Upgrading from Samsung EVO 1TB Sata to M.2 (NVME) useful?

[Snowwie]

According to the specs both these drives are nearly the same, except for the amount of IOPS.
The sata version reaches speeds up to - 4K/QD32 Read/Write: 98,000 & 90,000 IOPS
The m.2. version on the other hand does - 4K/QD32 Read/Write : 600,000 & 550,000 IOPS

My system is as follows:
- Motherboard Asus X99-A
- Intel Core i7 5820k hexacore processor 3,3Ghz (OC to 4,0Ghz)
- Aorus Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080Ti
- 64GB DDR4 Ram (2,133Mhz) (is the maximum amount my motherboard can handle)
- Samsung EVO 860 1TB system drive (which also contain CS)

Cities Skylines draws heavily on CPU and Memory. I think that my CPU is pretty fast enough, I can run a 300,000 pop city in 4K resolution and keep around 20-30fps. But usually I switch back to 1920x1080p for better gaming experience, although the 4K resolution makes the game just 'look' better.

Still the loading times are pretty much, several minutes, from the standard sata SSD. I would think, based on that the game must load a lot of little files (assets) that an M.2. ssd a lot faster is than a regular sata ssd.

Memory wise I cannot go further. The only thing there I could do is replace all the memory with 3,200mhz memory (OC), but the current 2,133Mhz memory is already running in quad channel mode. So I don't think I can get more out of that. Besides I never saw Cities Skylines uses more than 26 or 27GB of ram.

Another processor, might be possible, but I don't know if CS would be benefiting an 8 core processor. Sadly enough for the X99 platform the amount of processors on a 2011-3 socket are limited. The only viable processor in my case would be the Intel Core i7-6900K Boxed. This 8-core processor runs at 3.2 - 4.0Ghz, but also punches an 800 euro hole in your wallet. Seems not reasonable.

The M.2. ssd, although also 'pricey' around 200 euro, is more doable. But do you guys think that 6 times the amount of IOPS makes any difference?

[CyberVibes]

The biggest difference between those drives is the speeds they can transfer, as shown here https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Samsung-970-Pro-NVMe-PCIe-M2-1TB-vs-Samsung-860-Evo-1TB/m497261vsm423831 A Nvme drive is a worthy upgrade to get away from a sata system that was never really designed for storage. Also go for a large Nvme drive like the 1TB 970 Pro as the bigger drives are faster and live longer.

The rest of your system is more than enough apart from your rams speed but not sure if it's worth you buying another 64GB just to get an extra 500mhz as most games can't utilise speeds greater than 2666mhz but if you use the pc for video editing and heavy resource using programs then it might be worth considering.

The biggest spanner in the works for high end machines is the how the games been written in 16bit you'll probably hit this wall before your resources are used up

[Snowwie]

My motherboard is already maxed out with 64GB of ram, so I cannot add another 64GB. But still, this system is already 4 years old, I bought it in 2015, when Haswell was just brand new. With the newer generations I don't see much of a increase of CPU speeds. Those speeds remain on average between 3.5 and 4.0 Ghz.

[CyberVibes]

I didn't mean adding another 64GB i mean't upgrading to faster wouldn't really be worthwhile due to the cost involved but no doubt it would make the machine faster.

I think other than an Nvme any upgrade to what you have would be too costly even tho you would see performance increases if you did, i would start saving for some new gen hardware, you can transfer both SSD and Nvme so there's no loss there.

[Snowwie]

But that's the whole issue, even though my system is 5th generation, X99 platform, Haswell, dating back from 2015, it is still a HEXA core processor which I have at standard overclock on 4.0 Ghz. I can get it stabilized up to 4.6Ghz, at 4.8Ghz it's starts to buckle under the heat, since I only use a (massive though) Noctua Tower Aircooler. At 5.0Ghz it works only a few minutes, then it's crashes. But my point is, I don't see that much increase in CPU power, even in the later generations of CPU's. Not with speed anyway. And also, is it not said that Cities Skylines does not use more than 6 cores at all? I thought that I read that somewhere. If I had to upgrade to "significantly" beef up my current system what kind of processor and memory would you advise?

[MarkJohnson]

I had the exact same system as you, except 32GB and a regular GTX 1080. I had zero issue, ob even a 7,000 workshop city.

Not sure the exact performance issue you are having, but this game will never maintain over 30 fps nor use more than 8-threads (4-core/8-threads is all that is needed). Your 5820k is 6-core/12-thread and should be practically idle. I think mine was 40% on my 650k city. I don't use workshop, so your workshop will slow it down even more. The extra cores may help a little on the mods, but the game is limited to 30ish fps by the game itself, probably Unity related.

I even overclocked my 5820k to 4.4.ghz with no noticeable differences. Maybe some benchmark would show it, but in game the FPS were roughly the same (fluctuates a lot, but never over 30 fps by much, nor for long)

Your motherboard will support 128GB (16GB sticks) with latest MB BIOS updates. It will surpass 2133 Mhz by far. iirc, I had 3200 Mhz working without issue (4x8GB) I ended up putting them back to the 2400Mhz as there was no discernible difference in performance for me.

But I went from a Samsung 840 Pro sata3 SSD, to Samsung 960 Pro NVME, it was only slightly noticeable. But drive tech is so fast for any SSD, it just isn't noticeable without a stopwatch or more likely an app. iirc, my SSD was doing around 128 assets per second, while my NVME was around 138 assets per second. like only 10% faster for a drive that was 4x faster.

But most slow load times are from the CPU processing all of the data to load in your city. I think my system takes a full minute to get to the LSM loading of assets, which only takes a few seconds to load them all. I mean 10 seconds will load over 1,000 assets.

Other slowdown are, that mods need to be compiled by the game, so that will add some extra time as well.

If your page file isn't big enough, or you let windows manage it, it will spend a lot of time resizing the page file constantly as windows resizes it a lot as it only loads a small amount of workshop at a time, then pauses to resize it, loads a small amount again, then resizes again, doing this over and over. It's best to just max out your page file manually to triple your RAM so it doesn't have to deal with resizing all of the time.

But your saved games should load in 2-3 minutes tops, with everything.

[Snowwie]

Originally posted by MarkJohnson:

I had the exact same system as you, except 32GB and a regular GTX 1080. I had zero issue, ob even a 7,000 workshop city.

Not sure the exact performance issue you are having, but this game will never maintain over 30 fps nor use more than 8-threads (4-core/8-threads is all that is needed). Your 5820k is 6-core/12-thread and should be practically idle. I think mine was 40% on my 650k city. I don't use workshop, so your workshop will slow it down even more. The extra cores may help a little on the mods, but the game is limited to 30ish fps by the game itself, probably Unity related.

I even overclocked my 5820k to 4.4.ghz with no noticeable differences. Maybe some benchmark would show it, but in game the FPS were roughly the same (fluctuates a lot, but never over 30 fps by much, nor for long)

Your motherboard will support 128GB (16GB sticks) with latest MB BIOS updates. It will surpass 2133 Mhz by far. iirc, I had 3200 Mhz working without issue (4x8GB) I ended up putting them back to the 2400Mhz as there was no discernible difference in performance for me.

But I went from a Samsung 840 Pro sata3 SSD, to Samsung 960 Pro NVME, it was only slightly noticeable. But drive tech is so fast for any SSD, it just isn't noticeable without a stopwatch or more likely an app. iirc, my SSD was doing around 128 assets per second, while my NVME was around 138 assets per second. like only 10% faster for a drive that was 4x faster.

But most slow load times are from the CPU processing all of the data to load in your city. I think my system takes a full minute to get to the LSM loading of assets, which only takes a few seconds to load them all. I mean 10 seconds will load over 1,000 assets.

Other slowdown are, that mods need to be compiled by the game, so that will add some extra time as well.

If your page file isn't big enough, or you let windows manage it, it will spend a lot of time resizing the page file constantly as windows resizes it a lot as it only loads a small amount of workshop at a time, then pauses to resize it, loads a small amount again, then resizes again, doing this over and over. It's best to just max out your page file manually to triple your RAM so it doesn't have to deal with resizing all of the time.

But your saved games should load in 2-3 minutes tops, with everything.

I don't know what is wrong with my Cities Skylines, which mod is borking the whole game up.
I just made a city with 'just' 57k people, and after loading I get this ♥♥♥♥ AGAIN.....:

http://www.everythingtech.nl/online/crappy01.jpg

Memory wise it's not a real issue, in this case the game was only using just over 12GB and the processor was not even working, at least not based on this screen:

http://www.everythingtech.nl/online/crappy02.jpg

But when looking at Speccy I saw a complete other picture.

http://www.everythingtech.nl/online/crappy03.jpg

I was like, whuttt. 6 cores pumping at 4,4Ghz being around 70C and I could definitely hear the blower going. Weird. Maybe because ingame there are conflicting issues.

My Page File is custom set between 8,000 and 32,000 MB.

The mainboard might work with those sticks and also with those speeds but does the processor like that?

Still weird the taskmanager reports the processor only doing 32%.

http://www.everythingtech.nl/online/crappy04.jpg

Anyway, I had once a city of 350k+ population and run fine on 4K at ~40fps without hickups, and it was all BEFORE I started using MODS and Assets.
Especially after adding some Anachy mods (Fine Road Anarchy and normal Anarchy) I noticed these weird things happening. I also suspect the 81 tiles mod, but some do not mention any problems. Below a list of the mods I use:

http://www.everythingtech.nl/online/crappy05.jpg

[Pirazel]

You have a mod problem. The harware is absolutely fine for the game. Better post the list of mods you are using. People might see what causes problems.

[leftbehind]

Yes, if you're getting slow loading times it's almost certainly issue with mods. I list some load-slowing mods in this guide (they can add minutes to load times, especially if you have lots of "Road" assets from workshop that they iterate):

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

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Snowwie:

I don't know what is wrong with my Cities Skylines, which mod is borking the whole game up.
I just made a city with 'just' 57k people, and after loading I get this ♥♥♥♥ AGAIN.....:

http://www.everythingtech.nl/online/crappy01.jpg

Please share screenshots on Steam and link them here, so we don't get sent to outside links.

But when looking at Speccy I saw a complete other picture.

http://www.everythingtech.nl/online/crappy03.jpg

I was like, whuttt. 6 cores pumping at 4,4Ghz being around 70C and I could definitely hear the blower going. Weird. Maybe because ingame there are conflicting issues.

Yes, pushing a 3.3 GHz CPU at 4.4 GHz will generate more heat.

Make sure it is clean, maybe repaste the CPU as it may be dried out and not conducting heat. Maybe old fan? Maybe better case fans to exit the hot air more quickly?

Maybe try a different CPU temp monitor program to compare.

Anyway, I had once a city of 350k+ population and run fine on 4K at ~40fps without hickups, and it was all BEFORE I started using MODS and Assets.
Especially after adding some Anachy mods (Fine Road Anarchy and normal Anarchy) I noticed these weird things happening. I also suspect the 81 tiles mod, but some do not mention any problems. Below a list of the mods I use:

http://www.everythingtech.nl/online/crappy05.jpg

That is only a partial list on mods. The full list is in Content Manager under Mods.

But, workshop are extra and use up more resources and add extra loads. That's why FPS drops and CPU usage goes up along with heat output plus memory usage increases.

Always test your FPS zoomed-in and in a busy intersection for best results. As you zoom out, the FPS goes up from less details.

[Snowwie]

Originally posted by MarkJohnson:

Originally posted by Snowwie:

I don't know what is wrong with my Cities Skylines, which mod is borking the whole game up.
I just made a city with 'just' 57k people, and after loading I get this ♥♥♥♥ AGAIN.....:

http://www.everythingtech.nl/online/crappy01.jpg

Please share screenshots on Steam and link them here, so we don't get sent to outside links.

But when looking at Speccy I saw a complete other picture.

http://www.everythingtech.nl/online/crappy03.jpg

I was like, whuttt. 6 cores pumping at 4,4Ghz being around 70C and I could definitely hear the blower going. Weird. Maybe because ingame there are conflicting issues.

Yes, pushing a 3.3 GHz CPU at 4.4 GHz will generate more heat.

Make sure it is clean, maybe repaste the CPU as it may be dried out and not conducting heat. Maybe old fan? Maybe better case fans to exit the hot air more quickly?

Maybe try a different CPU temp monitor program to compare.

Anyway, I had once a city of 350k+ population and run fine on 4K at ~40fps without hickups, and it was all BEFORE I started using MODS and Assets.
Especially after adding some Anachy mods (Fine Road Anarchy and normal Anarchy) I noticed these weird things happening. I also suspect the 81 tiles mod, but some do not mention any problems. Below a list of the mods I use:

http://www.everythingtech.nl/online/crappy05.jpg

That is only a partial list on mods. The full list is in Content Manager under Mods.

But, workshop are extra and use up more resources and add extra loads. That's why FPS drops and CPU usage goes up along with heat output plus memory usage increases.

Always test your FPS zoomed-in and in a busy intersection for best results. As you zoom out, the FPS goes up from less details.

Well, even now my CS will not even start basic maps, it gives an error message (which I can send to the developers). Anyway, the list of mods that are stated under the Workshop ingame is difficult to copy / paste. So, I just type what I see (and what is enabled):

- 81 Tiles
- Automatic Bulldoze v2
- Automatic Emptying
- Building Themes
- Decal Prop Fix
- Environment Changer (%%)
- Extra Landscaping Tools (**)
- Loading Screen Mod
- Move It 2.5.0
- Network Extensions 2
- Network Tiling
- NotSoUniqueBuildings
- Precision Engineering
- Quay Anarchy
- Rebuild It
- Round About Builder
- Super Demand
- TM/PE 10.20
- Tree Brush (^^)
- Unlimited Money
- Unlimited Oil and Ore
- Unlimited Soil (%%)
- Unlimited Trees Mod (^^)
- Unlimited Outside Connections
- Unlock All (progression milestones are always unlocked)
- Unlock All + Wonders & Landmarks
- Unlock All Roads
- Unlock Public Transport
- Unlock Landscaping (**)
- View Limits
- Watch It!
- Zoom It

So, already by seeing this list fully I see some issues arising because there are definitely mods that are conflicting with each other or doing to same thing (I marked suspicious one with equal symbols). The question now arises, what to keep and what to delete. Especially with the Unlock options. Tips and suggestions are welcome.

[MarkJohnson]

In the troubleshooter guide by Aubergine18 has a mod compatibility list and what they should be replaced with.