This game makes my computer sound like an airplane trying to take off...

[Pumathang]

I've got a fairly decent computer (RTX 3060, 32 GB RAM, Ryzen 7 4800H) and I play just about everything on high graphics settings without issue. Very rarely do the fans kick in enough to be noticeable, so it was pretty alarming for them to kick into overdrive only a minute after loading the game. I've tried cranking the sliders for distance and detail way down, but seems like they kick back in again only a few seconds later. Resolution is 1920x1080 (pretty standard for me in every game I play) but there's not really much to tweak in terms of graphic settings, so I don't even have a guess as to what to do about this.

Normally if I encountered lag on older computers, the first thing I'd crank down is shadows, but there's no option to do so... and I'm not really having an PERFORMANCE issues, per se... it's just that I don't want to play the game while sitting next to a jet engine. I loaded up several more intensive games and played them without issue yesterday, then tried to load this one again today and ran into the same issue, within a minute of starting the game.

Any suggestions? I'm not sure if there are config files to tweak, and I don't know enough about the technical details to blindly troubleshoot by changing random settings... I just know loading up a game like this should not instantly signal my computer to begin taxiing to the runway X_X

[darkfejzr]

Originally posted by Pumathang:

I've got a fairly decent computer (RTX 3060, 32 GB RAM, Ryzen 7 4800H) and I play just about everything on high graphics settings without issue. Very rarely do the fans kick in enough to be noticeable, so it was pretty alarming for them to kick into overdrive only a minute after loading the game. I've tried cranking the sliders for distance and detail way down, but seems like they kick back in again only a few seconds later. Resolution is 1920x1080 (pretty standard for me in every game I play) but there's not really much to tweak in terms of graphic settings, so I don't even have a guess as to what to do about this.

Normally if I encountered lag on older computers, the first thing I'd crank down is shadows, but there's no option to do so... and I'm not really having an PERFORMANCE issues, per se... it's just that I don't want to play the game while sitting next to a jet engine. I loaded up several more intensive games and played them without issue yesterday, then tried to load this one again today and ran into the same issue, within a minute of starting the game.

Any suggestions? I'm not sure if there are config files to tweak, and I don't know enough about the technical details to blindly troubleshoot by changing random settings... I just know loading up a game like this should not instantly signal my computer to begin taxiing to the runway X_X

Thanks for reaching out. Despite the low poly style, our game is fairly graphically intensive with all the postprocessing effects used. Performance mode should alleviate a lot of this, but since it sounds like it isn't, there's two more things to try--running the game in Fullscreen mode (instead of Borderless Fullscreen), and turning down the resolution in that mode. Both of these should result in a bit of an improvement on the graphics side.

Lowering View Distance, Detail Distance, and Detail Density should also greatly help.

The last thing you should probably do is improve the cooling of your graphic card or clean the fan. We tested the game on the 3060, and it was fine, although it's a more budget card.

[Pumathang]

Thanks for the reply. I did briefly switch to performance mode at one point---it was hard to tell if it helped the fan issue because that tends to stop and start, but I noticed the game was substantially less detailed (i.e. looked worse) with no noticeable change in performance (because I wasn't having performance issues to begin with, so no real "improvement" to be had). The settings are already set to fullscreen (not borderless/windowed).

This is a laptop so I never set the resolution higher than 1920x1080 (my understanding is there is no benefit to doing so at my current screen size) -- this is the "typical" setting for me. I'm not sure how to improve the cooling of the graphics card (I avoid touching graphics card settings as a general rule) but I did try playing several games that are more intensive (i.e. have a history of spinning up the fans during graphically intensive scenes during the summer when the AC isn't on) and everything seems fine -- I don't think anything is wrong with the computer or graphics card. Considering the minimum system requirements for this game suggest that even my previous computer could still technically run it, setting it to the lowest settings on a much newer computer that seems to run it just fine doesn't seem right...

Examples of something with much higher system requirements that I consider "more intensive" are Starfield and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Starfield is the only game that can get laggy in some areas on high settings, but neither kicks up the fans like that. Not sure that's helpful in any way since they are so different, but that's why I'm inclined to think my computer doesn't like something with the configuration of this game specifically. The only thing it has has ever struggled to run were a couple older indie game made on Unity with meh graphics... not sure why that in particular was beyond its ability to handle, but I assume some obscure reason with my specific setup or possibly the games themselves. *shrugs*

[Huperspace]

Deepclean your laptop if you havn't already.
Use a/the FPS limiter if you don't want the hardware to run as hard it could. Use such laptop cooler stands. And for tech nerds go into undervolting.
Laptops tend to have underdesigned cooling, only able to cool halve of the max TDP static/without sounding like a turbine.

[darkfejzr]

I was about to advise the same. Can you try to limit your FPS in-game using the slider to 30?

[Pumathang]

Originally posted by Huperspace:

Deepclean your laptop if you havn't already.
Use a/the FPS limiter if you don't want the hardware to run as hard it could. Use such laptop cooler stands. And for tech nerds go into undervolting.
Laptops tend to have underdesigned cooling, only able to cool halve of the max TDP static/without sounding like a turbine.

I don't know what any of this means -- can you point me to something with step by step instructions for which settings to open and what to change?

If you're referring to physically cleaning the laptop, it's still pretty new and kept in a case most of the day while not in use. Unlike every other computer in the house, there's no dust or cat hair or anything accumulated around the ports, keys, or even on the screen. It's only used a few hours per day for gaming (I use a different laptop for literally everything else).

[Pumathang]

Originally posted by darkfejzr:

I was about to advise the same. Can you try to limit your FPS in-game using the slider to 30?

This took me a while to find, I don't actually see this setting unless I turn off v-sync (which also causes a blurry line to be visible directly across the middle of the screen).

I had disabled Depth of Field (I do this by default in every game because it usually gives me headaches, but those are typically very detailed games where you have to examine or read text in the environment, and it actually makes this game easier to look at when enabled). I'm not sure if this makes a difference. Motion Blur is disabled (always)... I've read this can either make performance better or worse depending on the game, but I've never personally noticed a performance difference, just that it's incredibly distracting and makes some games unplayable, so I always disable it.

I've spent so much time fiddling around with the graphics settings I've never actually played the game. After running through the tutorial three times, I've noticed it seems a lot better after the tutorial is finished. I never realized there was a save inside the hut because I was literally just running around listening for the fans, so I kept reloading into the tutorial (usually on top of a tree?) each time I started the game lol. Not sure why the tutorial would be so much worse when it's such a small, limited area, but that's what I'm consistently noticing.

I know it's an early access game, but hopefully more settings will be added to control the graphics, especially considering how many people have older computers. From past experience with tweaking settings on my older laptop, shadows and lighting were usually the biggest resource hogs, so they were the first things I turned down. I'm not sure how much they matter performance-wise in a low-poly game like this compared to something more detailed... closest example I can think of is Valheim, which my older laptop really struggled to run for some reason when it ran everything else ran just fine. I think I just disabled shadows entirely. Elder Scrolls games I would disable any additional shadows or lighting effects (since they don't add anything gameplay-wise)... which let me keep things that are actually noticeable like textures and vegetation details on highest settings for a much larger view radius.

Basically, I wouldn't want to be turning down details or view radius unless I've already tried lowering or disabling lighting/shadows, since lighting/shadows tend to be more resource intensive (at least in most games) and aren't going to be missed the way object details and textures are. Sorry for rambling, hopefully that makes sense.