Performance Megathread

[Franton]

I don't know why everyone and their grandma think they need the newest CPU to run Stellaris. I have an 8 year old I7 6700K and it barely touches 40% at highest game speed: my pop-raiding game with >8K pops runs at a rate of 2 days per second, easily, with dozens of AI fleets moving in the background.

Is it possible that people forget other components in their system? What about bus clock? GPU? RAM speed? RAM size (although Stellaris doesn't require a lot of RAM)? Do you have any idea about all the programs and services running in the background? What about voice assistants? And what about game mods - are there any that may slow your system down?

There are quite a few things that may slow your system down, and often the CPU is not the bottleneck. E. g. when you notice hat your CPU is only at 40% when running the game at highest speed, exchanging the CPU is unlikely to achieve a notable speedup..

 

[rubert]

Gamers Nexus has added Stellaris to their benchmark suite in the review of the 5600x3D. It provides a performance uplift over the other Zen 3 CPUs but going to the Zen 4 architecture in general provides a better uplift. This is the first review GN has released with Stellaris benchmark numbers.

That's great, even if I really dislike the droning voice which tends to make me sleepy, especially since the youtube videos like that are annoyingly long for the actual amount of content.. Oh well. Should be interesting to see how they do the actual benchmark. Looks like GN used fixed amount of days and counted how long that takes, which I think makes more sense than my fixed amount of time to see how many days game runs benchmark. Lower is better in the char below from the video.

I don't know why everyone and their grandma think they need the newest CPU to run Stellaris. I have an 8 year old I7 6700K and it barely touches 40% at highest game speed: my pop-raiding game with >8K pops runs at a rate of 2 days per second, easily, with dozens of AI fleets moving in the background.

I don't think anyone here has said that you "need" the fastest CPU to play Stellaris. Total CPU usage doesn't tell anything about actual performance as Stellaris is generally single core bound: faster the single core, faster the game run. Great that the game runs fast for you using the settings you use.

Most of the talk in the thread recently (as far CPUs go) has been about AMD's higher amount cache and how it generally improves the game speed by massive amount compared to CPUs without it. The thread has few ~recent benchmark comparing couple different CPUs by myself and one other persosn if you are interested. Would be interesting to see how the older CPU you have compares to it if you are up to running the benchmark (you can find the save game used in the tests and way I did them originally in the thread).

 

[evdjj3j]

I don't know why everyone and their grandma think they need the newest CPU to run Stellaris. I have an 8 year old I7 6700K and it barely touches 40% at highest game speed: my pop-raiding game with >8K pops runs at a rate of 2 days per second, easily, with dozens of AI fleets moving in the background.

Is it possible that people forget other components in their system? What about bus clock? GPU? RAM speed? RAM size (although Stellaris doesn't require a lot of RAM)? Do you have any idea about all the programs and services running in the background? What about voice assistants? And what about game mods - are there any that may slow your system down?

There are quite a few things that may slow your system down, and often the CPU is not the bottleneck. E. g. when you notice hat your CPU is only at 40% when running the game at highest speed, exchanging the CPU is unlikely to achieve a notable speedup..

I bet youre fun at parties. No discussion allowed unless you approve.

 

[Franton]

Total CPU usage doesn't tell anything about actual performance as Stellaris is generally single core bound: faster the single core, faster the game run.

Thank you for bringing this up, I have actually disregarded that point. Yes, my cores are running at 4GHz, and that's probably not much slower than the more modern CPUs, if at all. The advantages from newer CPUs comes from having more cores (which as you correctly state, may not be that helpful in case of Stellaris), and better thread optimization, e. g. with branch-ahead guessing (or however that's called) and automated vectorization of loops. I'm not up to date with stats from the newest generation of CPUs, but jusging by the development in the pas decade I'd guess that thread optimization alone is unlikely to improve performance by more than 5-10% compared to an older CPU running at the same speed.

The question remains, for those who suffer from game speed, what is your personal bottleneck: Is it really the CPU, and have you actually checked other parts of your system? I can't say, only you can answer that.

P.S:: and, yes, I forgot to address that, the CPU cache can indeed make a lot of difference in some progframs. Didn't know this was the case for Stellaris, but good to know.

 

[Franton]

I bet youre fun at parties. No discussion allowed unless you approve.

Could you please elaborate what you are referring to. I did not mean to stomp on anyone's opinion - if my posting made that impression, I apologize. But I am not sure why you got that impression.

 

[rubert]

Thank you for bringing this up, I have actually disregarded that point. Yes, my cores are running at 4GHz, and that's probably not much slower than the more modern CPUs, if at all.

Single thread performence has increased by a lot, sometimes even between single generation, though exact gains depend on the application. Between 3000-series and 5000-series AMD the gains were around 10% or so depending on the exact benchmark/application. Some cases, like AMD'x X3D processors, might have slightly lower clockspeeds than equivalent "normal" CPU but the increase in cache helps a lot in most games, and especially in games like Stellaris, World of Warcraft, Factorio etc. Like I said in my original benchmark with Stellaris (3800X vs 5800X3D) I got ~47% imporvement of speed. That's not a minor gain.

I personally originally updated Ivy Bridge (3000) Intel to 3800X and that was massive overall improvement in many single thread bound games.

The question remains, for those who suffer from game speed, what is your personal bottleneck: Is it really the CPU, and have you actually checked other parts of your system? I can't say, only you can answer that.

What makes you think the other things you mention would be a bigger issue?

• Bus clock overclocking hasn't been a thing for long time, other than in very specific situations as far I know. It is not something normal user is able to do, and shouldn't be doing.
• Stellaris is not limited by GPU almost never, it is not just demanding enough.
• RAM speed obviously affects to some degree, but in general the performance gains have been very small unless the orignal ram is very slow. I could get DDR4 3600 MHz RAM to my computer for reasonable price, but for any faster the price would be far more and availaibility worse. In general not worth upgrading just RAM alone and overclocking can bring it's own share of issues.
• Amount of RAM doesn't affect speed unless there is not enough for the game, OS and background software.
• Background programs, unless they are buggy or otherwise hog resources shouldn't be a huge issue unless the system has low memory and maybe some ancient dual core. I wouldn't recommend removing system services, anti-virus or similar things. Obviously closing Discord, Steam and other programs with active overlays might help if there are any issues with them.
• Mods are obviously know to cause issues, either by bugs or because of their size and added things. Nothing new there.

 

[exi123]

I don't know why everyone and their grandma think they need the newest CPU to run Stellaris. I have an 8 year old I7 6700K and it barely touches 40% at highest game speed: my pop-raiding game with >8K pops runs at a rate of 2 days per second, easily, with dozens of AI fleets moving in the background.

Is it possible that people forget other components in their system? What about bus clock? GPU? RAM speed? RAM size (although Stellaris doesn't require a lot of RAM)? Do you have any idea about all the programs and services running in the background? What about voice assistants? And what about game mods - are there any that may slow your system down?

There are quite a few things that may slow your system down, and often the CPU is not the bottleneck. E. g. when you notice hat your CPU is only at 40% when running the game at highest speed, exchanging the CPU is unlikely to achieve a notable speedup..

I am now running Stellaris on my third gaming PC, the first months on an 4770k paired with ddr3 (joined right after utopia), after that an i7700k with ddr4 ram and now on an 7800x3d with ddr5 ram. I am building pc's for 25 years now and Stellaris just has an awful performance, totally resistant to upgrades. After the 2.2 Megacorp the game was just awfully slow and stuttered, close to unplayable even with good hardware. This was kinda solved when 3.0 approached, the raw game speed is very good now.

One of the worst things is the stuttering in the lategame when certain days in the months pass by. There is still the day1 daily stutter, which was never solved after it was first reported around version 2.0. Both issues lead to a very unfun experience in my view, controlling the game gets really clunky the overall performance feeling is bad. With a 7800x3d, an up to date cpu, basically formed to squeeze single threaded performance through it, the issues are there. after i had run the first tests it was clear to me that the game will maybe never run in a really pleasing way.

 

[Franton]

Single thread performence has increased by a lot, sometimes even between single generation, though exact gains depend on the application. Between 3000-series and 5000-series AMD the gains were around 10% or so depending on the exact benchmark/application. Some cases, like AMD'x X3D processors, might have slightly lower clockspeeds than equivalent "normal" CPU but the increase in cache helps a lot in most games, and especially in games like Stellaris, World of Warcraft, Factorio etc. Like I said in my original benchmark with Stellaris (3800X vs 5800X3D) I got ~47% imporvement of speed. That's not a minor gain.

I personally originally updated Ivy Bridge (3000) Intel to 3800X and that was massive overall improvement in many single thread bound games.



What makes you think the other things you mention would be a bigger issue?

• Bus clock overclocking hasn't been a thing for long time, other than in very specific situations as far I know. It is not something normal user is able to do, and shouldn't be doing.
• Stellaris is not limited by GPU almost never, it is not just demanding enough.
• RAM speed obviously affects to some degree, but in general the performance gains have been very small unless the orignal ram is very slow. I could get DDR4 3600 MHz RAM to my computer for reasonable price, but for any faster the price would be far more and availaibility worse. In general not worth upgrading just RAM alone and overclocking can bring it's own share of issues.
• Amount of RAM doesn't affect speed unless there is not enough for the game, OS and background software.
• Background programs, unless they are buggy or otherwise hog resources shouldn't be a huge issue unless the system has low memory and maybe some ancient dual core. I wouldn't recommend removing system services, anti-virus or similar things. Obviously closing Discord, Steam and other programs with active overlays might help if there are any issues with them.
• Mods are obviously know to cause issues, either by bugs or because of their size and added things. Nothing new there.

Thank you for taking the time. Your arguments make very much sense. I agree that neither RAM usage nor Graphics are strained in Stellaris, I did overgeneralize from other games too much.

Also I wasn't aware single core performance went up so dramatically in the past years. Looks like I was lucky to choose the right CPU for games like Stellaris.

Given your explanations, i think when i build my next system, i will have to get up to date with current specs! Thanks again for correcting my obviously underinformed opinion.

 

[kurtvandervo13]

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[LostInInfinity]

I'm running an AMD Ryzen 7 6000 series and an RTX 3050 with 8 gigs of RAM. Is that a decent combo to run smoothly late game? This is my first game of Stellaris.

 

[a_typical_hero]

I don't know why everyone and their grandma think they need the newest CPU to run Stellaris. I have an 8 year old I7 6700K and it barely touches 40% at highest game speed: my pop-raiding game with >8K pops runs at a rate of 2 days per second, easily, with dozens of AI fleets moving in the background.

I'd say performance is very subjective. Two days per second in late is bordering on unplayable for me.

 

[Apollo1784]

I don't know why everyone and their grandma think they need the newest CPU to run Stellaris. I have an 8 year old I7 6700K and it barely touches 40% at highest game speed: my pop-raiding game with >8K pops runs at a rate of 2 days per second, easily, with dozens of AI fleets moving in the background.

Is it possible that people forget other components in their system? What about bus clock? GPU? RAM speed? RAM size (although Stellaris doesn't require a lot of RAM)? Do you have any idea about all the programs and services running in the background? What about voice assistants? And what about game mods - are there any that may slow your system down?

There are quite a few things that may slow your system down, and often the CPU is not the bottleneck. E. g. when you notice hat your CPU is only at 40% when running the game at highest speed, exchanging the CPU is unlikely to achieve a notable speedup..

After years of late game slowdown there are somehow STILL people like you lmfao. Paradox could sell you guys anything.

 

[Franton]

After years of late game slowdown there are somehow STILL people like you lmfao. Paradox could sell you guys anything.

To each their own. Your argument could be improved with some facts and meaningful statements.

 

[kurtvandervo13]

I'd say performance is very subjective. Two days per second in late is bordering on unplayable for me.

ahaha it's hard to disagree with this

 

[Torredebelem]

I'm running an AMD Ryzen 7 6000 series and an RTX 3050 with 8 gigs of RAM. Is that a decent combo to run smoothly late game? This is my first game of Stellaris.

You have a good system, yes. Not very good because memory could be at 16Gb and you would benefit from it.

 

[ThePHD]

I don't know why everyone and their grandma think they need the newest CPU to run Stellaris. I have an 8 year old I7 6700K and it barely touches 40% at highest game speed: my pop-raiding game with >8K pops runs at a rate of 2 days per second, easily, with dozens of AI fleets moving in the background.

Is it possible that people forget other components in their system? What about bus clock? GPU? RAM speed? RAM size (although Stellaris doesn't require a lot of RAM)? Do you have any idea about all the programs and services running in the background? What about voice assistants? And what about game mods - are there any that may slow your system down?

There are quite a few things that may slow your system down, and often the CPU is not the bottleneck. E. g. when you notice hat your CPU is only at 40% when running the game at highest speed, exchanging the CPU is unlikely to achieve a notable speedup..

CPU was definitely the bottleneck in my case. Going from an overclocked 8700K to a 5800X3D gave me a more than 50% increase in performance late game. That's pretty massive IMO. Whether it's worth it comes down to the individual I suppose. I personally can't stand slowdown in games like these and will take any performance increase I can get. There is still slowdown but it's becoming more tolerable with each generation of CPUs. Eventually we'll probably reach a point where you can just brute force the poor optimization with a sufficiently powerful CPU.

 

[daveymcman]

You have a good system, yes. Not very good because memory could be at 16Gb and you would benefit from it.

I think his 3080 has the 8GB

 

[daveymcman]

After years of late game slowdown there are somehow STILL people like you lmfao. Paradox could sell you guys anything.

Is it possible he does not run with any mods? I have about 50 mods I load to the serious detriment of the game. would never consider playing it vanilla

 

[daveymcman]

Single thread performence has increased by a lot, sometimes even between single generation, though exact gains depend on the application. Between 3000-series and 5000-series AMD the gains were around 10% or so depending on the exact benchmark/application. Some cases, like AMD'x X3D processors, might have slightly lower clockspeeds than equivalent "normal" CPU but the increase in cache helps a lot in most games, and especially in games like Stellaris, World of Warcraft, Factorio etc. Like I said in my original benchmark with Stellaris (3800X vs 5800X3D) I got ~47% imporvement of speed. That's not a minor gain.

I personally originally updated Ivy Bridge (3000) Intel to 3800X and that was massive overall improvement in many single thread bound games.



What makes you think the other things you mention would be a bigger issue?

• Bus clock overclocking hasn't been a thing for long time, other than in very specific situations as far I know. It is not something normal user is able to do, and shouldn't be doing.
• Stellaris is not limited by GPU almost never, it is not just demanding enough.
• RAM speed obviously affects to some degree, but in general the performance gains have been very small unless the orignal ram is very slow. I could get DDR4 3600 MHz RAM to my computer for reasonable price, but for any faster the price would be far more and availaibility worse. In general not worth upgrading just RAM alone and overclocking can bring it's own share of issues.
• Amount of RAM doesn't affect speed unless there is not enough for the game, OS and background software.
• Background programs, unless they are buggy or otherwise hog resources shouldn't be a huge issue unless the system has low memory and maybe some ancient dual core. I wouldn't recommend removing system services, anti-virus or similar things. Obviously closing Discord, Steam and other programs with active overlays might help if there are any issues with them.
• Mods are obviously know to cause issues, either by bugs or because of their size and added things. Nothing new there.

I would like to ask you a polite question. "Like I said in my original benchmark with Stellaris (3800X vs 5800X3D) I got ~47% imporvement of speed" your saying the X3D which I have read is designed solely to improve video graphics of a game in fact improves the GPU side of stellairs. Because I love/hate stellaris, played 4709.7 hours and NEVER finished a game due to early/mid/late game slow down and even on tiny universe with all my (50) mods never make it past 2270??

 

[rubert]

I would like to ask you a polite question. "Like I said in my original benchmark with Stellaris (3800X vs 5800X3D) I got ~47% imporvement of speed" your saying the X3D which I have read is designed solely to improve video graphics of a game in fact improves the GPU side of stellairs. Because I love/hate stellaris, played 4709.7 hours and NEVER finished a game due to early/mid/late game slow down and even on tiny universe with all my (50) mods never make it past 2270??

I am not entirely sure what you are asking. 5800X3D is a CPU, not GPU and not directly related to GPU performance because Stellaris is not a GPU bound game. Stellaris is almost always CPU (and single core at that) bound. The extra cache in X3D versions of CPUs helps Stellaris and games like Factorio etc. by a huge margin.

My results would not be comparable to a modded game, as that many mods are likely to cause conflicts, errors and bugs which can have a huge impact on performance. And even if they are working 100% correctly the mods likely have features which will cause further slowdown. It is not normal for Stellaris to slowdown that early, especially in a tiny galaxy.