want to consider reading all of the dev posts in this thread: https://forums.planetcoaster.com/sh...ver-17-fps-regardless-of-the-graphic-settings . It explains well how they have optimised so far, and what is possible and what is not.

Again, like I said, since you seem to be well versed in the world of programming, feel free to make technical suggestions on how to optimise further, they would really appreciate that. But claiming they have not been doing their job as professional developers might make them a bit more reluctant to pay attention to what you have to say.

 

[aDOLPHINjoy18]

Some modern games can be a lot more demanding on even high end PC's, since gamers want 'better' games. Game developers can do this, but to live up to several peoples high expectations, you will need a better system to run it on. There are several i7 processors which can beat an i5. And the GTX 1080 Ti is better than a GTX 780Ti.

I've been with Planet Coaster since April last year, when it was in Alpha, and can honestly say there HAVE been improvements to the fps between then and now.

Planet Coaster is not one of those COD or BF4 or etc games where you can expect 1080p 60fps all the time! Yes people can be creative and get carried away and before you know it, they've built a larger park with 6,000 people and are running into 20-35 fps on 1080p High/Ultra settings. 20fps is playable, but below that, it can begin to get unbearable.

I did notice a big fps improvement when the Full Version came out (after Beta).

With this game, you really need a quad core (not dual core) i5 or i7 (or AMD equivalent) processor with at least 3Ghz clock speed, if you want to play it on the higher settings. Also an AMD R9 380 or GTX 980. Here's a list of the system requirements, official link. https://support.frontier.co.uk/kb/faq.php?id=292

"With that said, these system requirements are far more demanding than your typical tycoon game. That's probably because Planet Coaster isn't your typical game, and you can see from the various footage and screenshots released that it's packed with detail and has massive environments. As such, the minimum requirements are fairly steep for a management game"
- http://www.game-debate.com/news/197...um-system-requirements-are-under-construction

Here's some things I think weigh the game down and some tips:
1. turn shadows quality to low quality.
Your hardware has to make a lot of work calculating shadows and time of day.
2. turn water quality to low quality
Water reflects the surrounding environment, in certain viewing angles and lighting conditions. Trees, objects, etc. More calculations.
3. AI is a contributing burden in the game.
Avoid going for over 6k people in your park.
4. Rides
Rides are the key things your guests go on. Try to keep it under 40 rides unless you don't mind running into severe lag.
5. Objects/buildings
Especially the special affects like fire, bubbles, explosions, etc, which are much more heavily demanding on the CPU than normal static objects. Also don't go too crazy and detailed with buildings and especially scenery.

I play this game on an i7-6700k AMD R9 390 (8GB GDDR5 @ 384GB/s bandwidth, 512-bit bus, it has twice the vRAM of a GTX 970, and a higher bandwidth and larger bus, than a GTX 970), and 16GB DDR4 RAM, and on 1080p High settings with shadows low quality and water ultra with 6k people and 26 rides with some scenery throughout the park including numerous guest facilities like food/drink/toilet shops, in full screen mode, I manage 20-37fps.

 

[LN]

Yes, and still everbody wants more, more more. And afterwise they complain the game is not optimized. No, we are just demanding to much.

 

[AndyC1]

As we've previously stated, we make performance improvements all the time. I've written many posts explaining that when people ask us to optimise the game, they really mean "make it run faster". While it's very difficult to describe something as "optimal", we've already spent a great deal of time optimising Planet Coaster, and there aren't any big areas of code that I'd consider as targets for optimisation. We could certainly make Planet Coaster run faster, but it would involve significantly changing the game including our vision for what makes Planet Coaster "Planet Coaster".

Cheers

Andy

 

[Joël]

As we've previously stated, we make performance improvements all the time. I've written many posts explaining that when people ask us to optimise the game, they really mean "make it run faster". While it's very difficult to describe something as "optimal", we've already spent a great deal of time optimising Planet Coaster, and there aren't any big areas of code that I'd consider as targets for optimisation.

Thank you for your dedication and your time that you put into your explanations of how things work in Planet Coaster and its development. It is greatly appreciated!

We could certainly make Planet Coaster run faster, but it would involve significantly changing the game including our vision for what makes Planet Coaster "Planet Coaster".

Cheers

Andy

It would be a great loss if the things that make Planet Coaster "Planet Coaster" are changed / taken out of the game. It would remove parts of the passion and love that you as developers have put into the game. We can't have that

 

[Vampiro]

As we've previously stated, we make performance improvements all the time. I've written many posts explaining that when people ask us to optimise the game, they really mean "make it run faster". While it's very difficult to describe something as "optimal", we've already spent a great deal of time optimising Planet Coaster, and there aren't any big areas of code that I'd consider as targets for optimisation. We could certainly make Planet Coaster run faster, but it would involve significantly changing the game including our vision for what makes Planet Coaster "Planet Coaster".

Cheers

Andy

No ... just NO [mad] No big changes [tongue]

Having a beautifull looking, realistic game with LOT's of beautifull objects and simulation of thousands of guests comes with limitations.

You simply can't have a game like Planet Coaster with lots of guests and thousands of objects and still have 80fps on an avarage computer. It just can't be done with today's technology.
Im already amazed how smooth this game runs and how many FPS i still get on just the avarage machine that i have.
And im also really impressed with the optimalisation you guys -already- did. I see huge differences between today's game and let's say how it was back in Alpha 2. But its only common sense there is only so much you can do ...

Still awesome you take time to (once again) explain this matter

 

[Coasterbuff]

Yes, and still everbody wants more, more more. And afterwise they complain the game is not optimized. No, we are just demanding to much.

I have a MSI high end gaming laptop and Planet Coaster runs like a dream, even in some parks that have dozens of coasters, lots of buildings and thousands of happy guests. But there are times when the frame rates drop quite drastically with some parks I have downloaded from the Steam workshop. You just have to accept that there are times when you just cant run every park at the same high end frame rates. I think some people expect too much when building parks made up of millions of individual building pieces that soon add up when people design some parks I have seen that have been uploaded to the Steam workshop. I think Frontier have optimised the game as best as they can, considering the amount of available stuff that is already available in game. There are always some people who will never be satisfied with a games performance no matter what super duper computer they own.

 

[LN]

I truly had tons of crashes back in Alpha 1 and 2 and now not a single one. So people should not say the game is not "optimized".

 

[UniMag]

As we've previously stated, we make performance improvements all the time. I've written many posts explaining that when people ask us to optimise the game, they really mean "make it run faster". While it's very difficult to describe something as "optimal", we've already spent a great deal of time optimising Planet Coaster, and there aren't any big areas of code that I'd consider as targets for optimisation. We could certainly make Planet Coaster run faster, but it would involve significantly changing the game including our vision for what makes Planet Coaster "Planet Coaster".

Cheers

Andy

But to me Planet Coaster isn't quite "Planet Coaster" if you can't build a 'reasonbly' large, dense park (utilising the map space available) at anything like a decent frame rate.

I have 4 parks now which all chug along at sub 10 FPS running and sub 20 FPS paused - this is with a 5930K and Titan XP.

We have to make compromises at our end to get a playable framerate, but surely there must be something more you can do at your end to help find some middle ground.

If I could build a large, detailed park and get say 25-30 FPS the game would be so much more enjoyable.

... and this isn't a dig at all, I think you've done really well to squeeze so much out of today's hardware

 

[Vampiro]

But to me Planet Coaster isn't quite "Planet Coaster" if you can't build a 'reasonbly' large, dense park (utilising the map space available) at anything like a decent frame rate.

I have 4 parks now which all chug along at sub 10 FPS running and sub 20 FPS paused - this is with a 5930K and Titan XP.

We have to make compromises at our end to get a playable framerate, but surely there must be something more you can do at your end to help find some middle ground.

If I could build a large, detailed park and get say 25-30 FPS the game would be so much more enjoyable.

... and this isn't a dig at all, I think you've done really well to squeeze so much out of today's hardware

Im just curious here

How many objects and guests do you have in your park?

 

[UniMag]

Im just curious here

How many objects and guests do you have in your park?

I'm not sure how many objects (how do I see this information)?

I'd say between 7000-11000 guests on average. I have closed the parks and get a few extra frames but nothing spectacular.

Here are 3 of my parks (I'll post a link to my latest which is almost complete this evening) - it would be really interesting to see what anyone else can run these at and what hardware they have just to see if some problem at my end is causing the poor performance: -

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=819881648&searchtext=the+kings+wood

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=848905274&searchtext=grand+lands

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=838942420&searchtext=adventure+hills

P.S. I can't recall my graphics settings (apart from things like shadows, water on low) but doesn't make any difference anyhow, even if I play in 4K.

 

[tyczj]

But to me Planet Coaster isn't quite "Planet Coaster" if you can't build a 'reasonbly' large, dense park (utilising the map space available) at anything like a decent frame rate.

I have 4 parks now which all chug along at sub 10 FPS running and sub 20 FPS paused - this is with a 5930K and Titan XP.

We have to make compromises at our end to get a playable framerate, but surely there must be something more you can do at your end to help find some middle ground.

If I could build a large, detailed park and get say 25-30 FPS the game would be so much more enjoyable.

... and this isn't a dig at all, I think you've done really well to squeeze so much out of today's hardware

The compromise would be less detail, a guest cap that cant be overridden and probably some backend stuff regarding people/rides that we dont know about so lets just call this "calculations".

Are you willing to have this compromise? I am not

 

[RockandGrohl]

Today i'm posting a topic about the bad optimization of the game again, because the devlopers aren't even trying to optimize the game.
At the start of a new park, I get around 120 fps, thats nice, but when I start to build more and try to make the park look good, the FPS drops to around 40 and it just looks bad. I'm forced to play at low settings, with my GTX 780ti and an i5. It is just bad.

My question to the developer is, why don't you guys even try to optimize the game better? It would make the experience SO MUCH BETTER.

I think what this is coming down to is your blatant ignorance of game development and engines. I'm no expert, but "optimisation" isn't "Making a game run faster" out of thin air, it's simply doing shortcuts.

Now, every guest has things like collision detection, thoughts and feelings based on constantly changing variables and then detailed calculations like self-shadowing.

This is a HUGE load on CPU and is a big reason why some parks die after a couple thousand guests. Your CPU is constantly calculating these non-stop in addition to doing all the usual calculations for the GPU draw calls which brings me to...

GPU draw calls. Your GPU is receiving instructions to draw this tree here and the shadow there, to draw this rock here, to draw this railing here... For every item in your park. When you start to amass many tens of thousands of objects, something has to give - the framerate.

Planet Coaster is the highest-fidelity builder game I've ever come across. It is in effect the Crysis of builder games. It's massively detailed and limitless. There's no hard-limit on items you can place, there's no hard limit on guests you can have, and Planet Coaster will take, take, take until your system gives. This is the price we pay for having such high fidelity.

If you want more, go back to RCT 2 where the sprites are vastly less expensive to run and the 2D graphics can run on any smartphone.


It won't get better, but our PC's will, and like Crysis, we will catch up. Crysis wasn't really coded for more than a dual core, but Planet Coaster has the ability to work with multiple CPU threads, so things will only get better.

 

[Phenix Studios]

I personally try to do too much with my PC.. I've got 2 instances of OBS running when I'm building.. I'm streaming.. and I'm recording locally without the streaming overlays and camera etc.. my park is getting bigger and bigger so it's slowing down.. I expect this. I've got a good graphics card it's not the graphics slowing down it the AI of the guests.. I empty the park or pause the game it gets better. Without the guests though it's just not fun. I like watching their interactions with what I build. There are always going to be improvements that can be made... I'm running a 4.4 oc'ed 5820K.. I did have a fx8350 previously.. I really don't know how to get to run any better.. So I just accept what I can do with it for now. Not complaining.. since I know I'm doing more than I should at once..

I'm currently waiting to see if Planet Coaster will run better on the Ryzen chips. Not sure if anyone here is going to get one though soon.. and the youtubers sure as hell don't wanna test anything but first person dudebro shooters.. SO until we actually see someone with PC on a Ryzen.. we won't know.

 

[babydumplinz]

just got the ryzen 7 1700 and want to test for you but what program do i need to use to provide the fps that you have been using and what settings are you using and what fps are you currently getting so i can see if ryzen was worth the money or not

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

just got the ryzen 7 1700 and want to test for you but what program do i need to use to provide the fps that you have been using and what settings are you using and what fps are you currently getting so i can see if ryzen was worth the money or not

https://www.msi.com/page/afterburner

 

[Joël]

I just use the FPS counter of Steam.

I have MSI Afterburner installed for the GPU OC so I will check to see if it reports the same FPS as Steam.

 

[Nolfy]

Most of the time Rivatuner is used for CPU info overlay in combination with Afterburner (often is installed at the same time). Rivatuner shows everything you want on screen, but take note that it can cause some problems.
From the official Frontier support page: Can I use RivaTuner with Planet Coaster? We do not advise using RivaTuner with Planet Coaster as it can cause Stability and Performance issues including Crashes.

 

[Serpentrax]

Apart from the fact that subject of performance has been discussed to death by now, I am positively surprised that people even take the passive-aggressive tone of the opening post serious and start the optimization discussion yet again. I mean, the thread starter complains about hitting 40 FPS on a filled park on a four years old graphics cards and a midrange CPU? That's quite an achievement in terms of optimization and proves exactly the opposite of what the thread starter tries to state!