The Tool Desk
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The settings below are a practical way to find a smooth compromise without destroying the appearance of your city. They combine Colossal Order’s official optimization guidance with measured results from GamersNexus and account for the benchmark, patch, and hardware caveats that make a universal FPS promise impossible.
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Start with this baseline
Open the graphics options and make the following changes before adjusting individual quality sliders:
- Set the output to 1920×1080 at 60 Hz.
- Set Depth of Field to Off.
- Set Volumetrics to Off.
- Test both Fullscreen and Windowed Fullscreen rather than assuming one is faster.
- Disable Motion Blur if low frame rates feel worse with the effect enabled or if the blur distracts you.
This is Colossal Order’s recommended starting point, not a guaranteed result for every computer. A lower resolution reduces the number of pixels the graphics processor must render, while 60 Hz gives you a clear, repeatable target for testing. If your monitor has a different refresh rate, you can test that later, but begin with the controlled 60 Hz baseline so each change is easy to compare.
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Why 1080p is the useful first test
Resolution affects every rendered frame. Moving from a higher output to 1920×1080 can provide more headroom than changing a minor image-quality option, although the picture will be softer on a high-resolution display. Keep the same resolution while testing the other options; changing several variables simultaneously makes it impossible to tell which adjustment helped.
Dynamic Resolution: useful, but visibly softer
Dynamic Resolution automatically changes the rendered resolution to protect performance. It can keep a demanding scene from falling as sharply, but the image may become blurry when the internal resolution drops. Treat it as a fallback for difficult views rather than an automatic quality upgrade. First establish how the game behaves at a fixed 1920×1080 output, then enable Dynamic Resolution only if the softness is acceptable to you.
Wait for virtual textures to finish
Immediately after launch, buildings may look unusually dark or show visual artifacts while virtual textures are processed. Colossal Order says this normally takes less than a minute, with the exact time depending on your hardware. Do not judge image quality or performance during that brief processing period. Let it complete, then evaluate the same scene again.
Lower these settings in order when FPS is still low
After the baseline, change one setting group at a time. The order below follows the strongest effects observed in a GamersNexus 2023 case study. The percentages are that test system’s results, not a forecast for your PC.
| Order | Setting | Measured case-study result | What changes visually | When to use it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Level of Detail (LOD) | About 29% gain in the cited test | Distant buildings, props, vehicles, and terrain details simplify sooner. | First major reduction after the baseline. |
| 2 | Shadow Quality | About 37% gain in the cited test | Less detailed or shorter-range shadows; disabling shadows makes scenes flatter and removes self-shadowing from trees, buildings, cars, and curbs. | Use when you need the largest likely rendering improvement and can accept a conspicuous visual trade-off. |
| 3 | Volumetric effects | About 11% gain when disabled in the cited test | Cloud and fog presentation is reduced; core city geometry changes little. | Already Off in the baseline; verify it remains disabled after changing presets. |
| 4 | Global Illumination | Moderate gain in the cited test; no universal percentage stated | Indirect lighting and ambient bounce become less pronounced. | Try after LOD and shadows if you still need headroom. |
| 5 | Fog, reflections, ambient occlusion, anti-aliasing, and textures | Smaller effects than LOD and shadows in the cited test | Changes atmospheric depth, reflective surfaces, contact shading, edge smoothness, or surface detail. | Fine-tune after the larger controls; keep textures higher when your available VRAM allows it. |
The 37% shadow result, 29% LOD result, and 11% volumetric result were reported by GamersNexus in 2023 under its own hardware, game build, and scenes. They demonstrate relative priority, not a universal benchmark. Your city, camera angle, drivers, and processor can produce very different gains.
1. Level of Detail
LOD determines how much geometry and object detail remains visible at distance. Lowering it usually preserves the appearance of the area immediately around the camera while reducing work for distant streets, buildings, props, and vehicles. This makes it a strong first reduction when the city looks acceptable nearby but frame times become uneven while panning across a broad skyline.
Inspect a familiar avenue and then pull the camera back. If distant objects pop into simpler forms sooner but the foreground remains readable, you have made the intended trade. If the result is too distracting, raise LOD one step and test Shadow Quality next instead of dropping every option to its minimum.
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2. Shadow Quality
Shadows are expensive because the game must render shadow information for many objects and update it as the camera and sun move. Lower quality can improve frame rates substantially, but the cost is immediately visible: shadows become shorter-range or less detailed, and a fully disabled setting removes self-shadowing from trees, buildings, cars, and curbs. Scenes can look flatter even when the city geometry itself is unchanged.
Reduce shadows only as far as your target requires. A middle setting often provides a better visual compromise than turning them off completely. Check a tree-lined street, a dense downtown block, and a road interchange; each exposes different shadow artifacts.
3. Volumetric effects
Volumetrics primarily affect fog and cloud presentation rather than the underlying buildings and roads. Disabling them is part of the official baseline and produced about an 11% gain in the GamersNexus test. If you prefer atmospheric weather, try the lowest usable level after you establish a stable frame time, but do not confuse volumetric haze with the geometric detail controlled by LOD.
4. Global Illumination
Global Illumination contributes indirect light and the way light bounces through a scene. GamersNexus found a moderate performance improvement when it was lowered or disabled, while Colossal Order does not require switching it off as the first step. Use it as a targeted reduction when LOD and shadows have not brought the city to an acceptable level. Compare a street canyon, an underpass, and an open plaza so you can see what ambient-light changes you are accepting.
5. The smaller-impact controls
In the cited test, fog, reflections, ambient occlusion, anti-aliasing, and textures changed performance less than LOD and shadows. That does not make them irrelevant. Reflections can matter in scenes with extensive water or glass; ambient occlusion affects contact shading around buildings and vehicles; anti-aliasing changes edge shimmer; and textures consume video memory and influence surface clarity.
If your graphics card has sufficient VRAM, texture quality can usually remain higher while you adjust the other controls. Lower textures when you see texture streaming problems, severe stutter during camera movement, or surfaces that fail to load correctly. Do not lower every slider simply because one setting is expensive; preserve the options that matter most to your preferred view of the city.
Use the in-game benchmark to measure each change
Visual impressions are unreliable when a city is constantly changing. Cities: Skylines II includes a Benchmark in its options or menu area. Paradox patch notes confirm that the benchmark screen is an in-game feature and has received user-interface fixes. Use it after every meaningful setting change.
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- Load one repeatable save rather than switching between unrelated cities.
- Choose a fixed camera height, direction, and zoom level.
- Keep weather, time of day, resolution, and display mode unchanged.
- Run the benchmark and record average FPS and whether frame times feel smooth.
- Change one setting or one closely related group, then run the same benchmark again.
- After identifying a promising configuration, repeat the test in your largest, most populated city.
Average FPS alone can hide hitching. Pay attention to frame-time consistency: a lower average that remains steady can feel better than a higher average with repeated spikes. Keep short notes for each run so you can reverse a change that produces a poor visual trade without guessing which option caused it.
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A small test map is useful for isolating graphics work, but it may not represent your normal play. A large city with extensive road networks, services, traffic, and population can expose CPU and simulation limits that graphics sliders cannot remove. GamersNexus observed increasingly variable frame times as population and city complexity rose. Test both a relatively simple view and your most demanding save before deciding that a preset is good enough.
Separate GPU limits from simulation limits
If lowering resolution, LOD, shadows, and volumetrics barely changes performance in the largest city, the bottleneck may be simulation work on the processor rather than rasterizing pixels on the graphics card. Graphics settings can reduce rendering cost, but they cannot make a complex simulation calculate instantly. A useful clue is that a low-detail view and a high-detail view perform nearly the same in the same busy save. In that situation, keep the settings that preserve image quality and focus your expectations on stable frame times instead of chasing a fixed FPS number.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Choose a settings profile for your priorities
There is no single best preset because smoothness, sharpness, and distant detail compete with one another. Use the following profiles as starting points, then validate them with the benchmark.
Balanced 1080p profile
- 1920×1080 at 60 Hz.
- Depth of Field Off.
- Volumetrics Off.
- Motion Blur Off if it obscures motion.
- LOD one step below your preferred visual maximum.
- Shadows at a middle setting rather than fully disabled.
- Global Illumination enabled unless the benchmark still shows unacceptable frame times.
- Textures kept high when VRAM is sufficient.
This profile keeps nearby city detail and some shadow depth while applying the official baseline and the two highest-priority reductions.
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Performance-first profile
- Keep the 1920×1080 output initially; use Dynamic Resolution only if a softer image is acceptable.
- Depth of Field, Volumetrics, and Motion Blur Off.
- LOD reduced enough to stabilize distant views.
- Shadows reduced aggressively, with full disablement only when necessary.
- Global Illumination lowered or disabled.
- Reduce fog, reflections, ambient occlusion, and anti-aliasing only after the larger settings have been tested.
Expect flatter lighting, less distant detail, and reduced atmospheric effects. This profile is appropriate when consistent frame times matter more than presentation.
Image-quality-first profile
- Retain 1920×1080 as the controlled test resolution.
- Keep textures high if your VRAM can handle them.
- Use a moderate LOD and shadow setting rather than minimum values.
- Keep Global Illumination, ambient occlusion, and reflections enabled until benchmarking shows a clear need to reduce them.
- Leave Dynamic Resolution Off if sharpness is more important than recovering occasional drops.
This profile accepts lower performance in exchange for detailed materials, lighting, and distant scenery. It is most practical in smaller cities or less demanding views.
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Fullscreen, windowed fullscreen, and motion effects
Display mode performance varies by system. Test Fullscreen and Windowed Fullscreen with the same save and benchmark conditions; keep whichever produces steadier results on your machine. Do not infer a winner from a different resolution or background workload.
Motion Blur does not reduce the amount of city geometry the game must simulate. Its effect is perceptual: at low FPS it can make camera movement feel less clear, and some players find it distracting even at higher frame rates. Disable it when it makes motion feel worse, then judge the actual frame-time result separately from the visual preference.
Common problems and targeted fixes
The city looks dark or has artifacts after launch
Wait for virtual-texture processing to finish. Colossal Order says the normal processing period is usually under a minute, depending on hardware. Recheck the scene after it completes before changing quality settings.
Changing Volumetrics seems to do nothing
Verify the game build and the actual setting value, then rerun the benchmark. Paradox patch 1.5.9f1 fixed a bug in which Volumetrics Quality settings did not work. Older launch-era guides may therefore describe behavior that does not match a patched installation.
Shadows pop or change distance unexpectedly
Patch 1.5.9f1 also fixed shadow render-distance jumps and uneven shadow cascades. If you are following an older guide, update the game and retest rather than assuming a slider is broken. A patched build can produce different shadow behavior and benchmark results.
Low settings still stutter in a large city
Repeat the test with the same camera in a smaller save. If performance improves substantially there but not in the complex city, population and simulation workload are likely contributing to the limit. Keep a visually comfortable graphics profile and evaluate frame-time stability instead of reducing every setting to minimum.
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Dynamic Resolution makes the game unreadably soft
Disable it and return to a fixed 1920×1080 output, then lower LOD or shadows in measured steps. Dynamic Resolution is a performance tool, not a free FPS increase: it trades internal resolution for speed.
Retest after every meaningful patch
Graphics behavior is version-sensitive. Patch 1.5.9f1 changed shadow rendering behavior and corrected the Volumetrics Quality bug, so advice written around the launch version may no longer describe the current result. After an update, run the same benchmark save at the same camera position before and after your preferred settings. If the game changes, keep your old notes but treat them as historical measurements rather than current guarantees.
A practical decision checklist
- Have you tested 1920×1080 at 60 Hz with Depth of Field and Volumetrics disabled?
- Did virtual textures finish processing before you judged the scene?
- Did you compare Fullscreen with Windowed Fullscreen under identical conditions?
- Did you lower LOD before making extensive reductions elsewhere?
- Did you test Shadow Quality separately and inspect the visual cost on trees, buildings, cars, and curbs?
- Did you keep textures higher when available VRAM allowed it?
- Did you run the in-game Benchmark after each meaningful change?
- Did you test both a small map and your largest populated city?
- Did you check whether the limitation stayed the same after lowering graphics settings, suggesting CPU or simulation pressure?
- Did you retest after the latest patch instead of relying on launch-era behavior?
The most dependable approach is incremental: establish the official 1080p baseline, measure it, reduce LOD, measure again, then reduce shadows if necessary. Only after those high-impact decisions should you trade away global lighting, atmospheric effects, reflections, ambient occlusion, anti-aliasing, or texture detail. That process gives you a settings configuration tied to your own city and hardware rather than an FPS claim that cannot be generalized.
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