Performance tweaks for even the lowest-end hardware!

[нιт◈ᴘᴏιɴᴛ]

Hey guys!

Been doing a little fiddling today with settings, and have figured out how to boost performance ten-fold for people with low-end hardware (integrated chips/laptops especially).

I have a gaming rig that plays the game at max settings (besides tree density). Sometimes I don't have access to it when i'm not home and have to result to a laptop for my gaming needs.

Unfortunately, even at the lowest possible in-game settings, my laptop can only maintain 30fps (20 min). But guess what! There is a solution and you too can obtain 60 even on integrated chips!

How so do you ask? By lowering the LOD and Draw Distance to it's lowest possible setting through the in-game console! Until today, I thought you could only raise the LOD (200%) above it's maxed in-game settings. But with some testing you can run the game at 0% LOD, and 1 View Distance. Here's how!

Load a single player game (don't join a server, console commands while on someone elses MP server changes the servers settings). Hit the tilde key (brings up the console) and type these commands into said console.

sg OptionsViewDistance 1 (1-4 depending on your tastes)
sg OptionsLODDistance 0 (0-0.20 depending on your tastes)

Voila!

You're now able to run the game at a manageable framerate even on a toaster!

Hopefully one day TFP will give us the in-game option of changing these settings all the way down to the engines lowest functioning setting, and also allow us to use the highest possible setting without the game crashing (ala 15 view distance).

Remember. This is for people like me whom are on the go and can't afford an expensive gaming laptop. Especially if you have kids/friends who would like to play too.

This is an alpha. Alpha means we will see performance gains in the near future and the likely hood of these tweaks changing is high.

Hope this helped some of you with performance issues, as I know it worked for me.

Have a great day and may your legs never break :)

[xC0DEB10C]

For those of you with FPS issues.

1) A big performance hit comes from reflections.
If you are running a mid-range PC, then set the "Reflection Quality" to "Low" and if you have a low-range PC set it to "Off".
Then if you have it set to Low+, play with the "Reflection Distance" starting at "Low" and move up until your FPS starts to drop to where you don't want it and then go back one.

2) Another possible Temp fix for LOW FRAMERATE issues, alltho this is not 100% guaranteed and may only work for a few people.

- Start 7DTD
- Startup your game
- Press escape and click on the options button, then video settings
- Set all video settings to their minimum and set a low screen resolution (eg. 1024x768)
- Quit game
- Exit 7DTD
- Restart 7DTD
- Continue your game
- Change all your video settings to desired quality vs performance balance
- Before you exit 7DTD be sure to set the video settings back to lowest for next time you play the game.

3) For some people, deleteing your config files will fix some issues as well, due to new settings you would want to let the game recreate all its config files. Many also report that their problems go away by reinstalling the game, which does what I just suggested as well. The new patch includes new content so you always want to "wipe" the game to allow it to recreate all its needed files, including savegames.

Note: Of course this might not be valid for every computer, there is a certian minimal spec your system should have, view the store page for that info. Also some hardware configurations might have quirks or troubling video drivers, so that might cause issues as well.

It seems that there are some performance issues that snuck into the build that we didn't have some internal-testing versions earlier and are sorry for releasing the build in this state without noticing them - but we are working on them as fast as possible and will releae a hotfix soon that will hopefully fix these issues.

[Stephen777]

tested? by who?

[xC0DEB10C]

Originally posted by Stephen:

tested? by who?

Developers and QA.

[Arctic Circle Pit]

My computer is medium-high end and it still lags like hell.

[Out2SmokeU]

mine is real low.. a friend wanted me to join but mines so low when i run its like im walking or with broken legs.. if i get all my $ tomorrow im ordering the parts to build my rig.. my laptop now isnt really made for gaming.. its a

AMD A6 5200 2.00 ghz
4GB ram
AMD RADEON HD8400
Windows 8 64 bit
Its horiible for gaming but i try..
Have about $1800 saved up but need very lil more for what i want.. Cant wait but so soon ill be good hopefully..

[Stephen777]

Originally posted by xC0DEB10C:

Originally posted by Stephen:

tested? by who?

Developers and QA.

I find this funny, because if they actually used the alpha testers...we wouldnt be having the issues we are having. But for some reason the alpha testers have to wait for patches to even test it....I should be able to opt in and download whatever the latest files are and help test the game.

[Arctic Circle Pit]

4GB of RAM was too low even before this patch, Out2SmokeU. I mean, my last computer had 4 and this game ran like crap. Once I got 8GB it ran very well. That RAM may be your issue even BEFORE this recent patch.

[SteelBallz]

This Update has done nothing but ruin the game! Huge performance hit Lag from hell! I have an amd 8-core, ati hd 7770 2gb, 16gb ddr3 ram and im getting very bad fps! Also they keep nerfing this game to a state where me nor any of my friends want to play anymore i mean come on the stone axes now break within like 20 hits, water movement is back to a crawl! and not to mention alot of other crap like floating textures server issues etc. etc.

[Arctic Circle Pit]

^^^Agreed.

[jwalker]

I'm getting better FPS and performance, on higher settings than I used before. Core 2 Duo, GeForce 8600 GT, 8 gigs ram.... runs much better. Maye I'm just lucky though.

[DC]

The only time I run into a FPS drop issue is at night or going into a dark area, it seems to cut my FPS in half. I found that if I look at a working light my FPS goes back up to prenight/predark levels. Seems to me it has something to do with the new lighting system. Atleast for me that is. But honestly becides that I have not been having any other problems.

[Arcadian Del Sol]

Originally posted by The Portly Jew:

I'm getting better FPS and performance, on higher settings than I used before. Core 2 Duo, GeForce 8600 GT, 8 gigs ram.... runs much better. Maye I'm just lucky though.

i have identical system as you and it runs great as long as shadows are off. everything else is set to max.

[TI|t sKi||et]

Oh no im scared. Im dling the patch now but i dont know if im going to be able to run it. :( pray for me?

[Mersch]

Originally posted by SteelBallz:

This Update has done nothing but ruin the game! Huge performance hit Lag from hell! I have an amd 8-core, ati hd 7770 2gb, 16gb ddr3 ram and im getting very bad fps! Also they keep nerfing this game to a state where me nor any of my friends want to play anymore i mean come on the stone axes now break within like 20 hits, water movement is back to a crawl! and not to mention alot of other crap like floating textures server issues etc. etc.

Regarding the stone axe and other tools/weapons. There are tiers now. Basic to Flawless I think? They improve as you acquire better versions. The starting axe is weak but it can be instantly repaired with one stone. I haven't seen the frame rate issues but I do have a pretty decent gaming rig.

[TBSS]

They killed the game for me..... I was playing 80 + hours a week and now waitting for this update turn me sour when i got to playing .. i got trees poping up out of no where and the zombie pop up on me like out of no where... I'm running Amd FX-8370 8 core with 8 gb pc 1700 2133 oc ram video Asus nivida Ge force GTX 760 . The frame rate is solid 59 to 61 fps mild settings and still crap ola i'm going to still try to play but, feel more like going back to 10 Stable other than this mess...