Thursday, June 21, 2018

Painscreek 6/21/2018 Patch Notes


Hi everyone. As of today, we've finally finished optimizing the game. This includes the Mansion, which is the heaviest scene in the game, as well as all other smaller and medium-sized scenes which were not originally part of the optimization but we decided to include them as well. Improvements to the game are as follows:

1. Reduced the game's file size from 18GB to 10.6GB, a reduction of about 40%.
2. Reduced RAM usage by approximately 40% when accessing the Village scene.
3. Reduced RAM usage by approximately 30% when accessing Mansion and Hospital scenes.
4. Improved Unity's batching process by about 40%, which is the number of files needed to be read by the CPU, especially when accessing the Mansion and Hospital.
5. Improved load times when switching between scenes during gameplay.
6. Improved prop textures for some locations.
7. Lowered the system requirements to run the game (as shown below).

MINIMUM (updated):
OS: Windows 7/8/10 64-bit
Processor: i3-2120 @3.3GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 745 (or AMD equivalent)
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 11 GB available space
Additional Notes: *Subject to change after updates

RECOMMENDED (updated):
OS: Windows 7/8/10 64-bit
Processor: i5-2500 @3.3GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 770 (or AMD equivalent)
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 11 GB available space
Additional Notes: SSD for faster loading time
*Subject to change after updates

Disclaimer on system requirements:
We have updated our minimum and recommended specs so the game can gaming PCs with moderate (or even slightly lower) specs. However, you may face small freezes when exploring the Village scene. This is due to the way the game now loads only necessary props and unloads the rest. Although some players might find this slightly jarring, we feel it is a necessary trade off to improve the overall loading times. If the game is installed on an SSD, this issue should be non-existent.

Since releasing the game on September 2017, we spent nine months fixing the bugs and optimizing the game. During this time period, we learned a lot about game optimization in general and the Unity game engine. We also stumbled upon an amazing community with mature and helpful players, and are extremely grateful for their patience, help and support. Now that The Painscreek Killings is officially done, the next thing on our list are localization, console and VR ports. We've never attempted them before and thus do not have a set release date yet. However, we will make effort to accomplish them within the shortest time possible. In the meantime, you can follow us on our blog, Facebook or Twitter for more updates and information!

http://eqstudios.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/EQSLV/
https://twitter.com/EQSLV
http://eqstudios.com/

2 comments:

  1. Could you do a post about optimizing loadtimes and general performance in your game ?
    Unity is incredibly slow when it comes to loading scenes, would be interesting to see your approach.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Manuel,

      Our apologizes for the late reply and thank you for the feedback. We're looking into writing a blog regarding this topic and we'll have it up as soon as its approved

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