Awkward Empty Areas and Game Lag

[Caracal]

Yes, those two things go hand-in-hand.

Every now and then I get an itch to do some heavy terraforming on my island. Recently I've moved all my villagers houses into little rows and gave them small yards. When I first started playing I wanted to give them all nice yards, but the shallowness of their personalities makes me not care for them at all; they don't deserve nice yards! Where those houses used to be, I moved my campsite over there and did some terraforming around it. It looks really nice! And a farm nearby, too, but I'm still working on all of it.

But now I've run into lag, drop in frame rate, what have you. The campsite area sees some lag, and one of the rows of houses get laggy. I cannot imagine why. There are way busier-looking areas around my town, and back in April about 90% of my island was covered in flowers! And even when it was raining, I did not have any issues. But now? Why now?
What about this seems so demanding? Why can't the game handle this?:

I have a couple of awkward areas in my town I don't know what to do with:

The red area is in front of Ankha, Lionel, and Kiki's houses. Yellow is a long, long, patch where I originally used as my farming area but I've moved that up to my cliff (where I'm currently standing on the map). I moved my second save over there, but I'm thinking about deleting it since I never play it. Unfortunately, that leaves more empty space. The Blue area is a tiny sliver up against the cliffs I put behind town hall. It's about 5 or so tiles wide, and not much can fit in there. In my current Dream Town (*cough* DA-3135-1434-3170 *cough*) it's being used as a graveyard but since I'm getting ready for Christmas I'm not sure what to do with it because it's so small and awkward.

Everything is so small and awkward! All the guides and ideas I've seen online have been for much larger areas, much smaller areas, both of which are usually more square. None of this skinny rectangular nonsense! There's that squarish area to the right of the airport there that I've been using for breeding flowers, but I'm not as bothered by it as the other spaces.

I might use the Red area as some sort of community space...? But maybe that would be better suited for the Yellow area, next to town hall? But wouldn't it be better centered....? Then I would have to move Bangle's house elsewhere! Blue area, I have no clue. I used to use that area to store my hybrids but I don't want to mess up any future Christmas aesthetic.

I already have a cafe area, down by the houses in the bottom right. I have a playground already, next to the river. I have a farm. I have an orchard. I'm not sure what to do with the spaces and I'm afraid to make them gardens because I don't want any more lag in my game. I don't know how to describe the aesthetic of my town, but it's pretty developed, not cottagecore or anything. I guess just... "town-y"? As you can tell I have a lot of pathing down, it's brick, any they're lined with flowers in dirt. I think putting indoor furniture outside is silly (for example, libraries and office areas). I had a pool area at one point but since it's autumn and going into winter, I put it away until next year.

Maybe it's completely unavoidable and I should just embrace the lag, plant a bunch of trees and flowers and put more ponds? :/

 

[niko@kamogawa]

I am getting the same issue like yours. I am experiencing frame rate drops in some places especially areas with a lot of displayed furniture and flowers. I suggest you to reduce them.

On a side note, this is why I wanted Nintendo to sell me the next generation Switch. We really need a hardware boost at this point.

 

[Caracal]

I am getting the same issue like yours. I am experiencing frame rate drops in some places especially areas with a lot of displayed furniture and flowers. I suggest you to reduce them.

On a side note, this is why I wanted Nintendo to sell me the next generation Switch. We really need a hardware boost at this point.

That's the thing though, the campsite for example, it's not very cluttered yet it's very laggy. The area where I have my shops has tons and tons of items and plants and there's no lag! And the town hall, there's tons of bushes and trees, no lag. If I get rid of the furniture I have there, it's just going to look so empty. :/ How are we supposed to play this game if we can't decorate it how we want? How do the people with ridiculously intricate towns survive?!? You know the ones. Nova lights, star fragments, statues in every single tile, tons of waterfalls and fountains. How are they holding up?? Are they okay???

Not sure how bad I need a Switch Pro. Well, I guess I *might* need a Switch Pro, but do I want to spend the money...? I have more important things to buy that are $300-400+.

 

[niko@kamogawa]

That's the thing though, the campsite for example, it's not very cluttered yet it's very laggy. The area where I have my shops has tons and tons of items and plants and there's no lag! And the town hall, there's tons of bushes and trees, no lag. If I get rid of the furniture I have there, it's just going to look so empty. :/ How are we supposed to play this game if we can't decorate it how we want? How do the people with ridiculously intricate towns survive?!? You know the ones. Nova lights, star fragments, statues in every single tile, tons of waterfalls and fountains. How are they holding up?? Are they okay???

Not sure how bad I need a Switch Pro. Well, I guess I *might* need a Switch Pro, but do I want to spend the money...? I have more important things to buy that are $300-400+.

Despite having the same experience, your findings are somewhat contradicting to mine. I am experiencing slowdowns in the plaza area because that's where majority of my Halloween decorations are. I placed a lot of spooky towers, tables, and chairs. It's also where I placed my hedges to encircle the area. I also have a lot of tress and flowers there.

I don't understand how the game loads these graphical assets. However, It's obvious that adding "objects" in the area somewhat contributes to the slowness. We also can't discount the fact that maybe "objects" from afar also affects areas with no clutter. After all, you can change camera angles and view them. I don't have any evidence to prove my claim. But you can try to experiment with it.

What about those people with intricate towns? I am sure they are trying to live with it. Aesthetics come in a form of price anyway.

 

[Manah]

Seaside promenade fir the yellow area maybe? Something like this.

(source)

 

[Caracal]

Seaside promenade fir the yellow area maybe? Something like this.

View attachment 329160
(source)

Ohh I like that, actually... thanks for the inspiration!

 

[BetsySundrop]

I could be way off here, but I've noticed that with either a lot of terraforming, (like cliffs and waterfalls), or custom things (especially custom paths), I get lag. The custom designs seem to cause more lag.

 

[Caracal]

When Googling about ACNH lag, I saw people saying that ever since the July update or beyond, there's been more lag in there game, similar to my experience, in areas they haven't had lag before. I don't have that many custom paths down at the moment, just some leaves on the ground that I'll clean up once I start Christmas decorating... but maybe I should start doing that now? I have some stepping stones on my beach, too. I don't get lag on there, but I don't see the harm in cleaning those up since I don't use the beach anyways.

Ah, I forgot about the clover... I use the clover to break up the flowers in some areas so it doesn't become over grown...

My friend who has large patches of custom ground patterns say they don't experience any lag in their town. And funnily enough I had them over today via Wi-Fi (they live on the other side of the world!), and my town didn't lag any more than it normally does.

 

[nightglow]

There is one small section of my map that gets laggy. It is by my able's shop. There isn't really much there. Or at least in my opinion there isn't much there. However, I think it may have something to do with the water. It is the only thing I can think of.

 

[Caracal]

Update:

For the blue area, I tore down that little alleyway I made and moved the path further right so it lines up with the staircase. This left a huge empty space which is now a park. I'll change it up a bit every now and then, I'm excited for the Christmas update, I bet I can make it look really nice.

For the yellow area, I'm trying to turn that into the promenade. I want it to work out because it's the perfect thing to fit there but I don't know how to furnish it. Now more than ever do I want the planters back from the old games. Like when you would place flowers down in your house? The stupid one-flower vase we have is so useless in comparison. We don't have any potted flowers at all, and the plants we do have don't fit in with the autumn/winter aesthetic except for the cypress. So much of my ACNH experience has been "wouldn't the wisteria trellis look nice here? Remember x item? That would look so nice here..."

Red area has been shrunk by 2 tiles since I had to move that staircase a bit down. I gave those three houses slightly bigger yards. The red area is mostly untouched, still a patch of grass, but maybe I'll turn this area into something... nautical? I put the lighthouse on the cliffs behind Ankha's house and it looks nice. I'll have to play around with it a bit more before I decide on anything.

 

[rezberri]

tbh i have noticed some lag in dream addresses, and when i had a lot of fish placed, and that loading screens (like when loading up the game or closing it down) often take a long while too. im not the only one to think that the loading screens take forever, some of my irl friends who also play have noticed it as well but they havent been playing since launch as i have.

 

[ekcomyth]

i have an area in my town too that i have no freaking idea what to do with it. Maybe a trash dump but im not too sure. That one area that i have no idea what to do with is making me unmotivated to play the game tbh