Paradox Interactive responds to Cities Skylines 2 Performance issues
Whilst there is an effort to improve performance, it seems the intended running rate of Cities: Skylines 2 is 30 FPS.
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Paradox Interactive, the developers behind Cities: Skylines 2, have responded to the woes of players regarding the low performance of the game. In a recent blog post on its website, Paradox addressed concerns about performance and outlined the plan of attack to improve how Cities: Skylines 2 runs on PC.
In the post addressing performance issues, Paradox starts by assuring players that Cities: Skylines 2 is built for modern and future hardware, therefore allowing them to add depth like we’ve never seen before in a cities game. Which is fantastic news, but not if it runs like a slideshow. Paradox also gave some tips on how to improve performance temporarily, which we cover in our Best Settings guide for Cities: Skylines 2.
What seems to be the problem regarding CIties: Skylines 2 performance?
In the post, Paradox addressed a couple of the issues it thinks are contributing to the lackluster performance of the game, it seems as though the way the game renders certain assets is an issue. However, the developers already have a plan of action regarding how they are going to improve the performance of Cities: Skylines 2.
When listing things they were going to do to fix performance issues, Paradox wrote the following in its “what happens post-release” section:
“Remove stutters, generally caused by some synchronization condition in the simulation. They can vary greatly from one CPU to another, as well as how your city is built.
Optimize and balance GPU performances by reducing the number of vertices processed per frame and optimizing/balancing the effects that affect fillrate (mainly Depth of Field, Global Illumination, and Volumetrics), which you can turn off or reduce in the settings for the time being to get a decent FPS.
Pushing any CPU optimizations that are not already done that we come across in this process.“
This information was supplemented by a user on Reddit when they noticed that Cities: Skylines 2 rendered the teeth in full resolution of every citizen no matter how far away you are from them. (the teeth have no LOD settings)
Why wasn’t Cities: Skylines 2 delayed in favor of better performance?
Well, the developers had an answer for that too, they didn’t want to deprive fans of fun. Paradox wrote:
“While some setups on PC have challenges, we concluded the performance is not a dealbreaker for all the players. For us, the number one priority is for the players to have fun with the game, and we had seen enough feedback from players enjoying the game that it would be more unfair to postpone.
We know we will keep working on the game and do our best to fix issues as fast as possible, so we wanted to respect the announced release date and allow people to start playing the game.”
But has the damage that has been done by the current state of the game more than what would have been done by delaying it, and getting out a finished product? The reviews are Mixed on Steam right now, but we do anticipate the reviews to improve after performance patches are rolled out.
