Originally posted by Faitheal:

terra-forming the ground in this game creates major lag problems. This is unfortunate obviously.

This is mostly a myth I believe, which originates way back when someone figured out that terraforming makes the game object instance count to go up and made a reddit post about it iirc. The game was patched since, the instancing behavior was changed so it should be much better now. The loss of fps is mostly due to light sources as people pointed out, and generally just having a lot of build pieces added to the environment. Having lots of farm animals in the same area is also known to cause lag as their pathfinding burns a lot of cpu cycles.

(Also this terraforming theory should be easy enough to test but to my knowledge nobody has done so. You could find a clear spot in the meadows, mark a standardized point of view, observe your fps, then go ham with the pickaxe at the terrain making small changes to the elevation of the entire visible area. Then you'd go back to your marked point of view and observe the fps again. Wouldn't expect much difference at all.)

Originally posted by magnificent moose:

Originally posted by Faitheal:

terra-forming the ground in this game creates major lag problems. This is unfortunate obviously.

This is mostly a myth I believe, which originates way back when someone figured out that terraforming makes the game object instance count to go up and made a reddit post about it iirc. The game was patched since, the instancing behavior was changed so it should be much better now. The loss of fps is mostly due to light sources as people pointed out, and generally just having a lot of build pieces added to the environment. Having lots of farm animals in the same area is also known to cause lag as their pathfinding burns a lot of cpu cycles.

(Also this terraforming theory should be easy enough to test but to my knowledge nobody has done so. You could find a clear spot in the meadows, mark a standardized point of view, observe your fps, then go ham with the pickaxe at the terrain making small changes to the elevation of the entire visible area. Then you'd go back to your marked point of view and observe the fps again. Wouldn't expect much difference at all.)

Light sources are still no excuse for such crap performance, a vega 64 should have no issues no matter how many light sources and/or building are presents, this game still needs a ton a optimization work

Originally posted by LISSlizer:

Okay, at first i thought it was a linux problem, but it seems its even worse on windows with a faster computer even. Guess it is down to the gameengine to get it optimized. Server is running on another device as a dedicated server. Thanks for the high quality replies.

What are you talking about? Gameengine optimization?

This is just a simple fact - the more stuff you build - the higher the performance cost because there is a lot of stuff. Its the same with other games - if you build a base in Fallout 4 and have a mod to remove the item limit guess what will happen?

@OP and Pablo.SL
And obivously light-sources are very demanding. And no just because you have a modern CPU doesnt mean you have unlimited ressources.

Originally posted by Pablo.SL:

Originally posted by magnificent moose:

This is mostly a myth I believe, which originates way back when someone figured out that terraforming makes the game object instance count to go up and made a reddit post about it iirc. The game was patched since, the instancing behavior was changed so it should be much better now. The loss of fps is mostly due to light sources as people pointed out, and generally just having a lot of build pieces added to the environment. Having lots of farm animals in the same area is also known to cause lag as their pathfinding burns a lot of cpu cycles.

(Also this terraforming theory should be easy enough to test but to my knowledge nobody has done so. You could find a clear spot in the meadows, mark a standardized point of view, observe your fps, then go ham with the pickaxe at the terrain making small changes to the elevation of the entire visible area. Then you'd go back to your marked point of view and observe the fps again. Wouldn't expect much difference at all.)

Light sources are still no excuse for such crap performance, a vega 64 should have no issues no matter how many light sources and/or building are presents, this game still needs a ton a optimization work

A CPU isnt a magic item - the more stuff you add in a game and the more lightsources etc. you add the worse the performance. You can mod Skyrim to a point where you cant play it on the best hardware you can buy at the moment - its just a simple fact. Not to mention that most games still dont use multicore systems very well.

turn down the shadow options. Not the main shadow slider but the lighting sources.

Those projected shadow lights are brutal on performance.

Okay, at first i thought it was a linux problem, but it seems its even worse on windows with a faster computer even. Guess it is down to the gameengine to get it optimized. Server is running on another device as a dedicated server. Thanks for the high quality replies.

Standing torches heavy fps hitters?

Originally posted by LISSlizer:

Standing torches heavy fps hitters?

Torches, and Hearths will kill it.

Line up 4 Hearths in a row, like a TX BBQ and see how fast your FPS dives.

terra-forming the ground in this game creates major lag problems. This is unfortunate obviously.

Hello ;)

Short answer: Yes :)
Depending on your hardware*, there is a limit on the number of "build pieces" you can assemble (into whatever you like) in a certain area. After reaching a certain point, your FPS will start to drop (and on my old. very old computer i also get some kind of lag/"swim in a fluid effect" in such areas). In addition, the number of inherent generated items (= landscape) also plays a role in this calculation - rocks, trees, pickable items, etc. also need to be computed.** Light sources can also lower FPS drastically, depending on the hardware.

Press F2 ingame and look at the number of "instances" shown there in the affected area (and maybe compare that number to some wilderness spot). Then you can find out when the FPS drops start on your system: start building big (or perform large terraform operations) and press F2 and check the number of instances when the FPS drops start. That is all you can do to "fix" the problem (except for building smaller or getting a better computer :).

For comparison. On my computer (i5 3570K at 4.2 Ghz. 1060 3 GB, 16 GB Ram) the FPS drops start at about 7000-7500 instances. At my current MP base, we have about 10-11k instances (depending on which side we stand) and my FPS are between 25-40 (up to 50 if i look away from our massive main building). And i have this nice "swim in fluids effect". My FPS are capped at 60 so they are basically halved in that base.

*In my experience, this is true only for the server; clients can have even lower FPS than the host, depending on the net connection quality/latency, in addition to their problems due to hardware (if any).

** Even small islands and the open ocean will have a minimum number of instances (still ranging in the thousands), even if there is not much to be seen. This leads me to the conclusion that the terrain (i.e., bare ground) also generates a certain number of instances by default. In my experience, islands (non-"continental" size) off the visible coastline have the lowest number of default instances.
Hope this helps a bit.

MFG

CKTMC

oh yea i havnt been playing recently but when i last playted i built a ... well it was a large settlement, with a lot of ground flattening and tereforming of the land, if i turn away from my buildings the game unloads them and reinstates what the land once looked like.. idk why they havent taken a note from minecraft where it basically overwrites the original land and saves what you built in its place as the new perminent land feature.. its always fun when you turn back to your town and it takes 40 seconds to load everything back in

It's the fires, not the buildings.