Cities: Skylines II patch hits Steam to address performance issues

[Shawn Knight]

Facepalm: Developer Colossal Order launched the highly anticipated sequel to 2015's Cities: Skylines earlier this week, and things went just as most expected. A week ago, Colossal Order warned that the game's performance might fall short of some user' expectations. As we highlighted at the time, the admission was either a novel bit of honesty or an accurate portrayal of the state of the industry. Regardless, the developer forged ahead and knowingly shipped a product it knew fell short of a certain standard.

Did the gamble pay off? I guess that depends on how you measure success.

Cities: Skylines II touched down on PC on October 24 and according to SteamDB, peaked at 104,697 concurrent users that day. As of this writing, the game has more than 14,800 reviews on Steam with an overall rating of "mixed" and unsurprisingly, much of the negative feedback points to performance issues.

For comparison, the game has a score of 75 out of 100 on Metacritic but a user score of just 3.8 (generally unfavorable) out of 10.

Fortunately, fixes are on the way. Colossal Order has already pushed out the first of what it says are several patches to improve performance in the game. Patch 1.0.11f1 doesn't fix everything, and it is only available on Steam right now, but it should be available on the Microsoft Store soon.

This patch includes the following improvements and fixes:

• Changed LOD to be independent of rendering resolution to get more consistent performance with high resolutions

• Minor optimization with fog

• Depth of field optimizations and tweaks

• Global illumination tweaks

• Optimized stutters when buildings spawn/level up

• Optimized various stutters across all systems

• Fixed crash after upgrading wind turbine

• Fixed crash when car crashes into still hidden car with trailer

• Fixed crash with mesh loading (that happens with low settings mostly)

Colossal Order published an optimization guide earlier this week to help players get the most out of the game in its current state. Based on early feedback, it seems as though adjusting the depth of field setting could net a solid performance boost. Lowering your resolution and disabling volumetrics is another surefire way to raise frame rates on struggling machines.

The developer also addressed a performance-related issue that recently sprung up on Reddit involving in-game characters' teeth. Responding to the matter, a rep told IGN that the game's "lifepath" feature is not linked to the geometry of characters and thus, doesn't impact characters' performance. The full statement from the dev has been reproduced below:

"Citizen lifepath feature does not tie to citizen geometry and does not affect the performance figures of the characters. We know the characters require further work, as they are currently missing their LODs which affect some parts of performance. We are working on bringing these to the game along general LODs improvements across all game assets. Characters feature a lot of details that, while seemingly unnecessary now, will become relevant in the future of the project."

That last sentence is particularly interesting, and now we can't help but wonder what CO has in store for the future of its city building game. Could it evolve into more of a people sim than a city building sim, and would that even be the right move?

Cities: Skylines II is due out on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series in the second quarter of 2024.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/100650-cities-skylines-ii-patch-hits-steam-address-performance.html

 

[dangh]

It is better after the patch, that's for sure, but still very heavy. on 6900xt and 3840x1600 I had to turn off global illumination and other fancy stuff to get 60 fps. But the rest is on high, so still acceptable textures, animation, shadows and reflection.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

This game is an optimization mess. Someone on twitter found that they are rendering the individual teeth of each citizen.

Why? This isnt the Sims. You cant even zoom in enough to see the friggin teeth. Why are they being rendered at all?

 

[yRaz]

This game is an optimization mess. Someone on twitter found that they are rendering the individual teeth of each citizen.

Why? This isnt the Sims. You cant even zoom in enough to see the friggin teeth. Why are they being rendered at all?

So I have mixed feelings on this issue. 1) it's cool that this is even possible but it is pointless. 2) This isn't the only game coming out that brings top teir graphics cards to their knees. If this is the future of gaming then are graphics cards that can't play the latest games worth $1000+?

Hopefully this will actually bring prices down because there are multiple games out that even a 4090 can't play at 4k60 or even 4k30. If there are two games in a week that come out that a 4090 can't play then imagine how many more are in development. Then with nVidia saying that the 5000 series isn't coming out until 2025 maybe people will think twice before paying these stupid prices. I do talk a lot of crap on nVidia but it isn't because their cards are bad, it's that their prices are bad. AMD's aren't the greatest, either. But I think games that can't run on any modern hardware has a chance of bringing prices down because the best is no longer good enough.

At the same time, not being able to play a game at MAX settings is not the same thing as playing a game at LOW settings. Plenty of games still look great at medium-high settings, it's not really until you hit low or lowest settings that they get questionable.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

So I have mixed feelings on this issue. 1) it's cool that this is even possible but it is pointless. 2) This isn't the only game coming out that brings top teir graphics cards to their knees. If this is the future of gaming then are graphics cards that can't play the latest games worth $1000+?

Hopefully this will actually bring prices down because there are multiple games out that even a 4090 can't play at 4k60 or even 4k30. If there are two games in a week that come out that a 4090 can't play then imagine how many more are in development. Then with nVidia saying that the 5000 series isn't coming out until 2025 maybe people will think twice before paying these stupid prices. I do talk a lot of crap on nVidia but it isn't because their cards are bad, it's that their prices are bad. AMD's aren't the greatest, either. But I think games that can't run on any modern hardware has a chance of bringing prices down because the best is no longer good enough.

At the same time, not being able to play a game at MAX settings is not the same thing as playing a game at LOW settings. Plenty of games still look great at medium-high settings, it's not really until you hit low or lowest settings that they get questionable.

Not being able to play at max because of poor design is inexcusable. Remember when games like crisis rendered water under the playable areas to increase GPU load? It was insane then, and its insane now.

 

[yRaz]

Not being able to play at max because of poor design is inexcusable. Remember when games like crisis rendered water under the playable areas to increase GPU load? It was insane then, and its insane now.

There is a difference between optimization and max settings. If a company wants to render the teeth of 100,000 people at once at MAX settings because that's what they want to define as MAX settings, then fine. If 99% of gameplay looks identical between 'very high' and 'max' then I'm okay with that. What Crysis did wasn't just to create GPU load, it was to create the best graphics possible. There was a reason people played Crysis at 20-30FPS at max when it came out. There was a noticeable difference in graphics fidelity in every step on every setting. We look at game engines today after nearly 2 decades of development and those tricks are trivial for us today. But you need to think, the game that held the graphics crown before Crysis was Oblivion. Go look at a screen shot of Oblivion and a screen shot of Crysis. That was why Crysis was such a big deal when it came out.

Now with Alan wake 2, most of the performance hit comes from using Path Tracing instead of Ray Tracing, but you can Turn off Path Tracing and the games graphics don't change that much. yeah, AW2 will need DLSS at Max settings but there isn't much if a graphics differents betten MAX and Very high but there is a very large performance difference.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

There is a difference between optimization and max settings. If a company wants to render the teeth of 100,000 people at once at MAX settings because that's what they want to define as MAX settings, then fine. If 99% of gameplay looks identical between 'very high' and 'max' then I'm okay with that. What Crysis did wasn't just to create GPU load, it was to create the best graphics possible. There was a reason people played Crysis at 20-30FPS at max when it came out. There was a noticeable difference in graphics fidelity in every step on every setting. We look at game engines today after nearly 2 decades of development and those tricks are trivial for us today. But you need to think, the game that held the graphics crown before Crysis was Oblivion. Go look at a screen shot of Oblivion and a screen shot of Crysis. That was why Crysis was such a big deal when it came out.

Now with Alan wake 2, most of the performance hit comes from using Path Tracing instead of Ray Tracing, but you can Turn off Path Tracing and the games graphics don't change that much. yeah, AW2 will need DLSS at Max settings but there isn't much if a graphics differents betten MAX and Very high but there is a very large performance difference.

Right, but the water being rendered under the ground didnt create "the best graphics possible", it was a failure of optimization that limited overall performance for no reason. You couldnt see it or interact with it, there was 0 reason to render it there, other then it let the devs be lazy, paste the water layer across the WHOLE map, and call it a day. There was rumor it was done intentionally because the game was nvidia sponsored, and the water used new at the time nvidia tech to render quicker. Crysis was not the only game to do this.

Same kind of thing goes for the teeth. Why render them like this if you cant see them? Sure, the developer can claim this is what they think is "max", that doesnt mean we cant call it out for being an incredibly dumb decision that adds nothing to the game. It'd be like if Alan Wake 2 had a lightbulb surrounded by mirrors in a room underground that doubled the RT load. This room wouldn't be part of the game and only existed to bring down performance at max. Why would you do that? Because it's max? that would be incredibly stupid.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Say it with me everyone: No Pre-orders, no day one purchases. Wait 1 year, buy for 75% off, fully patched, often with all the DLCs etc bundled in.

We are living in such an age of plenty when it comes to digital entertainment (and entertainment in general), there is always some other distraction to keep us occupied until "the thing" is patched, affordable, and ready for primetime.

 

[Lionvibez]

Say it with me everyone: No Pre-orders, no day one purchases. Wait 1 year, buy for 75% off, fully patched, often with all the DLCs etc bundled in.

This is what I've been doing and its been working well for me.

 

[Dimitriid]

If the devs were able to provide their own tips to optimize the game before the first patch was even out then why didn't they just created that as a default preset? Like I can understand if the optimization patch was actually fixing code, fixing assets, etc. To optimize that probably takes time but playing with in-game settings?

You're telling me nobody on their dev team or at Paradox was able to take 30 minutes out of their day to just offer these options as default for low or medium settings instead of waiting until the game is already in pre-release to influencers and reviewers to give it absolutely terrible ratings because of it? Really?

Just how damn incompetent you need to be at handling PR if you couldn't foresee this at all? Like I get trainwrecks like CDPR releasing a fundamentally broken game but you seriously couldn't just get the marketing and managers at Paradox and say 'Literally one day, just GIVE US ONE DAY to fix the presets can you tell the marketing guys to just hold of ONE MORE DAY?' And nobody gave them that much?

It's a shame such people get to make decisions and just ruin years of developers work with something that was likely easy to mitigate if not outright preventable.

 

[m4a4]

Just how damn incompetent you need to be at handling PR if you couldn't foresee this at all? Like I get trainwrecks like CDPR releasing a fundamentally broken game but you seriously couldn't just get the marketing and managers at Paradox and say 'Literally one day, just GIVE US ONE DAY to fix the presets can you tell the marketing guys to just hold of ONE MORE DAY?' And nobody gave them that much?

Lol, reviews to push out a version or patch aren't done within a few hours like you seem to believe. They have to go through testing and certification.

This isn't some indie dev with a small project. The patches they would've just pushed took much more than a day to get ready.

That's not to say the publisher shouldn't have pushed it back for polish, but at least be realistic with your criticisms...

 

[m4a4]

Right, but the water being rendered under the ground didnt create "the best graphics possible", it was a failure of optimization that limited overall performance for no reason.

Lol, having 1 plane/quad under the level for the water surrounding the island (instead of a bunch of different water objects) can be optimized far better for a GPU renderpass. And many games do it because of that.

 

[dangh]

This game is an optimization mess. Someone on twitter found that they are rendering the individual teeth of each citizen.

Why? This isnt the Sims. You cant even zoom in enough to see the friggin teeth. Why are they being rendered at all?

This do not matter. Models have different level of details depend on how far away are you from that model. So, only the closest people getting detailed rendering and in this case they take most of the screen anyway. It is fine to have it, and it does not make any real issue. They have actual issues with the scaling, resolution and post processing.

Say it with me everyone: No Pre-orders, no day one purchases. Wait 1 year, buy for 75% off, fully patched, often with all the DLCs etc bundled in.

I pre-ordered and I'm happy with the game. I knew what to expect and this is excellent game I keep playing and have a lot of fun with it.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I pre-ordered and I'm happy with the game. I knew what to expect and this is excellent game I keep playing and have a lot of fun with it.

- Well someone has to buy the games brand new otherwise The Patient Gamers wouldn't have a game to buy at 95% off later. Thank you for your service.

 

[loki1944]

Yeah, no thanks. I'll stick with the first game.

 

[godrilla]

This game is an optimization mess. Someone on twitter found that they are rendering the individual teeth of each citizen.

Why? This isnt the Sims. You cant even zoom in enough to see the friggin teeth. Why are they being rendered at all?

I remember Kingdom Come dev saying when they were optimizing the game they found that the leaves textures were the culprit that caused game crashes and poor performance. How hard would it be to open an empty engine and go down the list of assets and see which ones hit performance ( by loading and unloading assets).

 

[rmcrys]

I remember Kingdom Come dev saying when they were optimizing the game they found that the leaves textures were the culprit that caused game crashes and poor performance. How hard would it be to open an empty engine and go down the list of assets and see which ones hit performance ( by loading and unloading assets).

You don’t need that. You can just monitor which textures / assets are taking longer to render or are using more the GPU. You can also turn off assets and see the impact. Then you can just change the code or simplify that 3D model or its physics to be less of a burden.

The knowledge is there, the will doesn’t. The company demands money ASAP, so there is barely time to finish the game, even less to test it.

 

[mrvco]

People paying $$$ for top-end GPUs are going to turn up the graphics settings to 11 and if a game doesn’t run at 60FPS or better, complain about it regardless of the reason.

That being said, is this poor optimization by the dev? Or is the dev just trying to establish this game as a standard benchmark for GPU and CPU review for the next decade?

 

[Puiu]

People paying $$$ for top-end GPUs are going to turn up the graphics settings to 11 and if a game doesn’t run at 60FPS or better, complain about it regardless of the reason.

That being said, is this poor optimization by the dev? Or is the dev just trying to establish this game as a standard benchmark for GPU and CPU review for the next decade?

Or you know... optimisations are very time consuming and they released it as is hoping to fix it later.

 

[Adhmuz]

I can't speak for the game's original state on launch as I just bought it yesterday for 33% off, the game auto-detected settings to high at 4K, no dynamic resolution scaling. I turned off DOF, Fog and motion blur, I believe Volumetrics Quality was already disabled and I set AA to High SMAA as it defaulted to something higher there too.

Played for a few hours with very little issues in the high 30s to low 40s FPS range with a few hitches here and there but nothing terrible, honestly nothing nearly as bad as I was expecting given the criticism. I stopped and returned to the game latter in the day and played for another 30 minutes or so and the game crashed to Desktop, I'll check it out tonight after work to see where it last saved and continue.

This is with a RTX 3080 10GB and an i9 11900KF, 32GB of system RAM.

Monitoring resource usage, naturally the GPU was pegged the entire time, CPU usage is in the 20-30% range, RAM was also never too highly used, I'll need to double check the amount used later.

As far as game play and visuals are concerned, it doesn't look like it should be as demanding as it is right now, I've not played CS1 in a while but I almost want to say it looked better, sharper almost, maybe less cartoony, I'll need to fire it up to compare.

 

[nnguy2]

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/17l71dj