PC Biggest factor for performance

[bobrpggamer]

I get some low framerates (sometimes in the 30s on bloodmoon) at my massive base. I have the video set as medium for the most part. I have:

Intel i7 9700k

32 GB DDR 3200

GTX 1080

So I was curious which factor is more important = CPU or GPU?

I know in most traditional polygon games the GPU is very important, but if you ever demolished that skyscraper construction POI for fun, you will see your framerates go into the 10s and 20s and that is the CPU, not the GPU.

I really would not be buying a RTX 4080 anytime soon but was still wondering, I know the CPU would be the bottleneck with a RTX 4080 and It would be cheaper to go CPU, Memory, Motherboard, Power Supply & Case with the cost of the RTX 4080 at about $1200.00, but I also need a new dryer and dishwasher and that is more important than computer garbage.

I also seem to get lag when you move something out of your inventory and you hear the sound effect 2 seconds later. Does anyone know If you restart your PC and therefore clearing the cached RAM help with the lag you get from moving things around? Its really irritating. I really do not have too many TSRs and my CPU usage at idle is 3-5% so that's not the issue with it. I use VMware workstation sometimes but always turn that off before starting 7 Days To Die.

 

[Syphon583]

If you ask most players, their first answer will almost always be CPU. As a fact, this game is very CPU-bound. However, you can't overlook the amount of work that is handled by the GPU. I've been running an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 since 2020, but for a while, my GPU was a GTX 960. I was getting decent frame rates at medium settings (nowhere near 60, mind you, but a very playable 25-20). I was curious as to what my bottle neck was. So, with the game running, I opened up the task manager to see what was taking the biggest performance hit. The clear answer: my GPU. As soon as I could (waiting for prices to come down to reasonable levels) I upgraded to an RTX 3060. My FPS was immediately improved I can usually run the game at 50-60 FPS on high settings, even in the city.

The thing is, everyone's system is different. It's not always going to be the CPU or GPU that is the answer. Just look at your performance tab with the game running and see what is running the highest (don't have any other programs running). If anything is hitting 100%, that's clearly a bottleneck.

Lastly, keep in mind that while there are optimizations done in every alpha release, they've stated in the past that full optimization won't happen until content lock.

 

[SylenThunder]

Game is heavily CPU bound, though there are some GPU issues as well with features that exist, but haven't been optimized yet. Like reflections.

When upgrading a system I always go CPU/RAM, Storage, then GPU.   Your current setup is more than capable of getting a stable 60-90FPS with the exception of the current issue with large buildings in Cities due to the reflections on glass blocks. IMHO, I'd stick with what you have and work on optimizing your hardware. 

 

[edyonline]

I have similar specs with same issues. 
 

I like to play on lowest settings. Especially on insane difficulty. Because one frame skip can mean death, especially as a Brawler where inches count.

But I always have issues in the wastelands city. It’s “playable”. Probably high 40 frames, but it’s enough to put me off going there on insane. The rest of the wastelands is ok. No real issues on normal difficulty.

I need to upgrade sometime in the near future. Does anyone know the best specs for ultra settings? My brother has a very nice set up, but it still has issues, probably optimisation…

 

[SylenThunder]

I need to upgrade sometime in the near future. Does anyone know the best specs for ultra settings? My brother has a very nice set up, but it still has issues, probably optimisation

Ultra isn't something I would currently recommend as several of the features haven't been optimized much, if at all. Maybe after the game releases, but not until after the Beta optimizations have been done.

I've documented in detail how much of a difference simple things like CPU clock speed and system optimization can make. 

There is a post in here somewhere, but I lost the link to it with the forum migration. Here are two that I have done on the Steam forum.

Minimum hardware test a18/19 comparison

System comparison

I did some testing with SLI as well, but I won't go into detail on that since it doesn't apply to you guys. Basically, with moderate settings and proper system optimization, your hardware is plenty capable. The issue is just getting it into that state.

 

[bobrpggamer]

Well my impulsiveness holds no bounds, so I bought a RTX 4070Ti. I have been meaning to upgrade my GPU for some time now but with the ridiculous prices of the RTX series I have been putting it off . So with the all the shipping and extended warranty I paid $1050.00.

I am also going to do a clean install of windows 10 and get rid of the ridiculous amount of software I do not need. This will also clean out uninstalled programs that still have traces of. After its done I think I will see some better performance, I hope.

 

[bobrpggamer]

Game is heavily CPU bound, though there are some GPU issues as well with features that exist, but haven't been optimized yet. Like reflections.

When upgrading a system I always go CPU/RAM, Storage, then GPU.   Your current setup is more than capable of getting a stable 60-90FPS with the exception of the current issue with large buildings in Cities due to the reflections on glass blocks. IMHO, I'd stick with what you have and work on optimizing your hardware. 

If I have bulletproof glass walls in my base, does this hamper performance? I was wondering about this and tried to demolish the bullet proof glass and a shed on my roof, for no reason broke up and part of my solar panels fell and I had boatloads of money invested in level 6 solar cells. Would business glass blocks be better or is it it the same thing?

I could move everything out of harms way in you can tell me for sure that bulletproof glass causes lag. I have eight 7x3 walls of bulletproof glass:

 

[Jugginator]

Well, one thing about the windows is you're losing performance with occlusion, probably not much but that's likely the only difference, if turning reflections lower doesn't help while looking at them. Optimizations in A21 should help.

To help with blood moon lag, you can try turning DMS off (sound silly but it's a known thing for it to cause lag in certain situations, worked on in A21), texture quality, your reflections and shadow, and texture filter. Resolution too, for sure. Conjected from you saying you have a very large base, those should help a bit.

 

[bobrpggamer]

Well, one thing about the windows is you're losing performance with occlusion, probably not much but that's likely the only difference, if turning reflections lower doesn't help while looking at them. Optimizations in A21 should help.

To help with blood moon lag, you can try turning DMS off (sound silly but it's a known thing for it to cause lag in certain situations, worked on in A21), texture quality, your reflections and shadow, and texture filter. Resolution too, for sure. Conjected from you saying you have a very large base, those should help a bit.

What is DMS?

Here is what I have:

Spoiler

Massive Base:

Spoiler

 

[Old Crow]

My question is: Is opening containers/your backpack related to performance? I've noticed many times while connected to a server online, sometimes when I go to open a container or my backpack, my game freezes and I then get disconnected from the server. This seems to happen more often in A20 - I never experienced it in A19.

 

[bobrpggamer]

My question is: Is opening containers/your backpack related to performance? I've noticed many times while connected to a server online, sometimes when I go to open a container or my backpack, my game freezes and I then get disconnected from the server. This seems to happen more often in A20 - I never experienced it in A19.

I play single player without a server.

What happens is that sometimes I open a container and move things to and from my backpack and the sound effect you get for taking items in and out of your backpack, lags about 2-3 seconds. I really do not get why this happens but it is annoying when I moving a lot of things in and out of my backpack. Like sorting out your last quests content into the right storage container. Like putting duct tape in the building container, putting bones in the chest next to the chemistry station, smelt-ables in the container near the forges and so on.

 

[Old Crow]

I play single player without a server.

What happens is that sometimes I open a container and move things to and from my backpack and the sound effect you get for taking items in and out of your backpack, lags about 2-3 seconds. I really do not get why this happens but it is annoying when I moving a lot of things in and out of my backpack. Like sorting out your last quests content into the right storage container. Like putting duct tape in the building container, putting bones in the chest next to the chemistry station, smelt-ables in the container near the forges and so on.

I keep wondering if it's a connection issue due to my internet, or if it's because the game isn't optimized. Considering what you're describing, I'm leaning toward lack of optimization, but I don't know enough about the technical end of things.

 

[bobrpggamer]

I keep wondering if it's a connection issue due to my internet, or if it's because the game isn't optimized. Considering what you're describing, I'm leaning toward lack of optimization, but I don't know enough about the technical end of things.

The funny thing is that it happens randomly. So when it happens I think maybe its my ram being taxed as I have heard mentioned that 7 Days does not free memory very well after you quit. But who knows what it really is. I agree it has something to do with optimization though. I just wish the FPs would patch previous alphas and not expect you to abandon a current game to completely start over. Its irritating because I really get into the game and go to like day 200 or whatever and then I have to wait for a stable new alpha release to play again a year or more later.

I do not use the CM to build bases, I like to work for the resources necessary to build my base, and to do that over again and again as new alphas come out is frustrating. Its too bad they do not add content and bug fixes to a current game, but I know that's not really possible because you would have things that are removed and things that are added and they would not work on a previous alpha save game.

Maybe I will have 2 running games, one A21 and keep my A20 and continue with that by copying the 7 days game folder to another location - if that's possible.

 

[Riamus]

My question is: Is opening containers/your backpack related to performance? I've noticed many times while connected to a server online, sometimes when I go to open a container or my backpack, my game freezes and I then get disconnected from the server. This seems to happen more often in A20 - I never experienced it in A19.

This is a separate issue.  There is a recent topic in the support forum explaining this, but a quick summary is that every 20 minutes there is a cleanup done and if you have low RAM and/or your pagefile is on an HDD instead of SSD, this will likely happen.  The freeze triggers when you open inventory and containers because that is what triggers the cleanup every 20 minutes.

 

[Old Crow]

This is a separate issue.  There is a recent topic in the support forum explaining this, but a quick summary is that every 20 minutes there is a cleanup done and if you have low RAM and/or your pagefile is on an HDD instead of SSD, this will likely happen.  The freeze triggers when you open inventory and containers because that is what triggers the cleanup every 20 minutes.

Ah! That would make sense. So the fix would likely be "get more RAM", it sounds like. I'll go check out that thread for more information, thank you!

 

[Jugginator]

What is DMS?

DMS is the Dynamic Music System, i.e., the music, find that in the Audio options. Try turning it off during laggy times. 

My question is: Is opening containers/your backpack related to performance?

Bob explained it, but yeah it's garbage cleanup. It tries to do it on opportune times to not be too big of a bother to the player, such as opening a loot container, going into the pause menu, opening your inventory and such like that. If your system is bogged down/at capacity at that time, it can cause a long delay unfortunately. Indeed, having ample ram (fast ram at that, especially if on a Ryzen cpu) and the game/OS on a fast SSD will help a lot. Likely some changes in A21 will help, can't say for sure.  For now, close as many background processes as you can and such, to give your system some headroom while playing.

 

[Old Crow]

DMS is the Dynamic Music System, i.e., the music, find that in the Audio options. Try turning it off during laggy times. 

Bob explained it, but yeah it's garbage cleanup. It tries to do it on opportune times to not be too big of a bother to the player, such as opening a loot container, going into the pause menu, opening your inventory and such like that. If your system is bogged down/at capacity at that time, it can cause a long delay unfortunately. Indeed, having ample ram (fast ram at that, especially if on a Ryzen cpu) and the game/OS on a fast SSD will help a lot. Likely some changes in A21 will help, can't say for sure.  For now, close as many background processes as you can and such, to give your system some headroom while playing.

Will do. I usually try and keep as much closed as I can, just keeping Discord and the game open. I minimize Discord though in case someone posts a gif or something.

 

[Old Coot]

SOME VERY GOOD ADVICE HAS BEEN GIVEN!  Every time I see a post on bad framerates I think of bottlenecks, too many programs left running in the background, slow ram, wrong CPU, or bad temperatures.

Since 7D2D is my main game that I play, when I decided to do my build back in Dec. 2022 I looked very closely at the CPU and ram.  I decided to go with the following (after watching/reading a lot of reviews) and have never regretted it.  AMD 7600X CPU, MSI Mag MB, 32 GB of DDR 5 5600, 2 MvMe's, and an AMD 6700XT GPU.  I run the AMD Adrenalin app. for more adjustment for graphics.  I run my game setting about the same as Bob (some higher) with 1920X1080 frame rates that I keep limited to 140 FPS.

I am not bragging, I am not an expert.  I am an old guy just trying to show that if you do your own builds, or buy a prebuilt PC research, research and research more.  

 

[bobrpggamer]

Well my impulsiveness holds no bounds, so I bought a RTX 4070Ti. I have been meaning to upgrade my GPU for some time now but with the ridiculous prices of the RTX series I have been putting it off . So with the all the shipping and extended warranty I paid $1050.00.

I am also going to do a clean install of windows 10 and get rid of the ridiculous amount of software I do not need. This will also clean out uninstalled programs that still have traces of. After its done I think I will see some better performance, I hope.

Well now I don't have a PC to play at all, unless the new power supply works. I got to install windows with the 4070Ti and then the power button will not turn the PC on. I have been dealing with that power switch for a year or so, I press it up to ten times and it may turn the PC on, well not this time.

Right before the fun of benchmarks and 7 Days FPS tests, Just like that, it wont start.

I also did not do my research as I should of. The 1070ti is a flipping 3 slot card. Yeah the idea for that massive fan system is a bit ridiculous. I get it for the 4080 and the 4090, but the 4070 should not need a 3 slot fan at all. Its also about 2 and half inches longer that my GTX 1080. I barely got the thing in the case by move a couple of hard drives out of the way.

I guess you could say "if its not broken don't fix it". But installing a video card should be easy to do, it always was anyway.

Luckily I stall have my backup PC which is a i7 860 with a GTX 670 video card, but I cannot even imagine 7 days with this, even if I install my GTX 1080 into it.

 

[meganoth]

Well now I don't have a PC to play at all, unless the new power supply works. I got to install windows with the 4070Ti and then the power button will not turn the PC on. I have been dealing with that power switch for a year or so, I press it up to ten times and it may turn the PC on, well not this time.

Right before the fun of benchmarks and 7 Days FPS tests, Just like that, it wont start.

I also did not do my research as I should of. The 1070ti is a flipping 3 slot card. Yeah the idea for that massive fan system is a bit ridiculous. I get it for the 4080 and the 4090, but the 4070 should not need a 3 slot fan at all. Its also about 2 and half inches longer that my GTX 1080. I barely got the thing in the case by move a couple of hard drives out of the way.

I guess you could say "if its not broken don't fix it". But installing a video card should be easy to do, it always was anyway.

Does it seem to be the button on the power supply itself (a button is a mechanical part and often wears out)? If you have more luck pressing it specific ways (like pressing the left side of the button instead of the right side) then it likely is.

Or did the problem start immediately after installing the new GPU? In that case the power supply might be insufficient for the initial current draw of that card.