Consistently low FPS, despite RAM boost and FPS mods

[withrowb11]

I'm new to this game and so far I'm loving it, but I can't seem to find any fixes to my potato FPS. I've boosted RAM to 8GB in the .bat and .json files, downloaded and tried two separate FPS boosting mods (BetterFPS, Every Texture Optimized-FPS mode) but nothing seems to help. I've got all the latest drivers and my graphics card should have no trouble running the game smoothly, but it still acts like a potato. I downloaded Razer Cortex to try to boost performance and play on the absolute lowest in-game settings, even disabling zoom entirely and ...nothing Nothing has made a difference whatsoever, aside from the ETO mod. That enabled gives me between 5-20FPS, but without it enabled, just vanilla Zomboid, I get between 3-10FPS. Obviously the game is near-unplayable and the lag is so severe that most of my characters can't handle more than one zombie at a time. There is over a second of input lag on average and sometimes my character will just keep walking in the last direction I pressed for about 10 seconds. Pretty annnoying trying to fight off zombies when my character is focused on walking face first into walls the whole time. Despite that, I love the game overall, I just wish it would run better. If you guys have any fixes please let me know, it would be fun to experience the game without constant heavy lag. Thanks in advance

[ˢᵈˣ FatCat]

because you dont put all the spec you have : i played this game with just 8GB RAM, si i think RAM is not the problem, hell i even played Starfield with 8GB RAM lawl

[wawawiwa]

dawg your CPU sucks, time for upgrade and don't bother using better fps it will ended up make the game run worse in some cases

[Armagenesis]

You sure it's not your PC? I play with a worse toaster, but I don't have any frame rate issue, just slow loading time at the beginning. Also, don't use the 250% zoom. It's bad atm.

[withrowb11]

I don't know, it might be the laptop i'm using but i'd be surprised, it cost us $300. you'd think it could run the game to where it's not so clunky?

[MagicHp]

Originally posted by withrowb11:

I don't know, it might be the laptop i'm using but i'd be surprised, it cost us $300. you'd think it could run the game to where it's not so clunky?

A 300$ laptop is bound to have a crappy CPU and an integrated GPU, therefore your 8Gigs of ram are not very useful here...
Also, the "enter" key allows to break walls of text in smaller and more readable parts, try it someday ;)

[Beard]

List your specifications, generally the 300$ laptop range has integrated graphics, which are not good at running games.

[withrowb11]

Originally posted by Beard:

List your specifications, generally the 300$ laptop range has integrated graphics, which are not good at running games.

Sorry I'm still figuring this out. Here are the specifications

Device name LAPTOP-ASN3AH7A
Processor Intel(R) Celeron(R) N4120 CPU @ 1.10GHz 1.10 GHz
Installed RAM 8.00 GB (7.82 GB usable)
Device ID 81C99CA5-CEF1-4C7A-86C1-9B076CA129A5
Product ID 00356-07378-15657-AAOEM
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display

it also says I have Intel(R) UHD Graphics 600

[withrowb11]

That's crazy you guys mean $300 is still potato? I'm baffled, that's no small amount of money. I just wanna play this one game guys :( there's nothing else i can do to make it work? Also, if buying a better laptop is the only option, can you guys suggest the bare minimum I'll need to run PZ well? I don't even need it to play other games, just this one

[MagicHp]

Originally posted by withrowb11:

That's crazy you guys mean $300 is still potato? I'm baffled, that's no small amount of money. I just wanna play this one game guys :( there's nothing else i can do to make it work? Also, if buying a better laptop is the only option, can you guys suggest the bare minimum I'll need to run PZ well? I don't even need it to play other games, just this one

Are you serious here?

300$ is the price of a good gaming motherboard, with no CPU, GPU, screen or even a case ^^
And that is on a desktop computer, a laptop will always be more expensive for the same hardware.

I haven't checked the minimum requirement for this game in ages, but it should be listed on the store page.

[ˢᵈˣ FatCat]

you culd have bought used laptop but old gen with just 700dollar, if you want to look. even 2019 old gen is nice
first you GPU definietly is integrated , and old one 2017 old, 2nd IF Let say your or IT can handle the game, your RAM is not enough because your integrated GPU need ram too
and gesus CPU @1.1GHZ
my detective sense says yeah cant play this game .
are you one of those guy who buy stuff impulsive without i dont know google or something

[withrowb11]

Originally posted by MagicHp:

Originally posted by withrowb11:

That's crazy you guys mean $300 is still potato? I'm baffled, that's no small amount of money. I just wanna play this one game guys :( there's nothing else i can do to make it work? Also, if buying a better laptop is the only option, can you guys suggest the bare minimum I'll need to run PZ well? I don't even need it to play other games, just this one

Are you serious here?

300$ is the price of a good gaming motherboard, with no CPU, GPU, screen or even a case ^^
And that is on a desktop computer, a laptop will always be more expensive for the same hardware.

I haven't checked the minimum requirement for this game in ages, but it should be listed on the store page.

Yeah this is our first bought computer. We only had internet through smartphones for the longest, we come from a very poor background in West Virginia and really didn't have access to computers like that aside from the public libraries, so this is all pretty new to us. It seems like we have a long way to go as far as pc gaming goes though. On the bright side, I ran Razer Cortex and it bumped my fps up by about 10 frames, it's somewhat playable-ish!

Thanks for your help everybody

[withrowb11]

Originally posted by FatCat:

you culd have bought used laptop but old gen with just 700dollar, if you want to look. even 2019 old gen is nice
first you GPU definietly is integrated , and old one 2017 old, 2nd IF Let say your or IT can handle the game, your RAM is not enough because your integrated GPU need ram too
and gesus CPU @1.1GHZ
my detective sense says yeah cant play this game .
are you one of those guy who buy stuff impulsive without i dont know google or something

No, we're just poor and bought what we could afford. We needed one for online college anyway. There is no need for rudeness. Thank you for the info anyways.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by withrowb11:

Originally posted by FatCat:

you culd have bought used laptop but old gen with just 700dollar, if you want to look. even 2019 old gen is nice
first you GPU definietly is integrated , and old one 2017 old, 2nd IF Let say your or IT can handle the game, your RAM is not enough because your integrated GPU need ram too
and gesus CPU @1.1GHZ
my detective sense says yeah cant play this game .
are you one of those guy who buy stuff impulsive without i dont know google or something

No, we're just poor and bought what we could afford. We needed one for online college anyway. There is no need for rudeness. Thank you for the info anyways.

Some folks don't understand that.
I grew up during my countries shift from People's republic to a "democracy".

There are a few things you need to know about computers, and especially in comparision of desktops and laptops.
A laptop usually has two advantages. It is compact(easier to store and contains keyboard, mousepad, the computer and a display) and that you can take it with you anywhere, and that it can work a bit with the power stored.
A desktop on the other hand, is usually cheaper, you can customize it more to your hearts content(which can also save you a lot of money!), and for the same amount of money you can get a much better one than any laptop. Also they last longer. (You can check the warranty of the components individually usually they have 3-5 years, whereas a laptop usually has sadly 1-2 years. Some have more but that comes at a higher price.)
And you can as to say buy it in parts. So you buy the necessities and when needed buy additional pieces or upgrade them.

I am not sure about your needs, but next time consider to check desktops. As in it might be a better suited option to your needs even if it may come at a bit of the cost of space.
As in your price range a computer with much more options could have been selected in the desktop segment. (Especially with folks who have tight budgets, usually buying a laptop is not the better option.)

For instance in your price range it is entirely doable to build a computer on a 5600G, it would have run PZ without the issues you have on your current configuration, as i used its big brother 5700 G, and they have similar graphic cards. (I bought a video card to the computer almost a year later after i bought the desktop.) With a decent but not too costly motherboard, PSU, etc you could have made it at around 300 dollars with keyboard and mouse. Maybe with a display you would have gone over 300 but it would have cost less than 350 dollars. (In worst case you can always check if you can use the TV for display. At one time when my displays failed, i actually had to use the TV a decade ago, when i did not have money for a new one:P)

You have a long road ahead of you regarding computers, but it is an interesting one:) And i hope you enjoy having and using your very first one!

[withrowb11]

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

Originally posted by withrowb11:

No, we're just poor and bought what we could afford. We needed one for online college anyway. There is no need for rudeness. Thank you for the info anyways.

Some folks don't understand that.
I grew up during my countries shift from People's republic to a "democracy".

There are a few things you need to know about computers, and especially in comparision of desktops and laptops.
A laptop usually has two advantages. It is compact(easier to store and contains keyboard, mousepad, the computer and a display) and that you can take it with you anywhere, and that it can work a bit with the power stored.
A desktop on the other hand, is usually cheaper, you can customize it more to your hearts content(which can also save you a lot of money!), and for the same amount of money you can get a much better one than any laptop. Also they last longer. (You can check the warranty of the components individually usually they have 3-5 years, whereas a laptop usually has sadly 1-2 years. Some have more but that comes at a higher price.)
And you can as to say buy it in parts. So you buy the necessities and when needed buy additional pieces or upgrade them.

I am not sure about your needs, but next time consider to check desktops. As in it might be a better suited option to your needs even if it may come at a bit of the cost of space.
As in your price range a computer with much more options could have been selected in the desktop segment. (Especially with folks who have tight budgets, usually buying a laptop is not the better option.)

For instance in your price range it is entirely doable to build a computer on a 5600G, it would have run PZ without the issues you have on your current configuration, as i used its big brother 5700 G, and they have similar graphic cards. (I bought a video card to the computer almost a year later after i bought the desktop.) With a decent but not too costly motherboard, PSU, etc you could have made it at around 300 dollars with keyboard and mouse. Maybe with a display you would have gone over 300 but it would have cost less than 350 dollars. (In worst case you can always check if you can use the TV for display. At one time when my displays failed, i actually had to use the TV a decade ago, when i did not have money for a new one:P)

You have a long road ahead of you regarding computers, but it is an interesting one:) And i hope you enjoy having and using your very first one!

Thank you very much! I'll copy/paste what you said for future reference when looking into a desktop. This is the most informative answer and I appreciate your kindness as well. Have a great day!

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by withrowb11:

Originally posted by Nordil(Hun):

Some folks don't understand that.
I grew up during my countries shift from People's republic to a "democracy".

There are a few things you need to know about computers, and especially in comparision of desktops and laptops.
A laptop usually has two advantages. It is compact(easier to store and contains keyboard, mousepad, the computer and a display) and that you can take it with you anywhere, and that it can work a bit with the power stored.
A desktop on the other hand, is usually cheaper, you can customize it more to your hearts content(which can also save you a lot of money!), and for the same amount of money you can get a much better one than any laptop. Also they last longer. (You can check the warranty of the components individually usually they have 3-5 years, whereas a laptop usually has sadly 1-2 years. Some have more but that comes at a higher price.)
And you can as to say buy it in parts. So you buy the necessities and when needed buy additional pieces or upgrade them.

I am not sure about your needs, but next time consider to check desktops. As in it might be a better suited option to your needs even if it may come at a bit of the cost of space.
As in your price range a computer with much more options could have been selected in the desktop segment. (Especially with folks who have tight budgets, usually buying a laptop is not the better option.)

edit: regarding MOBO-s and CPU-s it is a good idea to get a bit familiar with what are for intel the different LGA-s and for AMD the different AM-s. As in what is the difference and at least what CPU family they can house. Knowing a bit about the memory and its most important "numbers" is also a good idea. But these are not that hard to aquire, just takes a bit of reading, in a few hours you might understand it even:)

For instance in your price range it is entirely doable to build a computer on a 5600G, it would have run PZ without the issues you have on your current configuration, as i used its big brother 5700 G, and they have similar graphic cards. (I bought a video card to the computer almost a year later after i bought the desktop.) With a decent but not too costly motherboard, PSU, etc you could have made it at around 300 dollars with keyboard and mouse. Maybe with a display you would have gone over 300 but it would have cost less than 350 dollars. (In worst case you can always check if you can use the TV for display. At one time when my displays failed, i actually had to use the TV a decade ago, when i did not have money for a new one:P)

You have a long road ahead of you regarding computers, but it is an interesting one:) And i hope you enjoy having and using your very first one!

Thank you very much! I'll copy/paste what you said for future reference when looking into a desktop. This is the most informative answer and I appreciate your kindness as well. Have a great day!

One final tip, i am not sure how it is in the USA, but in my country (which is a lot smaller both population and territory wise) we have some shops who have on their site a PC builder. As in you can build a computer virtually using all the parts they have in store, or that they can order. These builders are also able to check for compatibiltiy so you will not to check for every motherboard and CPU if they are a fit. It also checks if the memory slot is okay, if it has enough PCI slots for the GPU(if you want to buy one) etc.
If there is one, or you can find one like this, even if it is a limited option, you can use it to check the components, and look up the most important parts and distinction regards them. Also what are the more "trendy" and what are the more "reliable" companies that make them. Trendy and reliable are not interchangeable.
(For instance if possible i never buy anything ASUS as i consider it overpriced for its quality, as in my oppinion it is not what it used to be. I generally trust MSI more than ASUS, but that is just my experience and bias:P And of course when the videocard i finally bought was 200 dollars less than its MSI version and the warranty was the same, i reconsidered and went with a Sapphire:P)