[2022] Hotfix #3 - Memory Optimization Pass

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

Welcome, Park Managers!

We’ve been working around the clock to fix some of the main issues regarding performance, and while that’s going to be an ongoing task for us, we’ve located some of the main hotspots regarding high memory usage. This performance improvement update targets some of them by integrating more efficient engine memory utilization, substantially reducing RAM and VRAM across the board. This is going to be especially notable on low end machines, as we hope the game’s going to be less prone to crashing and generally easier to load up.

These are not going to be the last of our efforts on that front, as we’ve still got some further room for memory optimization going forward, as well as some more memory leaks to completely iron out (at the moment most notable by loading in and out of main menu repeatedly).

The good news doesn’t end here! We’ve been religiously testing all of our rendering systems, and were finally able to consistently pin-point the heaviest GPU hitters, allowing us to set in motion realistic optimization plans! We’re going to be addressing these changes in performance patches to be released throughout the month, in parallel with the gameplay updates currently laid out on our Trello [trello.com]roadmap.

Thank you for your patience!

Additions

• Audio
  
  • Added incoming phone call to contextualize Nigel ending the tutorial
• Options
  
  • New ‘Cinematic’ quality level

Changes

• Foliage
  
  • Terrain Foliage is now repositioned properly after undo/redo
• Rendering
  
  • Improved Shadow Rendering
    
  • Improved general AA stability and reduced jitter
• Audio
  
  • Adjusted music mix for mammoth cinematic in the tutorial
• Input
  
  • Reduced vertical camera movement speed

Bug Fixes

• Critical
  
  • Fixed critical mammoth placement check that could cause the tutorial to get stuck
    
  • Fixed several exceptions that could seldom cause crashes or impact performance
• Construction/Landscaping
  
  • Water brush undo/redo no longer create artifacts around updated area
    
  • Water brush remove no longer creates “jello” artifacts
    
  • Foliage brush no longer removes poop
• Rendering
  
  • Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause shadows quality to degrade
    
  • Fixed a color masking issue on the Animal Nursery
    
  • Mitigated texture bleeding on the AC unit pieces
    
  • Changed color masking for windowed doors
• UX/GUI
  
  • Fixed Landscaping Menu vegetation tooltips not displaying the right plant height and continent information
    
  • Fixed an issue that caused tutorial/scenario progression to not register

Performance

• Optimized Memory Use of Prefab Previews
  
• Optimized UI Background Blur Rendering
  
• Revised Quality Settings for Increased Scalability
  
• Improved Memory Management - shaved off around 1GB RAM on average

Notes
Due to introducing a Cinematic setting to the Options Menu, some of your current settings might be defaulted to that. Upon opening the update, please ensure that your settings aren’t higher than they should be.

We are aware of several issues with scenario objective completion, exhibit data registering and savegame stability. Those are high on our priority list and are going to be addressed as soon as possible. Thank you again for your patience.