Civilization 6 might seem like it can run on anything and while the minimum requirements of the game are fairly low, you do need decent hardware to run the game smoothly. In this Civilization 6 PC optimization guide we are going to go over the settings that you can tweak in order to increase the FPS and performance fo the game.
Civilization 6 PC Optimization
The following are the settings of the game that you can tweak in order to get better performance.
Shadows
Turning this off will give you a significant increase in performance. You can tweak this setting and see what works for you. If you are close to the minimum requirements of the game then turning shadows off would be the best.
Presets
If your graphics card has more than 4 GB of VRAM then you should be able to play this game at the medium preset at the very least. If you have an older graphics card then you can turn the settings down to low. Doing this will give you an increase in performance of around 33%. This will vary depending on your hardware.
High detail clutter
This setting controls the number of trees or crops on a tile. This can be very taxing on your graphics card especially if it is having issues running the game smoothly in the first place. You can reduce this setting in order to increase performance.
Post-processing effects
These effects can impact performance significantly as well. You can lower the setting and see how much of a boost in performance you get.
Anti-aliasing
This setting does not have a major impact on the performance of Civ 6. Turning this off will get you an additional 3-5 FPS.
Ambient occlusion
This is one of the most taxing settings and you should turn this down in order to get better performance.
Animated Leaders
You can turn off the animations of the leaders for a much smoother experience. Doing this will replace the animations with still pictures of the leaders.
Civilization 6 Settings For Low-End PCs
The following are the settings that we recommend for low end PCs:
| Performance Impact | Low |
| Memory Impact | Low |
| Vertical Sync | Off |
| Anit-aliasing | Disabled |
| High resolution textures | Disabled |
| High-quality visual effects | Low |
| Bloom | Disabled |
| Dynamic Lighting | Enabled |
| Shadows | Enabled |
| Screen space overlay | Off |
| Terrain Quality | Low |
| High-resolution geometry | Off |
| High-resolution textures | Pff |
| High-resolution shaders | Off |
| Ambient Occlusion | Disabled |
| High detail clutter | Disabled |
| High-resolution water | Off |
| Animated leaders quality | Disabled |
Remember to keep your driver up to date in order to get the best possible performance out of your graphics card.