Cities xl requiements: processor power is needed more than anything else!

[edman2012 33]

For those of you that are wondering how cities xl runs, it seems to me that having a good processor is the most important thing! My computers processor isn't very strong, I know that but I've seen people with worse ones....after I closed the demo, I looked at how my system ran and the cpu ran near 100% the whole time! Ram was at about 50% and I have 4gb so it seems like if 2gb might be the real minimum. My processor is an AMD athlon 64 X2 Dual core processor. finally, if you have a below average graphics card, you can still run the game although it'll be on low settings. I have a 512mb 8500gt.

so for those of you that keep asking if their punny 1.6 ghz processor will run the game then NO! Even if your processor is under 2.6 ghz, you need to know how much it really can handle.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Graphics cards are important also but I was able to het away with a nVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT for highest settings even though it is worse than the recommended. I have an Intel q6600 so it is pretty good.

[Tropod 144]

Originally posted by: edman2012

....after I closed the demo, I looked at how my system ran and the cpu ran near 100% the whole time!....quote>

Well that is pretty bad, for a game that's closed. I'd hate to think how much of your pc it used before you closed it.

[poshbakerloo 186]

I ran the demo on my old desktop (as my new faster laptop broke)

Pentium 4 HT 3Ghz

2Gb RAM

512Mb GeForce 8400 GS

It was fine on the low setting, anything over that went waaaaaaay too slow!

I'm hoping it will be better on my laptop as it has a 2.2Ghz dual core!

[mrfisse 0]

Works pretty fine for me to. Though i feel that the game probably isnt very well optimized (adding even more "generic german tycoon game" feeling to it).

The game doesnt even look very good and even a smaller 22k city is notacibly impacting performance, how will it handle millions of ppl then...

[manuelandrei 0]

Originally posted by: mrfisse

Works pretty fine for me to. Though i feel that the game probably isnt very well optimized (adding even more "generic german tycoon game" feeling to it).

The game doesnt even look very good and even a smaller 22k city is notacibly impacting performance, how will it handle millions of ppl then...quote>

I can see from your signature that you are running crossfire. Do you have any feedback on how well CitiesXL scales with crossfire? Could you try to run the game at 1920x1200 with 8x fsaa with and without crossfire? Might be a good idea to do this in the capital city.

I am running a C2Duo E8400@3.6Ghz with 1 x Radeon 4850 at 1920x1200 with 4x fsaa and I am thinking about investing in another 4850.

Thanks.

[LordOscar 0]

Originally posted by: edman2012

(...) after I closed the demo, I looked at how my system ran and the cpu ran near 100% the whole time! (...)quote>

Cities XL is monocore coded. I have a QuadCore Q9550 @2.83Ghz. Have a look how it works here:

Game takes all CPU power from the first core and doesn't care about the 3 others.

[poshbakerloo 186]

Originally posted by: LordOscar

Originally posted by: edman2012

(...) after I closed the demo, I looked at how my system ran and the cpu ran near 100% the whole time! (...)quote>

Cities XL is monocore coded. I have a QuadCore Q9550 @2.83Ghz. Have a look how it works here:

Game takes all CPU power from the first core and doesn't care about the 3 others.

quote>

Thats something I have noticed...I have a Single core 3Ghz and my laptop is 2.2Ghz dual, so It will struggle a lot, even tho The Sims3 works fine!

[nataklug 3]

Originally posted by: poshbakerloo

Originally posted by: LordOscar

Originally posted by: edman2012

(...) after I closed the demo, I looked at how my system ran and the cpu ran near 100% the whole time! (...)quote>

Cities XL is monocore coded. I have a QuadCore Q9550 @2.83Ghz. Have a look how it works here:

Game takes all CPU power from the first core and doesn't care about the 3 others.

quote>

Thats something I have noticed...I have a Single core 3Ghz and my laptop is 2.2Ghz dual, so It will struggle a lot, even tho The Sims3 works fine!

quote>

So guys, I have the same problem. I have a Quad Core CPU (Phenon II X4) and its only using 1 core... Hope that this will be solved in final version.

Att,

Nataniel Klug

[mproca 0]

The game also need a strong video card no idea how powerfull.

My sys: 2x2,5GHz AMD Athlon, 4GB RAM, Onboard 8200 512MB / GTS250 512MB.

On the onboard the game run slower than on the GTS at the same settings.

I can play better on ultra high with the GTS than on very low with 8200.

It seems if u don't have a powerfull GPU the game will use even more CPU power.

[LBII 3]

I'm looking for a suggestion here : If I'm about to buy a new computer, I'm better with a dual core or a quad core to run the game?

[geek12 0]

You honestly don't need 4 cores to play any PC game. 2 cores should be sufficient for Cities, and what ever game you may want to play. Now i'm sure this will change, just give it time, but as of right now games rarley use more than 2 cores. I would recommend a fast intel dual core though, maybe that's just my bias speaking, but i think they perform better overall.

Spend the money on a GPU instead.

[manuelandrei 0]

Originally posted by: LBII

I'm looking for a suggestion here : If I'm about to buy a new computer, I'm better with a dual core or a quad core to run the game?quote>

Like geek12 already stated they are few games that really support multi-cores today. However core2duo processors are becoming a thing of the past. If you are to build a new setup today you are problably looking at an Core i5/i7 (Lynnfield) or Core i7 (Bloomfield) cpu. All of them beeing quadcores. Some even supporting hyperthreading giving you a total of 8 threads. ATI is launching its 58XX series graphic cards on the 23 of september so you might want to wait and look into that.

[kingdiz_55 12]

We all have to remember that CXL is still in the development phase. They may still be able to enable the game to use multi-core processors. I currently have a dual core AMD processor at 2.3 Ghz and an Nvidia GeForce 8500GT 512MB which I am looking to upgrade to a 9600GT 512 DDR3. And as for the people who are wondering whether to buy 2, 3, or 4 cores. I'd suggest getting a dual core processor. It has the best "bang for the buck" if you know what I mean. However, just like manuelandrei, said. There are not many games that can utilize all processor cores which means that you'll probably be wasting two cores.

[mogmoogle 0]

 most new games are multi-core optimized, especially anything coming over from xbox 360 or ps3, Sacred 2, Grand theft auto 4, war hammer dawn of war. all the new games, to buy a single core processor now is not a good idea, 64 bit, is normal, and most people at this point at least have a duel-core for pc gaming, but all the new games aside from cities I've purchased in the last 3 months are multi-core optimized, and won't even run on anything but a multi-core processor.

[nataklug 3]

Originally posted by: mogmoogle

 most new games are multi-core optimized, especially anything coming over from xbox 360 or ps3, Sacred 2, Grand theft auto 4, war hammer dawn of war. all the new games, to buy a single core processor now is not a good idea, 64 bit, is normal, and most people at this point at least have a duel-core for pc gaming, but all the new games aside from cities I've purchased in the last 3 months are multi-core optimized, and won't even run on anything but a multi-core processor.quote>

This is the same for me... I have a very nice GPU and a very nice CPU but its still not getting benefits from CitiesXL. Hope to change this in a near future update...

[geek12 0]

I would think that that would be a tough thing to do. It sounds like if a game is "monocore coded" that's going to be hard to change.

[Omniassiah 3]

It could be geek12, but if your looking for updating your computer I usually suggest finding the break in the price curve and buying right around there. If your unfamiliar with it, in computer parts there is a nice curve of price versus power, Towards the low end you don't have to spend much more to get a better piece, towards the high end your paying out the nose for a slight increase in power. If you can find the parts in the middle ground you can usually save a few hundred dollars but still have a very solid PC. with some room for expansion later on.

[rovaira 0]

I have a 2.2 ghz duo core intel centrino, 4 ghz ram, 8600m gs (laptop), and it seemed to run fine on high settings allthough I haven't tried any huge cities yet. I only played the demo and a bit on beta.

[1of6Billion 0]

In the Demo, everything runs smooth when I start (E8500 / HD3870 / 1920x1200 / 1xAA) However I notice significant slowing down when I am near the 20.000 inhabitants. I fear building a city with several 100.000's will be next to impossible...

[nataklug 3]

Originally posted by: 1of6Billion

In the Demo, everything runs smooth when I start (E8500 / HD3870 / 1920x1200 / 1xAA) However I notice significant slowing down when I am near the 20.000 inhabitants. I fear building a city with several 100.000's will be next to impossible...quote>

This is where a multicored version of the game would help. It is getting slower becouse your CPU usage is getting bigger. GPU is not as much a problem becouse you only have some parts of the city showing at a time. Offcourse a good GPU will make your walking throu the city easy and fast...

[USA_Pride 49]

The demo performed well for me on my Vista 32-bit, Core 2 Quad Q8200, 4 gigs of RAM, and GeForce 8800 GTS. However, I'm really dissapointed the game doesn't take advantage of multiple cores.

[jabezscratch 159]

The demo ran flawlessly for me. I have a Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4Ghz), 2G RAM, and ATI 4870X2 (dual GPU) on Windows XP w/ highest graphics settings. The 4870X2 video card is stupid fast w/ two GPUs so I think that it just takes over and compensates for any bottlenecks in the rest of my system. Too bad CXL doesn't exploit multicores.

[8elhaj 0]

I hope MC can confirm that the game will exploit multi core cpus in the future.

Please MC answer.

[nataklug 3]

No answer from MC...

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

-swat

[C.]