PSA: Probable solution to lag issues - especially with lights on

[Knottypine]

Posted this on Discord but I know many may not use that platform.

TL;DR
It appears the game frame rate is tied to monitor Hz. If you have a 120, 144, or 240 Hz monitor, when the game drops to a frame rate that is below your monitor refresh rate, the game may lag. For those users, drop your monitor refresh rate and the game should run smooth.

---

Ok, so users with much older, lower spec systems than me were not suffering from laggy gameplay. There is no way my system isn't capable of running this game smooth. Now to get one thing out of the way, people may think - oh, you're still getting over 100 FPS! However, the lag occurs even at 100 FPS if your monitor refresh rate is above that, let's say 240.

The players with higher end systems, MOST likely have monitors with a refresh rate of 144 Hz or higher. So someone with say a 3080, and a 240 Hz monitor (as I do) will see an issue. Here's how it happens: Game starts, day time. I do in fact get up to 240 FPS starting the day. Throughout the day, my FPS maintains typically 200+. Once it starts to become busy that may drop to 175, or 180 FPS... and there is a bit of lag. Thing is, I'm still at well over 100 FPS. Now it's after 7 pm, getting pretty dark and I want those lights on. The evenings are busier with customers, combined with the lights on, my FPS drops to around 99-120 FPS. At that point, there is massive lag!

Several days ago, I adjusted the FPS in Nvidia Control Panel to lock my FPS at 60. When I entered the game, it was the slowest I've ever seen it, felt like I was sneaking around and everything crawled very slow. Seems to be because while Nvidia had my frames locked at 60, my monitor refresh rate was still at 240. So in effect, the game was running at 25% speed.

By simply changed my monitor refresh rate to 144, game is smooth with lights on. I may go to 120 since my frames do drop closer to 100 FPS.

Update to this original discord post:
I've set my refresh rate to 120 and it's very smooth gameplay for me with the lights on now. Much better game experience.

[Axelstrife]

Easiest solution is to turn the quality in game to low, that changes the lighting and my fps doesn't drop at all.

Lighting in this game heavily affects FPS depending on how many lights you have in store, I just put like 30 lights in my store and my FPS dropped to 120 on a RTX 4090. I did notice that with 30 lights on my 240hz monitor at 120 fps i didn't lag so i still have no idea of the actual cause but i do know the other day when it was bad i change it to low and immediately it went away.

[Coffee]

I wouldn't call dropping your fps to 60fps to avoid the lag on a 120hz monitor would make it smoother haha.

[Knottypine]

Originally posted by Ꝙ Ghosthunter Ꝙ:

I wouldn't call dropping your fps to 60fps to avoid the lag on a 120hz monitor would make it smoother haha.

Because you have no idea what you're talking about.

[sfrenchie]

You only need an fps of 60 or lower. The human eye can only register to that level. Any higher it's basically a waist of resources and a strain on one's computer. You do not need an FPS of 100. That's overkill.

[sfrenchie]

Originally posted by Knottypine:

Posted this on Discord but I know many may not use that platform.

TL;DR
It appears the game frame rate is tied to monitor Hz. If you have a 120, 144, or 240 Hz monitor, when the game drops to a frame rate that is below your monitor refresh rate, the game may lag. For those users, drop your monitor refresh rate and the game should run smooth.

---

Ok, so users with much older, lower spec systems than me were not suffering from laggy gameplay. There is no way my system isn't capable of running this game smooth. Now to get one thing out of the way, people may think - oh, you're still getting over 100 FPS! However, the lag occurs even at 100 FPS if your monitor refresh rate is above that, let's say 240.

The players with higher end systems, MOST likely have monitors with a refresh rate of 144 Hz or higher. So someone with say a 3080, and a 240 Hz monitor (as I do) will see an issue. Here's how it happens: Game starts, day time. I do in fact get up to 240 FPS starting the day. Throughout the day, my FPS maintains typically 200+. Once it starts to become busy that may drop to 175, or 180 FPS... and there is a bit of lag. Thing is, I'm still at well over 100 FPS. Now it's after 7 pm, getting pretty dark and I want those lights on. The evenings are busier with customers, combined with the lights on, my FPS drops to around 99-120 FPS. At that point, there is massive lag!

Several days ago, I adjusted the FPS in Nvidia Control Panel to lock my FPS at 60. When I entered the game, it was the slowest I've ever seen it, felt like I was sneaking around and everything crawled very slow. Seems to be because while Nvidia had my frames locked at 60, my monitor refresh rate was still at 240. So in effect, the game was running at 25% speed.

By simply changed my monitor refresh rate to 144, game is smooth with lights on. I may go to 120 since my frames do drop closer to 100 FPS.

Update to this original discord post:
I've set my refresh rate to 120 and it's very smooth gameplay for me with the lights on now. Much better game experience.

Well the average person is not going to understand half of what you posted screen refresh rate. You did not explain HOW to adjust it. The easiet thing a player can do is go into the settings menu and lower the graphics quality for now until an FPS slider can be added?

[Knottypine]

Originally posted by sfrenchie:

Well the average person is not going to understand half of what you posted screen refresh rate. You did not explain HOW to adjust it. The easiet thing a player can do is go into the settings menu and lower the graphics quality for now until an FPS slider can be added?

The people that this is directed towards are those that have higher end systems that KNOW what monitor refresh rate is, and how to change it. This is an odd solution (that shouldn't be the solution) that may fix their probably.

[sfrenchie]

Originally posted by Axelstrife:

Easiest solution is to turn the quality in game to low, that changes the lighting and my fps doesn't drop at all.

Lighting in this game heavily affects FPS depending on how many lights you have in store, I just put like 30 lights in my store and my FPS dropped to 120 on a RTX 4090. I did notice that with 30 lights on my 240hz monitor at 120 fps i didn't lag so i still have no idea of the actual cause but i do know the other day when it was bad i change it to low and immediately it went away.

Two things. First. you do not need 120 fps. The human eye can only see up to 60 or less. Anything over 100 is major overkill on a machine. Until they are able to add something like an FPS slider to be able to cap ones FPs, lower your graphics settings in the menu in the game.

Second it stated in the update notes that this is a known issue and a fix is coming at some point.

[Knottypine]

Originally posted by sfrenchie:

Originally posted by Axelstrife:

Easiest solution is to turn the quality in game to low, that changes the lighting and my fps doesn't drop at all.

Lighting in this game heavily affects FPS depending on how many lights you have in store, I just put like 30 lights in my store and my FPS dropped to 120 on a RTX 4090. I did notice that with 30 lights on my 240hz monitor at 120 fps i didn't lag so i still have no idea of the actual cause but i do know the other day when it was bad i change it to low and immediately it went away.

Two things. First. you do not need 120 fps. The human eye can only see up to 60 or less. Anything over 100 is major overkill on a machine. Until they are able to add something like an FPS slider to be able to cap ones FPs, lower your graphics settings in the menu in the game.

Second it stated in the update notes that this is a known issue and a fix is coming at some point.

You are completely missing the entire point of the post and not even sure why you're responding to it.

READ: People with higher end machines most likely have higher refresh rate monitors. By DEFAULT, the monitor is most likely running at it's max refresh rate. It's NOT about 120 FPS, and BTW, you're completely wrong about what the human eye can see. LOL Anyway, these players are most likely at a higher refresh rate, so when the game drops FPS, this is when the lag occurs. For SOME people. This is meant to possibly help THOSE people. You have literally nothing to contribute. It's not about FPS, it's about minimizing lag that SOME people are experiencing on higher end systems and a possible fix so they can enjoy the game.

[Sheik Ismail]

Originally posted by sfrenchie:

You only need an fps of 60 or lower. The human eye can only register to that level. Any higher it's basically a waist of resources and a strain on one's computer. You do not need an FPS of 100. That's overkill.

literally untrue bro, can you NOT see the difference between 60 and 120 FPS?? you should register the fact that the human eye doesn't see in FPS, we see normal fluid motion so the more something resembles that, the smoother we see it

[Coffee]

Originally posted by sfrenchie:

You only need an fps of 60 or lower. The human eye can only register to that level. Any higher it's basically a waist of resources and a strain on one's computer. You do not need an FPS of 100. That's overkill.

You don<t see the FPS but you see the fluidity!

[Lotriic]

I have a 300Hz refresh rate, I play on a predator triton 500. The game runs very smoothly in the beginning but as customers come in, their physical movement lags as well as mine. I refresh the game, and it works in the beginning but results to the same problem. My friend plays this game on the same laptop as mine and has no problems. I don’t know if this is just a bug with my download? Other games run fine.

[Remnant Melody]

Originally posted by Lotriic:

I have a 300Hz refresh rate, I play on a predator triton 500. The game runs very smoothly in the beginning but as customers come in, their physical movement lags as well as mine. I refresh the game, and it works in the beginning but results to the same problem. My friend plays this game on the same laptop as mine and has no problems. I don’t know if this is just a bug with my download? Other games run fine.

Most likely its not a bug in your download and you can easily verify files to see if something went wrong in download. The game is just not very well optimized so the variance in people's experiences are wildly different. Some 'tricks' work for some while they just flat out don't for others.

The OP of this topic has a good test to adjust your settings if you're experiencing constant massive lag/slow movement. Normally I only get some small stutters at evening before going to full night. Other than that my game is fine. I have settings at high, but my monitor settings to 1920x1080 60hz. I like my games locked at 60fps, just used to it really.

Just follow the advice of the first post to fiddle with what refresh rate will work for you. You might not need to lock at 60, but it might help. I know younger folk get mad at having to go into 'slo mo' 60, but eh. Game engines don't care about your eyes and un-optimized UNITY game engines really don't care. At any rate, just keeping the framerate low on an Early Access game does help you GPU not over work due to oversights.

[Lotriic]

Originally posted by Remnant Melody:

Originally posted by Lotriic:

I have a 300Hz refresh rate, I play on a predator triton 500. The game runs very smoothly in the beginning but as customers come in, their physical movement lags as well as mine. I refresh the game, and it works in the beginning but results to the same problem. My friend plays this game on the same laptop as mine and has no problems. I don’t know if this is just a bug with my download? Other games run fine.

Most likely its not a bug in your download and you can easily verify files to see if something went wrong in download. The game is just not very well optimized so the variance in people's experiences are wildly different. Some 'tricks' work for some while they just flat out don't for others.

The OP of this topic has a good test to adjust your settings if you're experiencing constant massive lag/slow movement. Normally I only get some small stutters at evening before going to full night. Other than that my game is fine. I have settings at high, but my monitor settings to 1920x1080 60hz. I like my games locked at 60fps, just used to it really.

Just follow the advice of the first post to fiddle with what refresh rate will work for you. You might not need to lock at 60, but it might help. I know younger folk get mad at having to go into 'slo mo' 60, but eh. Game engines don't care about your eyes and un-optimized UNITY game engines really don't care. At any rate, just keeping the framerate low on an Early Access game does help you GPU not over work due to oversights.

Thank you, the info was very helpful. I'll definitely mess around with the settings.

[Garlee95]

Ok this works! I have a acer XZ360C monitor and set my refresh rate to 120HZ.
What I did was:

1. right click desktop, select NVIDIA control panel
2. left column under display - change resolution
3. From the right column of resolution under refresh rate, I changed it to 120HZ.
4. Apply save settings

Then loaded the game and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the game this smooooth!