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Why Cities: Skylines 2 performs poorly

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Re: Why Cities: Skylines 2 performs poorly

#41

Post by Dalewyn »

kossTKR wrote: post #26

This is everything wrong with both (sweatshop) games and programming! This is 180 of how people programmed for the older consoles in the most fun and creative ways to squeeze the most out of smaller hardware. Take a look at this for comparison: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/09/war-stories-how-crash... Reminds me of the state of frontend development where you need 8000 tools and dependencies to show even the sim…

We make faster hardware and software will bloat to consume it.[1][2][3]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law

Re: Why Cities: Skylines 2 performs poorly

#42

Post by QuickMinuteOats »

kossTKR wrote: post #26

This is everything wrong with both (sweatshop) games and programming! This is 180 of how people programmed for the older consoles in the most fun and creative ways to squeeze the most out of smaller hardware. Take a look at this for comparison: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/09/war-stories-how-crash... Reminds me of the state of frontend development where you need 8000 tools and dependencies to show even the sim…

Pardon the snark, but the answer should be obvious: budget and deadlines.

Producing well-optimized, “clever” code usually requires magnitudes of more time than the simplest, quickest solution. Hobbyists line yourself, and a few companies like Nintendo, are typically the only ones that can afford to spend time optimizing like you describe.

Re: Why Cities: Skylines 2 performs poorly

#43

Post by mschuster91 »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #35
kossTKR wrote: post #26

This is everything wrong with both (sweatshop) games and programming! This is 180 of how people programmed for the older consoles in the most fun and creative ways to squeeze the most out of smaller hardware. Take a look at this for comparison: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/09/war-stories-how-crash... Reminds me of the state of frontend development where you need 8000 tools and dependencies to show even the sim…

I typed something very similar in parallel with you. Guess the engineering typically required is no more? At least not here.

Pay peanuts get monkeys. Game dev has been infamous for taking in young, fresh college graduates, promise them "credits" and "fun life" and then run them through the grinder for shit pay. And eventually, even those who survived the grinder and ended up living long enough to become seniors burn out, and that's how you get this kind of clusterfuck in the end.

Game dev seriously needs to follow the VFX industry and unionize. I have zero trust left in fellow gamers to not buy games from unethical producers.

Re: Why Cities: Skylines 2 performs poorly

#44

Post by ajmurmann »

kossTKR wrote: post #26

This is everything wrong with both (sweatshop) games and programming! This is 180 of how people programmed for the older consoles in the most fun and creative ways to squeeze the most out of smaller hardware. Take a look at this for comparison: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/09/war-stories-how-crash... Reminds me of the state of frontend development where you need 8000 tools and dependencies to show even the sim…

> Optimisations like this aren't even hard or time consuming (and they are fun) - can anyone clue me in on why you ship your stuff in this state - what happens in a studio like this?

Business and survival is what happened. Read any of Jason Schreier's books on game development. Income is very chunky with games being in development for years. Postponing by a few months might sink your company, especially with interest rates being high.

Calling out that something is "easy" and "fun" is likely insulting to the developers who are frequently working 70-80hour weeks sand ruining their family life in the process.

Re: Why Cities: Skylines 2 performs poorly

#45

Post by coffeebeqn »

darklycan51 wrote: post #6

Why did they make the game in Unity instead of UE5? I assume it's something around the likes of "Staff is more comfortable with Unity", right, so let's release a game that runs like absolute garb. because we want to use a specific engine. Next time I wanna take out my graphics card from my PC I'm going to use scissors instead of screwdrivers because I'm more comfortable with them. When did the gaming industry become…

Sounds like the biggest problem was an insanely beginner mistake - I’m guessing they had inexperienced interns model most of the buildings so the poly counts are absurd. And no one checked the poly counts before putting them in the game? I’m a little confused how they screwed this up after already shipping Cities 1 which didn’t have any major issues like this

Re: Why Cities: Skylines 2 performs poorly

#46

Post by solardev »

notahacker wrote: post #31
solardev wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be more interested in the Anno series then, of which 1800 is the most recent release: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anno_1800 It's set in the early industrial era, so a lot of sails and rails and small colonies exporting things all over. I can't remember if there are cars yet, but if there are, it's not a major focus. Some of the levels have you revamping existing towns, while others let you start from scra…

I'd love to see something with the flexibility and sandbox nature of Skylines and the historic themes of the Anno series (which has pretty graphics but is ultimately tied to a grid and more about sticking buildings on the right tiles to maximise efficiency than worldbuilding)

Have you tried 1800? The grid there is a pretty "soft" one, meaning it's more like a visual guide than anything enforcing gameplay. It's not that different from zoning and road-building in Skylines, where your beneficial buildings (like hospitals and police stations and schools) also have a limited radius of effectiveness.

Gameplay vid with no commentary, if you wanna see: https://youtu.be/jxm_ZroHj3E?si=qDnn1AK1d2kdVAf-&t=68

The campaign might be linear, but the sandbox mode feels like a mix of Cities and Civilization to me. It kinda scratches that sandbox itch, though the focus on trade (vs city-building) got a bit tiresome for me.

I think CS:2 also copied some of the mechanics from 1800 (like the customizable placement of farms around production buildings), trade buildings for lumber, ore, etc.

Re: Why Cities: Skylines 2 performs poorly

#47

Post by hypeatei »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #32

It's kind of stunning that a game of this magnitude is able to go out the door without model LOD. I suppose the fact that it runs at all is stunning -- surely you could not get away with this a decade or two ago -- but perhaps it speaks to the incredible capabilities of modern hardware. This feels a bit similar to the Electron criticism, where convenience ultimately trumps performance, and users ultimately don't care…

Valve/Steam should really have some policies around unfinished or unpolished games so that they are forced to be marked as "early access"

It is absolutely ridiculous that these developers can get away with releasing a beta (essentially what it is) and setting the full release price without the end user knowing they're a guinea pig.

Re: Why Cities: Skylines 2 performs poorly

#48

Post by belltaco »

booboofixer wrote: post #18
tomcam wrote: post #4

You know things are rough when… The game ran so poorly that Windows Game Bar refused to acknowledge there even was a framerate.

> The teeth are not the only problem > this written article from PC Games Hardware (in German) or this video from Gamers Nexus (in Americanese) Humor and a great blog design, made my day.

Isn't GN Canadian? I mean North Americanese.

Re: Why Cities: Skylines 2 performs poorly

#49

Post by ajmurmann »

mschuster91 wrote: post #43
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I typed something very similar in parallel with you. Guess the engineering typically required is no more? At least not here.

Pay peanuts get monkeys. Game dev has been infamous for taking in young, fresh college graduates, promise them "credits" and "fun life" and then run them through the grinder for shit pay. And eventually, even those who survived the grinder and ended up living long enough to become seniors burn out, and that's how you get this kind of clusterfuck in the end. Game dev seriously needs to follow the VFX industry and unio…

Make people work 12 hour days to ship before you go out of business and corners will need to get cut. Insulting engineers and describing them as "monkeys" because you are unaware of businesses function is quite unwarranted. "Real engineers" need to take a real look at themselves!

Re: Why Cities: Skylines 2 performs poorly

#50

Post by chc »

Pannoniae wrote: post #37
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #32

It's kind of stunning that a game of this magnitude is able to go out the door without model LOD. I suppose the fact that it runs at all is stunning -- surely you could not get away with this a decade or two ago -- but perhaps it speaks to the incredible capabilities of modern hardware. This feels a bit similar to the Electron criticism, where convenience ultimately trumps performance, and users ultimately don't care…

Don't forget the part where they use web tech and waste draw calls like crazy on the UI. These things should literally be banned. edit: not web tech should be banned, but releasing a game with horrible optimisation like this, either by the store selling the game or by the law

Using web tech for the UI isn't a problem here. The article, when measuring the performance impact of different rendering phases, describes the time the UI requires as "an irrelevant amount of time."
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