Awful laptop performance - need a way to specify CPU affinity to reduce Unity CPU hog

[e_boulanger]

I bought CIM2 on steam. If I had known that CIM2 was developped with Unity 3D, I would not have bought it, because Unity 3D is the WORST 3D engine for PC. You should have stayed with your old engine. It was much better. Now, when I start the game, all CPU core (including hyperthreading core) start acting up (goes easily over 50%, even when the game is paused). This is Unity 3D fault. In fact, all the games using this stupid engine have the same CPU "overkill" problem.

The result is that the fan of my laptop reach is full RPM very quickly. No other game (meaning games not using Unity 3D) is able to accomplish that (well maybe Watch_Dog, but it's much more intensive than CIM2). Fortunately, there is a way to reduce the demand on the CPU, which is to launch the game with a specific affinity. Although not perfect, this solution allows me to play Unity 3D games on my laptop without worrying too much about the fan noise (game such as GlitchSpace, SpaceHulk, etc...).

However, when trying to launch CIM2 with the simple command "START /AFFINITY 1 CIM2.EXE", I get the message indicating that steam has not been started (which is wrong). All my other steam game that I launch with this method (all of them using the stupid Unity 3D engine) have no problem launching. Only CIM2.

Is there a way to launch CIM2 with specific affinity when using steam. As I mentionned, other steam games have no problem being launched with Affinity.

BTW, my laptop is a very recent gaming laptop (Alienware 14). I have no problem running all recent game with everything MAX out, without having too much noise. But Unity 3D games, like CIM2, even at the lowest graphic setting, is using so much CPU that it is really obscene. I hope that you will choose another engine for future version of CIM. Because Unity 3D is really the WORST.

In the mean time, I would greatly appreciate if there is a way to reduce the CPU impact of the game so that playing on a laptop is less annoying.

 

[timfrombriz]

Cpu usage isn't a bad thing. A game that uses cpu mean it's heavy on logic calculations. I'd prefer that than a game that was purely graphical without any ai/game play.

For your issue, you could try setting the affinity in task manager once started.

Not sure why cim2.exe is starting steam directly, I always start via steam so maybe the game can't be launched directly?

Also as a last thought, perhaps some of the gpu rendering features enabled in settings aren't natively supported by your graphics card and fall back on software rendering through the cpu. Try disabling some of the graphic effects to see if it reduces cpu load.

And also the latest graphics card drivers may fix any known issues with the unity engine performance wise, make sure your using the latest stable drivers from their website.

 

[C40LFR]

timfrombriz probably summed it up best.

I've never seen this issue, but you also can't really expect the game to calculate destinations and paths of sometimes hundreds of thousands of citizens without decent CPU usage.

I play on 400% population, and on larger cities, when running on the max time speed up mode, even my MacBook Pro's Quad Core i7 starts to heat up and the fans start running.