Let's talk performance

[Sic]

Am I the only one surprised by how poorly this game runs?

My specs:
Intel i7 2600k @ ~4GHz
16 GB RAM
nVIDIA GeForce GTX 670

I'm having major FPS issues at maxed settings.

I realise that this is accordance with the system requirements released by Firaxis, but to be perfectly honest, I don't see why this game runs in this manner, while simultaneously being at around the same level of graphical fidelity as CIV5. One would think that a major reason for the cartoony look would be the ability to shave off a few polygons and shader effects here and there for better performance. Rather, the game looks rather unimpressive (in terms of visual fidelity, not in terms of style), whilst performing horribly. I simply don't understand where the performance was "spent".

I'm starting to think it's an optimisation issue, because quite frankly, this is a damn strategy game, and it doesn't render much on-screen at any given time. I can run pretty much any other game @ 1920*1080 with an acceptable FPS (which is higher for most other types of games). Heck, I can max out GTA5, and play at an constant 30 FPS. CIV6 dips down to the teens and even worse (leaders screens are at under 10 FPS), whilst sometimes running wild at (what I expect is) way over 60 FPS. It just seems a bit off. Like not much time was spent fine-tuning performance.

Are there, or should there be, patches incoming that better performance? Are there tricks to better the performance?

What do you think?

 

[Acken]

I dont know considering the game runs above 120fps for me.
What is your average in the benchmark.

Try lowering some settings.

 

[Gorbles]

Your GPU dates from 2012 and your CPU from 2011. Why are you attempting to run a game released in (late) 2016 on maximum settings?

I can think of plenty of titles you shouldn't be able to max, given how similar your hardware is to mine (i5 3570K, 24GB RAM, GeForce 660 Ti 3GB). Games off of the top of my head that I can't run on maximum: Arkham City (PhysX murders it a bit), Arkham Knight (goes without saying), Overwatch, Company of Heroes 2, Borderlands 2 / The Pre-Sequel (again, PhysX), Darksiders 2 (antialiasing mainly), Lichdom: Battlemage (that one's probably optimisation though), Shadow of Morder, Total War: Rome II and probably more besides.

Important note: your opinions about how taxing you think the graphics must be are simply opinions, aren't likely to be informed opinions, and most definitely aren't facts.

 

[Sic]

Your GPU dates from 2012 and your CPU from 2011. Why are you attempting to run a game released in (late) 2016 on maximum settings?

I can think of plenty of titles you shouldn't be able to max, given how similar your hardware is to mine (i5 3570K, 24GB RAM, GeForce 660 Ti 3GB). Games off of the top of my head that I can't run on maximum: Arkham City (PhysX murders it a bit), Arkham Knight (goes without saying), Overwatch, Company of Heroes 2, Borderlands 2 / The Pre-Sequel (again, PhysX), Darksiders 2 (antialiasing mainly), Lichdom: Battlemage (that one's probably optimisation though), Shadow of Morder, Total War: Rome II and probably more besides.

The date of production has exactly zero relevance to how it performs. CPU's have barely progressed in hard performance the last ten years. I don't know your background, but I'm betting you don't know much about hardware, judging from your comment. In simple terms: the number of arithmetic units responsible for integer performance are the same. The development has been in power consumption, lithography size, etc etc. Things that don't matter much to performance. Since the advent of the i7/i5 line, clock speed has been the most relevant metric.

Your list is kind of useless to me, since I haven't played any other game on it than Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, and that ran absolutely fine with maxed settings.

This is completely besides the point, though.

What we're talking about here is a game that seems to be very poorly optimised. What it outputs does not look very advanced. It's a simplistic map, with simplistic models. Why the extreme change in requirements from CIV5? What needs this much horsepower to be rendered?

your opinions about how taxing you think the graphics must be are simply opinions, aren't likely to be informed opinions, and most definitely aren't facts.

There is an adage that every developer should follow, and that is the most fidelity for the least amount of performance hit. Firaxis hasn't been very good at following this adage. What you think you know about me is not very interesting, I'm afraid.

 

[Gedemon]

Am I the only one surprised by how poorly this game runs?

My specs:
Intel i7 2600k @ ~4GHz
16 GB RAM
nVIDIA GeForce GTX 670

I'm having major FPS issues at maxed settings.

I realise that this is accordance with the system requirements released by Firaxis, but to be perfectly honest, I don't see why this game runs in this manner, while simultaneously being at around the same level of graphical fidelity as CIV5. One would think that a major reason for the cartoony look would be the ability to shave off a few polygons and shader effects here and there for better performance. Rather, the game looks rather unimpressive (in terms of visual fidelity, not in terms of style), whilst performing horribly. I simply don't understand where the performance was "spent".

I'm starting to think it's an optimisation issue, because quite frankly, this is a damn strategy game, and it doesn't render much on-screen at any given time. I can run pretty much any other game @ 1920*1080 with an acceptable FPS (which is higher for most other types of games). Heck, I can max out GTA5, and play at an constant 30 FPS. CIV6 dips down to the teens and even worse (leaders screens are at under 10 FPS), whilst sometimes running wild at (what I expect is) way over 60 FPS. It just seems a bit off. Like not much time was spent fine-tuning performance.

Are there, or should there be, patches incoming that better performance? Are there tricks to better the performance?

What do you think?

maxed settings ? why ?

some textures are pretty big (the terrain is much better than civ5 for example), it's possible that you're going to be too low on GPU memory, try lowering those values first, and then at max settings there are a lot of subtle changes that are not worth the FPS loss on your config.

 

[Ovarwa]

Hi,

I know nothing about you!

But whereas CPU performance has increased slowly (it has been better than "barely progressed" but disappointing compared to what had come before) over the past 5-10 years or so, the same cannot be said of GPUs, the limiting factor here.

I too would like game developers to better consider older systems! Especially for a game like Civilization, in which the fancy graphics and bloated UI can actually get in the way of playability, Civ4 included. But game developers have other ideas, because pretty graphics sell, while optimization is hard and kind of wasteful from a business perspective. They do not follow your adage.

In fact, they do the opposite: More code is written in scripting languages. Virtually no code is written in assembly language. The performance was "spent" on a smaller development team and on Sean Bean, on developing features rather than performance or AI, on things like having a day/night cycle that people ooh and ah about until they buy the game, play for a while and then turn off, and so on.

Firaxis is definitely optimizing... just not for this.

Anyway,

Ken

 

[Hyronymus]

The date of production has exactly zero relevance to how it performs. CPU's have barely progressed in hard performance the last ten years.

I beg to differ and challenge you to do a compare between 2011 CPU and a 2016 CPU. Apart from that you have been offered some tips, please consider trying them before discarding them without even trying.

 

[Sic]

maxed settings ? why ?

some textures are pretty big (the terrain is much better than civ5 for example), it's possible that you're going to be too low on GPU memory, try lowering those values first, and then at max settings there are a lot of subtle changes that are not worth the FPS loss on your config.

Look, this isn't about me or my config. I haven't started experimenting much yet, as I'm to busy playing the game (other than AA options, that seems to be borked at the moment, getting some major artifacts if not set on default setting). I can easily boost my FPS by fiddling with the options, that's not an interesting discussion. It's also not about that I'm particularly interested in playing with maxed out settings. I just find it incredible that a game like CIV6 has the kind of system requirements it has. Being a "graphics card killer" (as someone else coined it) doesn't seem like a role befitting for what is essentially a digital board game. There is nothing in the visuals that should warrant this kind of performance.

The point of the thread is: (1) What in CIV6 eats performance(?); (2) is it worth it in terms of visual fidelity(?); and (3) have anyone started experimenting with attempts to better performance yet(?) (to give an example, GTA5 can be boosted by 10 FPS by changing process priority to "high", which looked to be a simple oversight from Rockstar).

 

[Ashbery76]

Game runs great of top setting apart from the leaders.Seems to drop a fair bit.

 

[MeatThatTalks]

My specs:
Intel i7 2600k @ ~4GHz
16 GB RAM
nVIDIA GeForce GTX 670

It's your GPU.

I have an i5 and 8gb RAM, but a slightly better GPU than yours, and I'm running everything on max settings absolutely fine.

You should look into the 1050ti coming out in a couple of days. Supposed to only be $140.

 

[Ovarwa]

Hi,

I just find it incredible that a game like CIV6 has the kind of system requirements it has. Being a "graphics card killer" (as someone else coined it) doesn't seem like a role befitting for what is essentially a digital board game. There is nothing in the visuals that should warrant this kind of performance.

Oh, I totally agree with this.

My idea of great graphics for a game of this kind are graphics that let me take in lots of pertinent information at a glance, without getting confused, without having to run to a manual or online help to decipher weird hieroglyphics, symbols and images.



Anyway,

Ken

 

[Sic]

I beg to differ and challenge you to do a compare between 2011 CPU and a 2016 CPU. Apart from that you have been offered some tips, please consider trying them before discarding them without even trying.

Uh, OK.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700k-6600k-ddr4-ddr3-ipc-6th-generation/10

There you go, from Sandy Bridge to Skylake.

"Tips" being "turn down some settings" isn't what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a debate, and I'm looking for people who are willing to actually experiment to figure out exactly what is eating performance, and if we can do something about it.

 

[MentatYP]

The point of the thread is: (1) What in CIV6 eats performance(?); (2) is it worth it in terms of visual fidelity(?); and (3) have anyone started experimenting with attempts to better performance yet(?) (to give an example, GTA5 can be boosted by 10 FPS by changing process priority to "high", which looked to be a simple oversight from Rockstar).

You can easily experiment for yourself to find a comfortable balance between performance and visuals. The video settings have a detailed list of configurable options including AA, shadows, ambient occlusion etc. I'd think about playing with those to see if you can find the right balance.

FYI I have the same video card but a slighly newer CPU. On everything maxed out the main game seems to run fine (maybe not 60 fps but it doesn't need to be), but leader animations on full quality are a bit stuttery.

 

[Sic]

It's your GPU.

I have an i5 and 8gb RAM, but a slightly better GPU than yours, and I'm running everything on max settings absolutely fine.

You should look into the 1050ti coming out in a couple of days. Supposed to only be $140.

Yeah, that's what I read so far, that the game is really specific about what GPU one has.

Speaking of which, what kind of GPU do you have?

 

[civvver]

Really? You think a game like civ6 is gpu bound more than cpu bound? All the in game spreadsheet calcs would utilize cpu. I would think your rig should be more than adequate as well but who knows. I think it's some other setting tbh, maybe something else on your pc.

Btw I don't get the recommended 4th gen cpu thing. I have a very old i5-760 but it still runs most games just fine, again cus most games are gpu bound, and I overclock it to 3.3ghz. So I'm way over clock speed, I realize cache and other features make the newer processors faster, but does it matter? Civ type games might be the only type of games where it does sadly.

 

[Spaceturtle]

The game runs fine (not at max settings, obviously) on my laptop with a 650m, so I can't complain.

 

[Sic]

You can easily experiment for yourself to find a comfortable balance between performance and visuals. The video settings have a detailed list of configurable options including AA, shadows, ambient occlusion etc. I'd think about playing with those to see if you can find the right balance.

FYI I have the same video card but a slighly newer CPU. On everything maxed out the main game seems to run fine (maybe not 60 fps but it doesn't need to be), but leader animations on full quality are a bit stuttery.

Well, yes, but I'm after specifics. I want to get the ball rolling on a bit more advanced discussion about settings, "hacks" and (eventually) mods.

 

[MentatYP]

Well, yes, but I'm after specifics. I want to get the ball rolling on a bit more advanced discussion about settings, "hacks" and (eventually) mods.

What I'm saying is you have the tools right in front of you. Nobody will have hacks this early in the life of the game, but you can play around with settings and find out for yourself what is eating so much performance as you put it. Be proactive!

 

[Sic]

What I'm saying is you have the tools right in front of you. Nobody will have hacks this early in the life of the game, but you can play around with settings and find out for yourself what is eating so much performance as you put it. Be proactive!

There are always someone. Always.

 

[Gorbles]

The date of production has exactly zero relevance to how it performs. CPU's have barely progressed in hard performance the last ten years. I don't know your background, but I'm betting you don't know much about hardware, judging from your comment. In simple terms: the number of arithmetic units responsible for integer performance are the same. The development has been in power consumption, lithography size, etc etc. Things that don't matter much to performance. Since the advent of the i7/i5 line, clock speed has been the most relevant metric.

Your list is kind of useless to me, since I haven't played any other game on it than Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, and that ran absolutely fine with maxed settings.

This is completely besides the point, though.

What we're talking about here is a game that seems to be very poorly optimised. What it outputs does not look very advanced. It's a simplistic map, with simplistic models. Why the extreme change in requirements from CIV5? What needs this much horsepower to be rendered?

There is an adage that every developer should follow, and that is the most fidelity for the least amount of performance hit. Firaxis hasn't been very good at following this adage. What you think you know about me is not very interesting, I'm afraid.

I wouldn't say the date of production has "absolutely nothing" to do with it. For someone who's immediately gone into semantics and inferred things I haven't said, you might want to fact-check that. That said given your quips about my knowledge while calling me out for knowing nothing about you (your opinions still aren't facts. Nobody's are!) and your image of Firaxis I doubt there's much that can be said that can sway you.

The map isn't simple, nor are the models on display. Again with this apparent lack of knowledge that you don't like being called on. If you honestly want a debate about this, you should probably start by getting these kinds of basic objective facts about the graphical quality (peoples' issues with the art style aside).

Thankfully most of the other posters have given you advice about upgrading your hardware, so you might do best to take that on board!