Park optimization guidelines for better fps?

[Psycho1]

Hello, I was wondering if there was any tricks when building your park to improve the framerate.

I've noticed there are big discrepancies sometimes .
I.e, on the Alien City Park (found on the workshop) I got 40fps with no guests in the day in pause mode.
This park has like 850 buildings and 60'000 pieces of scenery.

In the same conditions I got 18 fps on mine, with 430 buildings and 32'000 scenery pieces (and almost no video panels, heard that those are a framerate killer)

So is there some manners to got better fps in your park?
Like more buildings but with fewer pieces each? Having scenery pieces attached to buildings instead of being independant?

It would be great to have some nice guidelines to follow, to be able to build a park wich is not killing the framerate [happy]

 

[Vampiro]

I doubt there is any difference between 10 buildings with 1 piece or 1 building with 10 pieces.

Im no developer but i think the reality is quite simple. The more items you have in your park, the slower your game gets.
Personally i feel that guests are the biggest FPS "eaters" which makes sense because all guests are part of the simulations and thus have needs, destination's, decissions to make that all need calculation's.
After guests it's common sense that the more items you have in your park, the slower your game will be.

(And there are a few things that are quite expensive on your system like custom music and detailed billboards).

So speaking for me personally, the only guideline i have is to not add masses of building pieces for the smallest details. A building can look amazing with 1000 pieces, but that same building can sometimes also be made with just 250 pieces but then it's just a bit less detailed. Besides that i really doubt there is any "trick" to keep your FPS high.

(I can't post this reply without giving props to the developers once more as i really feel that optimalisation has made some big steps since a recent update)

 

[seeker939]

I doubt there is any difference between 10 buildings with 1 piece or 1 building with 10 pieces.

Im no developer but i think the reality is quite simple. The more items you have in your park, the slower your game gets.

Look closer, what OP said was something different: Less pieces, less FPS. If I understand correctly it's like this:

Park 1: 850 buildings, 60.000 pieces, no guests = 40 FPS
Park 2: 430 buildings, 32.000 pieces, no guests = 18 FPS

This is not what you'd expect. You gotta wonder, why are the FPS lower in park 2?

Psycho, is your park on the workshop? Maybe someone else could check these two out and compare (I'd do it but I don't have access to PC right now).

 

[breezerHOG1]

and almost no video panels, heard that those are a framerate killer

does the alien city park use any video panels? I notice you said "almost none" and not just "none"

 

[Psycho1]

@ seeker39: yes, it's name is "5 rides"

@breezerHOG: yeah I have 2 or maybe 3 video panels in the whole park atm. The framerate was pretty slow before I added them.


I'll do some tests, like removing special effects scenery, or animatronics, or the rides.
Alien City has 4 rides and 1 coaster, my park has 34 rides and 7 coasters, so maybe it's the issue.

 

[seeker939]

Alien City has 4 rides and 1 coaster, my park has 34 rides and 7 coasters, so maybe it's the issue.

LOL

Mystery solved. I predict if you remove rides and coasters your framerate goes up.

 

[Bullethead]

It would be great to have some nice guidelines to follow, to be able to build a park wich is not killing the framerate [happy]

I don't think there's a 1-size-fits-all answer here. It really depends on your hardware, both CPU and GPU. Whichever of those gets overloaded first will start making your game stutter, and they get overloaded by different things. So if you know your system is weak in 1 of those areas, avoid the things that add work to that part of your system.

In general, if you've got a decent vidcard, you'll be CPU-limited by the number of peeps in the park, whose thinking and mood swings occupy most of the CPU's time with PC. The number of parts, buildings, etc., might seem imposing but from the CPU's POV, are actually small amounts of data. All that stuff is more of a load on the GPU, so if you don't have a decent vidcard, you should worry about the number of buildings, parts, etc. But even with a decent vidcard, things like video billboards seem to impose extraordinary GPU load, which might cause it to bottom out before the CPU.

 

[corkscrewloop]

Amazing interresting discussion here, thanks a lot, thats exactly the thoughts, I have since weeks...

I doubt there is any difference between 10 buildings with 1 piece or 1 building with 10 pieces.

...So speaking for me personally, the only guideline I have is to not add masses of building pieces for the smallest details. A building can look amazing with 1000 pieces, but that same building can sometimes also be made with just 250 pieces but then it's just a bit less detailed. Besides that i really doubt there is any "trick" to keep your FPS high.

Fully agree, I'm sometimes amazed on how people build stuff... 90% of pieces not visible or just sticking out on a single point, to get realistic details. While its amazing what realistic results can be achieved, the downside is the killing of the framerate. Solution would be, Frontier give us more different optimized scenery pieces or at least more art forms, smaller art forms. What I would like to know is the amount of splines or the polycount a piece or ride has. So we could avoid using FPS killer pieces.

...If I understand correctly it's like this:

Park 1: 850 buildings, 60.000 pieces, no guests = 40 FPS
Park 2: 430 buildings, 32.000 pieces, no guests = 18 FPS

I think that comparison is not so simple... Amount of pieces is one thing, the other is the complexity (polycount) of the used pieces... But yes, let the devs answer that question.

I don't think there's a 1-size-fits-all answer here. It really depends on your hardware, both CPU and GPU. Whichever of those gets overloaded first will start making your game stutter, and they get overloaded by different things. So if you know your system is weak in 1 of those areas, avoid the things that add work to that part of your system.

In general, if you've got a decent vidcard, you'll be CPU-limited by the number of peeps in the park, whose thinking and mood swings occupy most of the CPU's time with PC. The number of parts, buildings, etc., might seem imposing but from the CPU's POV, are actually small amounts of data. All that stuff is more of a load on the GPU, so if you don't have a decent vidcard, you should worry about the number of buildings, parts, etc. But even with a decent vidcard, things like video billboards seem to impose extraordinary GPU load, which might cause it to bottom out before the CPU.

Fully agree to your comment, Bullethead, thats exactly what I've noted myself...

My personal experience is the following...

• detailed parks with more than 10 rides, a decent amount of buildings and above 2000 guests become unplayable, as they are mostly below 20 fps on my system (i5 / 16GB / 1070).
• I think at the moment best is to build low detailed parks, or high detailed park sections. High detailed full maps is nice to look at, but is unplayable always. I've seen some parks with even 0 guests, but are not above 7-8 fps... Thats no fun.
• everything below 15 fps feels like strong stuttering, the gameplay becomes no fun anymore.

However, I remember we had the same discussion in 2004 when RCT3 came out... It was far more worse, especially in the nighttime mode, everybody was complaining about the lag. Compared to that, the detailing and possibilities of PC are so much higher and simple gameplay is amazingly smooth... But to be honest... if I compare those two games... I'm amazed what they already did with RCT3 back then, we had it all ... fireworks, waterrides, water (with fishes in it...) a huge amount of rides, billboards and guests which behaved similar to what we have today, of course no curved paths, all was still grid focused... Since we know that PC is at least 14 years younger, which is for computer age like a century, I must say RCT3 was already10 years ahead of its time...[happy]

Would like to read your opinion... But don't get me wrong, I love PC, it's my favourite game on the planet...!!!
Maybe the devs could make a sticky thread with some advices on how to improve lag, what to avoid, what takes a lot of FPS, etc.

 

[PixelWess89]

I also want to know the do’s and don’ts. I already ask this in another topic but getting no answer. https://forums.planetcoaster.com/sh...-problem/page3?p=203254&viewfull=1#post203254

 

[Psycho1]

I did some tests.

-removing all my animatronics and most of the special effects, I only gained 2 fps.

-removing all the coasters and rides improved my fps count by 7-8

- removing all the scenery ,buildings and rides improved the framerate to only 49 (so removing buildings added ~20 fps)

-removing paths gives me 10 fps more

-Making a flat terrain instead of having mountains etc gives me 10 more fps.

-The desert environment seems to cost 4-5 fps more than the grassy one.


In Alien city the terrain is flat, with little roads, and on the grassy environment, and has little rides so that explain the most of the difference.
But not all I think, even without rides, paths, a flat terrain and a grassy environment, I would only have like something 7 more fps on my park than alien city, despite having way less pieces.
So maybe there is something that makes the Alien city run better (occlusion of pieces, no building with a lot of pieces, or something else), or maybe not and it's just an impression, or my calculations are off.

 

[seeker939]

I did some tests.

-removing all my animatronics and most of the special effects, I only gained 2 fps.

-removing all the coasters and rid improved my fps count by 7-8

- removing all the scenery ,buildings and rides improved the framerate to only 49 (so removing buildings added ~20 fps)

-removing paths gives me 10 fps more

-Making a flat terrain instead of having mountains etc gives me 10 more fps.

-The desert environment seems to cost 4-5 fps more than the grassy one.


In Alien city the terrain is flat, with little roads, and on the grassy environment, and has little rides so that explain the most of the difference.
But not all I think, even without rides, paths, a flat terrain and a grassy environment, I would only have like something 7 more fps on my park than alien city, despite having way less pieces.
So maybe there is something that makes the Alien city run better (occlusion of pieces, no building with a lot of pieces, or something else), or maybe not and it's just an impression, or my calculations are off.

Interesting experiment, thanks for posting your results! I was convinced removing the rides would have more of an effect. I'd do a test myself but I can't right now.

What are your computer specs?

 

[aDOLPHINjoy18]

Factors I think influence fps

- How many people in your park.
- How many pieces of objects and buildings in your park.
- What sort of pieces (and how many of those there are) that you use in your park, like special effects, bubbles, animated pieces like red coats and screen displays.
- Number of rides you have in the park.
- Scenery.

Try turning Shadow Quality or Water Quality to low. Have background atmospherics perhaps set to low or something.

I have an i7 6700k 4.2Ghz processor and an overclocked GTX 1070 at 1885Mhz, and manage to play a park with 22 rides, low-moderate scenery, 6k people, and still get 24-45fps on full screen 1920x1080 Ultra preset with water quality on ultra and shadow quality on low. But when I play these over exaggerated detailed parks people are complaining about getting low fps in, yes I get the same results as them. It doesn't matter how good your hardware is. The more you put in a park, the more demanding it is on your system.

 

[Psycho1]

Shadow quality and Water quality barely makes an impact for me. Didn't check but seems that the framerate is limited by my CPU.

@ seeker939: I have a 980 and an I7 4770 with 16Go of RAM, and I play in 1440p.

 

[Texascoaster89]

With a park last night I basically "gave up" going all out on ride skins for my flat rides and going super detailed on food stands. By limiting my awesome looking pieces to being roller coasters only and relying on the natural aesthetics built into the flat rides, I'm so far into a park with 3K guests and 5 major roller coasters still getting between 35-40 FPS. I'm sacrificing some beauty so to speak for functionality. Limit the number of objects you have, If every ride you build includes 300+ pieces of scenery, you'll be slugged down quickly. By keeping the flats basically how they look (a few trees, and some water to help a little) and rely on the lights that come on the ride already, you'll be okay to go crazy on the roller coasters at least and not slug up the computer.

 

[NainConPetant]

I had a park with 3000+ rating and 4500guest, I wasnt able to play it anymore to a decent fps until I upgrade from adm fx8150 to a i7 6700k, paired to 16gb ddr4 ram and a gtx970. Now i can play my park again, i almost double my fps (from 7-15 to 30-40)

I'd add to the previous comments that I saw a difference between night and day since there is less shadows at night, unless you add millions of light poles and blinking lights

 

[OzzY13]

With a park last night I basically "gave up" going all out on ride skins for my flat rides and going super detailed on food stands. By limiting my awesome looking pieces to being roller coasters only and relying on the natural aesthetics built into the flat rides, I'm so far into a park with 3K guests and 5 major roller coasters still getting between 35-40 FPS. I'm sacrificing some beauty so to speak for functionality. Limit the number of objects you have, If every ride you build includes 300+ pieces of scenery, you'll be slugged down quickly. By keeping the flats basically how they look (a few trees, and some water to help a little) and rely on the lights that come on the ride already, you'll be okay to go crazy on the roller coasters at least and not slug up the computer.

that is exactly what i did with my old computer and for the same reasons, i was always amazed how much i could do with my limited hardware.

if you put a couple treasure chests near your paths (scenery item) ... and you can even 'sink' them so they are invisible, you will get 100% scenery rating for using just a few items (low FPS sacrifice)

 

[NainConPetant]

that is exactly what i did with my old computer and for the same reasons, i was always amazed how much i could do with my limited hardware.

if you put a couple treasure chests near your paths (scenery item) ... and you can even 'sink' them so they are invisible, you will get 100% scenery rating for using just a few items (low FPS sacrifice)

good idea if you are in sandbox

otherwise, I used an item quite a lot in my carreer maps

it cost 110$ so u can easyly use it and 4-5 per ride gives u 100% queue rating

here the link to the item, http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=809102759

its a kind of tree/lamp that i founded a while ago
the good thing is its not "heavy" on pieces, so you get decent rating % for price/#items

 

[OzzY13]

good idea if you are in sandbox

otherwise, I used an item quite a lot in my carreer maps

it cost 110$ so u can easyly use it and 4-5 per ride gives u 100% queue rating

here the link to the item, http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=809102759

its a kind of tree/lamp that i founded a while ago
the good thing is its not "heavy" on pieces, so you get decent rating % for price/#items

that looks pretty, i like it best at night. i uploaded my cheat to the work shop. go to steam, planet coaster, workshop, then type in 'scenery cheat' in the search box. look for the orange background made by 'cure13'. -- i pretty much only use 'sandbox' mode as i dont like restrictions. i have it so it gets you to around 90% which will get you green but gives room for SOME trees and such as i had one before with about 50 treasure chests and it was always 100% right away, and then i was still adding regular scenery. if you need it higher just sink another treasure chest in there. or do that and re-blueprint it for your own computer. this is meant to be sunk or sinkable' so you dont see it forcing a certain style on every ride. i have found this cheat to be the most helpful and practical.

 

[Frito]

I recently purchased this game, its a lot of fun. as far as your system goes overclocking it will help a lot.

my system specs are i5-7600k , 16 gb DDR4-4266 , Samsung 960 Evo NVME ssd, 1080 Ti.

running cpu and ram a stock (4 ghz, 2133 mhz) 7-8 k players would turn into a slideshow. Cpu overclocked to 5 Ghz and ram at 4133 mhz (normally i can run 5.2 ghz 4266 mhz but these settings proved unstable in this game) i've got a park at 8k stars 13,500 people and its finally becoming unplayable. past 8k players it helps quite a bit to drop graphics to medium even though its not GPU load problem at all but it seems to lessen the bandwidth needed somewhere between the CPU and GPU.

 

[The_Tick]

I don't think there's a 1-size-fits-all answer here. It really depends on your hardware, both CPU and GPU. Whichever of those gets overloaded first will start making your game stutter, and they get overloaded by different things. So if you know your system is weak in 1 of those areas, avoid the things that add work to that part of your system.

In general, if you've got a decent vidcard, you'll be CPU-limited by the number of peeps in the park, whose thinking and mood swings occupy most of the CPU's time with PC. The number of parts, buildings, etc., might seem imposing but from the CPU's POV, are actually small amounts of data. All that stuff is more of a load on the GPU, so if you don't have a decent vidcard, you should worry about the number of buildings, parts, etc. But even with a decent vidcard, things like video billboards seem to impose extraordinary GPU load, which might cause it to bottom out before the CPU.

The game has an "engine limitation" That means once you go beyond a certain amount of complexity the game will performance will drop, regardsless of hardware. I have tested this on a Ryzen 7 1700 @ 4.0 Ghz with a 1080 Ti. Examples I use testing are silvaretss garuda or koali beach map. My GPU is often not even running at 30% load on these maps while my CPU sits around at 60% load (no individual cores maxed out) On Koali I hit around 15 fps and garuda I sit at around 35. And thats the max, regardless of population being generated on the map.

Changing graphics settings from ultra to low does not improve performance (just some less laod on the GPU)


I have mentioned this before in a seperate topic and it seems to be discussed before. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there is a constriction on objects.



1 positive side I have noticed about the game. I tested a map with a lot of tree's in it and few buildings. So the object count was quite low. And that map ran fluently. So, I think it is a problem with the amount of objects that are on the map. Not the size or complexity of those individual objects.