Cities: Skylines 2 earned a reputation for being one of the worst-optimized major PC releases in recent years — and that reputation is accurate. An RTX 4090 struggles to break 40 fps at 4K on low settings [1]. On minimum-spec hardware, the situation looks grim until you understand which settings are doing most of the damage.
This guide ranks CS2’s graphics options by actual FPS impact, so you fix the biggest problems first and skip the changes that barely move the needle. Four settings account for the overwhelming majority of GPU overhead on budget systems — the rest are secondary at best.
Can Your PC Run Cities: Skylines 2?
CS2’s minimum specs include an Intel Core i7 6700K (or Ryzen 5 2600X), a GTX 780 or RX 470, and 8GB of RAM [3]. The recommended tier is a different league — an RTX 3080 paired with a 12th-gen Core i5 [3] — which makes the gap between playable and comfortable wider than almost any other major title.
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | i7 6700K / Ryzen 5 2600X | i5 12600K / Ryzen 5 5800X |
| GPU | GTX 780 / RX 470 | RTX 3080 / RX 6800 XT |
| RAM | 8 GB | 16 GB |
| Storage | 50 GB | 50 GB SSD |
| Target FPS | 30 fps (Low) | 60 fps (Medium) |
One requirement doesn’t appear in the official specs but may be the most important: install CS2 on an SSD. On a traditional hard drive, the game loads so slowly it can be impossible to navigate the main menu [2]. NVMe is ideal; SATA SSD is a solid fallback. Do not install on an HDD — this applies regardless of everything else in this guide.
Why CS2 Runs Differently From Most Games
Most games are GPU-limited. CS2 is not — at least not entirely. The simulation layer — traffic routing, population pathfinding, emergency service dispatch — runs primarily on the CPU, and as your city grows, that load grows with it. This is why a GTX 1080 Ti produces only 32 fps at 1080p/Low on a moderately-sized city [1]: the GPU isn’t the sole bottleneck.
For budget PC players, this means two things. First, GPU setting changes deliver less relief than you’d expect in a typical game. Second, keeping your early city compact directly improves performance, independent of any graphics setting. That said, four GPU settings still have a massive individual impact and should be your first adjustments.
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The Four Settings Responsible for Most of Your Performance Loss
Shadow Quality: The Biggest Win (~37% FPS Gain)
Shadow Quality is the single most impactful graphics setting in CS2. Dropping it to its lowest level — or disabling it entirely — delivers approximately a 37% FPS improvement [1]. On a GTX 780 or RX 470, this single change can shift an unplayable single-digit experience into a usable one. No other setting gets close.
Set Shadow Quality to Low or Off.
Level of Detail: The Second Biggest Lever (~29% FPS Gain)
Level of Detail controls how far from the camera the engine renders full-geometry models. Reducing LOD forces simplified versions to appear sooner, cutting GPU load substantially. A 29% FPS improvement was recorded when LOD was reduced to its lowest setting [1], making it the second most impactful option in the entire game. CS2 includes a dedicated Very Low LOD tier — use it on minimum-spec hardware.
Global Illumination: Worth Disabling (~12% FPS Gain)
Global Illumination simulates how light bounces off surfaces and fills shadowed areas with realistic indirect lighting. It’s expensive and, crucially, the effect is subtle in motion — most players stop noticing it’s missing within minutes. Disabling it recovers around 12% of lost frame rate [1].
Volumetrics Quality: Disable It (~11% FPS Gain)
Volumetrics handles atmospheric effects: fog, mist, and god-ray lighting through clouds. Disabling this setting recovers approximately 11% of frame rate [1]. The visual trade-off is real — CS2 loses some atmospheric depth — but it’s worthwhile when you’re below 30 fps.
| Setting | FPS Gain (Disabled/Low) | Recommended Value |
|---|---|---|
| Shadow Quality | ~37% | Off or Low |
| Level of Detail | ~29% | Very Low |
| Global Illumination | ~12% | Off |
| Volumetrics Quality | ~11% | Off |
Settings With Lower Priority
Depth of Field: Turn It Off (5.7% Gain)
Depth of Field blurs objects outside the focal plane — a cinematic effect that’s particularly intrusive in a city builder where you need to read fine detail across the map. Disabling it recovers only 5.7% [1], which isn’t transformative, but it’s free frames and removes a visual effect most strategy players dislike anyway.
Motion Blur and Anti-Aliasing
Motion Blur has negligible performance impact in CS2; disable it regardless. Anti-Aliasing is unusual: testing found no measurable performance difference between Low and High SMAA settings [2]. Use High SMAA — it’s genuinely free visual quality with no FPS cost.
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Terrain, Water, and Animation Quality
These secondary settings each contribute modest gains. Set Terrain Quality, Water Quality, and Animation Quality to Low. None of them will transform a struggling system on their own, but combined they add up meaningfully.
Texture Quality: Don’t Touch It
Texture quality has minimal FPS impact in CS2 [1]. Dropping textures to Low degrades visual quality noticeably while recovering almost no frames. Keep Texture Quality at Medium or higher — it’s not a performance lever in this game.
Your Complete Low-End Preset
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| VSync | Off |
| Anti-Aliasing | High SMAA |
| Shadow Quality | Off |
| Global Illumination | Off |
| Volumetrics Quality | Off |
| Depth of Field | Off |
| Motion Blur | Off |
| Level of Detail | Very Low |
| Terrain Quality | Low |
| Water Quality | Low |
| Animation Quality | Low |
| Texture Quality | Medium |
| Dynamic Resolution Scale | Auto |
Dynamic Resolution: Your Safety Net
If you’ve applied all of the above and are still falling short of 30 fps, enable Dynamic Resolution Scale and set it to Automatic. CS2 renders the scene below your monitor’s native resolution and upscales the output, adjusting dynamically to maintain a frame rate target. The trade-off is visual softness, particularly in text and UI edges.
One non-obvious insight: CS2’s Very Low preset performs significantly better than the Low preset — the gap between the two is unusually large compared to most games [1]. If manual tuning from the Low baseline isn’t reaching your target, switch to the Very Low preset as a whole. The combined efficiency of all Very Low settings outperforms picking individual options.
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For a deeper look at how dynamic resolution, FSR, and other upscaling technologies work across different games, the universal graphics settings guide explains every major technique and when each is the right choice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Cities: Skylines 2 run on 8GB RAM?
Yes, 8GB meets the minimum requirement, but 16GB is strongly recommended. On 8GB, stuttering and longer load times are common — Windows itself consumes 2–3GB in the background, leaving CS2’s simulation with very little headroom.
Does city size always affect performance?
Yes. CS2 is partially CPU-bound, meaning a larger city creates more simulation load regardless of your graphics settings. Keeping cities smaller in the early game is one of the most practical performance tools available, separate from any setting adjustment.
Is there a real difference between the Low and Very Low preset?
Yes — it’s unusually large [1]. Most games have modest gaps between adjacent presets; CS2’s jump from Low to Very Low is one of the widest in recent memory. If Low isn’t working for your system, Very Low is a meaningful step down, not just a marginal one.
Conclusion
CS2 is genuinely demanding on budget hardware, but the performance picture improves sharply once you know where the cost actually sits. Shadow Quality and Level of Detail alone account for roughly two-thirds of recoverable GPU overhead [1]. Address those two first, disable Global Illumination and Volumetrics next, and you’ll reclaim the majority of lost performance without touching textures or anti-aliasing.
For general PC-level optimization beyond in-game settings — driver tweaks, background process management, power plan adjustments — the complete guide to optimizing your PC for better FPS covers every step in detail.