multi core

[sno0ks]

this game needs to be updated to dx12 asap. it is virtually unplayable as is and almost feels like a scam that gets you in the door and then completely falls apart once you really start to play it.

[HeatherG]

How is it unplayable?

[GunRunner89X]

"Virtually unplayable". What rubbish. Any half-decent PC can run it just fine. Unless you're running it on a potato.

[sno0ks]

Originally posted by HeatherG:

How is it unplayable?

the engine only makes use of one cpu core, as far as I am aware. anything above a middling guest count causes the game to gradually lose frames until it runs at practically 1fps. i would think simply allowing the game to utilize multiple cores would alleviate this problem. the guest count is a hard limit on how large your zoo can be, so your zoo will likewise never get above a middling size/complexity.

Originally posted by GunRunner89X:

"Virtually unplayable". What rubbish. Any half-decent PC can run it just fine. Unless you're running it on a potato.

I have an i9-11900k and an rtx 3090 and 64GBDDR. probably better than 99% of the people playing the game and well above the recommended specs.

[jmarc0121]

Is there a way to ensure that that the game uses all cores?

[sno0ks]

Originally posted by jmarc0121:

Is there a way to ensure that that the game uses all cores?

i don't think so, unless they update the engine. if you find anything, lmk.

[Varick]

This is an old discussion. A link to Frontier Forums if interested:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/mutli-core-processor-use.515085/

[Wylie28]

Originally posted by sno0ks:

Originally posted by HeatherG:

How is it unplayable?

the engine only makes use of one cpu core, as far as I am aware. anything above a middling guest count causes the game to gradually lose frames until it runs at practically 1fps. i would think simply allowing the game to utilize multiple cores would alleviate this problem. the guest count is a hard limit on how large your zoo can be, so your zoo will likewise never get above a middling size/complexity.

Originally posted by GunRunner89X:

"Virtually unplayable". What rubbish. Any half-decent PC can run it just fine. Unless you're running it on a potato.

I have an i9-11900k and an rtx 3090 and 64GBDDR. probably better than 99% of the people playing the game and well above the recommended specs.

No. Not it doesn't. Open CPUZ. Draw calls only use one core and yeah, they are a bottleneck. But not even by a 5% margin on a high end CPU. Getting rid of Win7 support is not worth you 1-2 extra FPS with absurd amounts of guests.

The more you add per frame the longer frame times get. Thats physics. And AI can't be multi-threaded as well. They would break. They have collision. You can't allow two AI to enter the same space. And multi-thread compute cannot prevent that. Math rules still apply to computers. You weren't taught math and physics in school because it wasn't important. It governs the real world. And your CPU.

[sno0ks]

Originally posted by Wylie28:

Originally posted by sno0ks:

the engine only makes use of one cpu core, as far as I am aware. anything above a middling guest count causes the game to gradually lose frames until it runs at practically 1fps. i would think simply allowing the game to utilize multiple cores would alleviate this problem. the guest count is a hard limit on how large your zoo can be, so your zoo will likewise never get above a middling size/complexity.



I have an i9-11900k and an rtx 3090 and 64GBDDR. probably better than 99% of the people playing the game and well above the recommended specs.

No. Not it doesn't. Open CPUZ. Draw calls only use one core and yeah, they are a bottleneck. But not even by a 5% margin on a high end CPU. Getting rid of Win7 support is not worth you 1-2 extra FPS with absurd amounts of guests.

The more you add per frame the longer frame times get. Thats physics. And AI can't be multi-threaded as well. They would break. They have collision. You can't allow two AI to enter the same space. And multi-thread compute cannot prevent that. Math rules still apply to computers. You weren't taught math and physics in school because it wasn't important. It governs the real world. And your CPU.

ok well the game is just broken and will never be fixed then.

[Jaggid Edje]

Game works fine for me. I just set a reasonable visitor limit (I set it to 6000 usually, around 7000 is the breaking point where it effects my framerate) and can play to my heart's content.

[sno0ks]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Game works fine for me. I just set a reasonable visitor limit (I set it to 6000 usually, around 7000 is the breaking point where it effects my framerate) and can play to my heart's content.

it only works fine by handicapping your zoo. your zoos will only be able to reach a certain size by capping the guests like that. that's the point of the thread. you're hard limited with what you can do based on a terrible engine.

[Jaggid Edje]

I've never had a zoo where that limit wasn't still very profitable. And I've built some very large zoos. So large that I felt that they were 'too big' just from an aesthetics and breeding management standpoint.

So I disagree regarding that 'handicapping' standpoint.

Most CPU intensive simulation games avoid this problem by giving you smaller available space to build on, Planet Zoo developers are generous enough to give you far more space than you should ever need, but then leave it in your hands to constrain yourself appropriately for the hardware you play on. I like their approach better.

[grampers62]

Some non-technical thoughts...
The game, Planet Zoo, is an unlimited build simulation. We can add as much as we want till the game becomes unplayable and/or unstable. Often players complain the game isn't optimized well. The reality is we must optimize our game play to fit within the limits of our computers. We can have a great experience playing if we do so. That being said, what one player thinks is poor performance might be great for another player.

[Varick]

Oh, LOL. Not that I would have wanted it to happen but perhaps Frontier should have released the game with tiny maps and then doled out larger ones. :)

[grampers62]

I don't know... Is a square kilometer too big?
Maybe if one is running an old I5 in a laptop with 4 GB of ram....

[sno0ks]

the "it gives people options to scale with hardware" argument doesn't really apply when there is no hardware in existence that can take full advantage of what the game offers and there won't be for a decade. having a tiny patch surrounded by a giant empty space is just aeshtetically unpleasant, let alone bad design. and zoos really don't get particularly big before the game starts to break. you can only have a handful of exhibits/animals in a given zoo.