Running slow on my Mac

[rikkitikki]

Just downloaded the game recently to my 6 yr. old imac and love it madly but now after building up 2 city squares pretty densely (just started a third) I'm getting a lot of lag -- so much in fact it's beginning to be unplayable. I lowered all the quality settings to Low or off. I have an imac running 16 GB memory. Any other mac users having this issue? Is 16 GB not enough?

[ams083]

I too used to run this game on an iMac - mid 2011 (this was back around when the game first launched - so the system was only 4-5 years old then). It had 16gb ram, was an i5 with a radeon 1GB graphics card... can't remember exact specs - but it was clunky. Would go OK with just vanilla. Took ages to load - and you could forget about any workshop items - just made it much worse. When it was time to get a new system I ended up back with a fully custom PC (got exactly what I wanted for much cheaper). Haven't looked back since. My current system would be approaching 2-3 years old and hasn't missed a beat.

So I would take a fair punt and say its just the iMac. What are the rest of your specs? Are you using workshop items?

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by rikkitikki:

Just downloaded the game recently to my 6 yr. old imac and love it madly but now after building up 2 city squares pretty densely (just started a third) I'm getting a lot of lag -- so much in fact it's beginning to be unplayable. I lowered all the quality settings to Low or off. I have an imac running 16 GB memory. Any other mac users having this issue? Is 16 GB not enough?

It depends on the iMac. They are basically just a laptop stuffed inside a monitor, so they tend to be weak in general. More for office, not gaming.

Post your specs. If you can't find out, use the SXteam app and click on help and select System Information and post it here. It should copy and paste.

[rikkitikki]

Thanks for your input.

Looking at my About this Mac... 21.5 inch iMac (late 2013), Processor - 3.1 GHz Intel Core i7. Memory 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3, Graphics - NVIDEA GeForce 750M 1 GB.

From what I could glean from 20 minutes of research it seems the game is known to be borderline performance on most 21.5 iMacs and Macbook Pros. Of course, if I spring for the top of the line Mac with 32 GB RAM I'm sure it would run smoothly but not sure I can justify the cost, at least not for another year or so.

[rikkitikki]

Forgot to reply to ams... No, I haven't tried the Workshop items. Sounds like that's not an option for me. :(

Mark... funny, I was always imprssed with this Mac and I've never had any issues with running games or sims or anything else (except for that disastrous Sim City reboot in 2015 or so). But Cities Skylines seems to really tap it out. I wonder though if the OS might also be an issue. I'm currently running Mohave after making the mistake of trying the new OS (Catalina) before they worked the usual bugs out of it.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by rikkitikki:

Thanks for your input.

Looking at my About this Mac... 21.5 inch iMac (late 2013), Processor - 3.1 GHz Intel Core i7. Memory 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3, Graphics - NVIDEA GeForce 750M 1 GB.

From what I could glean from 20 minutes of research it seems the game is known to be borderline performance on most 21.5 iMacs and Macbook Pros. Of course, if I spring for the top of the line Mac with 32 GB RAM I'm sure it would run smoothly but not sure I can justify the cost, at least not for another year or so.

What are you saying is poor about the game? This is a simulator and uses CPU more than an average game, plus has lower FPS than average (about 30 fps sustained max).

You GT 750m is a little weak, It has standard DDR3 memory, and not GDDR5 graphics memory, but at least it has its own memory and not using your system RAM. But that's an office video card, more than a gaming card.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by rikkitikki:

Forgot to reply to ams... No, I haven't tried the Workshop items. Sounds like that's not an option for me. :(

Mark... funny, I was always impressed with this Mac and I've never had any issues with running games or sims or anything else (except for that disastrous Sim City reboot in 2015 or so). But Cities Skylines seems to really tap it out. I wonder though if the OS might also be an issue. I'm currently running Mohave after making the mistake of trying the new OS (Catalina) before they worked the usual bugs out of it.

I'd search around for Catalina issues. It always takes Apple a year to work out the kinks, especially for this game. I think it is more with Unity than anything else.

If you had issues with running Simcity 2013, then this is going to be more power hungry than that one.

[rikkitikki]

I'm not saying anything is poor about the game. Quite the contrary I love it. It's just that it runs poorly on this iMac, no doubt for the reasons you cited. I suppose most of my games are not as demanding so I never had issues running anything else before now. I don't count the last SimCity, that was infamously buggy, not just slow/memory hungry. But I appreciate your understanding of the innards and Mac vs Pc perspective.

[MarkJohnson]

I mean what are your symptoms. I don't know what specific thing(s) are "Running Poorly" means.

The last SimCity ran fine. It was very optimized. The mechanics were executed poorly. But performance was always fine.

[rikkitikki]

Oh, sorry, I meant lagging and choppy movement, mostly. Also an occasional freeze or wacky chroma issue (entire screen turns light blue) which causes me to force quit. When I start it up again it usually runs fine for a while, even a day or two.

I've read more than one article referring to how glitchy and untested SimCity was so it was not just me. I don't remember if the reviews pertained to just Mac owners or not but I assume so.

[ams083]

Originally posted by rikkitikki:

Thanks for your input.... Of course, if I spring for the top of the line Mac with 32 GB RAM I'm sure it would run smoothly but not sure I can justify the cost, at least not for another year or so.

That’s why I went back to PC. Couldn’t justify the spend on an iMac with a mid range system when I could get high end for cheaper. I ended up spending $2500 for a PC (this is including 32” monitor and peripherals).

Mind you, the only reason I got the iMac in the first place was because I was working in retail at the time, and we had an Apple bar in the store, it was a clearance model that I was able to use my staff discount on, so it was a good buy.

[MarkJohnson]

Sounds like overheating issues to me. When was this thing last cleaned? They have crappy laptop coolers that clog up quickly. Probably needs new paste as well. You CPU may be damaged by now as well and be unstable even if you fix it from degradation from excessive heat. Can you feel the exhaust port blowing out good amounts of air? Do the fans ramp up loud? Does it stay loud or go up and down while playing the game?

Here's a video of how to replace CPU, so you can either just try cleaning the heatsink, or just remove the heatsink assembly and repaste it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOkVJAvho0E

[wim1234]

Originally posted by rikkitikki:

Oh, sorry, I meant lagging and choppy movement, mostly. Also an occasional freeze or wacky chroma issue (entire screen turns light blue) which causes me to force quit. When I start it up again it usually runs fine for a while, even a day or two.

I've read more than one article referring to how glitchy and untested SimCity was so it was not just me. I don't remember if the reviews pertained to just Mac owners or not but I assume so.

its the vidcard, i gb vram is sooo low, so there is constant swapping of textures => lag

[LemonsterOG]

I run on MacBook Pro 2019. I have included performance settings in this:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1872602765

In this guide, there are links to other performance related topics.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1911576036

[REEEEEEEEEEEEE!]

I also have an late 2013 iMac 16GB i5 with Nvidia GT 750M. On macOS Cities: Skylines performance is choppy. In Bootcamp Windows 10 same machine the performance is much smoother. Unfortunately many games just don't run well on macOS.

My advice would be to install Bootcamp get a cheap Windows 10 license - ebay etc - and get the latest Nvidia Mobile Graphics Driver 425.31-notebook-win10-64bit-international-whql.

[leftbehind]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=465790009

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1938493221