So this is an observation rather than a complaint, but (imo) it's nigh on unplayable* on a medium to low setup.
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My specs are FX8320/960GTX/16gb/SSD - and while you could shout at me, "but Ric, that's a 6 year old CPU what do you expect?" You'd be right, however similar games and considerably more complex ones run at a far better rate on this kit than the current 7DtD build. Even with every setting (and I do mean *every setting*) set to minimum and a resolution of 1600x900 (and yes it looks as awful as it sounds), I get a fairly stable 50-60 within an open forest with no zombies, but chuck in a few 'zeds' and put me inside a building then the FPS will spike erratically to below 20 and occasionally into single figures. Remember this is a 3.5Gz chip with 8 (or 4 depending on how you wish to slice that argument) cores and a still pretty(ish) decent nVidia card. People will say, "just upgrade your kit", and I will at some point but I am unable to just now. It's unrealistic to suggest I should spend 100's of £/$/€ just to be able to play one title (especially when other similar titles run "fine").
Any FPS lower than about 50 makes melee combat really shady on 7DtD - it always has - and let's not kid ourselves, this game has always run like treacle pours but in general you could finagle the setup to get an enjoyable albeit frustrating romp. Sadly this doesn't seem to be the case with the A17/195 build.
Of course there is the "It's only just released/it's an experimental build/it's still alpha/etc/etc" caveat. While obviously relevant (except the "it's still alpha" comment, that's just asinine 5 years or so into development) as it is just now it's unplayable* for what I'd say is a very decent percentage (albeit a minority) of those who played A16. It should be noted that there was never (and correct me if I am wrong here) a patch for A16 that solely addressed the problem of frame rate - more a case that FPS improved as the game as a whole developed. So I wouldn't expect one for A17 although it very much needs one**.
(*) 'unplayable' is a bit of a trigger word for some, it's obviously subjective and contextual, but as part of the game play is to kill zombies and interact with the environment, and as the current build limits those activities somewhat based on the kit you are running it on, it's not being uncharitable to say it's unplayable. Obviously I can boot it up, move around, craft and fight as you'd expect but it's unresponsive, laggy and ultimately a hate engendering experience - much as I'd like it otherwise - thus I term that "unplayable".
(**) I do want to highlight that in terms of optimising the game TFP have two hurdles to clear; one of them is their own core gameplay code and logic, the other is the unity engine it's built on. I am a developer (and many years ago a game developer) and I'd like to think that I can relate to the decisions TFP have made. I am not ranting or raving here, just making an observation, but it does seem like frame rate concerns were very much put on the back burner - and I understand why that would be the case as generally most devs use high powered machines and don't test on medium and/or low spec so the struggle that kit will have is not factored into the code. Also lots of testing will be done inside the engine (simply for ease) which in turn has an overhead and it's common to say "don't worry, it's laggy because it's running in the Unity developer environment, not as a stand alone, once it's stand alone a lot of that lag will be reduced" - something that does have some merit. All too easy to overlook issues if you don't experience them yourself.
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A bittersweet moment for some. Others will simply update and go, while for a minority but certainly not a negligible percentage of people will immediately need to drop to the video menu and start to downgrade in hope of getting an experience that stays above 30FPS (the bare minimum to expect, imo). For me it's to the point that no matter the settings my kit will not run this game without "game-breaking" lag. For all the steps forward this is one massive leap back (a subjective claim of course).
I'd like to leave this on a positive note. The game does look better (when even just set to medium quality), the melee and overall feel seem like an improvement. All in all, and despite the fact it took over a year to get here, the game is definitely making strides forward. Especially the ambience of the game with the improved lighting and graphics. What's more, I actually like the "washed out look" - which seems to buck the trend so far! So you know, if I ever manage to run the game at a decent lick I'm sure it's going to be highly enjoyable. I've enjoyed the streamers getting their hands on it and it does look like cementing the 7DtD name solidly into the consciousness of the gaming community for at least another year so those are all pluses.