Improve Multi-Core Use, better multi-threading performance
Hello,
I have played about 15 hours in game so far. I have noticed that as the population goes up and the gameplay expands further into the map, only 1 core is truly utilized. My graphics card is barely utilized and this is on low graphics quality and 50% resolution scale. I have really enjoyed the gameplay, but with a constant FPS under 15, its difficult to play in the later stages. The dip in core 1 usage is when I paused the game to make sure it wasn't something else running in the background that was hitting that core so hard.
Thank you,
Trey
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27 Sep, '25
Shini4444 MergedHighlighted comment
Hi devs,
First off, I really love Timberborn and the amount of depth you’ve put into the game. That said, I’ve been running into some pretty big performance issues in the late game on large maps.
Even with a high-end rig (i9-13900K, RTX 4070 Ti, 32GB DDR5), once my colony hits around 2k population, the game slows down to a crawl — basically locked at 2 fps. What’s weird is that lowering the graphics settings or resolution doesn’t really help. I dropped all the way down to 1080p with render scale at 25%, and I still can’t get above 2 fps… even though earlier in the game it was running fine in 4K or 2K with render scale at 100%.
From what I can tell, it doesn’t seem like the game is making much use of multiple CPU cores. It would be amazing if you could look into better multicore/multithread optimization, especially for big maps and big colonies. Modern CPUs are built to handle this kind of load across multiple cores, so spreading things out a bit could really improve late-game
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16 Oct, '21
winklevos MergedI run the game at 1440 ultra, and initially the game has FPS over 100, but later into a game with ~300 beavers FPS will be in the ~40s for normal speed and slightly lower at the faster speeds.
I have 14 threads and a 2080s, CPU usage stays around 30% it looks like some optimisation for multiple cores/threads is possible. As one core is significantly used more than all the others. Likely related my GPU usage sits around 50%
Enjoying the game but would be nice to have it use my hardware for smooth beavering -
17 Oct, '21
Gin Fuyou System"Optimise CPU and GPU threads/usage" (suggested by winklevos on 2021-10-16), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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25 Jan, '22
Travis ShawAt 1200 beavers game slows to a crawl and is basically unplayable. 2fps when only one core is working and all the rest are doing nothing, 50 gigs of memory are available and video card is barely being utilized
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01 Oct, '22
SoullyThe game seems to only utilize about 3 of my available logical processors on task manager (Image attached). It appears to "want" to do multithreads, but can't quite do so, looking at the first and second on the the top row, they almost seem opposite each other, so really only able to load up to two cores worth?
I can confirm Timberborn is the owner of most of the usage, it's using on average about all but about 6-8% of the total usage.
This is a bit outside my knowledge base, I'm more or less laying out the info I see from task manager. but hope this helps!
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02 Oct, '22
Gin Fuyou AdminThat's right, game uses 2 cores by design. Stay tuned for more optimizations, but I fear I have no details.
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01 Dec, '22
TaleOfThorI have the same Problem. I use an 19-9900K 8 Cores 16 Threads and Only 1-2 Cores are in use during Gameplay. Sometimes I only get 80 or as low as 26(!) FPS if I load my Civilisation with over 300 beavers. My GPU (RTX2070) is about 35-40% in use.
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01 Dec, '22
TaleOfThorThis is probably what causes the other to Suggestions / Bugs tagged with #Performance
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29 Dec, '22
Jcheung System"unplayable" (suggested by NGrey on 2022-12-29), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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18 May, '23
bncacheThe game hardly uses any cpu on my comp on today\s experimental. When I increase memory speed, the FPS goes up a lot. From 4FPS to 7FPS when going from 2300 to 3200MHZ ram speed.
It seems the bottleneck is ram speed now. -
30 Jul, '23
NickWith a 12900k + 3090 I get 1fps once I hit about 1000 beavers. As mentioned above, only two cores get used. In my case the core that is throttled is a p-core and the second core is an e-core. Any way you can spread the load among cores? Part of the fun of this game for me is building a massive population and watching the beavers go at it, real shame once my base gets large the game is effectively over :(
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29 Jan, '24
AdamskyIt's 2024 and the game still uses only 2 cores. I mean WTF. I have reached a 4k population and now I have 1 FPS on my i9-12900K which is barely utilised.
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25 Mar, '24
Krell356 MergedAdd multi-threading support. The game's major bottle neck is the CPU and all the cores are not being utilized. Things like water simulation and pathing of beavers various districts are the main offenders that could each run in their own core to increase performance without impacting each other. There are probably other things as well that I'm not aware of that could also get their own core to maximize time available for the other tasks.
While none of this is usually a concern on your average colony or map, it does become a major performance hit as the colony size rises and as players make large reservoirs requiring more time spent calculating waterflow on large maps. Districts in particular seem like a great way to divide those tasks into multiple threads that can be sent off to other cores and increase performance without major issue. -
25 Mar, '24
Gin Fuyou System"Multi-threading support" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2024-03-25), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
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04 Nov, '24
KalessinAfter 100+ hours of play as of writing this post, playing with 1000 + beavers is impossible on any speed faster than 1x. During work hours I get 4 FPS tops, and evenings are at about 20FPS , so some reprieve. I find myself making them work less and less to less lag?
I watched my hardware to confirm that Timberborn is so 100% single threaded its crippling the game in many ways. As others have said the GPU just sits idle with no load whatsoever, even at 4k ultra, vsync. Having a 3090 and 5800X3D means this game uses 100% of 1 out of 16 threads, and just laughs at the 3090.
In summary, Timberborn is single-threaded, and late game causes insane slowdowns, while promising to not use any of the hardware you have available to attempt to brute force the FPS. I feel that this is a large multi-faceted issue for a game so many years into development, as there will be next to no time testing the multi-threaded engine.... or if it will ever be possible at all! I could write far more than 1000...
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04 Nov, '24
Jcheungi don't know why people keep talking about GPU, since this is a simulation game...
timberborn has multiple threads, but the main thread is generally the bottleneck.
there have been multiple improvement passes made since the OP made this suggestion, and more threads have also been added -
05 Nov, '24
KalessinRunning at 4k ultra high refresh does actually take hefty load on the GPU, I just thought to mention it as the game is rendering so few FPS via CPU that it doesn't even touch the GPU. You could run the game on an iGPU essentially, nothing graphics settings wise matters... Because of the CPU. This is referred to as a "Bottle-neck". Timberborn could be a command line based game with no graphics at this stage. Timberborn is almost entirely single/world threaded by nature.
I mean not to complain but offer fact and help improve the game! Math in my previous screenshot indicates 13.13% CPU over 16 threads. This means it uses 2.101 threads. Yeah 1 more helps, but its definitely nowhere near other titles that can utilize multiple threads. For a quick example, Diablo 4.
The attached image is the CPU usage during D4 play, A quick test shows 30-36.9% for around 90 fps tops. That combined is 5.9 Threads, or peak. More CPU utilization, means we can be GPU bottle-necked to my hearts content :)
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05 Nov, '24
Jcheungthere are, afaik, 4-5 threads that i'm aware of, not 2.101. the rest of them are bottlenecked by the main thread.
water movement simulation
irrigation simulation
contamination simulation
pathfinding/other
i want to say also drying is another thread, but i'm not sure.
also d4 isn't a simulation game afaik so its use cases are significantly different -
06 Jan, '25
TipiI have a user benchmark UFO category computer. (RTX 4070 TS, 32GB 7200MHz RAM, best intel CPU, etc.).
And with a large map, large population, I have lags like hell, while my coputer utilization is low.
So an optimization would be nice -
23 May, '25
AlexPlease guys, honestly finally add proper multi-threading support. I have a 11700k and the game is unplayable with about 500 beavers/bots. I'm getting 1 fps on 3x speed. It's honestly the biggest problem with the game for me. It's the only thing stopping me from playing it, and I don't recommend it to other people because the endgame, the part you work towards, is unplayable.
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23 May, '25
Gin Fuyou AdminAlex, that's why too low for such CPU, can you confirm it's not a case https://timberborn.featureupvote.com/suggestions/591196/stuttering-on-large-maps-since-the-version-6-update-smt-core-count-issue and you don't get throttling?
I'd expect 600-800 beavers to run at 30FPS if map and settlement is not overcomplicated -
03 Aug, '25
PeteI would like to see this addressed sooner rather than later, I do however understand that other topics are of more vital importance.
Looking forward to the future of Timberborn. -
27 Sep, '25
Gin Fuyou System"Multicor optimisation ?" (suggested by <Hidden> on 2025-09-27), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.
