How to improve FPS in Sid Meier's Civilization VI (PC)
Civilization VI runs on a Firaxis proprietary engine built for hex-grid boards, many units on screen, and dozens of AI systems calculating in parallel each turn. Unlike a shooter, hardware here isn't measured in rendering FPS but in how long the game takes to process the other civilizations' turn: that "turn time" is the real bottleneck, especially in Huge games with 10-12 civilizations from around turn 150 onward. This guide covers both the graphics settings that do affect map framerate and, more importantly, the options that drastically reduce the wait time between turns.
This is what you'd gain with a NVIDIA RTX 3050
Want the RTX 3050 at the best price?
Check the current price on Amazon.
Calculations based on our FPS model combined with the % gain of each setting (measured in public benchmarks).
1. Quick wins (no visual loss)
Start here. Each one adds a little, but together they give +39% free FPS.
Enemy Unit Animations
Disables the movement animation of AI units during their turn. It doesn't affect map FPS but is the setting with the biggest real impact on turn time in advanced matches, because it avoids rendering every movement of every rival unit.
Shadow Quality
Dynamic shadows on the hex map, especially with many units and visible terrain improvements, are among the most expensive rendering textures. Dropping them to Low frees up FPS noticeably without affecting board readability.
Water Reflections
Reflections on ocean and coast tiles consume GPU disproportionately to what they visually add in an overhead strategy view.
Anti-Aliasing (MSAA)
High MSAA has a high performance cost on this engine due to the large number of hexagonal edges and units. Dropping it to Low keeps the game readable without excessive jaggedness.
Terrain Quality
Terrain detail geometry (rocks, decorative vegetation) is barely noticeable from the usual gameplay camera but still consumes GPU on large maps.
2. Medium impact settings
Here's where most of the FPS is. Minor visual impact, major performance impact.
Texture Resolution
Dropping from High/Ultra to Medium reduces VRAM usage and especially helps on GPUs with less than 4-6 GB, avoiding microstutter when scrolling quickly across the map.
Depth of Field
The blur effect at screen edges during leader cutscenes and city views has a disproportionate cost for what it adds to a strategy game.
Detailed City Views
Controls the detail level of buildings and districts rendered on the map. In Huge games with dozens of cities this setting has a notable impact on both FPS and turn loading time.
SSAO
Ambient occlusion shading adds depth to districts and units but is dispensable in the predominant overhead view during the match.
Vertical Sync
Since it's not a game about reflexes, V-Sync only provides tearing-free visuals but adds input lag when panning the map. Disabling it (with FPS cap enabled instead) improves the feel of smoothness when moving the camera.
3. Upscaling (DLSS / FSR / XeSS)
The biggest gain in the game. Compatible with almost any modern GPU.
No DLSS/FSR/XeSS support
+0% FPSCivilization VI includes no modern upscaler (neither DLSS, nor FSR, nor XeSS): being a turn-based strategy game that doesn't need sustained 60+ FPS to play well, Firaxis never implemented this technology. There's no way to "enable it" via officially supported mods.
Real alternative: lower the render resolution
+20% FPSIf your GPU struggles on Huge maps with heavy zoom, the honest alternative is lowering screen resolution (or using native Windows/GPU scaling like DSR/VSR in reverse) instead of waiting for an upscaler the game doesn't have. The FPS saving is real but at the cost of text and interface sharpness.
4. Tips by GPU
NVIDIA
- •Enable "Prefer maximum performance" mode in the NVIDIA control panel to prevent the GPU from downclocking during AI turn wait times.
- •Civilization VI doesn't benefit from DLSS or Frame Generation: don't enable Reflex/Frame Gen overlays expecting a gain, they don't exist for this title.
- •With 6 GB or less GPUs, keep textures on Medium to avoid VRAM spikes when opening the city view in Huge matches.
AMD
- •Disable Radeon Chill if you use it habitually: it can introduce perceptible microstutter during map panning on this engine.
- •As with NVIDIA, there's no FSR available in the game; ignore any tutorial promising to enable it via driver panel, it doesn't work at the game level.
- •Force the "High Performance" power profile in Adrenalin for long matches, since consumption fluctuates a lot between the player's turn and the AI's turn.
Intel
- •On Arc, update to the latest drivers: early versions had noticeable stutter specifically during Civilization VI's camera transitions.
- •XeSS isn't supported by the game; don't look for it in the graphics menu.
- •On Intel hybrid-core CPUs (P-cores/E-cores), check in Task Manager that Civ6 runs on a P-core: the scheduler sometimes assigns the main turn thread to an E-core, spiking turn time.
Sistema
- •The CPU rules: prioritize single-core frequency over core count. A processor with a high boost clock on 1-2 cores will reduce turn time much more than adding extra cores.
- •Install the game on an SSD (ideally NVMe): loading large save game data and frequent autosaves penalize performance a lot on HDD.
- •Close third-party overlays (Discord, GeForce Experience, RGB software) during Huge matches: they consume CPU cycles that directly compete with the AI calculation thread.
5. Known game issues
Turn time creep in advanced matches
From around turn 150-200 on Huge maps with 10+ civilizations, wait time between turns can grow to 1-3 minutes, even on powerful hardware, because AI calculation for each civilization and city-state is sequential and poorly parallelized.
Memory leak in very long matches
In sessions of several hours without restarting the game, RAM consumption grows progressively and can cause performance drops or unexpected crashes; restarting the game every 3-4 hours of play mitigates the problem.
Estado: Partially improved in the Gathering Storm expansion patch, but not fully eliminated
Stutter opening the city view with many districts
In highly developed cities (10+ districts), the transition to the city view can cause a noticeable pause while the engine loads and renders all the buildings; lowering "city details" to Medium reduces the problem.
6. Frequently asked questions
Why does my match become extremely slow in advanced turns even though I have a powerful GPU?▾
Does it make sense to buy a better GPU just to play Civilization VI?▾
Does Civilization VI have DLSS or FSR?▾
Which setting reduces turn wait time the most in Huge matches?▾
Want to know exactly how many FPS YOUR PC will get?
Enter your GPU and CPU in our calculator and measure the real impact of each setting.
Calculate FPS for Sid Meier's Civilization VI →Calculations based on consensus of technical sources and our own FPS model. More about our methodology →