To this specific question, unfortunately the answer is both yes and no. Every, “zone,” in the game is different from a flora / fauna perspective, but there are artifacts scattered throughout, as well as wrecks, abandoned facilities, etc. Everything you would expect after your trip to the island and the Sunbeam, aka, something is going on and that huge facility on the island is a sign of things to come.
If you get stuck in the story your biggest tips come from repairing the radio and ensuring you have a radio to get clues from if you built a base early on.
That being said, I’ve played this game with waaaay underperforming work laptops at times and not really had issues. You definitely have some GPU issues it sounds like.