Technical question about Planet Zoo's risk of damaging equipment

Danny_zoo

Danny_zoo
Well where do I start, I have been playing this amazing game since day one and never really experienced any technical issues. Since I was new to video games and this game was my first I purchased a high end gaming laptop (MSI GT76 Titan DT) after some recommendations. Until now I honestly thought I had nothing to worry about, and that I was treating this gaming equipment with proper care, however after viewing a Planet Zoo related video where the YouTuber mentions laptops getting fried while playing this game, I started getting really concerned.

My question is, my laptop gets really hot at times, and I never really never thought much of it, until this video. Is this factual? can such a powerful and expensive machine really collapse because of a game? Am I running the risk of letting my laptop burn when it gets hot? What am I missing here? The player did mention that several laptops that had been damaged were gaming editions and that people just did not know when to stop playing the game, so I'm a little concern, because I have left it running for hours at times. In any case, anyone with the technical expertise if you could let me know if there is any truth to this, and what should I do to protect the equipment. Thank you
 

Danny_zoo

Danny_zoo
Maybe a little more information to get the best possible and accurate response. I have in a few occasions left the game running in the laptop for a few hours on pause, and played for a couple of more hours, never more than five hours at a time. Many here complain about being unable to place every single animal in the game on a single map, I honestly have pushed these boundaries during gameplay trials and managed to place up to 600 habitat animals in a single map (every single species in the game) without getting to experience unwanted performance. I did noticed that when the map was at capacity, (600 animals) the laptop was considerably hotter than usual, and a few times made a funny noise like an engine.

Now my concern is this was just a trial mock to see what was and was not possible before I spend thousands of hours building a realistic life like zoo, meaning the piece count while substantial was low in comparison to a highly detail zoo. My question is if the zoo worked well with 600 animals, and a moderate piece count. If I reduced the animal collection to 300, and keep it at that, would I be able to use an unlimited amount of pieces in my plans.

For reference, I have tried downloading many large zoos from the workshop as a trial reference, but sadly none of them have the detailed piece count I'm envisioning, so while each and every zoo ran without difficulty, I'm now worried that what I'm envisioning could fry this laptop. In any case, it would be nice to get a warning first, but not sure how this things go.
 
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Swjosdotschka

Swjosdotschka
First of: It probably won't catch fire but yes, a constantly hot machine can be damaged. And since PZ is very resource heavy, especially in big and detailed zoos, the machine has to live up to it.
Personally, I would never ever play Planet Zoo on a laptop for a longer time. Desktops are much more capeable. I have a gaming PC and it really has to work when I play Planet zoo and gets warm, but not too hot.

There are cooling pads for Laptops that you shoudl invest in. Its basically something you put your laptop on. In bigger zoos, try reducing the graphic settings, though that would probably not help much. There is software that checks the temperature of your laptop and gives you a warning when it gets too hot. I used something like that years ago, never again, but in your case it might be helpful.
 

markun

markun
I have a gaming laptop. I might switch to a pc in the future but at the moment that isn’t really practical.

It does get hot although I have a fan underneath it so when I’m playing I set an alarm for 45 minutes. Then I stop for 15 and start again. It’s also good for making sure I stretch and rest my eyes.
 

paul78

paul78
I got a gaming laptop also I wanted a desktop but it just didn’t workout in the end. Anyway so far it’s been great. I have a asus zephyrus and bought a laptop cooler awhile after buying it and it does help. I also have three ways of playing the game silent,performance, and turbo. On turbo it gets anywhere from 82-86 degrees but not too bad as I usually only build a portion of my zoo at a time. But I wouldn’t be too worried some models like Alienware tend to run very hot.
 

Danny_zoo

Danny_zoo
Swjosdotschka said:
First of: It probably won't catch fire but yes, a constantly hot machine can be damaged. And since PZ is very resource heavy, especially in big and detailed zoos, the machine has to live up to it.
Personally, I would never ever play Planet Zoo on a laptop for a longer time. Desktops are much more capeable. I have a gaming PC and it really has to work when I play Planet zoo and gets warm, but not too hot.

There are cooling pads for Laptops that you shoudl invest in. Its basically something you put your laptop on. In bigger zoos, try reducing the graphic settings, though that would probably not help much. There is software that checks the temperature of your laptop and gives you a warning when it gets too hot. I used something like that years ago, never again, but in your case it might be helpful.
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Those are some great recommendations, thank you very much, definitely getting those cooling pads, did not know that was even a thing, so thank you. The idea about that software checking the temperature sounds good as well, will do some research on it. Unfortunately the desktop option would not have worked for me, I wanted to be able to move the game around with me 😁 I love it so much, I'm sure you understand me. But it definitely is an eye opener, because like I said I did not know anything about this before Planet Zoo, did not even know there were gaming laptops and pc's.

The tech that recommend it, told me the laptop was the strongest in the business, and that it could handle a hurricane, lol, it kind of made sense at the time, because they had it priced at more than double what other gaming laptops in the store were. Even for an uneducated customer like me in these matters, I had informed myself as best as possible about the game's requirements and knew it was a highly demanding game, but thought that with equipment like this there would be no issues.

Got you on the graphic settings, but I could never compromised there :LOL:lol once I discovered Ultra settings early on watching a YouTube video, I could never go back, that is not an option, would rather catch on fire, lol, maybe not. Anyways thank you for your advice.
 

Danny_zoo

Danny_zoo
markun said:
I have a gaming laptop. I might switch to a pc in the future but at the moment that isn’t really practical.

It does get hot although I have a fan underneath it so when I’m playing I set an alarm for 45 minutes. Then I stop for 15 and start again. It’s also good for making sure I stretch and rest my eyes.
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Markun, that is a great idea, I have a kitchen timer and just found a new purpose for it besides cooking. Thank you I think I'm going to do exactly the 45 minutes built, break, time goes by so fast in this game. Somehow I manage to put in almost 1700 hours, and I have not even started building the zoo yet. lol
 

Danny_zoo

Danny_zoo
paul78 said:
I got a gaming laptop also I wanted a desktop but it just didn’t workout in the end. Anyway so far it’s been great. I have a asus zephyrus and bought a laptop cooler awhile after buying it and it does help. I also have three ways of playing the game silent,performance, and turbo. On turbo it gets anywhere from 82-86 degrees but not too bad as I usually only build a portion of my zoo at a time. But I wouldn’t be too worried some models like Alienware tend to run very hot.
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Thanks Paul, is Alienware the same as what I have MSI GT76 Titan DT, it gets hot after three hours or so, and a few times that fan or engine started making noise, only at the 5 hours mark.
 

Danny_zoo

Danny_zoo
Boldson said:
Likewise I would not worry. I have a HP Omen with a RTX 2070 and it gets very hot. I hook my laptop up to a 28 inch curved monitor to play games. As others have said use a cooling fan it helps. Get a BIG one fan like this. IGN recommends.
This is the one I have https://www.amazon.co.uk/KLIMTM-Ultimate-Laptop-Cooling-backlighting-RGB/dp/B07NNQXTQT/ref=sr_1_9_mod_primary_lightning_deal?dchild=1&keywords=laptop+cooling+fans+klm&qid=1605714177&sbo=Tc8eqSFhUl4VwMzbE4fw/w==&smid=A1AO1PX8J2IH
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Thank you that looks ideal. Like the how you connect it to a bigger screen...I wonder If I could connect it to a 75 inch Qled and see what the game looks like in there, that would be really cool. I know the laptop is 4k but the TV has a higher resolution. Is Planet Zoo a 4k resolution or higher, not sure if that is how is worded or how it works. But thank you.
 
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