This section takes a close look at the graphical options in Civ VI, and their effects on the game’s performance.
The developers have arranged these graphics settings into a few categories for general Advanced Options, Lighting, Shadows, Terrain, and Water—so the breakdown below will follow their lead.
The ‘performance impact’ in each subsection below is the measured difference in average FPS between playing the game with all settings at their highest and turning only the setting in question down to the lowest (or off) while leaving all others untouched.
It is also worth pointing out that the performance impact is not necessarily perfectly additive. So if disabling one setting increases FPS by 10% and disabling another increases FPS by 10%, disabling both would not be expect to increase performance by 20%. Instead, the increase would likely be somewhere from 12-18% total.
The next point to make is that the game has dedicated Dx11 and Dx12 modes, which you select before you launch the game. This is more down to your GPU than anything else; if you have a newer GPU, then take advantage of the smoother Dx12 performance, otherwise run Dx11.
Finally, the game's overall FPS is very much determined by how much is being shown onscreen at any given time. The various settings have a compound impact on performance: the larger the game you're playing, the bigger the hit. So if you're someone who enjoys setting up massive cities or having massive battles composed, you've been warned!
Anti-Aliasing
Found above the presets in the graphics settings, anti-aliasing impacts essentially every aspect of the game detail in regards to you having smooth or jagged edges. More noticeable when you're zoomed in close, and generally needed less at higher resolutions.
Performance Impact: ~10% between Off and MSAA 8X
Drag the bar to compare Texture Detail Off and on MSAA 8X.
Quality Preset
Without messing around with any individual settings yourself, the game does provide 2 main preset sliders. These come in the form of performance impact and memory impact. You can mix and match these to a point, yet—as you'll see from the other custom options below—there are some things better than others to really get the best out of your system.
The largest changes come in texture detail and lighting on the presets.
Performance Impact: ~45% between Low and Ultra
Drag the bar to compare Quality Preset on Low and on Ultra.
High-Resolution Assets and High-Quality Visual Effects
These two options are placed together mainly because they're very dependent on what is happening on the map, as well as the sheer amount of assets shown on the screen. Expect these to have a larger impact as the game develops.
'High resolution asset textures' is what it sounds like, namely the visual quality level of the asset textures. The 'High-Quality visual effects' options impact the quality and quantity of particle effects.
Performance Impact: ~5% between Off and On
Lighting
Next up are the two lighting toggles available, Bloom and Dynamic Lighting. Having both turned on together gives a lighting effect similar to what you would see with light through a real camera. It's very much a personal preference thing, but it does have a larger impact the more structures are in view, in regards to dynamic lighting.
Performance Impact: ~5% between Off and On
Drag the bar to compare Lighting Off and On.
Shadows
Outside of the basic On/Off option (shown in the comparison below), the game does allow for a little subtlety in the form of two options for shadow resolutions and cloud shadows. The resolution change is the preferred option here if you're running a lower VRAM card and are wanting the largest improvements, yet the cloud shadows can start to tank your performance as they interact with more and more stuff on screen.
Performance Impact: ~10-15% between Off and On (Environment-dependent)
Drag the bar to compare Shadows Off and On.
Terrain
There's a few different things at work here, and the combination of the four options together is what can have the largest impact in altering performance. However, mainly because of the game's art style, this is the one category where you can really afford to drop down some of the options to improve frame rate without a significant drop in overall visuals.
Let's take a quick look at the options:
Overall Quality
This changes the detail of textures, which results in a little more washed out look when turned down. You'll notice it more when zoomed in close on the various ground textures, especially the mountains.
Performance Impact: ~10-20% between Low and High (Environment-dependent)
High-Resolution Geometry Textures
This is most noticeable on the exaggerated textures (mountains, rivers, cliff faces, etc.), yet by itself it doesn't change much outside of the overall quality setting above.
Performance Impact: ~5% between Off and On
High-Resolution Textures
These are only really worth it when playing at 1440p and above; at 1080p, these are a little harder to distinguish.
Performance Impact: ~5-10% between Off and On (Resolution-dependent)
High-Quality Shader
Having this enabled results in a higher-quality terrain lighting being used. Only really noticeable when zoomed in on objects.
Performance Impact: ~2-5% between Off and On (Environment-dependent)
Ambient Occlusion Options
Options within options! Firstly you have an option to have this on or off, which does change the accuracy of the lighting; but again, due to the art style, I'm not sure how many of you would miss this here. The second option is simply what resolution you want this at, with the lower resolution being useful if you're running the game at 1080p.
Performance Impact: ~5% between Off and On
High Detail Clutter
The last terrain option is for high detail clutter. Which essentially does what it says on the tin: increases the amount and detail of stuff on the various terrain pieces. It does have an impact on frame rate, but it's a very slight visual change at a glance.
Performance Impact: ~2-5% between Off and On (Environment-dependent)
The comparison shot below is between having all Terrain options on and overall quality set to high vs. having all Terrain options off and overall quality set to low.
Drag the bar to compare Terrain Minimum Settings and Maximum Settings.
Water
All the stuff that isn't land! Which is a fair amount in this game, in fairness. Similar to the Terrain options above, there are sub-options for Water here. Some of them have a higher visual impact than others, but (once again) because of the art style, this is where you can really improve the frames without hugely impacting the visuals.
High Resolution Water
Does what it claims to do: gives you a higher resolution water texture. Only really noticeable at 1440p and above, so you can afford to lose this if you're on the hunt for some frames at 1080p!
Performance Impact: ~5% between Off and On
High-Quality Shader
This option gives the shadows and depth effects of the water a more realistic look (i.e. it looks like you're looking into water from above, rather than looking at a 2D plane). It's a small detail that you'll notice if you're watching the ships going by, but otherwise it's quite hard to see.
Performance Impact: ~2% between Off and On
Reflections
The refelections give the water a more realistic look—or you can just turn them off entirely.
Performance Impact: ~2% between Off and 4 Passes
The comparison shot below is between having all Water options on and reflections set to 4 passes vs. having all Water options off.
Drag the bar to compare Water Minimum Settings and Maximum Settings.