Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

[Melange]

8 hours ago, Mister Forgash said:

Well lets not forget, with every update The Pimps are singling out specific players to make the game unfun to them in particular.

Colateral damage  unfortunately affecting a few. It will happen. All is fair with Dew Collectors and hydration. Or something like that...🧉

[meganoth]

Two comments:

 

1) The game uses up to 4 cores, it just doesn't use them equally well. And that is because there is a main loop that feeds Unity and there seem to be no more easy tasks to move to other threads. And I think Fataal also said that for example path finding for AI is already in a separate thread

 

2) Ultra settings are just settings on an endless scale. If there were better PCs available, Ultra setting could have for example an increased viewing range and easily overburden those PCs as well.

And if TFP wanted to appease the "I want Ultra settings" crowd, they could just decrease available options (lower max viewing range, lower shadow quality, less reflection quality,...) and make Ultra setting easy to reach for any powerful PC. Good for their reputation, but bad for any player who wants more viewing range or better quality, i.e. more options.

 

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[meganoth]

11 hours ago, Mister Forgash said:

Well lets not forget, with every update The Pimps are singling out specific players to make the game unfun to them in particular.  Way to go, Un-fun Pimps 😜

 

 

 

And now we know who the next player is that will be singled out 😇

[Mister Forgash]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

 

And now we know who the next player is that will be singled out 😇

Oh no! I've drawn their wrath! Maybe I can hide if I refuse to update! XD

Edited September 17, 2022 by Mister Forgash (see edit history)

[Javabean867]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

Snipped

It's a big forum, so it's easy to miss stuff.  Part of the problem with the cities is the windows.  They worked on those blocks for a21 to be less of a resource hog, so we should see better frame rates in the cities.

[unholyjoe]

1 hour ago, Mister Forgash said:

Oh no! I've drawn their wrath! Maybe I can hide if I refuse to update! XD

you can run but you can not hide... (believe me, i have tried), the irradiated demolition soldiers will be paying you a visit.

 

Spoiler

the bandits will come afterwards for the clean up

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by unholyjoe (see edit history)

[Roland]

5 hours ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

Game has potential with the cities and whatnot - but even on a pretty capable gaming pc I can't go in with ultra settings without being lagged into oblivion and 100+ frames to 17.

 

Easy fix. Don't use the ultra preset. Turn down various settings until you reach the point of optimal gameplay performance for acceptable graphics. For high-end machines good performance can be achieved long before turning down the graphics makes the game unpleasant to play. I don't have nearly what would be considered top of the line and the game plays great and the graphics are definitely good enough to be enjoyable.

 

6 hours ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

Devs have made a game then thought it cost effective not to put the work in unlocking more processing power and pandering to turnip PCs, which may have been a good thing 5 years ago but computing power gets better all the time.

 

There has to be a line drawn somewhere so they can get the game released. Those who buy games for top visuals over gameplay should probably steer clear of this game. It is a voxel world and is never going to be able to compete visually with games that are non-voxel. Just the fact that people who play the game often don't realize that the game is voxel is testament to how graphically advanced the game is for this type of game. For people who care more about gameplay than visuals this game works perfectly well since they will be willing to turn down the visuals in favor of performance and not get heart palpatations that their visuals aren't as ultra as they are for other games.

 

6 hours ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

This game is being left in the dirt - and with all the HD modelling (which I do admit is rather pleasing, if not out of place at times) is a lot like the old saying - 'polishing a turd.'

 

The fact work won't be put in brings to mind two questions.

 

1. Wtf?

 

Nice. I guess the level of discourse you always expect in others doesn't apply to yourself. I'm not even sure what you are saying here. What does Wtf mean other than what it actually stands for? What is the opinion you are trying to convey? That the developers are being lazy? stingy? Are you expressing confusion about why they aren't putting work into this area?

 

Like all projects of this magnitude they must allocate resources and work to the areas they deem it best. They are putting work in but just not into this area for reasons already clearly explained by faatal and reiterated by myself. If your wtf somehow means something beyond what I've tried to guess, maybe you can put some actual words into your question rather than a silly acronym.

 

6 hours ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

And 2. Why have such a good product (in the eyes of many, sentimwnt is slipping for me) and not put the work in to ensure people can play lower end but those (I'm not claiming any percentages, thanks) who can and do play games at higher end, can do so with this product without the lag fest which makes all the glorious fluff and the genuinely well done city layouts redundant...

 

The answer is simple. The people with higher end gaming machines can play with this product without the lag fest simply by turning down the settings until they reach the appropriate level for good gameplay. Their visuals will be better than those with lower end machines but TFP can't be held responsible for people who mistakenly think that they can just hit the Ultra presets button for every single game in their library and get the same exact results for every game. That's why the game offers custom settings so that adjustments can be made until the game plays great. I've found that mix of settings for my rig and with a midrange machine I'm confident that those with high range machines will be able to find it as well. I experience very little lag and my visuals are plenty good enough to be able to play and enjoy the world. They are not as good as videos and streams I see of others playing but I'm enjoying my experience.

 

6 hours ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

people have certain expectations which in 2022/ coming 23, really should be met by TFP re: performance.

 

People just are uninformed about voxel vs non-voxel games. Among games that are 100% destructible and include block by block building and every structure in the world can be entered, explored, and modified by the player, 7 Days to Die continually exceeds expectations of those who are informed. It stacks up well with any other similar game. TFP is proud of what they have accomplished graphically and rightfully so. Optimizations continue and soon all optimizations will stop being for the purpose of adding new performance costly features to the game and be purely for making the finished product run better. There will always be people who are snobbish about their visuals in the games they play and who will turn their nose up at 7 Days to Die and not be convinced that it is worth playing because they can't get past how it looks. Even if TFP utilized more threads it would still be so.

[falloutcloud]

You know what I think would be fun for the forums is each trader had an avatar controlled by the moderators and they would respond to questions with their own personality quirks.

[WaywardEko]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

 

Easy fix. Don't use the ultra preset. Turn down various settings until you reach the point of optimal gameplay performance for acceptable graphics. For high-end machines good performance can be achieved long before turning down the graphics makes the game unpleasant to play. I don't have nearly what would be considered top of the line and the game plays great and the graphics are definitely good enough to be enjoyable.

 

 

So I'll say first --- I completely disagree w/ the original poster line of berating and language.  I also understand the 'don't use Ultra preset' line.  In my experience turning the preset all the way down to medium had only minimal impact.  I typically run on high and drop to medium during horde night running a 3900x | 3080 | 64 GB RAM and still regularly experience single digit FPS during horde night with 4 or 5 folks playing.  

I also do agree w/ your sentiment around graphic expectations and voxel-based games.  For me I'm here for the mechanics and the gameplay.  I don't need Ultra to have fun ... for me I just want a few more frames.  We just reset season on my community server -- once I get a larger base going I'm going to get some logs files over per the recommendation from @Laz Man.

 

I'll also say that my push on performance is always going to be from a place of wanting more people to play 7 Days to Die   I want it more accessible so the community grows!

 

-Eko

Edited September 17, 2022 by WaywardEko
better wording (see edit history)

[Riamus]

One thing I've noticed regarding performance on a 4 year old mid range desktop (at that time) is that playing the game in the pregen maps (at least the 8k one), I get really bad lag in cities (even smaller ones), especially when on a vehicle.  But in RWG maps, this rarely happens.  Of course, I'm not on ultra and I'm in the process of slowly turning up settings from what were medium because of the severe lag on the pregen map, but I'm able to sit at 60fps most of the time even in cities when not moving around quickly, and bounce between 25-60 when moving (it bounces between those constantly).  If I turn off vsync, which I usually do in games, I can get up to 80fps, but it fluctuates even standing still down to around 20, so I don't bother.

 

So even on a slower machine, the game works pretty well... If you avoid pregen8k and perhaps the other pregen maps as well.  This may be why there are such large discrepancies in comments, where some with high end machines suffer severe lag even on lower settings while others do not on ultra settings.  If you are using the pregen maps, try a RWG map and see how it works for you.  You might see most of the lag disappear.

 

As to ultra settings being "endless", I think that is a mistake.  If you make that preset such that it will keep being better on better hardware, but at the same time it is so much better that high end hardware users are always having lag because of it, that isn't a good thing. I noticed one setting having "ultra+".  Perhaps have ultra preset not be endless, but allow a custom option for specific settings of ultra+ that ARE endless.  That should make ultra work better for most users and still allow this endless option.  Just a thought.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Riamus
Auto correct error (see edit history)

[Roland]

1 hour ago, WaywardEko said:

 

So I'll say first --- I completely disagree w/ the original poster line of berating and language.  I also understand the 'don't use Ultra preset' line.  In my experience turning the preset all the way down to medium had only minimal impact.  I typically run on high and drop to medium during horde night running a 3900x | 3080 | 64 GB RAM and still regularly experience single digit FPS during horde night with 4 or 5 folks playing.  

I also do agree w/ your sentiment around graphic expectations and voxel-based games.  For me I'm here for the mechanics and the gameplay.  I don't need Ultra to have fun ... for me I just want a few more frames.  We just reset season on my community server -- once I get a larger base going I'm going to get some logs files over per the recommendation from @Laz Man.

 

I'll also say that my push on performance is always going to be from a place of wanting more people to play 7 Days to Die   I want it more accessible so the community grows!

 

-Eko

Absolutely agree that TFP should continue to optimize and do what they can within the constraints of getting this game finished. I’m certain they will continue to find ways to get better performance especially once the game is feature complete 

[hiemfire]

4 hours ago, falloutcloud said:

You know what I think would be fun for the forums is each trader had an avatar controlled by the moderators and they would respond to questions with their own personality quirks.

 

I see walls of "Rekt" taking @%$# to the players with the occasional cat fishing of snow dog by "Jen" in that alternate reality.

[Xeen]

Okay look I know I started an argument about graphics and CPU core utilization here, which isn't what I intended to do.
Since we are on the subject I have a badass gaming rig and can play the game on ultra plus and still get over 60 FPS during a horde no problem, until I build my base with a stupid amount of bulletproof glass which is getting fixed in A21 so I can't @%$# anymore. I still want more CPU cores to play with so there. 😛

[Xeen]

38 minutes ago, Frotus said:

Looking forward to Alpha 21.  It would be cool if we could collect rain in barrels and then fill oir glass jars with murky water from them.

 

The cities are really cool now, hacking at RGW to make bigger ones though. Felt too small, but I am not lagging at all so maybe that's why I don't mind pushing the size up. I just want more than one skyscraper in a city so made the grid bigger, that helped. I guess more tools to control aspects of RGW is always welcomed 😀

 

Been playing off and on since a couple months before Steam launch. ALPHA never die, just like Cobra Kai! Lol

I agree 100% about more control over RWG, I would love more granular control.

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

14 hours ago, meganoth said:

Two comments:

 

1) The game uses up to 4 cores, it just doesn't use them equally well. And that is because there is a main loop that feeds Unity and there seem to be no more easy tasks to move to other threads. And I think Fataal also said that for example path finding for AI is already in a separate thread

 

2) Ultra settings are just settings on an endless scale. If there were better PCs available, Ultra setting could have for example an increased viewing range and easily overburden those PCs as well.

And if TFP wanted to appease the "I want Ultra settings" crowd, they could just decrease available options (lower max viewing range, lower shadow quality, less reflection quality,...) and make Ultra setting easy to reach for any powerful PC. Good for their reputation, but bad for any player who wants more viewing range or better quality, i.e. more options.

 

 

 

Why do you have to poison what should have been:

 

'Include Ultra Settings with reflective performance (as many games do),'

 

With:

 

'...if TFP wanted to appease the "I want Ultra settings" crowd...'

 

I don't think that's very mature, fair, or respectful to those who expect modern games to have ultra settings, and to have those settings reflect on hardware that can handle it.

 

Seems a lot of people on here really do act like apologists for the developers, and do so employing the kind of rhetoric that @%$#s development.

 

This game was and could still be; in my opinion, something special. With so many years in development it should either have been dropped, or brought to glorious fruition.

 

I understand time constraints and costs but it just seems a bit of a waste and missed opportunity. But I don't own the company, or pay the developers, so it makes no odds anyway.

[Blake_]

10 hours ago, Roland said:

Absolutely agree that TFP should continue to optimize and do what they can within the constraints of getting this game finished. I’m certain they will continue to find ways to get better performance especially once the game is feature complete 

Constraints? What constraints? 7dtd development process should be like a unbreakable marriage : there are no constraints if money keeps pouring in. Wait a sec....

[bdubyah]

Waiting on A21 like...

[meganoth]

8 hours ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

 

Why do you have to poison what should have been:

 

'Include Ultra Settings with reflective performance (as many games do),'

 

With:

 

'...if TFP wanted to appease the "I want Ultra settings" crowd...'

 

I don't think that's very mature, fair, or respectful to those who expect modern games to have ultra settings, and to have those settings reflect on hardware that can handle it.

 

Seems a lot of people on here really do act like apologists for the developers, and do so employing the kind of rhetoric that @%$#s development.

 

This game was and could still be; in my opinion, something special. With so many years in development it should either have been dropped, or brought to glorious fruition.

 

I understand time constraints and costs but it just seems a bit of a waste and missed opportunity. But I don't own the company, or pay the developers, so it makes no odds anyway.

 

The ultra setting is independent of resolution. As far as I heard from others it is perfectly playable with todays hardware if you play on 2k or 3k. And if we ignore some bugs and inconsistencies for the moment that seem to plague some but not all high-end players. Did anyone specify that 4k (or maybe even 8k) at ultra would be playable?

There is no argument that TFP has to purge those bugs and inconsistencies before release. But you get triggered by totally irrelevant problems like an ultra setting that is in fact a suggestion that nobody needs to take, in an unfinished game. Look who is immature here?

 

Another point is that technologie advances all the time and by the time the game releases the ultra settings will be less ultra than they are today, even more so with any year following release.

 

And there is a history of AAA games that had unrealistic or lets say futuristic ultra settings even at release, the most famous one being Wing Commander I think. Play that game with ultra now and you'll probably get laughably high FPS.

 

Now TFP could adapt and balance the ultra setting every alpha to changing hardware and changing game loads. Lots of wasted time that I frankly don't expect to be done in an unfinished game. I expect them to fix the traders, I would like for them to be more forthcoming with information and surely the general performance needs more work. But what you are now expecting is handholding to a degree that it is silly. "Whoah, my super PC can't handle ultra in this game. I'm lost, what can I do?".  Are there really idiots like that out there?

 

 

 

 

Edited September 18, 2022 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Frotus]

23 hours ago, Roland said:

Absolutely agree that TFP should continue to optimize and do what they can within the constraints of getting this game finished. I’m certain they will continue to find ways to get better performance especially once the game is feature complete 

 

I think customers also lose perspective with games and games built on game engines. Unreal and Unity are great, they are meant to help small teams produce content or large teams produce epic content. The engine itself constrains you within the bounds of the capabilities of the engine. One cannot merely write some code and POOF my game running on Unity is magically better than what Unity can actually handle, for instance.  

 

I am not saying there are not things a developer can do, etc. Resource management to control resource usage and parallel processing for things that do not need to lock to depend on each other, etc. However, at the end of the day, the game engine and machine you are running on can only do so much.

 

Why do you think Minecraft still looks like @%$#, even after being owned by a big Corp for  years? Making it look better is not the point. TFP already have provided us with an "Adult" version of Minecraft where you can customize the hell out of everything in game or via XML, etc.

 

I personally prefer they spend their time on the game and not trying to make Unity a better product. Optimizing windows (reflection is expensive) and polygon counts on models and parallel processes for things not directly connected, etc. is fine; but that will not make your GTX1050 2GB card run at Ultra in the city on your i7-7900K.

 

I mean with inflation, a new gaming laptop with an RTX3060 is only 900$. Skip the $15 drive through and $10 Starbucks line 36 times and make yourself PB&J and have a glass of milk instead 40 days in a row and buy a new gaming machine or upgrade yours if Ultra is a such a big freaking deal to people...

 

Until they add porn star zombies, I really don't care if the graphics are @%$#. 😉 

[Games'n'Grumble]

@Roland, hi! I'm sorry for the obtrusiveness, but could you ask the developers if they have plans for this? It just seems to me that this question has been left 5 pages behind and will not be paid attention to, but it seems to me that it would be very useful for POI designers (if it hasn't been done yet, of course )

 

 

[Roland]

7 minutes ago, Games'n'Grumble said:

@Roland, hi! I'm sorry for the obtrusiveness, but could you ask the developers if they have plans for this? It just seems to me that this question has been left 5 pages behind and will not be paid attention to, but it seems to me that it would be very useful for POI designers (if it hasn't been done yet, of course )

 

 

You tagged the right person so he should see it regardless of the thread moving on. I’ll let him know someone asked him a question.

[falloutcloud]

On 9/17/2022 at 4:18 PM, hiemfire said:

 

I see walls of "Rekt" taking @%$# to the players with the occasional cat fishing of snow dog by "Jen" in that alternate reality.

With some of these posts you just feel the need to respond like Rekt. I see an endless list of awesome quotes

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

13 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

The ultra setting is independent of resolution. As far as I heard from others it is perfectly playable with todays hardware if you play on 2k or 3k. And if we ignore some bugs and inconsistencies for the moment that seem to plague some but not all high-end players. Did anyone specify that 4k (or maybe even 8k) at ultra would be playable?

There is no argument that TFP has to purge those bugs and inconsistencies before release. But you get triggered by totally irrelevant problems like an ultra setting that is in fact a suggestion that nobody needs to take, in an unfinished game. Look who is immature here?

 

Another point is that technologie advances all the time and by the time the game releases the ultra settings will be less ultra than they are today, even more so with any year following release.

 

And there is a history of AAA games that had unrealistic or lets say futuristic ultra settings even at release, the most famous one being Wing Commander I think. Play that game with ultra now and you'll probably get laughably high FPS.

 

Now TFP could adapt and balance the ultra setting every alpha to changing hardware and changing game loads. Lots of wasted time that I frankly don't expect to be done in an unfinished game. I expect them to fix the traders, I would like for them to be more forthcoming with information and surely the general performance needs more work. But what you are now expecting is handholding to a degree that it is silly. "Whoah, my super PC can't handle ultra in this game. I'm lost, what can I do?".  Are there really idiots like that out there?

 

 

 

 

 

As soon as I read 'You get triggered,' you lost me. I've had enough of disrespectful, misrepresentative, flame-baiting, trolly bums on here.

 

Grow up.

[meganoth]

2 hours ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

 

As soon as I read 'You get triggered,' you lost me. I've had enough of disrespectful, misrepresentative, flame-baiting, trolly bums on here.

 

Grow up.

 

I just replied in kind.

[Prydonian]

I’ve been looking forward to A21 a little too fervently.  I had myself thinking it was right around the corner!  From the latest posts, I’m thinking it’s gonna be a 2023 thing and I should probably calm down.