Updated for A20
7 Days To Die FPS FIX
“Optimising 7 Days To Die for better FPS”
FPS Fix VIDEO
Just in case you found the article here hard to follow, I created a video with more detailed instructions on optimising 7 Days To Die for better FPS.
Introduction
Are you looking for a 7 Days To Die FPS fix? Then you come to the right place. Since Alpha 20 dropped, there have been some significant complaints of FPS drops. However, the game is still in the Alpha stage, which unfortunately means optimisation is not a priority until full release. Right now, in Alpha, they work on functionality and content.
But when Alpha 18 first dropped, almost no one but people with $1,500+ rigs could play the game above medium graphic settings. So, a little optimisation is needed. Of course, A20 was better upon release than the near unplayable A18 release. But still, quite a few people are having issues.
You probably play it at 30 FPS and get significant drops when many zombies are around, in certain places outside or when going into big POIs like the Dishong Tower. I’ve seen a lot of guides and youtube videos but have yet to find anything useful. So below, I will show you some steps to increase your FPS without sacrificing visuals. I will go in order of simplicity first, with each step getting more complex.
In-game, you can press F8 to see your FPS in the small green text on the middle left side of your screen. Some of these tweaks may do nothing. Others may be substantial. I’d suggest trying them once to see what works for you. These are aside from the obvious: turning down graphics or lowering screen resolution.
Before We Start – Clean Up
As mentioned before, Alpha games are buggy, and a lot can go wrong that might not throw out an error message or warning but can and will affect the game’s performance. This is a quick troubleshooting video that you should go through if you get any error messages or feel your 7 Days To Die gameplay performance is slowing down. I recommend going through this first before starting the FPS tips below.
Step 1 – 7 Days To Die FPS Fix – Turn Off Dynamic Mesh
Since the A20 update, TFP added the option to customize the Dynamic Mesh. Go to “Options”, then “Video”, then in the top right tab, you will see “Dynamic Mesh Options” Disable this by clicking on the left arrow till the option says “No”. The rest of the options don’t matter once the Dynamic Mesh is turned off.
Step 2 – Join Salty Zombies Servers
As you know, your computer hardware has much to do with it. But so does the hardware of the server you are playing on. You can immediately increase your FPS by playing on our 7 Days To Die dedicated servers. Most people who say they have a dedicated server actually don’t. They have a VPS and a Virtual Private Server, and most hosting companies have 30+ VPS on a single dedicated server. So it’s still shared hosting, or they use their home computer.
The Salty Zombies Dedicated Servers are beastly machines that cost around $300 a month and are only used for our 7 Days To Die. We have 6 of these machines for the games we host and servers around the USA, Europe and Asia. So no matter where you are, we have a server nearby.
If you want to join a huge online 7 Days To Die Community with a lag-free experience, you should play on our servers. Click the button for more information.
Step 3 – 7 Days To Die FPS Fix – Video Setting Options
When in the game menu, select “Options” then “Video” and apply these settings below:
- Turn off “V-Sync”, “Reflection Quality”, and “Motion Blur”.
- Uncheck “Reflected Shadows”, “SSAO”, “DOF”, and “Sun Shafts”.
- You can keep “Texture Quality” to “Full Size” and “Water Quality” to “High” if You want to.
- Change “UMA Texture Quality” and “Tree Quality” to “Middle”.
- Change “View Distance” to “10”, “Field of View” to “70”, and “LOD Distance” to “50%”.
- Keep “Gamma” at “75%”, but change the “Water Particles” to “25% “.
Step 4 – 7 Days To Die FPS Fix – In-Game Console Fix
Next step to fixing your 7 Days To Die FPS problems involved being in-game. Once you are in the game, press F1 to open the console and type in these commands. Copy/Paste these 1 at a time and press enter. Then do the next one.
- gfx pp enable 0 (This Disable post-processing for fps gain)
- gfx af enable 0
- gfx dt enable 0 (disable distant terrain for better fps outdoors)
Step 5 – 7 Days To Die FPS Fix – Running the game from launcher instead of 7D2D Shortcut.
To get to Game Location, In steam, right-click 7D2D -> Properties > Local files > Browse Local Files. Run 7Dlauncher.exe
1. Tick [X] Exclusive Fullscreen Mode
2. Tick [X] Unity Screen Selector
3. (Optional) Aditional Parameters (unsure if this works, might be placebo effect): -force-d39d
4. When Unity Launcher opens, select the lowest resolution you’re comfortable with. You can always raise it later. If your FPS were very low, I suggest trying the lowest graphical settings. You can always raise them individually later if you want. Hopefully, this helps some of you folks out there.
Step 6 – 7 Days To Die FPS Fix – Customising your Graphics Card.
You should see some improvement in your 7 Days To Die FPS in the game. But if you are still looking for further optimisation and are ok with things getting a bit complex. Then read on, and let’s get into it! There are 2 steps you need to get into, the first one is customising your Graphic Card, and the second is customising your game.
Customising your graphic card
- First, go to Your Graphic Card Control Panel (NVIDIA for Me).
- Select “Manage 3D Settings” and select “Program Settings”, press “Add” and choose “7 Days to Die”.
- On the “Select the Preferred Graphics Processor for This Program”, choose “High-performance NVIDIA processor”.
- Change the “Maximum Pre-rendered Frames” to “4”.
- Change the “Power Management Mode” to “Prefer Maximum Performance”.
- Change the “Threaded Optimisation” to “On”.
- Change the “Vertical Sync” to “On”.
Customising your game
Now, open up “7 Days to Die”, join Your game, and press “F8” to check your FPS. It should be around 60 FPS (can get down to 40 FPS and more than 80 FPS). Only in the very rare case it’ll drop to below 10 FPS, but again, a very rare case.
The following is not exhaustive, but I have found a list of tweaks that have worked to increase my fps from the 35-50 range into the 60-80 range. Your mileage may vary, and of course, nothing comes without cost. You will be sacrificing graphical quality, but who cares how good it looks if it’s too laggy to play?
Change Storm Values
In steam right click 7D2D -> Properties > Local files > Browse Local Files -> Data -> Config -> biomes.xml -> Open with text editor and find lines:
“<ParticleEffect prefab=”ParticleEffects/p_sandstorm” ChunkMargin=”7″/>”
“<ParticleEffect prefab=”ParticleEffects/p_smokestorm” ChunkMargin=”7″/>”
“<ParticleEffect prefab=”ParticleEffects/p_snowstorm1″ ChunkMargin=”7″/>”
Update them to 80 or higher instead of 7.