Potato PC: how to make it playable?

1. Title: low end machines
   
   this is also a question, tips are welcome
   
   
2. Reproduction Rate: always
3. Blocker? no, just annoying
4. Details:
   
   of course, lower all graphics from video options, but I think "agressive loading decorations" may help
   
   So the main tips I got for now are:
   - close all other apps OR have a huge and very fast swap partition (I use 2 SSD with LVM stripes linux)
   - play in windowed mode
   - everytime you are in town or world map, lower the window size to 1/4, just enough letting you read tiny stuff on it
   - EDIT: if you really need to keep the window maximized, look down, to the floor, open the map and navigate thru it, the only way to prevent lowering the FPS
   - back to dungeon and fighting areas, toggle window maximize using a OS hotkey preferably
   -> more tips are welcome! are there any?
   
   
5. Steps to Reproduce: run the game in towns that are heavy, mostly because of customized player's houses (I guess)
6. User Specs: potato PC (3.6GHz but forced onto 2.5GHz cuz of CPU heating, geforce gt 710, 6GB ram, 16GB double fast SSD swap LVM partition)

 

I think the main problem here is the low memory. I have a small laptop with roughly the same specs - actually slower CPU a 2.4Ghz. It also had only 6GB ram.

Even in my row hour basement I would get around 10 FPS at best. The game took something like 15 minutes to start up and probably 4 minutes to zone.

I bought more memory to bring it up to 12GB and now plays OK, except in very "busy" scenes. I only run in full screen mode.


So, in short, the main problem you have is RAM. It's not likely there's much else you can do.

 

if we could lower the graphics quality even more (mip maps? LOD (that option in-game I already set to lowest tho)), it would improve fps (the small window is kinda of a proof of that)
if we could only show player's houses optionally it would help a huge lot
Edit: PoE (path of exile) has a dynamic resolution option that makes the graphics blocky squared low detailed and keeps the fps, just a tip

Hardware:
the weirdest thing is that they sell 1 piece of 8GB of DDR3 for almost same price of DDR4 and I will never pay that much,
I would prefer upgrading the whole machine instead if I could :>
I am waiting they come to senses and lower DDR3 prices or I will try to buy 2nd hand stuff but is hard to find for some reason..

 

I don't run windowed, unless I'm doing something mundane in a very familiar area and tabbing back and forth between the game and Twitch. I don't find that it makes much of a difference to my laptop.

The three things I have found that make a real difference:
(1) Simply avoiding other avatars (and mannequins) and other high-cost things like greenhouses, particle effects and unnecessary animations -- this isn't always possible, but since most of the problem areas are in POTs, it often is. (Ardoris? Only a problem if there's a bunch of other avs around. Way better than most POTs.)
(2) Turning off in-game music. I haven't noticed a problem with it lately, so maybe there's been improvements, but when I started in the spring, every time the background music switched tracks, my laptop would consider killing itself.
(3) The most important and critical thing? Using Task Manager to bump SotA's priority up to real-time. Makes a HUGE difference for me.

The one never-be-implemented tool I'd like the most? A setting that tells my game to never never never load a greenhouse ever again.

 

mmm... I `sudo renice -10 $GamePid` and it appears to have helped somewhat, thx!

 

Yeah, that'll be a big problem. A really big problem. It's a miracle that it runs at all with less than 8GB of RAM, and it's better if you can go for 12GB or 16GB. But seriously, double striped SSD and only 6GB of RAM? That's like... hmm... like putting a spoiler wing on a VW bug for the down-force. I've had decent performance with a 750Ti and a GT1030, but I guess a 710 will be better than the laptop I tried to play it on a few years ago, I was getting 15fps until R24 or so hit it, then just wasn't playable anymore.

Why do you have a GT710, is it a laptop? You ought to be able to get a used video card much better than that for 50 bucks. And you didn't mention the OS, but you've mentioned Linux in other threads. The Linux and Mac versions inherently get less performance than the Windows version, you can blame Unity. I've heard of people running the Windows version through Steam/Wine/Proton getting better performance than the native Linux version.

This game is hard to find a good laptop to play it on without spending some cash. And if you can get a powerful enough laptop, you're probably going to have to plug it into the wall because the GPU will suck your battery dry. I gave up and upgraded a small form factor Sandy Bridge era Dell with RAM, SSD, and that GT1030 card.

 

I don't know who "they" is, but the prices of older RAM do tend to go up a little when the next generation comes. But you should shop around anyhow, Amazon, Ebay, Newegg. The thing about having an old computer is upgrading what you can without replacing the whole thing. With 16GB of RAM, a decent video card, and a SATA SSD, a computer from 2012 is still quite usable for games.