Game Performance - who is Vic3 marketed to?

[benis1996]

After putting in a lot of hours, I am really frustrated overall with game performance. I literally cannot play the game "zoomed in" on my decent, 2 year old laptop on the lowest possible graphics settings, and I get frustrated enough and quit at about 1880 when "zoomed out". I honestly do not know who they are marketing this game to if most people can barely run it. If this were the latest first-person shooter, or even a flight simulator, I would understand high graphics/cpu requirements. But this is a grand strategy game and the focus should be on strategy rather than graphics. Personally, I am not playing Vic3 because of the pretty, albeit poorly designed, UI. I do not care about clouds, visable railroads/factories, etc. Vic2 graphics were totally acceptable to me. I really hope the devs allow more optionality with graphics (maybe let us turn off the "zoomed-in" mode?)

I expect a lot of pushback given that this forum is biased towards more heavy gamers... But please think about the average player here.

 

[Kyoumen]

The average player doesn't play socioeconomic simulators of 1836-1936, or even know they exist. Vicky 3 is way more popular than its two predecessors, but that is a relative thing.

Vicky can no doubt be optimised further, but the brutal reality is the pop system that is the heart of the game requires a lot of number crunching and some things can't handle that very well. You don't need a top of the line computer to handle it, but it might be your laptop just can't manage.

 

[Question]

There are massive graphics issues when zoomed in, look for performance mods.

 

[paulxiep]

Maybe players like me, who just don't get the point of zooming in. I want to keep an eye on which land belongs to whom so I always play in zoomed out, constantly.

 

[miov01]

The average player doesn't play socioeconomic simulators of 1836-1936, or even know they exist. Vicky 3 is way more popular than its two predecessors, but that is a relative thing.

Vicky can no doubt be optimised further, but the brutal reality is the pop system that is the heart of the game requires a lot of number crunching and some things can't handle that very well. You don't need a top of the line computer to handle it, but it might be your laptop just can't manage.

There is a mod that integrates cultures/religions that share similar traits/heritages. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2899731507&searchtext=integrated+cultures

I enable it each time I play. I believe the game itself should provide these options even if its not historically accurate. Not like the game is anyway.

 

[durbal]

I expect a lot of pushback given that this forum is biased towards more heavy gamers... But please think about the average player here.

Hey now, don't body shame me bro

 

[Fawr]

Vicky can no doubt be optimised further, but the brutal reality is the pop system that is the heart of the game requires a lot of number crunching and some things can't handle that very well. You don't need a top of the line computer to handle it, but it might be your laptop just can't manage.

People are reporting CPU usage increasing when zoomed in. Best guess is that it is looking at pops and buildings in a different way to work out what graphics to draw on the map.

This adds very little to the gameplay, and if the game ran quickly no one would complain. However the game doesn't run quickly, and so any additional slowness is very irritating.

 

[Nominus]

I have a i7-12700k and 32GB DDR5 Ram. My game is also installed on a SSD. It runs smoothly, including late game, unless I open trade or population menus, so I think these are the most resource demanding things in Vicky 3.
I also agree that this game shouldn't *require* this kind of rig. Traditionally PDX titles were not nearly as demanding.

 

[Question]

For reference this is whats slowing my game down, tick wise, in late game :

I think one major problem is that each seperate building needs to update employment and the AI obviously doesnt know how to consolidate buildings for the throughput bonus...

Political movements and updating pop need cache is also surprisingly intensive. I have no idea what "recalculate modifier nodes" is but its intensive as well.

 

[Borgratz]

The game is marketed to people do don't know about how paradox games run for the first year or to people who are okay with it and also to people who buy paradox games a year after release.

A year in seems to be the time where the designers have stopped pushing fur radical redesigns for long enough that the programmers can actually figure out how to calculate everything in an efficient way and teach the AI how the game works.

 

[Nirmara]

I have no idea what "recalculate modifier nodes" is but its intensive as well.

This is likely to update sea nodes being raided.

I wonder if it was called as often in 1.0.6 as it is in 1.1. If not, it would explain some or the performances drop in 1.1. This would mean that they just overcompensated for the sea nodes not being updated by updating them too often. Assuming that's the case, it shouldn't be too hard to fix by having it trigger daily or weekly.

 

[grommile]

A year in seems to be the time where the designers have stopped pushing fur radical redesigns

*laughs in Blorgish*

 

[Borgratz]

*laughs in Blorgish*

Fair enough

But he did have the decency to call it Stellaris 2.0 and it DID take a year or so to fix that mess

 

[kawamuratc]

I actually find the living board quite endearing. Trains make everything better.

In any case, I’m very curious to see how this user-organized attempt at benchmarking goes. It’s hard to talk about “an average player”, as gaming set ups are so diverse and games can even run differently on computers with the same specs.

 

[Bearjuden]

The average player doesn't play socioeconomic simulators of 1836-1936, or even know they exist. Vicky 3 is way more popular than its two predecessors, but that is a relative thing.

Vicky can no doubt be optimised further, but the brutal reality is the pop system that is the heart of the game requires a lot of number crunching and some things can't handle that very well. You don't need a top of the line computer to handle it, but it might be your laptop just can't manage.

I mean, that's exacrly OP's point? At some point, we need to ask if V3 is being sold mostly to people who can afford fancy hardware and not other people.

I built a computer scarcely two years ago - not a laptop, a full desktop - and I struggle zoomed in, I struggle lategame, etc. So who the hell is this game meant for if the answer to anyone who struggles is "you're not up to snuff"? If Paradox is only selling to people who are upgrading computers on an annual basis to keep up with the latest developments, they're not hitting their full market, and when their market is already restricted to people interested in Victoria economic simulators, why would you then further limit yourself to only very wealthy members of that demographic? Even if that's thematic for the era, it's not good modern business.

 

[DominusNovus]

For reference this is whats slowing my game down, tick wise, in late game :

View attachment 932040
I think one major problem is that each seperate building needs to update employment and the AI obviously doesnt know how to consolidate buildings for the throughput bonus...

Political movements and updating pop need cache is also surprisingly intensive. I have no idea what "recalculate modifier nodes" is but its intensive as well.

A data point in my argument that industrial infrastructure should be more abstract, almost like how it is in HOI4.

This isn’t Civilization (which, btw, has a simple strategic map mode that is adored), we don’t need individual building representing each type of factory.

 

[MachopPower69]

I play with a performance mod that keeps my graphics because I like watching the evolution of cities and horses/trains on tracks but the speed clock in the corner either goes and pauses every day or is like a pendulum. I want to play the game with the same graphics that youtubers play with, with the beautiful backgrounds, but because of how sluggish the game is, I have to watch my Runescape nation always be weird polygons and blurred grass.

 

[MoralMonster]

There is one thing that can help. Go to common/defines/00_graphics,txt. Then find the following lines:

CITY_VFX_ZOOM_CUTOFF
CITY_PARTICLES_ZOOM_CUTOFF
ROUTE_ENTITIES_CUTOFF

And try to decrease its value, as you find suitable for your PC. I have rather weak video card, so minimizing this helped me to achieve an acceptable FPS when zooming the camera.

 

[MachopPower69]

There is one thing that can help. Go to common/defines/00_graphics,txt. Then find the following lines:

CITY_VFX_ZOOM_CUTOFF
CITY_PARTICLES_ZOOM_CUTOFF
ROUTE_ENTITIES_CUTOFF

And try to decrease its value, as you find suitable for your PC. I have rather weak video card, so minimizing this helped me to achieve an acceptable FPS when zooming the camera.

Sorry if it makes me stupid, but who were you addressing this to? Me or OP?

 

[MoralMonster]

Sorry if it makes me stupid, but who were you addressing this to? Me or OP?

I was addressing this to everyone who has performance issues in V3.