InZOI on 7+ year old PC

[blackwidowee]

Prior to Inzoi’s release, I looked for constructive posts regarding the game’s expected performance for computer setups that did not meet the minimum requirements. Most response to people reporting they could not play were not “helpful”. I hope that this may help those who are researching before purchasing the games or looking for options to be able to play InZOI.

InZOI is like a Playstation 5 game and some people don’t realize that they have Playstation 3 hardware or worse. Unlike with gaming consoles, PCs vary on their specifications, so it is up to the software purchaser to confirm minimum requirements. This morning, I was in shock as my goddaughter messaged me that she purchased the game. She then discovered it did not run despite having purchased a new laptop.

In summary, my computer is over 7+ years old with a 7th generation Intel (i7-7820X CPU). This is below the minimum requirement for an Intel CPU to be 10th generation (i5 10400). I replaced my graphics card a few years ago with a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 10 GB VRAM, so it is above the recommended hardware (3070 w/ 8 GB VRAM). Memory is at 32 GB, which is twice the recommended amount. With a CPU deficiency, the game in its present state with default settings ran fine for me. Below are details on research performed before I decided to buy InZOI and to test if it would run on my computer.

This dates me, but investigating InZOI’s requirements takes me back to my 286 PC where I purchased a 287 math coprocessor to run a program. I was open to test and the possible result that I may have to purchase a new machine, if I wanted to play InZOI long term.

The first step of my research was comparing my CPU with the minimum. I searched for “i7-7820X versus i5 10400”, viewed the userBenchmark site and found performance wasn’t that far off from the minimum CPU.

Next up I looked at virtual servers and had planned to use ShadowTech. However, after inZOI launched, I saw a streamer have InZOi crash and she launched GeForce NOW. So I went with that service. It is cheaper by ~50% but has a restriction of 100 hours at the Ultimate membership level before it would drop to the “Free” level.

Lastly, I priced a new system, which was under $4,600.

Next up was launch day. I went for a quick start picking a preconfigured Zoi with minimal configuration. I allotted an hour, so if performance was poor, I had under an hour to give the game a try under GeForce NOW, in case I wanted to request a refund.

Prior to launching the release day build, I shifted my computer to Performance mode (thermal and power) but with no CPU overclocking. I shutdown all other games and browsers – I typically have three games running. (I ran InZOI the next day thinking I could quickly check for Twitch drops and forgot to do this. It crashed due to lack of VRAM.) The shaders took about 5 minutes to build. I was playing in 30 minutes. For my entire play session, I had no crashes despite later seeing my graphics card was on a list where the game could experience a crash.

With the new home lot, I used a pre-build My zoi walked around, socialized, took the bus and applied for a job. The shader build pegged CPU usage at 100%, otherwise most of the time the CPU usage was about 50%. I checked the video card GPU PerfCap reason and it was vREL, or vREL and vOP.

For run 2 with the second? patch release, InZOI crashed in under 15 minutes as I had no autosave, but upon relaunch I played for hours with no issue. GPU PerfCap Reason was reported idle at the times I looked.

For run 3, I launched InZOI using GeForce NOW. It may have been a bit quicker, but this was a subjective observation with no timings of tasks. (When I launch InZOI again from my PC, I will try scrolling around the map to see how it responds, as this is something I tried on this run.)

After all of this, I have no expectations that InZOI may continue to run well on my computer as new features are added and I am fine without advanced features that may use more CPU like Smart Zoi for the time being. When I reach that point, I’ll move to GeForce NOW. If I consistently play the game for months, then it would invest in a new computer at that time.