How much of a performance boost can I expect from 8 extra GB's of RAM?

[Catratio]

I bought the Park Life, Green Cities, Public Transport, and Disasters DLCs the other day and immediately noticed a drop in smoothness when I loaded my city. Not really unexpected now that I think about it since it has so much more data to process and assets to load. So I started experiment and I'm getting about 20-30 FPS on my 9 tile 115,000 population city. CPU usage is 70% and RAM is at 95%. I have 8 GB RAM and it's showing 7.5 of it's being used here so it seems like it's the main bottleneck. I started a brand new map with no city and got steady 60 FPS and a 30% drop is CPU usage, as expected.

So I'm considering buying another two sticks to bring me up to 16 MB of RAM. Would I get a significant increase in FPS with this? It's 50 bucks but might be worth it for the long run. I'm not sure how well other games would benefit too.

[grapplehoeker]

Instead of adding new RAM to old, ideally you should replace your old RAM with a whole new set of RAM and preferably from the same factory batch. so, rather than purchase 2x 4GB RAM, you should be looking for 4x4GB or 2x8GB.
Also bear in mind that your system will be using up to 2GB RAM already, so you do not have as much available memory as you think.

[Catratio]

I've read that, but it would cost an extra $60 for whole new 2x8 GB RAM sticks :/
I'm not sure it's worth it depending on if it would even make a difference. Most other games seem to be held back by the GPU instead. But yeah, just idling it uses 1.6 GB already which is not normally a problem but this is the first game I've seen held back by RAM.

[scpool1986]

I couldn’t tell if you were in the US or not by looking at your profile. Not only is it a good idea to install in pairs from the same batch but it’s also vital to get the socket voltage, DIMM configuration, maximum memory capacity, and card length correct. Crucial Memory (https://www.crucial.com/usa/en/memory/crucial) has a small scanner that you can download and it scans your computer to see what the requirements are for your computer as well as match it to their products. From there you can either buy from them or use the information given to shop around for the best price.

[MarkJohnson]

Typically speaking, RAM increase won't add FPS, it may free up resources, and give back some FPS from an overloaded system.

Also, what says you have 7.5Gb RAM used? That is fine is you have 8GB RAM.

Typically what happens, is you add workshop and it consumes more RAM (assets especially). When you exceed your 8GB system RAM, windows will create a pagefile for virtual memory and can give you an extra 16GB RAM for use (24GB total memory) and move stuff out of system RAM to the pagefile, until needed at a later time. Then it will swap apps from System RAM and move it to the page file, so it makes room to add more stuff into system RAM.

You likely lost FPS from too many mods that alter the game (especially mods that improve graphics. You can remove them without it affecting your saved game). Mods chews up resources very quickly.

Maybe post your system specs for better advice. (Steam>Help>System Information)

But 20-30 fps is normal for most system.

[Catratio]

I am in the US, yes. On Amazon I found the exact same RAM cards I bought before, same model number and everything, though yes it has been 5 years since then. It would just save a lot of money to buy another of what I already have rather than new ones since my current ones still work great.

I'm not using any mods, so no workshop items, just pure vanilla game and DLCs. I monitored the performance with the task manager:

https://i.imgur.com/yX9WIAu.jpg

i5-4570
GTX 960 2GB
8 GB RAM
Win 7

It was freezing for a second or two as I rotated the camera around but I switched textures to medium instead of high and it at least does not lag like that when I move around, but FPS is still on average 25 when I zoom in.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Catratio:

I am in the US, yes. On Amazon I found the exact same RAM cards I bought before, same model number and everything, though yes it has been 5 years since then. It would just save a lot of money to buy another of what I already have rather than new ones since my current ones still work great.

I'm not using any mods, so no workshop items, just pure vanilla game and DLCs. I monitored the performance with the task manager:

https://i.imgur.com/yX9WIAu.jpg

i5-4570
GTX 960 2GB
8 GB RAM
Win 7

It was freezing for a second or two as I rotated the camera around but I switched textures to medium instead of high and it at least does not lag like that when I move around, but FPS is still on average 25 when I zoom in.

That's as good as it gets then. This is a low fps game. My GTX 1050 Ti 4GB get around 25-32 fps, zoomed in, max graphics on 1080p monitor. 180k pop and 6-tiles vanilla. I own all DLC. I use 5.2GB RAM of 8GB. No other apps running.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1636546196

[mbutton15]

Originally posted by -DI- rmjohnson144:

I own all DLC. I use 5.2GB RAM of 8GB. No other apps running.

If you don't mind me asking, how do you only use 5.2GB of RAM ? I have 8GB RAM and my usage is approx 7GB. I also only have the Mass Transit DLC.

How come your RAM usage is lower, yet you have more DLC ? My city was only around 55K and I was using 8 tiles on my last map - surely that doesn't take the extra RAM ?

I use a few mods like Move It!, Extra Landscaping Tools and Extended Building Info, but don't use any traffic mods. Mm, I do have a number of intersection and Park assets I have created (none from Workshop) - is that my extra RAM usage ?

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by mbutton15:

Originally posted by -DI- rmjohnson144:

I own all DLC. I use 5.2GB RAM of 8GB. No other apps running.

If you don't mind me asking, how do you only use 5.2GB of RAM ? I have 8GB RAM and my usage is approx 7GB. I also only have the Mass Transit DLC.

How come your RAM usage is lower, yet you have more DLC ? My city was only around 55K and I was using 8 tiles on my last map - surely that doesn't take the extra RAM ?

I use a few mods like Move It!, Extra Landscaping Tools and Extended Building Info, but don't use any traffic mods. Mm, I do have a number of intersection and Park assets I have created (none from Workshop) - is that my extra RAM usage ?

I'm baffled myself. On my gaming rig, I have 32GB RAM and 8700k with Vega 64 8GB, and it launches to 5.9GB for cities.exe. Otherwise, it's around 2.5GB

On my father's computer that has base game only and zero DLC, cities.exe boots to only 3.1GB RAM, but he has a 4k monitor.

My laptop of 8GB does the same.

I think maybe it's the Acer app adjusting windows settings and optimizes memory use much better. Just like the laptop.

I don't use workshop on my cities. No anti-virus suite or anything either. except Window's built-in malware.

But base game only will use a bit over 2GB with no DLC.

Edit, as fr you. Yes, workshop and your own custom content adds to the memory usage if enabled.

Don't forget all of those apps running down by the clock. They each use extra RAM as well.

Try, temporarily, launching the game with -noWorkshop -disableMods and see how much it changes.

[Catratio]

Okay, well if 25-30 fps is considered "normal" then I don't feel too bad. With my RAM maxing out paired with the low fps and lags I thought something was wrong with how my computer was running it. I want to get the Industries DLC but was afraid that might push it over the edge.

To be honest I think I like the idea of making smaller connected cities spread out around my map versus one massive city like I have now, so doing that hopefully it will ease the load a bit too.

[Meesmoth]

Originally posted by -DI- rmjohnson144:

That's as good as it gets then. This is a low fps game. My GTX 1050 Ti 4GB get around 25-32 fps, zoomed in, max graphics on 1080p monitor. 180k pop and 6-tiles vanilla. I own all DLC. I use 5.2GB RAM of 8GB. No other apps running.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1636546196

180,000 population with 75% CPU usage? Oh god, I imagine it spiking at 100% by the time my cities reach 300,000-600,000 population.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Meesmoth:

Originally posted by -DI- rmjohnson144:

That's as good as it gets then. This is a low fps game. My GTX 1050 Ti 4GB get around 25-32 fps, zoomed in, max graphics on 1080p monitor. 180k pop and 6-tiles vanilla. I own all DLC. I use 5.2GB RAM of 8GB. No other apps running.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1636546196

180,000 population with 75% CPU usage? Oh god, I imagine it spiking at 100% by the time my cities reach 300,000-600,000 population.

With a little optimization, the city will balance out again and get further. I've gotten to 688k so far. One other guy got 700k, no workshop, of course.

With workshop, you can get a million with little to no effort. I made one million in tiles with super demand and strictly residential and hardly a dip in performance.

[Newbsicle]

Your CPU isn't too bad and if you're running 2x4gb of ram you should be fine. If you're just using one stick of 8gb of ram that could be why you're bottlenecking. If you have a single 8gb stick of ram then you're not taking advantage of dualchannel. If you sell off your 8gb stick and get 2x4gb sticks that should net you an additional 20-25fps.

If that's not the issue then you you may need to think about uprgrading your video card. You can get a GTX 970 for about $120.00 used right now. In fact I have one I will sell you if you're interested. Otherwise you might be better off spending a little more and getting a more "future proof" graphics card like the GTX 1060, 1070 ti or a used 1080. If you do get a new graphics card, make sure you get one with at least 6gb of vram. Your current card might be one of the older 960 cards with only 2gb of vram.

Good luck!

[Catratio]

Yeah I got 2x4 GB so no worries there. My 960 is a 2GB version. I'm slightly annoyed because when I got it three years ago most all of the reviews said 2GB was enough, 4GB was overkill and would not be needed for a long time. Obviously not true now but still I have no regrets, this is an awesome card and for $100 new at the time it was a bargain. I will want to upgrade in the next couple years but will probably make a new PC for that. So far what I've heard of the new 2000 series cards they are not really worth it so I'll wait for the next edition I guess.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Catratio:

Yeah I got 2x4 GB so no worries there. My 960 is a 2GB version. I'm slightly annoyed because when I got it three years ago most all of the reviews said 2GB was enough, 4GB was overkill and would not be needed for a long time. Obviously not true now but still I have no regrets, this is an awesome card and for $100 new at the time it was a bargain. I will want to upgrade in the next couple years but will probably make a new PC for that. So far what I've heard of the new 2000 series cards they are not really worth it so I'll wait for the next edition I guess.

It doesn't matter for the 2000 series cards, they have now raised the 1000 series cards to the same price. so it cost the same now.

But yeah, raytracing isn't even supported yet, and it usually takes 5-years before we start seeing a lot of titles using it.

I think it was just another excuse for nvidia to raise prices yet again, for subpar cards. the x80 series cards used to be under $550 recently, now they are $800. Titan cards used to be under $1,000, now it's $2,500! It's getting crazy.

I had to buy a new card. I was going to get a 1080, but the 2070 is same price and performs a little better on average. So I got the 2070 instead. It was $50 cheaper as 1080 are $550 or more.