City Skylines is slowed. Not Lag, but slow

[Bird Guy]

I was playing a custom map, but I noticed that the game was heavily slowed down. It wasn't lagging per se, as I believe I still had at least 20 fps, but the triple speed was the same as normal speed. You can tell because the people weren't
(Rolling around at the speed of sound, Got places to go, gotta follow my rainbow.)
Couldn't resist
But seriously HAAALP

[Aenarion]

Escrito originalmente por Phoenix C64:

the game engine slows down on purpose at some point, if it thinks your CPU is maxxed out.

some computers can handle 250K cims no problems, some even more... mine starts to slow down at 100K ish

Not just CPU. If I switch my laptop from AMD to integrated graphics it goes into slow motion (with frame rate staying the same). Though it's true that a typical gaming PC is more likely to be CPU limited than GPU.

[fatfluffycat]

I haven't played in a weeks, and I noticed a slow down too, even on the same save and pop. (100k) FPS was around 30 but it would drop to the low 20s sometimes.


It was a city from the first week of the game's release. I added and removed a lot of mods from it so I guess the save file was kind of "beat up"


I have 8gb of ram, a i5-4690 and a GTX 960

[skipper]

I just started playing this and in my city when first started it said i 0 people in for first couple of mins even though i did. Have you got to have this connected to internet to play as I been having problems with my internet been slow and cutting out for last 2 weeks. Could that be the problem. Rubbish sky and changing soon. I been getting 700kb download speed also.

[kreaturen]

Escrito originalmente por skipper:

I just started playing this and in my city when first started it said i 0 people in for first couple of mins even though i did. Have you got to have this connected to internet to play as I been having problems with my internet been slow and cutting out for last 2 weeks. Could that be the problem. Rubbish sky and changing soon. I been getting 700kb download speed also.

You don't need online connection to play this game. One of its selling points :P

[MarkJohnson]

Escrito originalmente por Eistein:

Is this confirmed?

Is what confirmed?

I use quite a lot of mods alright,

Mods are basically hacks to the game and alter the game play and use more memory and more resources, and can slow your sysytem down.

and have only just recently noticed a massive slowdown of the simulation...

Sudden slow downs can me multiple issues. Game updates, mod updates, mods abandoned, mods not updated. Mods altered, etc.

FPS remains the same, and CPU and memory have far from reached their limit.

Please post numbers. Pictures would be nice. System specs would be awesome.

So if this is the devs attempt at pushing the game past any old computer's limit, they could at least wait until it has actually reached its limit before kickin in!

Huh? if anything the game has been more effecient with latest patches. After Dark expansion (AD) added lighting, so if your mods are pre-AD then you may have lighting issues. Manually update all of your mods.

>_< Of course, as a mod user, I can't rule out the possibility that a mod might be responsible.

Mods are 99.99% the cvause. so I'd start there.

Here's a link to starting the game temporarily with no mods or assets. Video included.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=466981085

[kreaturen]

Well, my problem went away after I loaded an older city, just to see how 'it' was doing with all the mods and such. When I got back to my current city, the slowness was gone... A promblem that's been tormenting me for days, gone, just like that. This is very stange I think, and I guess I should consider myself lucky. It also indicate that something else besides mods might be going on here, whatever it is.

Anyway, thanks for your answer. That video might prove useful. I will provide more stats if it ever happens again.


Yeah, and about this:

Is what confirmed?

I was referring to this, the first answer:

the game engine slows down on purpose at some point, if it thinks your CPU is maxxed out.

some computers can handle 250K cims no problems, some even more... mine starts to slow down at 100K ish

So if this is the devs attempt at pushing the game past any old computer's limit, they could at least wait until it has actually reached its limit before kickin in!

I was expressing anger at above-mentioned answer, because my computer is factually not at its limit (According to Windows anyway, which I guess is not the most reliable source).

[MarkJohnson]

As for the game slowing down on purpose, no it doersn't. It slows down because your CPU becomes overloaded. If it is early on, the slow down occurs because of imbalance. Usually poor road design and/or excessive imports/export . This may happen as your city grows from varying demands and them constantly changing. Once things are back in balance (get traffic off the road) you gain back your performance.

It can artificially reach this limit with mods, especially mods that alter game play.

Not sure what you mean by factually not reaching your limit. But it is usually when you CPUs all reach 100%. It can reach 100% early on, but you still have your game speeds working. But they will become slower and slower until you lose all speed control.

I was at maybe 0.5 speed limit at one point on my i7-4790k, but after a game patch or few later, the game seemed better optimized and became greatly unburdened. Of course I had upgraded to an i7-5820k 6-core system and I don't even reach 50% usage anymore. Also, when I was at 0.5 speed, my game was very slow, but my FPS were maintained, since it was my CPU that was overloaded and n ot my graphics. I was able to lower my graphics to gain my speed back for a short while.

[Aenarion]

Escrito originalmente por rmjohnson144:

Also, when I was at 0.5 speed, my game was very slow, but my FPS were maintained, since it was my CPU that was overloaded and n ot my graphics.

If your gpu is overloaded it sometimes does the same thing (slow game at normal fps)

[MarkJohnson]

Escrito originalmente por rymeintrinseca:

Escrito originalmente por rmjohnson144:

Also, when I was at 0.5 speed, my game was very slow, but my FPS were maintained, since it was my CPU that was overloaded and n ot my graphics.

If your gpu is overloaded it sometimes does the same thing (slow game at normal fps)

It shouldn't. If your GPU is overloaded then it can't display images, after all the GPU only displays images and not game code.

Most likely you have a mod issue if this is happening to you?

[Aenarion]

Escrito originalmente por rmjohnson144:

Escrito originalmente por rymeintrinseca:

If your gpu is overloaded it sometimes does the same thing (slow game at normal fps)

It shouldn't. If your GPU is overloaded then it can't display images, after all the GPU only displays images and not game code.

Most likely you have a mod issue if this is happening to you?

I know it seems like that would logically be the case, but I sometimes play with dedicated GPU, sometimes with integrated GPU (e.g. when I'm preserving battery on a train), on the same laptop. I have the frame counter in the top right and the numbers are very similar, but the difference in simulation speed is ridiculous, it's at least five times faster with dedicated GPU I'd say.

I doubt it's due to mods, firstly because I use very few (five total and no resource intensive ones like Traffic++), and secondly, because it would be weird for a mod to affect integrated GPU but not dedicated.

There are many reasons why I might get these results. For instance, the game could be programmed to slow the simulation where the GPU is underpowered in order to reduce the amount of on-screen action at any moment. Whatever the reason, it's definitely happening.

Anyone who doubts this could try turning off their dedicated GPU. Obviously different set ups will work in different ways, so I can't promise it will slow down the simulation, but there's a chance it will.

[MarkJohnson]

Escrito originalmente por rymeintrinseca:

I know it seems like that would logically be the case, but I sometimes play with dedicated GPU, sometimes with integrated GPU (e.g. when I'm preserving battery on a train), on the same laptop. I have the frame counter in the top right and the numbers are very similar, but the difference in simulation speed is ridiculous, it's at least five times faster with dedicated GPU I'd say.

Yes, this is true as integrated graphics are well below minimum specs. They will naturally slow you down quickly if you don't meet at least minimum specs.

I doubt it's due to mods, firstly because I use very few (five total and no resource intensive ones like Traffic++), and secondly, because it would be weird for a mod to affect integrated GPU but not dedicated.

For you it is you don't meet minimum requirements if you disable your discrete video which seems to meet minimum requirements.

There are many reasons why I might get these results. For instance, the game could be programmed to slow the simulation where the GPU is under powered in order to reduce the amount of on-screen action at any moment. Whatever the reason, it's definitely happening.

This is just false to imply the game slows itself down. that would be just wasted code. It only slows down when your system becomes overloaded, either from not meeting minimum requirements or mod caused overload.

This is why there is despawning traffic and artificial agent limits in the game. So low powered systems can be successful at filling up the supported 9-tile of the map without ;lagging out or crashing.

Anyone who doubts this could try turning off their dedicated GPU. Obviously different set ups will work in different ways, so I can't promise it will slow down the simulation, but there's a chance it will.

It absolutely will at some point. No integrated graphics are fully supported. You can run on them to a limited extent, but sooner or later you will hit a slowdown if under minimum requirements.

But since we're referring to the OPs system that has high FPS but still has lag, implies he has an overloaded CPU. It's very hard to load the GPU of this game as it is very docile in comparison to FPS games (First Person Shooters), unless under game minimum requirements.

[Atlas]

If have exactly the same issue but on a way bigger scale I can see that it is because of my mods. But my CPU is at 40% load and the game is in slow mo' but the CPU sits at 40-50% but if I deactivate everything it's still the same tho a fraction faster BTW: Specs :

CPU : i5 6600k @ 4.5 GHz
Ram : 16Gb DDR-4 3990 MHz (Idk why)
GPU : GTX 1070 Superclocked 8GB

[Mashi]

Check CPU/GPU temps as well. Use something CPUz, if you've got anything higher then a FX6300 or I5/I7 equivlent. Since "hitting the wall" like that is more likely thermal throttling then anything else. But as someone else pointed out, the mods make a huge impact. And so does HDD speed.

If I load the game off my 2TB 7200rpm drive, I'll get an occasional "hitch" because the drive isn't fast enough to send data to the CPU. If I run it off my SSD, no such problems. The current city I have is 500 shy of 50k with no slowdowns and I'm running around 30 mods, not counting assets which I have nearly 1k loaded.

[Giraf]

I know this is a very old post, but perhaps someone will stumble upon it and find what fixed this issue for me. I tried to disable a few mods with no luck, but then i realized that i just used a tree-planting mod to fill most of my city with trees. I then enabled this mod again to delete all the trees besides the ones needed for forestry. This immediately removed the "slowing" of the game.

I was very baffled about this issue.. I have a beast of a computer at the time i write this, and the issue occurred already at 75k population.

[Jamessuperfun]

Escrito originalmente por Nerd Nuker X:

to the op, try shutting off EVERY asset and turn off every mod.

He is right, it is a limitation of the game. While assets and mods do affect FPS, even on my 1080Ti/1800X (neither of which are being stressed near 100%) I'm getting single digit FPS on my 200k city. Larger cities do not run well whatever you do, the game will slow down.

It isn't just as simple as lazy optimisation though, this game is trying to meet the demand to simulate every citizen (they have the same homes, cars, workplaces etc) as opposed to just assigning randomly for each journey like in SimCity. A lot of people asked for this, it isn't just a poor design choice.