Cities: Skylines Performance Guide: Boost FPS & Smooth Gameplay

If your city starts lagging or stuttering as it grows, you can significantly improve performance by adjusting a few key settings and optimizing your setup. Follow these steps to boost FPS and enjoy smoother gameplay:

🔧 1. Optimize In-Game Settings

Lower Shadow Quality – Shadows are very GPU-heavy; set them to Low or Off.

Reduce Level of Detail (LOD) – Lower terrain, tree, and building detail to improve frame rate.

Turn Off Depth of Field & Motion Blur – These post-processing effects cost FPS but add little to gameplay.

Limit Reflections & Ambient Occlusion – Disabling or lowering these gives a noticeable performance boost.

Resolution Scaling – Try scaling down to 80–90% to gain FPS without losing much visual quality