PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

[madmole]

Just been goosing about in A18 for the past hour. I gotta say I was a bit worried with all the reports of bad performance I was reading whilst the game was updating. But I can honestly say that my experience was buttery smooth in the desert I spawned and was running around in. inside/outside showed no difference in performance whatsoever.
My rig is no beast either:

Geforce GTX 980 [v431.60]

i7-3770 CPU [3.4GHz]

24GB RAM

SSD

Thanks for all the hard work guys, I'm really looking forward to dropping some solid hours into this build.

p.s. extra special thanks to faatal and madmole for bravely sticking around (though the weather be fowl here at times) your patience and diligence in keeping up with the forums has not gone unnoticed. *raises a beer*

Awesome, hopefully everyone can raise a mug soon when we figure out the performance issues.

 

[Skippy5]

Awesome, hopefully everyone can raise a mug soon when we figure out the performance issues.

I am having some issues with performance, but absolutely love it and think you guys did a great job here! Launches always have some issues, I am sure you guys will get it.

 

[Laz Man]

And the stress testing is grinding away. Still downloading but hope to get at least an hour in tonight.

 

[madmole]

@Faatal
Hmm from all the reports i've seen on this forum and on the steam forums, I'm stumped as well as where this performance problem lies.

From personal testing, it is 100% the terrain.

Unfortunately, i see people with AMD cards (8GB cards) getting great performance, and I see people with 4GB Nividia cards getting great performance.

I just updated to the latest AMD driver (19.10.1), which was just released and no change. So it's less likely it's just amd drivers doing things differently and needing different optimizations.

This all reminds me of the A17 launch which had some performance issues as well when it first launched.

I just tested using the quality preset "lowest" and "ultra". both seem to make 0 impact in FPS when looking at terrain. It sits at 20-30FPS depending how much terrain is on the screen. Running in the city and being indoors the FPS (obviously) *is* impacted by switching the quality preset.

In a17 there were some issues with graphical options not being properly set even though you switched them on and vice versa. Could something similar being happening here?

Edit: Using gfx pp enable 0 gives me 1 extra FPS when looking at the terrain. So that's not it either.

Did you try windowed mode yet? Lots of people are suggesting massive fps with that. I've heard its best to run games at your native desktop resolution too, so maybe turn down your windows desktop resolution if its 4k or whatever.

 

[madmole]

So we have to play nomad for the rage zeds?

Adventurer and higher have them, and a higher chance of rage per higher difficulty.

 

[Zilla]

There's definitely something going on with Terrain as well (in addition to excessive VRAM usage). In the desert looking at distant terrain causes a lot of GPU usage..But in the forest it's silky smooth. When it's flat and there's just buildings..in your fov it's normal..but if there's a lot of hills..the GPU graph rises sharply.

you want your gpu usage to be as high as possible. Its the cpu you dont want maxed.

 

[madmole]

I love how they lower their heads like they get sad, then when you come back they get all happy and perk up.

I wish we could name them, I'd call mine dogmeat lol.

 

[Laz Man]

I wish we could name them, I'd call mine dogmeat lol.

Would be cool if you could get more tint options to really customize those turrets.

Post Gold DLC?

 

[Singlre]

I just wanted to stop and tell The Fun Pimps that this Alpha is perfect in my opinion! I wouldn’t change a thing. This game is so much fun!! I can’t stop playing it!! Well done Fun Pimps!! This is game I have been waiting for!! Thanks again for the great work!!

 

[madmole]

Managed to play 2 in game days so so far. I'm only playing on medium settings(same as A17) but the world looks gorgeous now. I've died a few times so far. I've had 2 ferals zombies appear on day 2 and got rekt. Died from infection and got food poisoning after eating my first boiled egg. 10/10 would recommend.

It typically takes 7 days to die from infection, but getting hit while infected raises how infected you are so some people die sooner than 7 days. Glad you love it!

 

[Wulf]

Did you try windowed mode yet? Lots of people are suggesting massive fps with that. I've heard its best to run games at your native desktop resolution too, so maybe turn down your windows desktop resolution if its 4k or whatever.

Tried windows mode, didnt help. Running good old 1080p, same as in windows. RX480 8GB with a 4.2Ghz quadcore and 16GB ram. FPS will fluctuate between 20 and ~160 FPS depending how much terrain is on screen. (this is with the low quality preset)

I'm sure it'll get resolved soon enough, and turn out to be some tiny thing that has no logical reasoning behind it.

Edit:

Also, people saying they have no issues and people saying they *do* have fps issues is subjective. Some people are happy with 40 FPS after all...

@Doctor3D, what are some of the FPS numbers you're getting?

 

[madmole]

16gb rMGtx 1060 6gb

Ryzen 5 2600

Using a mix of settings mostly high and medium.

Having no proformance issues so far.

Cant find where to craft storage boxes(not chests) though, are they still a thing?

***************************************

 


(edit added comment by QA Tester-unholyjoe)

 


HINT: furniture - choose the shape

 


thanks

 


***************************************

Furniture helper has signs, big storage boxes, etc.

 

[madmole]

Would be cool if you could get more tint options to really customize those turrets.
Post Gold DLC?

Dyes should work, easy to mod in more.

 

[Doctor3D]

you want your gpu usage to be as high as possible. Its the cpu you dont want maxed.

Ideally, with a capped frame rate - you'd want your usage to be under whatever usage is necessary to reach that cap. You don't want anything to be 'as high as possible' unless you're literally running uncapped trying to get the highest frame rate possible.

I was saying that the GPU usage increases when terrain is in the scene - thus the FPS is lower. The CPU usage drops in these cases because at that point I become GPU bound.

Assuming you're not CPU bound, if you're in a scene where the GPU is capable of spitting out 120 FPS for example - but you have your frame rate capped at 60FPS - well, you're only going to use 50% of your GPU power. It will not use more than that, and you wouldn't want it too..that defeats the whole purpose of capping the frame rate for heat, noise, wear, and power-saving.

On the flip side, if you are GPU bound with an uncapped frame rate - and you look up in the air - your frame rate is going to rise dramatically and your GPU usage will max out because it's pumping out frames as fast as possible.

That's not the problem i'm referring to. The GPU is stressed when terrain is in the scene..usage spikes AND the frame time is lower.

 

[Snowydeath]

It typically takes 7 days to die from infection, but getting hit while infected raises how infected you are so some people die sooner than 7 days. Glad you love it!

When I saw the infection percentage increasing I fell in love with it. Just the though of being infected is scary but knowing it’s going to kill you slowly is truly terrifying. No one wants to die a horrible death like that!

 

[Zilla]

Ideally, with a capped frame rate - you'd want your usage to be under whatever usage is necessary to reach that cap. You don't want anything to be 'as high as possible' unless you're literally running uncapped trying to get the highest frame rate possible.
I was saying that the GPU usage increases when terrain is in the scene - thus the FPS is lower. The CPU usage drops in these cases because at that point I become GPU bound.

Assuming you're not CPU bound, if you're in a scene where the GPU is capable of spitting out 120 FPS for example - but you have your frame rate capped at 60FPS - well, you're only going to use 50% of your GPU power. It will not use more than that, and you wouldn't want it too..that defeats the whole purpose of capping the frame rate for heat, noise, wear, and power-saving.

On the flip side, if you are GPU bound with an uncapped frame rate - and you look up in the air - your frame rate is going to rise dramatically and your GPU usage will max out because it's pumping out frames as fast as possible.

That's not the problem i'm referring to. The GPU is stressed when terrain is in the scene..usage spikes AND the frame time is lower.

yes but 7d does not utilize 100% gpu ever even when fps is uncapped. I have not tried a18 yet but am about too. normally i only get about 65%ish tops while other games like gtav i can get 100%. This is also at 2k rez.

 

[Snowydeath]

Tried windows mode, didnt help. Running good old 1080p, same as in windows. RX480 8GB with a 4.2Ghz quadcore and 16GB ram. FPS will fluctuate between 20 and ~160 FPS depending how much terrain is on screen. (this is with the low quality preset)
I'm sure it'll get resolved soon enough, and turn out to be some tiny thing that has no logical reasoning behind it.

Edit:

Also, people saying they have no issues and people saying they *do* have fps issues is subjective. Some people are happy with 40 FPS after all...

@Doctor3D, what are some of the FPS numbers you're getting?

I get a constant 60fps and haven’t noticed any major drops so far.

 

[madmole]

When I saw the infection percentage increasing I fell in love with it. Just the though of being infected is scary but knowing it’s going to kill you slowly is truly terrifying. No one wants to die a horrible death like that!

Yes I'm happy we got time to add the new infection system its so much better than anything we've had in the past.

 

[Wulf]

I get a constant 60fps and haven’t noticed any major drops so far.

... and what are you running as a system?

yes but 7d does not utilize 100% gpu ever even when fps is uncapped. I have not tried a18 yet but am about too. normally i only get about 65%ish tops while other games like gtav i can get 100%. This is also at 2k rez.

My GPU is definitely pegged at 100% when looking at terrain/mountains. CPU is unusually low at under 50% when that happens. Which makes sense, but 7days has never had cpu usage so low before. At least not that i can recall.

 

[Ricowan]

I'm loving A18!

I'm about 4 hours in, the sun is setting on day 4 in game. I've found several nice level 4 items, including an AK47 and iron pick. Still rocking a stone axe, but hey, rng is random. I have two really nice helmet mods, one for light, and one for water filtration. Too bad my leather hood can only hold one mod at a time. LOL The rage mechanic was a little tricky at first, but after a few fights it's easy to deal with. I'm working a strength/perception build, mostly strength. The iron club is nice so far.

The trader was only about 400m from my spawn area, which was in a forest biome. The trader is on the edge of a town... tons of looting in just the small POIs so far. I've done two quests, the rewards feel right, now. In A17 I felt the quests were a waste of time.

I don't seem to be having the FPS issues some of you are having. I'm getting 80+ FPS both indoors and outside. It doesn't seem to drop when I'm outside looking at hills or whatever. My specs are at the high end, admittedly:

RTX 2080ti (driver 419.67)

Core i7-5930 @ 3.5GHz

32gb system ram

Windows 10

I'm running the game at 2560x1440 144mhz, fullscreen is turned off, graphics settings at Ultra.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the reason I'm running an old nVidia driver. When Borderlands 3 came out I was getting 80+ fps. Then I installed the new version that was "game ready" for BL3 and my FPS dropped to under 15. I rolled back to 419 and fps was back up in the 80s. I don't trust the new nVidia drivers yet.