Paris is pretty much unrideable now on lower spec'd Android

I used to be able to run android fine on these
Asus Z300 tablet
Teclast P20HD tablet
Cubot X30 phone (8GB ram version)

but since the last update Paris is unrideable. it stutters and crashes. i’m not sure if it is the graphics or the amount of riders, or the fact that they all appear in the same place but it is a mess.

I have ridden other worlds with no problem, it seems to mainly affect Paris.

It works a bit on Moto G 5G (6GB ram version) but not perfectly.

I’m almost certain that fundamental changes to how the game works have been made in the most recent update. Whether this is intentional or not I’m unsure (given that they don’t tell us this stuff either way) but it’s the only explanation IMO for why performance is suddenly noticeably worse on PCs of all tiers - including the windowed vsync problem and Windows 7 graphical aberrations - and now this report on totally different hardware.

Zwift always attracts a lot of ‘my system used to work and now it doesn’t’ kind of comments, but this feels different. The whole platform is now less stable and consistent, and it’s all been unannounced.

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I agree, I’ve got 2 PCs that stopped working properly straight after the update, nothing else changed, android as I mentioned above, again straight after the update and nothing else changed.

Luckily my old windows tablet seems ok for now, but if that goes then I’m finished

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I rode Paris the other day thinking that because it had the least number of riders on it that I could avoid lag. However, the lag was so bad that about half of my workout was not recorded. I realized right away that it was a factor of a relatively high number of people on such a small “world” coupled with a really old CPU and super low end GPU that were at fault. My next workout was in Watopia (which had far more people riding and running) but I chose the Jungle circuit which is segregated on the sever from other parts of Watopia (far fewer people) and everything was smooth. Well, as smooth as you can get on a crappy computer by modern standards.

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Apologies for going off topic but you’ve got to wonder what kind of devices they use to test this game on before it goes out. If they test it at all. I’m just starting a clean install of the game to see if it sorts my problem and on an overclocked Ryzen 2300X with GTX 1650 Super and Gsync compatible 1440p monitor, with everything in the game at default settings (so windowed mode, 1080p) I’m getting, wait for it, 17fps. Luckily I’m able to run full screen mode and know that it sorts the frame rate, but this is how the product looks to a new subscriber. Dire resolution, dire frame rate, dire experience.

It’s an absolute joke.

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Restart the game in full screen mode and in the exact same spot I get 55-60fps in 4K.

And no, the reinstall didn’t sort the stuttering problem. Tried two different graphics cards now.

Apologies for digressing.

That CPU you are using appears to only have 4 cores and 4 threads. That is a problem. How much DRAM does your computer have? If it is a pre-built, I assume not much.

Zwift runs fine on a dual core Pentium G3258 and 2GB of RAM. I’ve literally built those systems to test the game. Specs of my PC aren’t the issue, unless they’ve massively changed the requirements and not told anyone.

PS: I have 8GB.

It was stated by one of the founders a couple of years ago that they do their best to allow for legacy support for older systems but they do continually upgrade the platform, which means that eventually systems will be dropped off the support list. That doesn’t mean that there are no bugs in their code affecting customers, it just means that consumers have to develop a more realistic appreciation of what their devices can actually do at a more granular level.

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My guess is they test it on whatever they will use for the eSports world champs. As long as it is optimised for that they probably don’t care too much about anyone else at the moment.

So everyone with fewer than 8 threads and 16GB of RAM now can’t run the game to an acceptable level? That’s quite a jump considering it looks and behaves in exactly the same way as it always has. A jump that they’ve not mentioned at all. Righto.

‘Older systems’ include: CPUs released in September 2018.

I think that is a little bit of hyperbole but I would say that 8GB of DRAM and a 6 core/12 thread CPU is realistic for heavily populated tiny ‘worlds’ depending on its architecture and cache size. Some CPUs aren’t meant for doing everything you want them to.

Saying that, maybe 16GB of RAM is a better choice for piece of mind.

I have 8GB of RAM.

All the evidence I’ve seen from probably 50+ builds suggests Zwift essentially uses one thread. It was stuttering last night with about 3,500 online. This is a new problem.

PS: Here’s what my old system achieved earlier today. :wink:

But I didn’t intend to get into an argument about my PC specs, my point was that if this is a genuine change to the required specs (and is why OP can’t run the game on his devices any more) then they need to at least tell us. There’s been nothing at all.

Got a feeling there will be a lot of unhappy i5 owners if so.

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I assume you will get different results depending on how many people are using the platform at a given time. So, to perform a reliable test you would have to replicate the same conditions over and over again for usable data. However, I also have 8GB of DRAM and as I mentioned earlier Paris had so much lag that half of my workout was ruined with 1 frame every 3-5 seconds while riding in tiny Paris with about 2000 other people. And since I can get playable frame times in the Jungle route, it tells me that my DRAM is too low and my CPU is aging out as I have already argued. I think you have the same problem regardless of what other bugs may have been introduced with the latest patch.

I’ve never seen my PC using more than about 3GB of RAM during Zwift. It only needs more than 4GB to avoid low quality textures that the game offers up on such systems.

The lag in Paris is due to CPU bottleneck, but it’s not to do with cores. Comes down to frequency and IPC. Tested this over and over again; a fast i3 will perform equal to or better than a 8c/16t first gen Ryzen in those circumstances. That’s why the Pentium did a fine job overclocked and could maintain high frames on Zwift easily.

Can only agree to disagree, but you’re still avoiding my general comment which is that if they’re going to massively shift the requirements they should tell us. You’re effectively saying I should expect to have to pay £100+ to maintain the performance I was getting a month ago, because I need to upgrade my CPU to avoid stutter at 90fps.

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Frequency isn’t everything and the number of users in a tiny ‘world’ has a massive effect on weak systems. CPU cache availability and design play a role as well. The AMD 3 2300x is a low end, entry level CPU that no one would ever buy for gaming as far as I know.

Well like I say I can only agree to disagree. I’ve done a LOT of testing in Zwift with many different components. Like, hundreds of hours testing. :joy: In my experience, my CPU is perfectly fine for Zwift which is all it is used for.

PS: pretty sure I know what the problem is. And it’s not my CPU. :wink:

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Having tried to ride Paris reverse during the week, the number of riders bursting out of and into the hedges of the Jardin des Tuileries was disconcerting. Maybe the map has problems with putting limits on those with steering controls and that has a lot more impact than just visual oddness.