(for a config that worked perfectly with a similarly-sized design on rc4)

Well, that's the thing. rc5 and rc4 are using two different concepts of cell padding. rc4 is modifying the LEF, while rc5 is relying on openroad to handle the cell padding. Also, rc4 is using the standalone version of openDP while rc5 is using the one integrated in the openroad app. This affects the concept of PL_TARGET_DENSITY and while in rc4 it was preferred to have PL_TARGET_DENSITY=(FP_CORE_UTIL-(5~10)/100). Now, in rc5 it is preferred to be PL_TARGET_DENSITY=(FP_CORE_UTIL+(1~5)/100) And FP_CORE_UTIL should be relaxed as well as it became more representative of the actual core utilization, which wasn't so much the case earlier. So, the perception of these two variables as well as CELL_PAD changed between rc4 and rc5 which necessitates a change in the configurations. CELL_PAD should be 4~6 in rc5 unlike rc4 which was 8. This will be included in the release notes when rc5 is released.