Game is running very slowly? :(

[Andrew R]

I have a I7 cpu, laptop equiv nvidia 520 8 GB RAM

[Andrew R]

And I don't see any options for graphics.

[Rilgar55]

When you press play on the steam library, it opens a window where you can change the graphics befor entering the game.

[Andrew R]

Thank you.

I put everything to "simple." Big improvement but still a little slowdown. The other two games ran without a hiccup but I guess those were years ago...:P

[XBL Laberbacke]

Originally posted by Andrew:

The other two games ran without a hiccup but I guess those were years ago...:P

Downfall and Cat Lady were built on AGS. This isn't.

[Đeath’ş Aļļ | Horst Fuchs]

Originally posted by Rilgar55:

When you press play on the steam library, it opens a window where you can change the graphics befor entering the game.

I'm affraid Unity's "quality" settings have practicaly zero impact on performance.
Sadly, lower the resolution is only way to get some more performance in game (and main menu)


EXAMPLE:
1920x1200, fantastic quality: 11 FPS on talk with mom, basicaly slideshow in rain.)
1920x1200, fastest quality: 11 FPS

[Cunning Plan]

Indeed, Unity seems to be the reason why certain scenes (especially ones involving weather events and fancy lighting) have very low FPS.

[DarkJuda On Deck]

It's not that some scenes have very low fps, it's that some scenes and effects ask a whole lot more power than others (which isn't exactly the same thing, low fps could mean an engine or driver overhead for exemple, and this is not the case here).

I have a 1080 GTX, and my GPU usage keeps oscilating between 3% and 70% between scenes in 1080p. It seems that this is linked to the special effects and 3D objects mostly, like rain (60% of GPU usage for the main menu is insane), fog or water.

I can understand the GPU usage is constantly oscillating betweens scenes considering that some are just 2D assets whille some have big 3D in it, and I can also accept that indie creators can't always manage to optimise properly their games, but not to that extent.

I shouldn't need a beefy GPU like this to keep a stable 60fps in a mostly 2D game with some 3D objects and effects.

I hope something can be done about this, but I don't know much more.

This mix between 2D and 3D is very nice, a give a very unique vibe to this game, but if they need that kind of computing power, I'm not really sure they are worth it.

[arj0n]

Originally posted by DarkJuda:

It's not that some scenes have very low fps, it's that some scenes and effects ask a whole lot more power than others (which isn't exactly the same thing, low fps could mean an engine or driver overhead for exemple, and this is not the case here).

Yep, there two main causes that creates heavy scenes:
- what you said, there's more going on in the scene that meets the eye,
- the special effects, like fog/rain/etc.

We tried to tweak down some scenes already, so it has already improved compared to pre-release builds...

[DarkJuda On Deck]

Originally posted by arj0n:

Originally posted by DarkJuda:

It's not that some scenes have very low fps, it's that some scenes and effects ask a whole lot more power than others (which isn't exactly the same thing, low fps could mean an engine or driver overhead for exemple, and this is not the case here).

Yep, there two main causes that creates heavy scenes:
- what you said, there's more going on in the scene that meets the eye,
- the special effects, like fog/rain/etc.

We tried to tweak down some scenes already, so it has already improved compared to pre-release builds...

I see.
So the issue is that it's not a bug/compatiblity issue, or that you didn't tried to optimise those effects, it's more like the Unity Engine basicaly requires too much processing power to display them, so nothing can be done except disabling those effects.
Well, I'm not surprised.
Unity has its perks towards other game engines but it also has its drawbacks.

In-game options to enable/disable effects or their animation could be a workaround (even if it would make the game look a little weird), but I'm not even sure it would be doable without a big code overhaul. Depends on how the game elements are tied together to begin with.

But something tells me that if you chose the Unity Engine, it's for its simplicity, not for its in-depth customisation, so I don't think there is a lot more you can do without downgrading the game for everyone.

[markymint]

One consideration is that Lorelai uses Adventure Creator, which is effectively a framework, successful unity asset for adventure game creation. The game does not run from the core functionality of Unity itself. Therefore, there may be certain requirements or limitations of the AC framework. In many ways it seems to be sturdy and very functional. And if you make your own adventure games you should totally check it out!

Michalski typically pushes the boundaries, doing things in AGS (Cat Lady, Downfall engine) that were rarely tried by anyone else, and not necessarily the same across the entire Unity spectrum, but the other examples of games using AC (Lorelai framework) are somewhat mild on their cinematic approach. I might be wrong on that but the ones I've seen have stuck to typically traditional point and click methods and more static cinematics.

I'd wager there's some unexplored territory here, as there was for the games on AGS. There will be ways to optimize it further, sure, but there will always be that element of AC framework underneath it all. My view, from what I've learned with Unity is it's generally more optimal to perform tasks directly (raw) and not through frameworks/assets.

But also understand that, if we go back to start of development - Rem had never even touched Unity, and that's a whole new engine to learn and understand all its nuances, like optimization - so ultimately, for a version 1.0.0 - whatever helps Rem bring his videogame vision to life, it's probably best we accept lol. Unity development train cannot be stopped, yes, major restructures would have probably been disastrous. So I think it's worth considering how other Adventure Creator games perform on people's computers and how this game differs from those perhaps in technical aspects (from what I've seen, a lot of them go for the 2D specific setup).

But certainly, Unity is still doing a lot of the heavy lifting, and it's just as likely to be playing a role in different performance reports in some way. From my experience the scene load times do feel a bit abnormal, like Unity would normally do it a bit quicker regardless of game weight, and that AC is perhaps adding an additional 10 seconds onto that...but that's basically me philosophizing about a black screen...I might be going insane ;)

You may also consider that you effectively own a "first edition". Think how many updates the other games got... and people sometimes reminisce about their first edition copies. Maybe not... I realize that sort of thing doesn't have a great rep in the wider videogame community. But for those that consider it art, well, you'll understand I'm sure. Maybe you can get your first edition copy of a digital game inside Steam signed by R. Michalski ;)

We're keeping an eye on all the feedback so thank you Andrew, DarkJuda and others and rest assured, in coming days updates (and fixes) will come!

[TheDarkFlintstone]

Also have running issues. Tried to run it on a computer that's not even designed to be a gamic pc and I can run Fallout New Vegas on it. But not this?! Particle issues right from the get-go and when I tried continuing a saved file, the game crashed. Poor investment so far.

[arj0n]

Originally posted by m.i.h:

Tried to run it on a computer that's not even designed to be a gamic pc and Ican run Fallout New Vegas on it. But not this?!

Did you try setting the quality setting lower (while keeping the same resolution setting)?

[markymint]

Sorry to hear that, I expect in some cases it's probably post processing effects or the HDR specific settings. New Vegas doesn't use many of those, but Fallout 4 certainly does, how does your computer handle that? Fallout 4 low specs are more in line for Lorelai than New Vegas. I would say "if you can run Fallout 4, you can run Lorelai" but I wouldn't say the same about NV personally (big Fallout fan here...well, was). However, hopefully, we can get some in-game graphics settings sorted out for Lorelai. I've got a feeling turning some of the post processing effects off will improve it for people, but at what expense not too sure just yet.

I was also hoping we would get a Potato mode setup for the first release (even lower setting in the start popup) which would do some of that, but it was not so, sorry. Maybe some other enhancements that the cameras use like HDR etc, if the AC framework can't do it then a few scripts and players should have more manual control over these things to toggle on/off at least. It is duly noted, so thank you and please keep an eye on your copy for updates in the very near future.

[DarkJuda On Deck]

Originally posted by markymint:

One consideration is that Lorelai uses Adventure Creator, which is effectively a framework, successful unity asset for adventure game creation. The game does not run from the core functionality of Unity itself. Therefore, there may be certain requirements or limitations of the AC framework. In many ways it seems to be sturdy and very functional. And if you make your own adventure games you should totally check it out!

Michalski typically pushes the boundaries, doing things in AGS (Cat Lady, Downfall engine) that were rarely tried by anyone else, and not necessarily the same across the entire Unity spectrum, but the other examples of games using AC (Lorelai framework) are somewhat mild on their cinematic approach. I might be wrong on that but the ones I've seen have stuck to typically traditional point and click methods and more static cinematics.

I'd wager there's some unexplored territory here, as there was for the games on AGS. There will be ways to optimize it further, sure, but there will always be that element of AC framework underneath it all. My view, from what I've learned with Unity is it's generally more optimal to perform tasks directly (raw) and not through frameworks/assets.

But also understand that, if we go back to start of development - Rem had never even touched Unity, and that's a whole new engine to learn and understand all its nuances, like optimization - so ultimately, for a version 1.0.0 - whatever helps Rem bring his videogame vision to life, it's probably best we accept lol. Unity development train cannot be stopped, yes, major restructures would have probably been disastrous. So I think it's worth considering how other Adventure Creator games perform on people's computers and how this game differs from those perhaps in technical aspects (from what I've seen, a lot of them go for the 2D specific setup).

I'm not a dev myself, but if I understand you well, and if I have to make an analogy, I'd say it's like a big muscular guy (Unity) that needs to hold on his shoulders a little guy (AC Framework) while this little guy has to hold the rugged and rough (because it's the first time he works with unity) ground breaking boulder Michalski sculpted and it's a bit too much for him to handle, because he was designed to juggle with little tennis balls (2D/more basic point&cick games).

But certainly, Unity is still doing a lot of the heavy lifting, and it's just as likely to be playing a role in different performance reports in some way. From my experience the scene load times do feel a bit abnormal, like Unity would normally do it a bit quicker regardless of game weight, and that AC is perhaps adding an additional 10 seconds onto that...but that's basically me philosophizing about a black screen...I might be going insane ;)

I can confirm I'm having weirdly long black screen transitions at times (sometimes it took one minute to load a scene, like the staff toilets in the nursing home). As if the intermediary, the AC framework, was running in circles while the engine is waiting.
Actually I noticed that during these long black screens, only 1 thread of my cpu was really working. Is it because the AC framework works that way? I could understand that considering you said it's mostly used for 2D p&c.

You may also consider that you effectively own a "first edition". Think how many updates the other games got... and people sometimes reminisce about their first edition copies. Maybe not... I realize that sort of thing doesn't have a great rep in the wider videogame community. But for those that consider it art, well, you'll understand I'm sure. Maybe you can get your first edition copy of a digital game inside Steam signed by R. Michalski ;)

We're keeping an eye on all the feedback so thank you Andrew, DarkJuda and others and rest assured, in coming days updates (and fixes) will come!

It has nothing to do with the videogame community or any community actually.
People are not happy. Well, most of them are not. And instead of searching for that happiness, they prefer to externalize by getting angry at other people to justify their own unhappiness.
In other words, when people are truly happy or truly want to be happy, they want to help other people to find their own happiness (and no, they don't look down on people who try to put some life in their stories). When they are not happy (or don't want to be happy), most just want to spit on other people to reassure themselves.

And there is pretty much nothing you can do about. I tried. The thing is that you can't bring an answer to somebody who didn't ask for it.
That's why I decided to write a book about it. Only those who are looking for answers will find it, I won't loose my time anymore to people who don't want to find answers.
Guess what. It's a book about a suicidal man who meets his spiritual guide whom explains him his life is not as bad as he sees it. Well, ... his lives.
I get my inspirations here and there ;)

So no, it basicaly has nothing to do with videogame community, it's just that on this subject, there is a lot of things that people don't understand (and don't want to), making easy to rage about.
Funny thing is, sometimes it doesn't even make sense.

[markymint]

Yes your analogy sounds about right! My point about the wider community is - if you take into account something like Fallout 76, broken on release, this is generally considered not acceptable. Nor is having a "roadmap" and only releasing limited content in the first release. Me stating "first release" and asking people to be accepting of that would bear no meaning or at least little value to a lot of players (especially mainstream ones). But like your book, the first edition can be a special edition for a lot of people. But for many others, that quirky first release is nothing but a nuisance. Like a misprint in a first edition novel, some folks can still get attached to that misprint or see it as a valuable thing they owned at one point in their ownership of your "thing", but for me to expect anyone to see it that way I realize, in light of things like Fallout 76, is asking a lot. It should just be fixed, it should just work lol. And I'm not advocating for broken items to be there just because they are part of the experience for a select few (again, think Bethesda games/reputation lol). I can't expect people to support my notion of "its a quirky first release", is all... But I wrote that point as some minor reassurance for people that we will look into the issues, and that for previous games we always get some comments about people being attached to their first edition, with all its quirks and new-ness. I'm sure you'll come to learn that as an author if you haven't already, but then, perhaps you won't need to make re-writes ;) Books don't crash... The Cat Lady had its issues on release, Pewdiepie streamed it crashing... These things happen, but they are generally rectified without altering the experience as best we can. regards!