Terrible Optimization: Cities Skylines 2 GPU Benchmarks & Graphics Optimization Guide

Sponsor: Lexar Thor DDR5 RAM on Amazon This benchmark tests GPU performance in Cities: Skylines 2 by Colosssal Order. Cities Skylines 2 is easily the most GPU-intensive city builder we’ve ever seen, even adjusted for the era. Despite highly intensive simulation happening on the CPU, the GPU ultimately bears disproportionate weight right now. Playing above 1080p is difficult on most cards, with even the RTX 4090 struggling in this game. The testing looks at AMD vs. NVIDIA GPUs (we had crashing problems with Intel) for framerate performance in Cities Skylines 2 at Very Low, Low, Medium, and High settings. We also tested graphics quality and provide some graphics optimize advice for better GPU performance in Skylines 2. The graphics guide includes some comparisons at different settings, quality levels, and discussion of texture loading bugs (even on RTX 4090 levels of VRAM!). This will help you figure out the best GPUs for Cities Skylines 2 at different price and performance targets. The graphics settings tests will look at Depth of Field, Volumetric lighting effects, Global Illumination, Ambient Occlusion, clouds, anti-aliasing, and more. Find City Planner Plays here: The best way to support our work is through our store: Like our content? Please consider becoming our Patron to support us: RELATED PRODUCTS [Affiliate Links] NVIDIA RTX 4090 on Newegg: NVIDIA RTX 4090 on Amazon: PowerColor RX 6800 XT on Newegg: Or find the 6800 XT on Amazon here: ASRock RX 7800 XT on Newegg: ASUS RTX 4060 on Amazon: ASUS RTX 4060 Dual on Newegg: TIMESTAMPS 00:00 - A Rough Launch 01:56 - Benchmarking GPUs for Cities Skylines 2 03:48 - Population Size GPU Benchmarks 05:04 - Patch Benchmarks & Improvements 07:42 - 1080p Medium GPU Benchmarks 09:05 - Crazy Frametime Pacing 09:52 - 1080p Low Video Card Benchmarks in Skylines 2 12:01 - 1080p Very Low Benchmarks 13:26 - Graphics Setting Methodology 14:40 - Graphics Optimization Benchmarks 16:28 - Impact from the Patch 17:54 - Graphics Comparisons: Shadows 19:19 - Graphics Preset Comparisons (Very Low, Low, Medium, High) 25:16 - Bad Defaults & Bugs ** Please like, comment, and subscribe for more! ** Links to Amazon and Newegg are typically monetized on our channel (affiliate links) and may return a commission of sales to us from the retailer. This is unrelated to the product manufacturer. Any advertisements or sponsorships are disclosed within the video (“this video is brought to you by“) and above the fold in the description. We do not ever produce paid content or “sponsored content“ (meaning that the content is our idea and is not funded externally aside from whatever ad placement is in the beginning) and we do not ever charge manufacturers for coverage. Follow us in these locations for more gaming and hardware updates: t: f: w: Writing, Testing, Host: Steve Burke Writing, Research: Patrick Lathan Video: Vitalii Makhnovets