Anyone who has been on a FiveM Roleplay server, and uses a lower end PC, knows how it is: You’re fine when nobody’s around, but the instant you look at too many police cars or a single fire truck, it all goes to hell. If this was just one server, this might be explainable - they can afford to lose some people who can’t handle the framerates. However, it is server, after server, after server, who all have this problem - it’s clearly an issue that seems to affect everyone.
Anyway, here is my take on why it happens, why it doesn’t stop happening, and how it could be fixed.
Why it happens
The reasons behind it can be summed up by one word: optimisation. Or rather, lack thereof.
You see, most vehicle mods you see on 5Mods and such are converts from other games, such as Forza. Indeed, it is mostly racing games, which leads us on to why it will cause people issues.
Games like Forza are made differently to other games; them being racing games, the main focus is on the car. Therefore, most of the polygons go into the car, and the terrain (and other cars) are left relatively bland. Furthermore, these games usually have a well optimised rendering system, which is different to GTA V’s.
This is not an issue for these games; nor is it a huge issue for GTA V singleplayer, where chances are you will have just the one custom car at any given time, and if it’s laggy you can uninstall it.
For FiveM, though, the situation is different; you can have as many of these cars, usually in a small area, usually all being driven. While high end PCs can cope with this just fine, anyone on a lower end PC will notice the dips in their framerates - and occasionally, having the game feel like Powerpoint.
Why it doesn’t stop happening
So, why does it happen on every single server? Well, to put it simply, it’s when democracy goes wrong.
In the end, every FiveM server is a democracy; people vote with their feet. If a server is ran by a tyrannical dictator who forces everyone around, people will leave.
The first reason is that people who play FiveM on lower end PCs are a minority - after all, it is a mod that you have to install, and requires basic technical knowledge. This means that, in a debate, people who don’t notice the framerate drops will always vote to keep the cars, and win; those who are lagging just have to put up with it, or get lost.
The second reason is that there is no compromise here. If you want real life vehicles, with cool lights, you have to get models that are ported from another game. To have a real life car (more on that later) that looks good, and is optimised for GTA V, would need to be modelled from scratch - good luck with that. Furthermore, most custom models are locked, so you can’t even try to manually optimise them.
The last reason is probably the worst, and hopefully least common: Server owners don’t care. After all, server owners have enough money to pay for a server; they also have enough money to have a high end gaming rig. This means they have no incentive to care about those on lower end machines when they’re downloading vehicles from XBR or Captain14 - hell, most don’t consider it.
And when the issue gets brought up, it gets shut down - after all, no need to start a massive argument.
How to fix it
As with all big problems, there is no easy solution; after all it’s a big problem. There’s only a few solutions I have seen, or can think of:
- Everyone should get a better PC.
The issue with this is, if every server went for this option, then those who cannot afford a better PC would have nowhere to go. Plus, it means disenfranchising players who might be good at roleplay, but just can’t cope with the lag.
- People should just put up with it
This is just a bad solution. After all, a bad framerate is enough to ruin a roleplay session; plus it gives a “I don’t care” attitude.
- Straight up pretend the problem isn’t even a problem
“It’s not a problem”
“I don’t get bad framerates”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about”
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And if it is broke, pretend it ain’t broke.
- Use lore friendly, optimised vehicles
This solution is helpful, even if it makes people feel uneasy. Of course, this doesn’t mean we all need to get inside of a superlight with an awful black and white skin; instead, there are packs of lore friendly, well optimised vehicles out there such as Vanillaworks and RDE.
However, it does mean giving up your CVPIs and Chargers, and replacing them with Staniers and Buffalos; and if you’re on a high end PC, why bother?
So yeah, no perfect, magical solution. Oh well.
If you have a magical solution that is perfect and will fix everything, do leave it below.
Hope this helped.