The upcoming release of Cities Skylines 2 is just a few days away, but unfortunately, it seems to be shaping up to be one of the most poorly optimized PC games of 2023. Early benchmarks reveal that this new city builder struggles to run smoothly, with frame rates ranging from 7-12fps on an Intel Core i9 13900KS paired with an AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX at 4K resolution and high settings.
PCGamesHardware had the opportunity to test the game and share their initial benchmarks, which clearly demonstrate the poor performance, particularly on AMD’s most powerful GPU.
Playing at 4K resolution with high settings, the game frequently drops to a mere 7fps, with an average of 12fps. Even when utilizing AMD FSR 1.0 and reducing the resolution scale to 50%, the game fails to achieve a stable 30fps. To put it bluntly, even with this significant reduction in resolution, Cities Skylines 2 only manages to run at 25fps on the AMD RX 7900XTX. Quite disappointing, to say the least.
It is worth noting that Cities Skylines 2 is developed using the Unity Engine, and unlike other newly released games powered by the Unreal Engine 5, it does not incorporate any Ray Tracing effects. This fact raises questions about how PC gamers will respond to a game that not only looks inferior but also performs worse compared to titles utilizing Nanite and Lumen, two revolutionary features that dramatically enhance visuals in Unreal Engine 5.
Although Paradox Interactive, the publisher of Cities Skylines 2, did not provide us with a review code, it’s not surprising considering the game’s subpar performance. Nevertheless, we will make sure to thoroughly test and share our initial performance impressions once the game officially launches.
Additionally, it is important to mention that Colossal Order, the developer of Cities Skylines 2, did caution players about these performance issues. In a rather shocking statement, the team acknowledged that they did not meet their performance targets but decided to release the game anyway. It is clear that this decision was made by the management rather than the dedicated developers working on the game.
Stay tuned for more updates!
John Papadopoulos is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is an avid PC gaming enthusiast and a strong supporter of the modding and indie communities. Prior to creating DSOGaming, John has contributed to several other gaming websites. While his gaming roots can be traced back to consoles, particularly the 16-bit era where he believes the SNES to be one of the finest consoles ever made, he ultimately found his passion in PC gaming, thanks to the groundbreaking 3DFX Voodoo 2 graphics card. In fact, he has even written a thesis on the evolution of PC graphics cards.
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