Low FPS on different part counts?

[David104]

Hey all!

I´m sure there is one or more threads to this but I didnt find that questions yet. So sorry for eventual double posting...

Computer: AMD A10@4x1,9Ghz, 8GB Ram,  AMD Radeon R7, No SSD

Mods: Kerbal Engineer, Kerbal Alarm Clock, Dynamic Texture Loader, Plantery bases, Habitatpack,Tweakable everything, docking cam, Gravity turn, KIS/KAS

I get fps drops quite fast. So usually from 100 parts on it becomes really laggy. Its still playable but kind of annoying. As I understood its because of the physics of parts that are just calculated on one core, even if you have multiple cores.

The thing I dont understand is that sometimes its less laggy with, lets say, 96 parts than it is with a vessel of 60 parts. Both in LKO. Why is that? Is there anyway to improve the performance? Or will it be 1.1 to the rescue?

As well, I get the impression, that when playing more than 1 hour or so, the performance is decreasing over time.

I also found this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/57269-performance-fix-ksp-tweak-guide/

Is that still up to date?

Would be kamazing if you could help!

David

[Rocket In My Pocket]

I've heard that parts with resource values hit performance harder than other parts so for example a hundred fuel tanks sitting on the launch pad will have a much larger impact on fps than a hundred structural fuselages. This could explain the disparity you are seeing.

As far as that guide it looks like people have posted about using it successfully as recent as July 2015 so I'd take that as a promising sign that it still works.

Best of luck!

[David104]

Hey!

Cheers for the reply! Gonna pay attention to the resource thing. But would be hard to try to avoid them..haha..:)
Nevermind the guide, just tried it. The link leads to a doggy website...

[Rocket In My Pocket]

You'll see a lot less lag if you turn the Delta physics all the way down, assuming you haven't already. It's in the options menu, it basically allows a second of game time to be more than a second in real life so that your computer has more time to process.

If you edit the config file you can even bring it down to 0.01 instead of 0.04 which is the lowest the game will let you set it.

Also, did you mean dodgy or doggy? Either way that's weird lol...

[Padishar]

44 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

I've heard that parts with resource values hit performance harder than other parts so for example a hundred fuel tanks sitting on the launch pad will have a much larger impact on fps than a hundred structural fuselages. This could explain the disparity you are seeing.

I suspect you misunderstood what you heard/read.  It is parts that consume or produce resources that cause slowdown, not ones that contain resources, e.g. active engines, solar panels, probe cores, fuel cells and ISRU (particularly bad), lights, etc.  100 fuel tanks should be very similar to 100 structural fuselages but a ship with 100 lights (turned on) would be much slower than one with 100 cubic struts.

The problem with large part counts in KSP is that the amount of calculations done is not proportional to the part count, it is more like proportional to the square of the part count (or even worse) though there isn't any hard and fast rule because of the variation between different parts etc.  This means that a ship with twice the part count can easily require 4 (or more) times the calculations.  A ship with 10 times the parts can need 100 times.

[David104]

5 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

You'll see a lot less lag if you turn the Delta physics all the way down, assuming you haven't already. It's in the options menu, it basically allows a second of game time to be more than a second in real life so that your computer has more time to process.

If you edit the config file you can even bring it down to 0.01 instead of 0.04 which is the lowest the game will let you set it.

Also, did you mean dodgy or doggy? Either way that's weird lol...

Delta physics are already all the way down. How do you edit a conig file? I´m not really a computer pro..

I guess I meant dodgy..:D sorry, I´m not a native speaker.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

1 hour ago, David104 said:

Delta physics are already all the way down. How do you edit a conig file? I´m not really a computer pro..

I guess I meant dodgy..:D sorry, I´m not a native speaker.

In your KSP installation folder find "settings.cfg" and open it with notepad. Scroll down and find the line that says "PHYSICS_FRAME_DT_LIMIT ="

Change the value after the = to 0.01 then save it.

Make sure to keep the spaces and such, it matters. It should look like this: PHYSICS_FRAME_DT_LIMIT = 0.01

No worries, I understood what you meant. 

Edited January 24, 2016 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Kobymaru]

On 24.1.2016 at 1:01 AM, David104 said:

Delta physics are already all the way down. How do you edit a conig file? I´m not really a computer pro..

I guess I meant dodgy..:D sorry, I´m not a native speaker.

On 24.1.2016 at 2:01 AM, Rocket In My Pocket said:

In your KSP installation folder find "settings.cfg" and open it with notepad. Scroll down and find the line that says "PHYSICS_FRAME_DT_LIMIT ="

Change the value after the = to 0.01 then save it.

Guys, I don't think you're doing what you think you're doing.

 

Max Delta Down -> Worse Framerate, More accurate Physics
Max Delta UP -> Better Framerate, inaccurate Physics

[Rocket In My Pocket]

11 minutes ago, Kobymaru said:

Max Delta Down -> Worse Framerate, More accurate Physics
Max Delta UP -> Better Framerate, inaccurate Physics

Wait...that's confusing because on 0.12 I get like 5 fps when loading up the "Station One" scenario, but on 0.03 it's like 20.

Are we talking about the numbers going up/down or the graphical bar in the settings menu?

[Benoit Hage]

In the menu, the bar should get on the left side. The more time there is between two physic ticks, the less your processor will have to compute it.

Concerning the drop of performance after a while, it may be related to an heat issue. Cleaning the dust from your fans will take care of this.