Home Trending Latest threads New posts Developer diaries

Dear Devs, proper Multi-core support?

Jump to latest Follow Reply
  • We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Cities: Skylines 6590 Support & Bug Reports 466 Suggestions & feedback 3273 Modding & Resources 1954 Official Information & Announcements 154 City Journals and Let's Plays 503 Cities: Skylines Console & Windows 10 Edition 1114
Show only dev responses
V

VariousArtist

Recruit
Feb 14, 2015
4
0
Hello developers!

Can you please explain in detail how multi-core support is implemented?

Im afraid that this could end up to be another game where cpus arent properly utilized so the late gameplay will be crippled by hitting the performance roof of a single cpu. And/or only using other cpus for minor/non-relevant tasks (e.g. loading/saving) instead of performance critical stuff.

Can you please give some info about this?
Thanks!

(to Non-coders: Only because the requirements list e.g. a quad-core doesnt say anything about how multiple cores are implemented. You might be suprised how many games barely use more than 1-2 cores no matter how much you throw at them. Just saying.)
 
Upvote 0
I think they had explain this a couple places for the basics but tbh it's not a bad question for a new player to ask. I know CitiesXXL Players are looking for a new game and worried but it's future.

One thing I can tell you though is the devs Requirements is to be able to max out the 9 areas + hoping to have a 1 mil sim cap. But their caps in place are the recommended requirements. Meaning it should not turn into another CitiesXXL where you can't utilize the full game.
 
Multicore support implemented properly can make difference between small city and gigantic city. :)
But it depends if you run 16 core Xeon or not :D
 
I have CXXL, the only thing that have multicore support is road building, it's still slow as hell but my i7 shows 4x2 cores used (4 real x 2 virtual) so yeah 8 threads and 100% cpu usage when building roads, shows you how badly this game runs. Simulation is still single threaded it seems.
 
Progeny said:
Apparently some users are saying that xxl still hasn't optimised even though they say "multi-core support". On the Steam comments.
Click to expand...

Let's see... whenever I try to build an area with houses, CPU goes to 100% and lag like 5s to display where it will lay the streets and houses... incredible. (And I saw a youtube video of a guy with the same issue).
 
I heard in one of the videos (can't remember which) that they have it running on at least 8 cores. Granted this doesn't mean much on the face of it but I think with the amount of actual simulation going on in this game and populations of at least 100,000 promised (that's 100,000 real citizens) multi-core support must be implemented to cope with this.

Just my guess.
 
SimonJM said:
I heard in one of the videos (can't remember which) that they have it running on at least 8 cores. Granted this doesn't mean much on the face of it but I think with the amount of actual simulation going on in this game and populations of at least 100,000 promised (that's 100,000 real citizens) multi-core support must be implemented to cope with this.

Just my guess.
Click to expand...
*1,000,000
 
VariousArtist said:
I still see no official reply to this thread! Does history repeat itself again?

Dear developers, please share some detailed light on the multi-core usage of Cities: Skylines!
Click to expand...
Oh boy what is with people expected official replies to their threads now.. Maybe an official close would be better.
 
I'd really like to enlighten you, but I have no idea what kind of answer to give. You obviously want more than a "yes" answer, and yet there really isn't anything more to give. As far as I'm aware, there isn't some special unit of measurement for multi-core efficiency or optimization. It comes down to the programmers, to which I can only verify have done the best they can.

If you know of any way to get more details or performance logs, let me know and I'll gladly use them. But I really don't know what else could be provided to you short of the actual program code.
 
theegamerdotcom said:
Is there any answer on this yet?
Click to expand...

there were a few posts on the AMA. Did a quick search for you. You can find all answers given here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comme...order_the_team_behind_cities/?sort=confidence

some I found:
[–]co_damskuProgrammer at Colossal Order - Cities Skylines 207 points 1 day ago*

The game is best optimized for a 4 cores CPU (being the most mainstream and quite fitted to our simulation needs), we have the main thread, audio, pathfinding, simulation & water flow. Unity does under the hood also use threads quite heavily (main and rendering) and we do use some extra worker thread during the loading/saving process, so 8 cores should yield a noticeable performance improvement but it will not be in the 2x faster figures.
Click to expand...
[–]paveq 25 points 1 day ago

Are pathfinding and simulation algorithms themselves multithreaded, or are they limited to one thread?
Click to expand...

[–]co_damskuProgrammer at Colossal Order - Cities Skylines 55 points 1 day ago

During normal game flow, there are limited to one thread.
Click to expand...

[–]3pmusic 46 points 1 day ago

Fantatic information. Would a really good graphics GPU's assist with any of the simulation or is that strickly handled by the computer's CPU?
Click to expand...

[–]co_damskuProgrammer at Colossal Order - Cities Skylines 157 points 1 day ago

We use the GPU mostly for rendering. Animations are also GPU skinned. But we do not use GPU based technique, for example with the water, if this is what you are thinking about.

While very tempting, it is much too easy when walking that road to end up with a game which will only start on very high end machines, and we wanted as many people, even with lower end kind of computer to be able to enjoy the game.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back