Is Cities Skylines CPU, GPU or RAM intensive?

[GIGA.]

Just wanted to know :3

[El Destructo]

I don't have any hard stats, but my money is on CPU and RAM from having to calculate all the agents of the simulation and keep data on them stored in memory. It can be visually impressive, especially with mods, but that doesn't seem to be the biggest draw on system resources.

[GIGA.]

Originally posted by El Destructo:

I don't have any hard stats, but my money is on CPU and RAM from having to calculate all the agents of the simulation and keep data on them stored in memory. It can be visually impressive, especially with mods, but that doesn't seem to be the biggest draw on system resources.

Hmm.. good point and it makes me wonder if all simulations games usually takes more CPU stuffs than the GPU

[Marcy]

Pretty much all of them. I've noticed the CPU usage isn't too bad, but then again I have a i7 4790. It all equals out, really. The CPU usage will go up accordingly because of the agent simulation going on, the GPU will go up because of all the visuals and textures having to be rendered at one time, and the RAM... Well, basically does what RAM usually does. Storing temporary data.

So, yes. It's pretty intensive on all of it. I've noticed the heaviest hit being on my GPU though. Almost all my VRAM is used, and the usage % is pretty high.

[wiarumas]

I was curious myself so I decided to check it very unofficially using just third party usage applications, temperatures, and returning all overclocking to stock levels. Game is on max settings for the most part - some might be turned down. A lot of mods are on.

I loaded up one of my more recent cities with a population of around 200k. I have an i5 4690 and it was under full load (99%... about 90% of it going to Skyline and the other 10% to various other programs). I don't experience any performance issues though. Everything seems smooth and quick. Night time bumped CPU to 100% using 96% for Skyline. Again, no issues though.

My memory usage was only at 49%. Slightly more than 4GB going to Skyline and another 3GB or so going to other applications I have open (16GB RAM total). Night time bumped it up to 53% using 4.6GB.

GPU is a 290. When I move around the map, it jumps to 100% usage as it quicky renders all the buildings and stuff and then drops to nearly 0%. Sometimes hovers around 30-40% for a second or two. MHz used is around 560-800MHz out of the 1000MHz.

So, I'd say definitely CPU is the most important. GPU is pretty important. RAM... as long as you have enough.

[Mansen]

Originally posted by GIGA.:

Is Cities Skylines CPU, GPU or RAM intensive?

Yes

[Karlmeister]

Originally posted by wiarumas:

I was curious myself so I decided to check it very unofficially using just third party usage applications, temperatures, and returning all overclocking to stock levels. Game is on max settings for the most part - some might be turned down. A lot of mods are on.

I loaded up one of my more recent cities with a population of around 200k. I have an i5 4690 and it was under full load (99%... about 90% of it going to Skyline and the other 10% to various other programs). I don't experience any performance issues though. Everything seems smooth and quick. Night time bumped CPU to 100% using 96% for Skyline. Again, no issues though.

My memory usage was only at 49%. Slightly more than 4GB going to Skyline and another 3GB or so going to other applications I have open (16GB RAM total). Night time bumped it up to 53% using 4.6GB.

GPU is a 290. When I move around the map, it jumps to 100% usage as it quicky renders all the buildings and stuff and then drops to nearly 0%. Sometimes hovers around 30-40% for a second or two. MHz used is around 560-800MHz out of the 1000MHz.

So, I'd say definitely CPU is the most important. GPU is pretty important. RAM... as long as you have enough.

I got a similar rig (4690K @ 4.5 GHz + 8 GB RAM + GTX 970) and my 240k city loads my CPU between 75~100%. Cities.exe process uses 3.8 GB (almost 6.5 GB of virtual memory).

Game runs at 4k (downsampled to full HD) and my GPU load is between 75~100% too. FPS goes beetween 20 (while zooming in) and 35 (zoom out).

At some point while city grows up, CPU is more important than GPU. Proof of that is if I run the game at full HD, FPS don't go up.

[Zaunpfahl42]

From my observations on two machines: CPU + RAM are more important than graphics.

On my old rig, Core2Quad @ 2.4 GHz + 4GB RAM + AMD 4870 (512MB VRam!) the game ran fine around 30 fps up until 70-80k inhabitants in the city. But: simulation speed was already getting lower beyond the 50k mark. Days passing by slower and time acceleration getting almost useless. Then I bought an Geforce 780 and it did not get particularly better. FPS went up, but simulation speed only slightly got better.
My new rig i7-4790k @4.0GHz + 8 GB RAM + Geforce 780 (yes it went into the new one then) I can play 100k cities without any problems and with dynamic resolution on 175% and SMAA activated on steady 30fps and no impact on simulation speed. Although CPU and RAM usage also go up to almost 100% as with my old machine.
These observations were made pre After Dark though, I now notice a big fps drop during night times. Probably need to turn down dynamic res and switch to a less intensive AA-mode.

[sugarwhore92]

I'm running a 4GB Gigabyte GTX 970 and i5 3570k @ 4.6Ghz. It's mostly VRAM and CPU heavy.

[baleksus]

This game is memory leak simulator. My 8 GB RAM isn't enough, apparently.

[GIGA.]

Originally posted by Marcy:

Pretty much all of them. I've noticed the CPU usage isn't too bad, but then again I have a i7 4790. It all equals out, really. The CPU usage will go up accordingly because of the agent simulation going on, the GPU will go up because of all the visuals and textures having to be rendered at one time, and the RAM... Well, basically does what RAM usually does. Storing temporary data.

So, yes. It's pretty intensive on all of it. I've noticed the heaviest hit being on my GPU though. Almost all my VRAM is used, and the usage % is pretty high.

Thanks for the reply, yeah the agent simulation thing, same thing with SimCity, I got high CPU usage specially when the population is getting higher

[GIGA.]

Originally posted by wiarumas:

I was curious myself so I decided to check it very unofficially using just third party usage applications, temperatures, and returning all overclocking to stock levels. Game is on max settings for the most part - some might be turned down. A lot of mods are on.

I loaded up one of my more recent cities with a population of around 200k. I have an i5 4690 and it was under full load (99%... about 90% of it going to Skyline and the other 10% to various other programs). I don't experience any performance issues though. Everything seems smooth and quick. Night time bumped CPU to 100% using 96% for Skyline. Again, no issues though.

My memory usage was only at 49%. Slightly more than 4GB going to Skyline and another 3GB or so going to other applications I have open (16GB RAM total). Night time bumped it up to 53% using 4.6GB.

GPU is a 290. When I move around the map, it jumps to 100% usage as it quicky renders all the buildings and stuff and then drops to nearly 0%. Sometimes hovers around 30-40% for a second or two. MHz used is around 560-800MHz out of the 1000MHz.

So, I'd say definitely CPU is the most important. GPU is pretty important. RAM... as long as you have enough.

Thanks for the analysis thingy! At least we all now know Cities Skylines behind the scenes! :) Planning to upgrade my RAM though, it's the only thing upgradable for my laptop haha

[GIGA.]

Originally posted by sugarwhore92:

I'm running a 4GB Gigabyte GTX 970 and i5 3570k @ 4.6Ghz. It's mostly VRAM and CPU heavy.

too bad I can't upgrade both of those in my laptop

[GIGA.]

Originally posted by baleksus:

This game is memory leak simulator. My 8 GB RAM isn't enough, apparently.

Wait, the game has memory leak?

[Mr.Zombie]

Originally posted by baleksus:

This game is memory leak simulator. My 8 GB RAM isn't enough, apparently.

Got a lot of assets in a large city?

[Karlmeister]

I don't think the game have a memory leak. But yes, it's RAM hungry 'cause game has too many objects to handle.