1) There are plenty of games that are voxel based that perform way better than this: Empyrion galactic survival, Minecraft with mods, Teardown, Space Engineers, ect.
Not a single one of those is nearly as complex as 7 Days is, and the only one that's fully 3D Voxel is Minecraft. Space Engineers seems complex because of the sheer number of stuff that it has. Except that SI calculations are only on the ships, and are rather limited at that. It's got nearly zero enemy AI, and 90% of the world isn't even voxel-based.
Empyrion falls into a similar bucket, except that it's got a little more on the Voxels, and a lot less in complexity.
Minecraft is so powerful that you cannot even have a glow to the torch because the calculations required to render it will crash Java.
7 Days on the other hand, is a 100% 3D Voxel game. With complex structural integrity calculations, a much more complex AI, and several other systems running in the background that not a single one of those games even has.
Which is exactly why 7 Days is so demanding on the core components of your system, and most of the others only care about your GPU.
2) This game was initially released in 2013.
Incorrect. This game entered Alpha development in 2013. It has not been released yet.
It has not even entered Beta development, where the focus is on optimization and bug fixing. They're still working on the core foundation of the game.
As it has grown, and features are added, engine updated, ect. The min spec required has increased. As such the store pages were updated to reflect this. I forsee at least one more change before it does release.
I can use a Intel 7th gen quad core CPU or a 12 core Ryzen 5 5900x and see very little change. I can use a GTX 1080 or a 3080 and see again, very little difference.
Ok, now you're really in my ballpark.
Firstly the 7th gen Intel chipsets are mostly junk. My 3rd gen would run circles around a 7700k even when it was overclocked. Somewhere around here there are thread both here and on Steam where I posted heavily detailed comparisons with a number a variations in builds.
The 12-core Ryzen is great for doing a lot of different things. It's completely wasted on games though as they focus on a single core. I can guaruntee that you will see a difference between the 7th gen intel and the 4th gen Ryzen if you actually have both systems optimized properly. I have comparisons going from a Core 2 Quad Q6600 all the way up to an R9 3900X. GPU's in use vary from a GTX650 up to 1070's in SLI.
Also note that since the game is not GPU-bound, it really doesn't matter if you have a 1070 or a 3090 in the long run.
And if you're going to blame bad hardware scaling, maybe you could have started to convince game engine developers a little over ten years ago to start utilizing hyperthreading and offering multi-core support. It's not until literally just a year or so ago that Unity started to support more than a single core, and even that is extremely limited.
30 FPS was standard in 5th gen consoles, 15 years ago. 60fps is the standard and has been on PC for well over a decade.
Technically it was the standard until last year in Consoles.
60 FPS has been the standard for recommended system requirements for about the past five years. Min-spec standard is still 30.
That said though, my old Q6600 is still capable of 60FPS. It's not pretty, but it's a min-spec system. At least it can still do it at 1080p instead of having to drop to 760p.
Lag is terminology that usually describes network latency.
Amen. I am so tired of people constantly mis-using these phrases out of ignorance. I even covered it in detail in the FAQ thread I linked earlier.