I'll be following your development, as I'm intrigued about that optimization mod. You will be also posting it in the Illusion Discord server?
I am using Intel HD i5 7200 (integrated graphics), 8gb Ram. Between using the lowest resolution, lowest graphic settings, along with FarClipPlane mod, I can sqeeze out 20-25 fps on the first island with one gal and the merchant. Now, I personally am not too concerned about filling up an island with girls. So saying only two gals get rendered, and a decently big house, how playable do you think my game will be in the "housing" island when I get there? (I'm not using 100% save or cheats either)
Tell me more about this "FarClipPlane" mod of which you speak... Between that and the Repack 1.3 mods from ScrewThisNoise's release, it would make my mod idea obsolete basically. That is my number one issue with the game camera handler is that the game is built on the default (sample) Unity island, with sample Lux Water, etc. The Island is a 400m x 400m game map with the edges being about 25-50m of just ocean border. The camera has no culling feature in place, so you render 360 degrees regardless if the camera is looking at the objects or not, they are rendered fully. The default camera distance is set to 300m, therefore, no matter where you are on the island, if you do a 360, nearly all, or all of the island is rendered fully. This can be easily confirmed by building a 2 story on the beach then making stairs to the roof, having a 2 story at the forest base location and a 3 story at the ruins, you can see your other bases from the beach base roof and vice verse (while getting 2-5 fps because the whole game world is in focus). If I could adjust that render distance down, in Unity it is called view distance culling, but in UE and MMOE they call it clip plane, same thing conceptually, then you can unload the distant scenery beyond the camera's field of vision, thus objects on the other side of mountains that aren't visible aren't loaded. Ergo, I am very interested in the FarClipPlane mod you speak of, because that may solve the issue at hand, and if not, could be built off of if I can see how they organized their C# or Java scripts. I was thinking of tweaking the post processing a little, but it has proven quite a headache as I cannot load the packages into Unity easily, and they are at best merely decompiled assets. Going through the code with DLSpy, ILSpy, and Reflexil allow you to see what they did in the scripts and how things are working, but it's not really the same as having the stuff in Unity in front of you... if that makes any sense.
You'd think that Illusion would just release their source and make their games openly modifiable. It's not like they are Ubisoft or Rockstar games... I doubt they would lose any money in any real manner...
Hrmmm... Are you saying that on the starting Island, "Ruined Island," when the merchant and 1 custom girl are in view you are getting 20-25fps? Hrmmm... My assumption would be if you added one more girl, you would get near what you are getting now on the housing island with little added in the area of construction.
I built a 5 story apartment building on the southernmost side, 30 8-slot gardens (15 east 15 west), a playground/park with swings, slide, picnic benches, trash cans, benches, and two grills, two bathhouses, and a chicken coup (north). I tactfully placed the beds and H furniture in bedrooms that were at the SE/SW points facing S and E on the SE ones and S and W on the SW so the only thing aside from the scene in front of me that the camera is rendering is the distant islands, ocean, and sky. This lets me pull 50fps with single girl animations and about 40fps threesome animations, provided I don't swing the camera to face the merchant, then it will drop about 10fps instantly. When I first arrived on the housing island I was getting an unstable 80-120fps up and down, depending on which direction I looked in. After building the apartment building I was getting 70-90. After adding in the extras I was getting 60-70. I added two girls and the fps dropped to 35-50 unstable with the merchant present, but averaging about 42 with normal running around and camera rotation. The good news is with the two on the island, back on the main "Ruined Island" the fps went up from 25-35 to 35-45 average but still unstable with brief random fps drop spikes.
In your case, are you on Windows 7+? Did you use your Task Manager to set the CPU Affinity for the AI-Shyoujyo.exe in the Details pane (right click then Set Affinity) to run on all cores but the main (usually numbered 0 or 1, i.e. Quad Core 0123, or 1234, hex 012345, or 123456 - lowest is reserved for OS) one that the OS core system is utilizing? Whenever using CPU based graphics rendering it is always best to set core affinity so the OS and game aren't stumbling over one another for the same data threads. Also, did you setup the exe in the graphics driver for Multithreaded/Hyperthread Sampling (if the option is available)? Only in certain rare circumstances does this ever actually cause instability. It usually causes far greater stability, so ignore that little warning. If it runs worse then just set it back. By default, all programs are set to utilize all cores, but when using heavy load processes (like games) it can cause Windows to have minor background issues (especially if you have Defender running as well), which will cause more lag and instability. Purposely separating the data streams often vastly improves stability. In your case, it should increase FPS a decent amount. Remember to restart the game after assigning affinity as it will not appropriately utilize the changes at first.