My games slow down quite significantly at around 60k population

[Woody Red]

Still perfectly playable - but are there any option changes or anything like that I could do to mitigate this ?

I remember with simcity 4, forcing the game to use only one core helped performance. Any similar things I could do to speed up cities skylines ?

Turning the graphics options down doesn't seem to have much of an effect.

Thanks

 

[kosh22]

What do you mean slows down. Is there graphic stuttering? IS the UI sluggish? I've never had this. What machine are you using?

 

[Woody Red]

no graphics stuttering, UI is fine. But the game itself slows down - the traffic and passage of time slows down. As I say, its still playable but it slows down the higher the population gets.

I have a AMD Phenom II X6 @ 2.80GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT440.. windows 7.

 

[potorium]

if its a gradual slow down as pop increases then its your computer doing its sums causing it. when you say slows down, if you mean no gradual slowing but a very noticable jump in the speed of a gameday then i see the same? mine does this first at @40k.
@3 seconds per day till 40k, then on to 4s per day at 40k with no grade between for me

 

[Killcannon]

It's not his computer. It's something in the code that actively slows the game time down the larger your population is. Some of us are running VERY high end computers, and we're experiencing it at around the same population levels.

 

[pills85]

Yes, it does once the CPU is getting close to full load.

Just try it out. Run the game, max speed, and now watch the CPU load. If it's somewhere at 90+%, then your CPU can't process more than that. If you add more population, the game will slow down the simulation.
Only way to improve is getting a faster CPU.

If your super high end CPU is at full load, it's at full load. Simple as that.

I got a i5-4670k @ 4.0 GHz, so really not a bad CPU at all. And the game puts full load on it at I don't know, maybe somewhere around 60-90k population + max speed. More population will necessarily slow down the simulation.

 

[Killcannon]

Intel i7 4770 OC'd to 4.5 GHZ, Liquid cooling, 16 gb ram, dual SSD's(OS on one, games on other) GTX 770 Vid card.
CPU utilization for this game is usually around 30-40% at pause, 35-45% at first speed, 40-50% at 2nd speed and 65-70% at max speed for me with a city of 300k... It's NOT the hardware..Not MINE anyways.. Others.. yes.. I'm a gamer. I spend more on my PC then most people spend on beer a year..

 

[pills85]

So does it actually run in 3x speed or is your 3x speed the same as the 2x speed?

There is a mod that let's you speed up even faster, maybe you could try to max out your CPU with it and observe how the game reacts.
You may be an exception, but the game will put full load on any non-super-CPU at max. speed and max. 100k pop.

 

[Killcannon]

No, definite difference in them. Like I said.. There's a difference between all 3. But once you hit about 50-60K, the overall speeds drop. It's as if they've set a limit, and once you hit it, it slows the game down overall so you don't miss things. I'd rather they not, as it's annoying as crap to sit around for a few days doing nothing but waiting for your city to grow.
My CPU at the moment is @ 62% utilization for Cities skylines, population of 278K, on max speed.

 

[pills85]

I'd say try that mod and see how the game and your CPU reacts.

 

[potorium]

one thing i did last night when i hit my stepped slow down, was delete all my bus/metro lines. (@8k a week passangers) and my game day speed shot back up. could it be that hitting a milestone slows the game down. In my case hitting and implementing mass transit. 8k a week passangers but its more the 1000's standing /walking about between stops being animated that suddenly add huge overhead. the extra traffic from having no mass transport was not noticable but game speed increase was massive

 

[Doctor Machete]

I think is not population as much as grid layout and traffic what makes a really big difference. I have a city with 175.000 pop, with 13 secs / day (no difference at all with different speed of simulation), but it goes slower than all saves I tried from the store with 500-800k population, where I can get between 4-10 secs/day in the fastest mode. Difference is my city is at the limit on both buildings and roads, and some external saves I tested too, BUT I have no grid layout AND (and I think the most important thing) I have no office buildings. All jobs go into industry and commerce and that means lots of traffic and pathfinding around a really big network with lots of traffic light controlled intersections and with big problems related to train traffic.

That would explain why the 65.000 simultaneous pathfinding limit (cims and vehicles in the streets) being the pop cap as high as 1.000.000.

the extra traffic from having no mass transport was not noticable but game speed increase was massive

Probably you're right. I suppose pathfinding can be more demanding for commuting cims with more complex routes than industry vehicles, not counting maintenance of transport lines. But you may have to use mass transport anyway if you have traffic problems, even if it slows down the game, so is not really a solution. Perhaps it was in your case, but it wouldn't be in mine.

 

[potorium]

yeah but my mass transit cims dont start driving when i kill the mass transit. its as if using a bus stop makes the cims come out to play alot more than if they can only drive to work. they certainly arn't walking the 5k+ to work once the bus stops calling