Less crowd density

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Has anyone noticed on each patch the crowd density is less and less. This is making a very empty city. Granted for people who have less powerful systems, but then that's what the low crowd density setting is for. I remember first playing this game on 1.09 patch, and when leaving the apartment going on to the street for the first time I was like wow, so many people it felt alive. Same in El Coyote, it was a club full of people, now your lucky if there are 5 people in it. Same with the other venues, like Riot, a massive nightclub but about 5 people on the dancefloor. The only place that looks realistically populated is the Arasaka memorial site. I think I might go back to 1.09 as the only technical issues excluding ones that have not been fixed, was no audio on the news report in River's mission.
 
Well you are right. I played on the Xbox One and it felt like a Shutdown/Lockdown Night City. Now playing on XSX it feels a bit more crowded there and here. I hope so much that the coming upgrade will show us the city is alive and full of people and cars and so on.
 
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Well you are right. I played on the Xbox One and it felt like a Shutdown/Lockdown Night City. Now playing on XSX it feels a bit more crowded there and here. I hope so much that the coming upgrade will show us the city is alive and full of people and cars and so on.
I can understand on games console's to get better performance, but on a PC where the game can do 60fps with it's eyes closed the city is getting sparser and sparser. I get about 90fps without ray tracing maxed out settings and between 45 to 60fps with RT and DLSS set to auto, but they keep on dumbing the game down more and more.
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Totentanz was a lot more packed than this before as well

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Has anyone noticed on each patch the crowd density is less and less. This is making a very empty city. Granted for people who have less powerful systems, but then that's what the low crowd density setting is for. I remember first playing this game on 1.09 patch, and when leaving the apartment going on to the street for the first time I was like wow, so many people it felt alive. Same in El Coyote, it was a club full of people, now your lucky if there are 5 people in it. Same with the other venues, like Riot, a massive nightclub but about 5 people on the dancefloor. The only place that looks realistically populated is the Arasaka memorial site. I think I might go back to 1.09 as the only technical issues excluding ones that have not been fixed, was no audio on the news report in River's mission.
I seen to remember from somewhere (can't remember source so it might have been conjecture) that they reduced crowd destiny across the board because of the issues they were having with memory management in the engine and that they were hoping to bring density back up once they improved those issues.
 
Yeah, on Series X it's totally empty in 1.3, for sure :coolstory:
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I take these screenshots for another thread :

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On a side note, I don't think take as example clubs where there are quest or GIGs is relevant after doing them.
On these screenshots, I always have poeple outside (waiting for enter in) and more NPCs inside (And I suppose you have already did it, because there is a Valentinos normally outside who stay at the entrance).
If I do the GIG discreetly, they still there at their "original" place doing their "stuff" until the end of the game.
But if I enter in combat inside, they run all over the place and even outside (it's the true panic...) and I don't think they respaw after that (so the club feel empty without all the NPCs who have run outside (they certainely despawned opposite of a few of those who have stay inside).
The same for all the Totentez or all the other clubs. Or the Cojote Cojo have always feel empty since day one after completing "Heroe" :)
 
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The streets are just a lot emptier than earlier versions of the game. I remember leaving the apartment for the first time and it was like the Mall out of heavy rain, 100s of people on the street, Tom's diner market area and also around Mistys shop. It is much more noticeable on the pc as the crowds where pretty dense to begin with compared to consoles.
The mission where you do johnny silverhands gig, the club should be like that all the time at night. And I don't get no loss of performance in those scenes. But there is definitely something going on in the patches and not imagined, the density of crowds are way less on the streets than earlier versions. I get the feeling cdp just make a one size fits all patch when in reality they should be specific for each platform, the pc version has not had the performance issues as bad like the console counterparts yet they keep taking things away. Also... Still hasn't rained outside scripted missions lol.
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The only place where you see more density but still a lot less than earlier versions of the game, but appeared more frequently in much more areas. This picture was probably closer to the low density setting originally lol.
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Considering the insane amount of objects in the rubbish dump, doesn't make sense
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A rather empty Jig Jig Street, which was packed full of people in earlier versions.
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Ive not noticed it getting lowered. on the other had notice alot of ppl walking around especialy during "rush" hour. Depends a bit on location and time. Same with cars, sometimes its just a big que everywhere you wanna go. Other times its compleatly empty streets. I see some duplicates in those pics so:

Using crowd densety on high right? And also not using slow HDD mode? I have a theory that slow HDD mode loads more from ram then from the HDD during gameplay and since it dont load all assets into ram you get more duplicates.. I guess it would also lower the crowd densety automaticaly too keep up with the slower HDD.
 
Ive not noticed it getting lowered. on the other had notice alot of ppl walking around especialy during "rush" hour. Depends a bit on location and time. Same with cars, sometimes its just a big que everywhere you wanna go. Other times its compleatly empty streets. I see some duplicates in those pics so:

Using crowd densety on high right? And also not using slow HDD mode? I have a theory that slow HDD mode loads more from ram then from the HDD during gameplay and since it dont load all assets into ram you get more duplicates.. I guess it would also lower the crowd densety automaticaly too keep up with the slower HDD.
High is on yes, Will try the no slow hard drive mode as noticed that was on, will check it out thanks. I know what you mean about different times of day, you wouldn't expect a freeway at 4am to be full of traffic or a nightclub busy at 2pm in the afternoon.
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Ok tried with slow hard drive off, can't seem much difference. Pic is from Toms diner which was really densely populated in early versions. I remember it been so populated you had to literally push past people. This is a night time so will check daytime.
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Daytime, still not really that populated :(
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Slight improvement outside Misty's
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Looks around the same as for me at that spot. Downtown generaly has a higher densety i think and the roads too downtown at around 8 am is kinda packed for me.
 

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Outside V's apartment H11, more peeps with slow HD off so it's helped a bit. Hopefully it will go back to how it originally was with the earlier release as Mr Guyton said he heard they were having memory issues with it.
 
Not sure about crowd reduction, but i've noticed that the world and game behaviour randomizes slightly with each patch. Dunno if it's tha patch changes interracting with my save states or just due to game file rewrites and minor changes in access times.
 
Not sure about crowd reduction, but i've noticed that the world and game behaviour randomizes slightly with each patch. Dunno if it's tha patch changes interracting with my save states or just due to game file rewrites and minor changes in access times.
Yea i think that affects the game too. I generaly start a new game with every patch(Major one atleast). Thats why i havent gotten too my 10 years in the making Corpo V playtrough untill just recently. Restarted it like 5 times -.-
 
Yea i think that affects the game too. I generaly start a new game with every patch(Major one atleast). Thats why i havent gotten too my 10 years in the making Corpo V playtrough untill just recently. Restarted it like 5 times -.-
I've done street kid, on Nomad at the moment, so will be interesting to see after starting a new game with Corp. Also weather, It has never rained outside scripted missions for me, but that could be due to the weather mods I have used in the past which can break the weather system of your save once you remove the mod.
 
Ive noticed more diverse weather after 1.3 so i dont use mods for it anymore. Rain and fog and so on. sometimes all it takes is a quick save/reload for the weather too change :D :D
 

"LESS CROWD DENSITY"

Noticed it too, yeah.

Only guessing, but I think the initial plan was to let characters exist on screen in 3D, and then at a certain distance, transition to 2D. Seems like, like that, you can have a higher amount of characters on screen simultaneously, while containing the stress exerted onto the game at the same time. But quite a lot of players were kinda critical about that, as the transition was very obvious to see. (The large 2D car models that you could see in the distance, for instance).

So, I think that CDPR decided it would be best to let characters persist in 3D the whole way. But ofcourse, as that would significantly raise stress onto the game, they lowered the amount of characters on screen simultaneously to compensate.

There're still hordes of people around, but only during certain times of day, at certain locations. It's just a well thought out plan to contain the stresses onto the game. When there are hordes of people at point A, there are very few at point B, and vice versa, outside V's line of view.

It's a simple fact the less characters there are, the better the stability and performance. Quality against quantity.

Can imagine this (executive) decision was taken because the majority of the player-base has always set the density to high, while in reality their rig can't make the cut. So, think in this case it's best to choose eggs for your money.
 
I doubt that's the case. 2D sprites seem to be completely disconnected from nearby world. I'd speculate that near player everything is interactive, mostly 3D with physics and world logic. Beyond this near zone is a completely disconnected, backdrop layer with just the visual details and generic animations.

While i haven't noticed NPC reduction IMHO the biggest issue is that they're one of the most detailed objects and one that stands out most painfully if details are lost or duplicated. Human mind is wired to spot, recognize and rate people. You can easily get away with having 1000 identical trash cans in one parking lot, but one will instantly notice 2 identical or loading face. And loading in and out all the combinations is just too hard for low end systems so that might've led to density reduction. Maybe the system now shows only what it manages to load in time instead of spawning people out of thin air, with missing face details or 10 clones.
 
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