Cities Skylines 2

[J4MES OX4D 10,018]

Announced today by Paradox. Also coming to consoles

 

[JM 1,603]

I look forward to seeing what they do with this. I found the last game to be really enjoyable, but it did just seem like a traffic simulator at times!

[GazzaGarratt 11,034]

How different is this to the traditional and longstanding Sim City series? Sim City 2000 meant alot to me back in the day, really enjoyed playing it (especially with the cheat code giving you loads of money to do what you wanted as it was super hard as a kid!). Only Jurassic World Evolution has come close to that feeling but clearly thats a niche subject to build the game around.

[JM 1,603]

1 hour ago, GazzaGarratt said:

How different is this to the traditional and longstanding Sim City series? Sim City 2000 meant alot to me back in the day, really enjoyed playing it (especially with the cheat code giving you loads of money to do what you wanted as it was super hard as a kid!). Only Jurassic World Evolution has come close to that feeling but clearly thats a niche subject to build the game around.

 

I found Skylines to be a lot less arcade-like compared to City 2000. Really enjoyed playing it when I got the chance. There's loads of DLC and mods too.

[J4MES OX4D 10,018]

2 hours ago, GazzaGarratt said:

How different is this to the traditional and longstanding Sim City series? Sim City 2000 meant alot to me back in the day, really enjoyed playing it (especially with the cheat code giving you loads of money to do what you wanted as it was super hard as a kid!). Only Jurassic World Evolution has come close to that feeling but clearly thats a niche subject to build the game around.

As other James said , it's a lot less arcadey and definitely has more depth. It doesn't quite have the charm or personality that many of the SIm City games had but it makes up with it for being really expansive. Pity EA killed the Sim City brand really but Skylines is a great successor in the domain and there aren't many of these games around now. 

[GazzaGarratt 11,034]

Ah super, would rather try a more simulated game rather than arcade-wise. As long as it doesn't lose you in the detail I'll keep an eye out for this one.

[J4MES OX4D 10,018]

Well this is disappointing - developers acknowledged it ran like shit but they'll release it anyway. Performance looks atrocious 

 

IGN review also picked out a major issue whereby terrain was largely uneven so any placed assets look warped which destroys immersion. 

[Greboth 2,721]

It’s a weird one as you have people like in the video saying performance is unplayable.  Yet others, like Biffa, running it at 1440p with almost everything on high and getting a solid 60fps (v-sync) while streaming.  Now yes, Biffa has a 4090, but with his settings and streaming you’d expect to see some issues.

 

I’ve seen 2 plausible answers; the first is a bug that means low isn’t low settings such as keeping the different LoD textures loaded even though the high res won’t ever be used.  There’s also already been a bug found that the game defaults to the system resolution even though it doesn’t say it has and you have to manually change it back.

 

The other is hardware though sample size is relatively low still.  But it seems those with GPU’s with lots of VRAM aren’t suffering with performance as much.  Then those with with high VRAM and high system RAM again are suffering even fewer problems.  Why it needs so much VRAM and RAM though is up in the air and something that will need to be fixed if they want it to run on consoles as planned.

 

Neither excuse the game being launched as it is but it’ll be interesting to see how quickly they can fix it.  As it could give an indication as to if it’s just a bug or a systemic issue with the game.

 

Personally I’m keeping my preorder though so will report back how it runs.

[JM 1,603]

The YouTubers I watch are enjoying it and I think it looks like a good game.

[Greboth 2,721]

 

CPP Benchmark video with some interesting findings.

 

TL;DW

- 8Gb VRAM is pretty much required.  It’s playable on lower but 1% lows get very low

- V-sync should be kept off.  1% lows are far better with it off (some GPU’s seeing 10x the fps) though doesn’t seem to change average fps.

- 1080p recommended but 1440p possible on high end GPU’s.  4k is pretty much a no go even on an RTX4090.

- FPS drop with city size is not linear.  0-25k population saw a large drop while 75k-100k only a few fps.

 

It’s worth a watch to get the full picture but they were the points that stood out for me.

[J4MES OX4D 10,018]

The terrain issues is something they need to address urgently 

Cities: Skylines 2's weird terrain quirks mean you'll need to start landscaping immediately | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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Smooth out those bumps.

 

Any assets placed should automatically flatten the terrain but right now, the objects warp around the terrain and it looks terrible. People don't want to be faffing around flattening every pixel just to place an object.