Low FPS and low GPU utilization

[Shineblind]

on 5k population, I get ~15 FPS, I have a i7 2600k + 1060GTX 6GB, 16GB RAM,

my GPU usage never goes above ~18% and my CPU usage bounces between 50-70%.

is there any way to increase GPU usage and lower CPU usage to get better FPS?

[Blunk]

I have a similar issue. Big population and CPU and GPU has tons of resources to spare.
Pretty complicated to keep playing on the map. It's pretty unresponsive.
https://ibb.co/2Sqzj5W

[Monarch 🍕]

I think I can see the problem, you have 5k population. There's only so much 1 thread can do with end game status like this.

[Patch]

Same here:
Ryzen 7 3800X
32GB RAM
Radeon RX 6800 Nitro+ OC

average fps: 5,5
fun: 0,00

[WabbaCat]

TL;DR version: This is a bit of barking up the wrong tree. Not much that can be done from the game devs side other than optimizations to its CPU usage. Your GPU is ♥♥♥♥ out of luck.


This is a laymans perspective... but this is my understanding:
typically as time has progressed, GPU's have taken over processes that normally would have been handled by the CPU.
BUT... That has more to do with the functionality and capabilities of your GPU... not some magical slider the game dev can just adjust...
So, that is to say, GPU's CAN and HAVE taken over CPU functionality over time but you cannot blame a game for what it uses your GPU for,... I think thats up to your GPU's actual capability, not the game.
I believe this started back in 2010 or so,... but as far as how much your GPU ends up accelerating your CPU calculations... again, huge shrug there. 18% usage tells me the game is using your GPU far more than I would have guessed... I mean, look at the game. Graphically a potato should run it just as well even if it was straight out of 1995.

The main reason your GPU does not get used for a game like this, is specifically because this is a simulation type game this many non-graphical calculations present... and that means CPU usage. Thats where the real hold up is. You just won't see a GPU being used for this outside of some minor acceleration. I also can't stress enough that more powerful single core CPU's tend to perform better than higher core count CPU's when it comes to gaming. There is a very good reason for this- there is a limit to how much one can code to utilize those extra cores, when a majority of your code is depending on the code that comes before it. It just doesn't work well. That doesn't mean multi-core CPU's dont or cant perform well... But this applies to a VAST majority of games, even new ones. No matter how much that scene is getting better, its still the case. Multithreading was WAY too early for its time. What is going to matter is how well your CPU performs on 1 or at most 2 cores.... and the rest dont matter. Personally I ONLY buy quad core at most. I won't even consider a 6 core CPU.
You would be better off asking for them to make the game handle multi-core/multi-threading better before you asked for it to use the GPU more. And really, fat chance of that.


Who's to say how performance will be once its out of early access tho. I don't mean to get anyones hopes up, as I personally seldom see much difference between early access and release performance of games- but there is that possibility.
It stands to reason there are kinks in the code due to being in development.... as in performance gains to be had by optimization. The problem I tend to see tho is overall design flaws that WONT be changed tends to contribute far more to performance issues than these minor kinks they iron out later. Rimworld being a good example of that.
And with that said... at some point you have to stop and ask yourself... how much am I trying to push thru this game versus what it was designed for?

[xenxander]

The game isn't optimize for larger populations.
I get crashes often when dragon storms of 250 hit my city or when viking parties of over 30 ships rock my coast.
I saw years ago viking ship raids of 150+ ships. I can't imagine that today.
The game just as very poor optimization.

"They are Billions" can handle lots of foes on the screen and it doesn't chuck like this game does.

[Sililos]

My game runs pretty well regardless of population BUT when vikings spawn, regardless of if i have 20 people to 2000 my frame-rate tanks. This has been talked about for ages now but seems nothing ever gets done.

[João Caju]

The game seems a bit not optimized, but I think the real deal is the large population achievements.

When there is official incentive to push those high numbers, players will expect to get to them without much compromise on the performance.

[JD_Hernandez105]

So, this thread has been the closest to my actual question, but is there a way to see exactly how much RAM my game is currently using to run it? I can see & adjust this in games like Minecraft. I'm running the game on an i7-4790 with 16GB of RAM.

[Shineblind]

just open task manager

[martinscully]

I have the same problem with 2k population and up, and i have gtx 1060 6gb and i7 as well with 16 gig ddr3, smashes most games like battlefield and a load of other single player strategy games, like mentioned before I just don't think the game is optimised for such large populations (yet). Hopefully they will fix this or they will just end up capping the max population (which will just be boring)

[KoffeeDoggo]

this might be the game problem rather than your PC itself. the game wasnt optimised properly by the dev so that might be it. playing the Alpha version with the AI also lag out the game when the AI including me population increases.

[ShatteredSoldier]

i7 2600k Isn't really a strong CPU I would expect bottlenecking.