03-04-2024, 12:55 PM
I've been hesitant to report this one until I was sure I wasn't just imagining things, but comparing to 2.2 and 2.0 today, I'm confident that it's a real change in 2.3.
The most obvious symptom is if I alt-tab to, say, view the Vent forums, and alt-tab back, the office background disappears. The buttons at the top still work, but the friendly office is gone. I've also had the city icons disappear on the world map, and the research area background disappear. Sometimes these will come back after a few turns of simulation (the seasons changing causing it to reload?), sometimes it needs a restart.
The UI is also much laggier, even on the main menu, noticeable when hovering over the buttons in the lower-left. In 2.0/2.2, the "highlighted" effect applies nearly instantly, but it's visibly laggy in 2.3.
Finally, the world map and office backgrounds seem to be "shimmering" a bit, almost as if the texture is being compressed by 1% or so and then un-compressed as I move the map around or highlight the reports area/door/grandfather clock/phonograph in the office. This doesn't happen in 2.0/2.2, and I wouldn't be surprised if the cause of this is also causing the lag and perhaps the alt-tab issues.
I'm on Windows 10 with a Radeon RX 6600 (mobile, drivers version 23.5.2, May 2023), using the DirectX 9 renderer, full screen, shadows set to low, hardware mouse yes, shaders yes, everything else below that no.
If I switch to OpenGL, the lagginess goes away, but the "shimmering" effect remains, and alt-tabbing doesn't actually take me out of the game.
I realize this may be Windows-specific or AMD specific, or difficult to pin down, but thought I should note it as even if it's only Windows+AMD, that's probably 10%+ of the audience, and it's a significant downgrade in terms of user experience. Although it didn't prevent me from playing long enough to go bankrupt in 1902 in my "real" game... might need to adjust my difficulty settings a bit.
The most obvious symptom is if I alt-tab to, say, view the Vent forums, and alt-tab back, the office background disappears. The buttons at the top still work, but the friendly office is gone. I've also had the city icons disappear on the world map, and the research area background disappear. Sometimes these will come back after a few turns of simulation (the seasons changing causing it to reload?), sometimes it needs a restart.
The UI is also much laggier, even on the main menu, noticeable when hovering over the buttons in the lower-left. In 2.0/2.2, the "highlighted" effect applies nearly instantly, but it's visibly laggy in 2.3.
Finally, the world map and office backgrounds seem to be "shimmering" a bit, almost as if the texture is being compressed by 1% or so and then un-compressed as I move the map around or highlight the reports area/door/grandfather clock/phonograph in the office. This doesn't happen in 2.0/2.2, and I wouldn't be surprised if the cause of this is also causing the lag and perhaps the alt-tab issues.
I'm on Windows 10 with a Radeon RX 6600 (mobile, drivers version 23.5.2, May 2023), using the DirectX 9 renderer, full screen, shadows set to low, hardware mouse yes, shaders yes, everything else below that no.
If I switch to OpenGL, the lagginess goes away, but the "shimmering" effect remains, and alt-tabbing doesn't actually take me out of the game.
I realize this may be Windows-specific or AMD specific, or difficult to pin down, but thought I should note it as even if it's only Windows+AMD, that's probably 10%+ of the audience, and it's a significant downgrade in terms of user experience. Although it didn't prevent me from playing long enough to go bankrupt in 1902 in my "real" game... might need to adjust my difficulty settings a bit.