Cities: Skylines II

[R55NA]

As long as its still coming to Game Pass day one on PC...

 

[TheCracker]

Console release delayed until 2024, going to be a long winter watching all the PC players having fun with this while us console users can't

I thought something was up. I had it on my wishlist on the PS Store but it had dropped off when i last checked it. Wasn't showing up on preorders either so had to search for it. It's page is now showing 'Coming Soon'

Has there been any reason given for this?

edit:

We are hard at work getting the game ready for our release on October 24th. While doing so, we have come to realize that we need more time to reach the quality targets we have set. As we want to provide the best experience for our players, we are updating the release window for Xbox and PS5 to Spring 2024. The additional time allows us to focus on matching the quality and performance across all platforms.

So that's realistically going to be another six months or so. I sometimes wonder if developers do this to spread their profits over a longer period for tax reasons.

 

[eran0004]

I sometimes wonder if developers do this to spread their profits over a longer period for tax reasons.

Unlikely, I don’t think the publisher would be very happy with such a scheme.

 

[MatskiMonk]

I sometimes wonder if developers do this to spread their profits over a longer period for tax reasons.

I don't think it would be as cynical as that, what would be the real benefit to be had by doing that compared to just announcing a staggered release in the first place? Once a delay is announced I agree it's likely then to be structured to be a the start of another tax quarter, rather than just the earliest available opportunity, but to be honest, even that doesn't bother me too much - having the resource overhead available to tackle any post launch problems or bugs could be much easier to manage with a staggered release for a smaller developer.

 

[eran0004]

Looks like the trees are now changing appearance with the seasons. I guess we will find out more on that tomorrow, when the next bunch of videos are released.

 

[eran0004]

Mods will be handled via Paradox this time, which means that asset mods will be available for both PC and console. Code mods will remain exclusive to PC, due to console restrictions.

Some of the most prominent modders have been given early access to the game, so mods should start to appear relatively quickly after launch.

As for the trees mentioned in my previous post, it’s confirmed that they change appearance with the seasons. From what I have seen so far, autumn looks the best. In winter they turn grey and may get covered in snow, but it doesn’t look like they drop the leaves. Haven’t noticed any blossoms in spring either, hopefully that could be something they’ll add.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Mods will be handled via Paradox this time, which means that asset mods will be available for both PC and console.

I'm hoping they publish some sort of guidance or standards for Asset creators, there's some great stuff on the workshop, but the variance in quality, style, scale, texture quality etc. is pretty significant, and as someone that really wants to get into it, the amount of trial & error is off putting.

 

[Fezzik]

Oh boy

Cities: Skylines 2 performance has "not achieved the benchmark we targeted", Paradox admits ahead of launch

Ahead of Cities: Skylines 2's release next week, publisher Paradox Interactive has admitted the city building sequel ha…

www.eurogamer.net

Updates on Modding and Performance for Cities: Skylines II

MORE MODS FOR EVERYONE We know you have been waiting, and now it's time to share the latest developments regarding modding in Cities: Skylines II. First and foremost, our in-game editor is currently in its beta phase and will launch shortly...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

We will continually improve the game over the coming months, but we also want to manage expectations on performance for the coming release

 

[TheCracker]

So reading between the lines, they're treating the PC-only launch as a six month beta test before it hits all platforms some time in early '24.

 

[eran0004]

So reading between the lines, they're treating the PC-only launch as a six month beta test before it hits all platforms some time in early '24.

Just in terms of framerate. Not a big deal to me, I played most of CS1 at single digit fps.

Edit: With one of the mods I even had negative framerate from time to time, at least when it came to time progression and the sun’s position on the sky.

 

[R55NA]

Whiny Reviewer.

 

[Veinz]

It’s hard to trust any early or launch day reviews. Everybody does it though.

 

[R55NA]

 

[ProjectWHaT]

 

[Sprite]

I’ve been enjoying some of the gameplay videos being put out. While it seems like it has issues it sounds like they’ll be fixed at some point. It looks good fun.

I also really enjoyed this…

 

[Keef]

I watched City Planner's video concerning performance the other day and wasn't very impressed, especially since I just "upgraded" to an Intel A750. The game still needs a lot of optimization as Paradox has admitted.



That said, I went ahead and pre-ordered it a few days ago. Typically I hate pre-orders but a few days won't break the bank, and plus I'm pretty dedicated to the series and genre. Really looking forward to the realistic art style. I also recently went full-SSD almost specifically to help loading performance and data stability on this game - mods gave me serious problems in CS1 to the point where I haven't been able to play effectively for a couple years now. It was just too complicated to the get realistic style I wanted so I'm very happy that is how CS2 is designed from the ground up. Vanilla cities are looking as good as modded ones from before!

 

[MatskiMonk]

Pre-loading the game now. 51.6Gb, nearly 3 hours to download... Steam's slower than PSN!

 

[Keef]

Pre-loading the game now. 51.6Gb, nearly 3 hours to download... Steam's slower than PSN!

Maybe everybody in your city was pre-loading the game lol. Only taking 20 minutes for me but it's 10pm right now so not much else is going on.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Maybe everybody in your city was pre-loading the game lol.

Perhaps it was foreshadowing game performance issues

A lot of people seem unhappy with the reported FPS issues vs. Hardware requirements on Reddit.

I can understand some of the frustration or disappointment, but I don't really get some peoples expectations... like, is it really crucial to a city builder that it's 4k and 60fps?

Anyhow, only an hour or so to go before I find out how bad the PC I bought because of C:S two years ago actually is

 

[eran0004]

I’m downloading now, 50 minutes remaining…

Edit: 32 minutes remaining. Meanwhile, I’m reading about asset creation on the official wiki page, it seems like meshes from CS1 can be used pretty much as they are, but the texture format has changed to include more information. Masks were grayscale in CS1, now they are RGBA, where each channel acts as a separate mask.

I didn’t find any information about how windows are made, perhaps the interiors are actually modelled this time around and not automatically generated?

Asset Creation Guide - Cities Skylines 2 Wiki

cs2.paradoxwikis.com

 

[MatskiMonk]

Initial reaction...

1/ My system seems to be alright FPS wise.

2/ Going back to a world of no MoveIt or FindIt... I wasn't ready...

3/ Lots of Minor things are adding up to make C:S1 seem a decade older than it is.

 

[Dave A]

Got anoyne who has had time to play this, how does it compare to C:S? And how is it for bugs etc? I'm considering buying this next week? There's no point now as I won't get any chance to play it before next week, but I might delay longer depending on bugs etc. It looks like I'll definitely buy it sooner or later from what I've seen so far.

 

[Tornado]

This runs embarrassingly bad. CO is alleging that it's supposed to run well on a 6800/5800 combo? Like hell.






No wonder they delayed the console versions.

 

[Veinz]

I can’t wait to see how bad this is when I get home. 60 fps should be the bare minimum for games now a days.

 

[Tornado]

Like the main issue is that you can definitely screw with the graphics; but it runs so poorly and is so badly leveraging hardware that the only settings that seem to materially affect anything are motion blur and depth of field. You basically just can't play it at anything above 1080p and resolution scaling (which is also the gross Vaseline FSR 1.0) has no effect I could see either even though it makes the game look atrocious. It's to the extent that you can chop the graphics down so much that it looks worse than the first game and it still doesn't really run any better than it does when you leave everything on except motion blur and depth of field; and that's in a city with almost nothing in it with no weather.




This really sucks. Had been looking forward to it for half a year now and hadn't played the first game in that time as a result.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Got anoyne who has had time to play this, how does it compare to C:S? And how is it for bugs etc? I'm considering buying this next week? There's no point now as I won't get any chance to play it before next week, but I might delay longer depending on bugs etc. It looks like I'll definitely buy it sooner or later from what I've seen so far.

Really depends on what your experience with C:S is. If you're used to deeply modded with thousands of assets, the number of ways this feels like a step backwards is noticeable, having said that, the number of things that just feel so much better (UI, scale, vanilla 'realism') date C:S immensely already.

If you've played C:S with all the DLC, this will feel smaller and more simplistic in some areas - the basic mechanics of industry supply and demand for commercial fulfilment are a bit more detailed, not quite on a par with Industries DLC, but the inclusion of elements from Campus, Parklife, Mass transit etc, is patchy at best, zero at worst.

If you've only ever played vanilla C:S the best part of 10 years ago, there's not much to complain about, though admittedly it doesn't feel like the leap forward some may have hoped. Fundamentally, you still want to build a grid on a flat surface, I'd hoped it would be able to produce more organic looking cities as well as more realistic, but it's not really an improvement in that regard.

As for bugs, I've got 6 hours in so far and I've not noticed anything, though if there's fundamental glitches in the simulation it might take a lot longer to notice. I've run two 'cities' through the first few levels just to get used to the new UI (and playing the actual game mechanic, without heavy mods), and certain problems persist even when they seemingly shouldn't, e.g. not enough customers for some commercial buildings, and poor healthcare complaints, despite everything being tip-top with the stats... these are frustrating problems that any C:S play will no doubt be familiar with - though it could of course just be a problem with my city planning.

Performance is obviously dependent on hardware and expectation. My settings are a mix of High and Medium, and I'm getting between 30 and 40 fps from an RTX 3070, perhaps that's not stunning but to me it doesn't really matter in a game like this. Advanced graphics settings seem fairly extensive for those that want to tweak. I get fixed 60 fps just by turning of "dynamic resolution scale quality' - but then it looks like a mix of a PS2 game and Doom on 486 DX2 66 zoomed out a lot.

 

[Keef]

Perhaps it was foreshadowing game performance issues

A lot of people seem unhappy with the reported FPS issues vs. Hardware requirements on Reddit.

I can understand some of the frustration or disappointment, but I don't really get some peoples expectations... like, is it really crucial to a city builder that it's 4k and 60fps?

Anyhow, only an hour or so to go before I find out how bad the PC I bought because of C:S two years ago actually is

The bigger issue is that creators have been streaming the game for a month already and a few have put out performance-related videos recently, very clearly stating expectations for everybody. How anybody was surprised I have no idea.

 

[Keef]

I'm not actually upset by the "performance". I saw the videos, I knew what to expect. Frankly, I can play a relatively static game like this at 15fps if I have to, while I wait for optimization updates.

My problem is far worse. The game is simply broken lol. It just plain doesn't work on an Intel A750. I knew the card would be a risk due to lack of support and testing from the gaming industry, but I didn't realize it would be this bad. Insane graphical and camera anomalies, crashing, etc. At one point the game just decided to stop displaying water...and then the save file saved that graphical failure after I restarted the game lol. How is that even possible.

Anyway, I didn't want to have to request a refund but unfortunately it's way worse for me than simply bad performance. The game is broken and unplayable. I have to wait for updates before I can even use it.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Comments from the devs

Performance
Post-Release Plans & Goals

Cities: Skylines II is built for the future with modern hardware in mind, allowing us to add more depth and detail to the game than its predecessor had. Earlier this month, we shared a note on performance as we had not reached the benchmark target we had set for the game. Following this, we have seen some concerns about performance and what it means for the game as a whole. We’d like to give some context to the issues the game is currently facing, what we’re doing to address them, and what you can do if you are among the players experiencing performance issues.

Firstly, we want to assure you that the issues are not deeply rooted in the game’s foundation, so we fully expect to be able to improve performance going forward. The issues we are currently facing are tied to the rendering of the game, and decreasing the quality of visual effects such as Depth of Field, Global Illumination, and Volumetrics will get you a fair performance without affecting simulation - at the cost of some eye candy. If you experience low FPS we recommend the following:

• Reduce screen resolution to 1080p
• Disable Depth of Field and Volumetrics
• Reduce Global Illumination

WHAT HAPPENS POST-RELEASE
Following the release, we intend to push a series of small patches (and likely a big one) as we significantly improve different areas of performance. We have identified some issues tied to certain hardware setups that yielded unexpected results, and following those discoveries, we're working on improvements to:

• Remove stutters, generally caused by some synchronization condition in the simulation. They can vary greatly from one CPU to another, as well as how your city is built.
• Optimize and balance GPU performances by reducing the number of vertices processed per frame and optimizing/balancing the effects that affect fillrate (mainly Depth of Field, Global Illumination, and Volumetrics), which you can turn off or reduce in the settings for the time being to get a decent FPS.
• Pushing any CPU optimizations that are not already done that we come across in this process.

It’s worth noting that balancing GPU performances does not mean reducing quality overall but, for example, taking fewer samples with smarter distribution to achieve identical or very similar results.

We are also looking at expanding the options for upscaling solutions. Right now, the game includes AMD FSR1, which does not look that good when the scale ratio is 50% (you can enable it with Dynamic resolution scale setting), but it is supported by Unity out of the box, so it made sense to include.

Both FSR2 and DLSS2 require the use of Temporal Anti-aliasing, which is not possible at the moment due to some objects being incompatible with that technique. We are currently working towards making this possible, which will not only help to boost performances but also provide a better quality anti-aliasing solution than the one we currently use (SMAA by default).


OUR GOALS
With the upcoming patches, the situation will largely improve with default settings. It is worth mentioning that for a game like this, the performance target is to run at a steady 30FPS minimum. There is no real benefit in a city builder to aim for higher FPS (unlike a multiplayer shooter) as a growing city will inevitably become CPU-bound. What matters more with this type of game is to avoid stutters and have a responsive UI.

For that reason, our simulation is also built around an expected update rate given 30fps. However, it does not hurt to get 60fps as it can contribute to better visuals in relation to temporal effects, so while our target is 30fps, we don't intend to limit or stop the optimization work just because we reach it on the recommended hardware. We just don't believe there would be a long-term benefit in setting the target to 60fps, especially because we face rendering challenges both from close-ups and far distances.


A NOTE ON RELEASE TIMING
While some setups on PC have challenges, we concluded the performance is not a dealbreaker for all the players. For us, the number one priority is for the players to have fun with the game, and we had seen enough feedback from players enjoying the game that it would be more unfair to postpone. We know we will keep working on the game and do our best to fix issues as fast as possible, so we wanted to respect the announced release date and allow people to start playing the game.

 

[TheCracker]

If you've played C:S with all the DLC, this will feel smaller and more simplistic in some areas - the basic mechanics of industry supply and demand for commercial fulfilment are a bit more detailed, not quite on a par with Industries DLC, but the inclusion of elements from Campus, Parklife, Mass transit etc, is patchy at best, zero at worst.

If you've only ever played vanilla C:S the best part of 10 years ago, there's not much to complain about, though admittedly it doesn't feel like the leap forward some may have hoped. Fundamentally, you still want to build a grid on a flat surface, I'd hoped it would be able to produce more organic looking cities as well as more realistic, but it's not really an improvement in that regard.

I'm a bit disapointed to hear that the base game C:SII offers little more than C:S. I was expecting it to have the content from the major DLC packs from C:S rolled into it. The industry, the parks, the transit and to a lesser extent the university elements, are what a more realistic feeling city hangs from. Playing the base game now would feel like going back to SimCity 2000. 👎

Having just started a new city on Remastered, i can't say i'm now overly bothered by the delay on the console version. I'd rather spend by money on some of the more recent DLC packs for C:S1.