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This is why a fast CPU (not the amount of cores or the GPU) is important for KSP


Jebs_SY

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10 hours ago, regex said:

My current laptop is an Alienware 15 R2, i5 w/16GB and an Nvidia 965M with 2GB dedicated. I don't know whether it's the shader model version that's changed or whether it's simply more demanding. I don't need to alter those settings though, it plays pretty smooth with the real slowdowns being caused by part count.

Sounds more or less the same as my desktop.

I get 40~ fps in LKO without visual mods and ~20 with the latest Eve release (part count ~ 100).

Haven't been to Moho in a very long time.

Was wondering if it's time to think about upgrading the card, but it doesn't seem worth the expense.

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21 hours ago, siimav said:

 

I didn't notice any framerate information in your posts. My feeling is that when fps starts to get into the single-digit range, the game gets even more bound by the performance of the main thread. The main thread no longer has enough time to feed tasks to other threads and thus you see even lower utilization on other cores.

Your feelings could be right, they were in the low to mid 20's when running 4c/8t and 4c/4t, and while just one or two less at 2c/4t, it felt jerky. 

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  • 2 years later...
On 2/10/2017 at 5:15 PM, Snark said:

My understanding is that the fundamental limitation here is the underlying physics engine in Unity, so, I'd guess "no".

FWIW, I believe that it's a considerably better than it was, in some respects.  I'm not an expert in this area and my memory's a bit fuzzy on this (so no doubt someone more knowledgeable can correct me if I've gotten this mixed up), but I think one of the nice things about KSP 1.1 (which moved from Unity 4 to 5) was that the multithreading story did get somewhat better.  In 4, all the physics for everything was single threaded, period.  In 5, IIRC, each separate craft can have its own physics thread, so if you have a 4-core machine and there are 4 craft in physics range, it'll be as fast as if there were just one craft.

But since each individual craft only gets one thread, that means you're still bottlenecked on the single-threaded performance when you make a big ship.

TL;DR:  Got better for having multiple ships around, didn't get better for a single craft with large part count (at least, not as far as threadedness is concerned, there may be other performance improvements that happened).

It could be multithread if each part had a different thead of calculations..

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37 minutes ago, bond007 said:

It could be multithread if each part had a different thead of calculations..

Sure, if the physics engine they're using supported that, which it doesn't.  Thus the problem.

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10 hours ago, Snark said:

the physics engine they're using supported that, which it doesn't.  Thus the problem.

Only a poor workman blames his tools.

There are alternatives to physx3 (which is in itself pretty ancient), as people have been pointing out for quite some time.

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The reason a Rich workman doesn't blame his tools is because he can afford to buy the best ones.

In this case "Rich/poor" is development time.

you lot need to stop making snide comments till you've actually written a multi threaded 3d physics engine.

Threaded programming is like Nam, you don't know till you've been there man...

Edited by se5a
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32 minutes ago, se5a said:

The reason a Rich workman doesn't blame his tools is because he can afford to buy the best ones.

In this case "Rich/poor" is development time.

you lot need to stop making snide comments till you've actually written a multi threaded 3d physics engine.

Threaded programming is like Nam, you don't know till you've been there man...

They have the backing of 2K games; and plenty of development staff. Nobody is asking them to do it in a week, month or even next year; just start development on a long-term solution and however long that takes is fine. And what would you rather us do? Accept the status quo and never criticize their work? That's a great way to have a game go stagnant.

 

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54 minutes ago, se5a said:

you lot need to stop making snide comments till you've actually written a multi threaded 3d physics engine.

At no point have I ever suggested, snidely or otherwise, that Squad write a physics engine.
I would not have even brought it up, had I not spent years watching both serious and properly trivial game-engine problems go unfixed with the excuse "Just wait for Unity".

You see I would like to see the game improve, both in it's own right and as a platform for the amazing mods we have. Various game engine problems have been a thorn in the side of this goal since day one, and all I ever hear is "Unity problem, wont(even attempt to)fix.

I don't anticipate Squad fixing or replacing the physics engine, nor do I expect them to. I'm just really, really tired of hearing "Blame Unity" as an excuse for every single problem that can even remotely be pinned on the game engine.
"We can't do anything about the physics engine" --> Oh look, someone has replaced it wholesale.
"Input support is a Unity problem, it'd be quicker to wait for them to fix it" --> A volunteer modder writes a proper input stack.
The game crashes on launch, must be Unity --> Community binary-patches the executable.
Game crashes due to stupid sound-driver detection bug --> Community provides three workarounds, Squad zero.

The list goes on, and I will continue to rebuke cases of facetious "can't be done" attitude where they appear.
 

1 hour ago, se5a said:

Threaded programming is like Nam, you don't know till you've been there man...

Yeah, I know. But hard things are often worth doing, especially when not doing them is crippling your product.
Remember how much fuss was needed to get the garbage-related performance issues looked at? That started as #BlameUnity too, until the community got into analysing the problem and pointing out the obvious.

Sure, physics performance is a non-trivial problem. Non-trivial does not mean non-solvable, and as soon as I stop hearing "can't be done" where "too much work, not enough budget" belongs, I'll stop saying "yes it can".
Improving game performance needn't involve the physics engine anyway, half the problem is the way KSP uses it, as mods like Ubiozur Welding demonstrate.

 

43 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

Accept the status quo and never criticize their work? That's a great way to have a game go stagnant.

Indeed. No squeak, no oil.

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On 8/5/2019 at 3:36 AM, se5a said:

Threaded programming is like Nam, you don't know till you've been there man...

Been there, doing that since. 

Multi thread, multi core, even multi CPU. Worst, diferent CPUs.

It's hard? Yep. It's messy? Sometimes. It's unfeasible? Not.

Nobody needs to pay you for doing easy things - they can do it by themselves without you.

And, exactly as in Nam, your chances or survival increases considerably by having good combatants on your side, instead of crying ones.

Life is tough. Coding is no different. 

 

Edited by Lisias
Hit "Save" too soon.
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4 hours ago, pirx8 said:

I am planning to buy new PC. Can you recomnent me some CPU for up to 250$  that would handle KSP well?

Get a i5 or i7 K series part used and overclock the **** out of it; 4.5ghz should be cake on air. The Skylake (6000 series) all can be overclocked with a modded BIOS via BCLK; any information you see saying it's been "Patched" or "No longer works" is false.  But tbh; i would get a Ryzen 3600 or similar for general use because KSP isn't what you should base your build off of. And games are pumping more cores recently; the value on Ryzen just can't be ignored tbh.

Edited by Incarnation of Chaos
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Ah, but what if I want to run a fullscreen KSP on a 1080p monitor, a 1080p borderless windowed KSP on my laptop screen, a simple rockets 2 window with a nearly identical craft and mission profile to the fullscreen KSP, a Google chrome window with KSP tools like delta-v calculators and rocket design auto-optimizers running continuously, and a kOS script to be edited in Notepad++? How will your single core performance work then?!

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9 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Buying a computer for the future, never works out in my experience. Just Buy a i5 K combine it with a good liquid cooler and overclock it to 5.2 GHz

The Ryzen 3600 is going toe-to-toe with the current i5 and i7 lineups; and it's cheaper. Also 5.2ghz? Better hope you get a golden sample m8.

3 hours ago, Pds314 said:

Ah, but what if I want to run a fullscreen KSP on a 1080p monitor, a 1080p borderless windowed KSP on my laptop screen, a simple rockets 2 window with a nearly identical craft and mission profile to the fullscreen KSP, a Google chrome window with KSP tools like delta-v calculators and rocket design auto-optimizers running continuously, and a kOS script to be edited in Notepad++? How will your single core performance work then?!

At that point I feel like you're more RAM limited than CPU bound xD.

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9 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

The Ryzen 3600 is going toe-to-toe with the current i5 and i7 lineups; and it's cheaper. Also 5.2ghz? Better hope you get a golden sample m8.

Also single threaded? Can it match a i5 at 5.2 Ghz at single thread beanchmarks?

Edited by FreeThinker
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29 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Also single threaded? Can it match a i5 at 5.2 Ghz at single thread beanchmarks?

Stock for stock it can; 5.2 is a golden sample so not really a fair comparison. But even a 4.35ghz 3600 is within 5% of 5.2ghz i5. But we're talking about hundreds of dollars for a 5% boost once you factor in K SKU, the Z- series mobo and the cooling solution. Which would be much better spent on a better GPU.

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3 hours ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

 

Stock for stock it can; 5.2 is a golden sample so not really a fair comparison. But even a 4.35ghz 3600 is within 5% of 5.2ghz i5. But we're talking about hundreds of dollars for a 5% boost once you factor in K SKU, the Z- series mobo and the cooling solution. Which would be much better spent on a better GPU.

can you back that up with proof?

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9 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

can you back that up with proof?

Spoiler

https://siliconlottery.com/pages/statistics

13% of i7 8700k reach 5.2 ghz; however shaving 100-200mhz on SSE and AVX instructions can raise that to 33%. That's still a 66% chance of <5.2ghz. 

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3489-amd-ryzen-5-3600-cpu-review-benchmarks-vs-intel

Ryzen 3600 in Total War Warhammer is cranking 158.9 fps; i9-9900k is cranking 173.5 fps which is a percent difference of 9% in a heavily single threaded game. 

Now for the builds; all components here will be the same except CPU and motherboard.

Intel- https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GxkBsZ 1000 USD w/o rebates and 900 with.

AMD- https://pcpartpicker.com/list/yJqzbX 900 w/o rebates and 800 with; 700 if you're willing to ditch the noctua and go with stock cooling (isn't even an option for Intel).

So if I decide to go bare stock on the AMD board I have 300 more dollars to put towards a GPU. Which will completely overwhelm the occasional 9% difference. And this is ignoring that Intel CPUs have edge cases where they lose performance.

And if you want that 5-5.2ghz overclock on Intel you can't even make that choice; you need beefy heatsinks or 240mm AIO+.

And at the risk of being further off topic I just want to say I get it; the FX series was a unmitigated dumpster fire and I didn't reccomend those CPUs then. Nor would I now, but AMD is back in a big way and absolutely crushes it for budget builds. And even the mid range; only at the highest ends do Intel actually have an advantage and it's shrinking every day. 

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51 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:
  Reveal hidden contents

https://siliconlottery.com/pages/statistics

13% of i7 8700k reach 5.2 ghz; however shaving 100-200mhz on SSE and AVX instructions can raise that to 33%. That's still a 66% chance of <5.2ghz. 

https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3489-amd-ryzen-5-3600-cpu-review-benchmarks-vs-intel

Ryzen 3600 in Total War Warhammer is cranking 158.9 fps; i9-9900k is cranking 173.5 fps which is a percent difference of 9% in a heavily single threaded game. 

Now for the builds; all components here will be the same except CPU and motherboard.

Intel- https://pcpartpicker.com/list/GxkBsZ 1000 USD w/o rebates and 900 with.

AMD- https://pcpartpicker.com/list/yJqzbX 900 w/o rebates and 800 with; 700 if you're willing to ditch the noctua and go with stock cooling (isn't even an option for Intel).

So if I decide to go bare stock on the AMD board I have 300 more dollars to put towards a GPU. Which will completely overwhelm the occasional 9% difference. And this is ignoring that Intel CPUs have edge cases where they lose performance.

And if you want that 5-5.2ghz overclock on Intel you can't even make that choice; you need beefy heatsinks or 240mm AIO+.

And at the risk of being further off topic I just want to say I get it; the FX series was a unmitigated dumpster fire and I didn't reccomend those CPUs then. Nor would I now, but AMD is back in a big way and absolutely crushes it for budget builds. And even the mid range; only at the highest ends do Intel actually have an advantage and it's shrinking every day. 

Good to see serious competition has finally arrived!

Edited by FreeThinker
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I tested it at my i7 6700K

at 4GHz it takes 1:50min to load KSP

at 4.5GHz it takes 1:38min to load

 

the core amount makes the game faster a little bit, 1 Core at 4.5GHz the MET flashes green/yellow. At 4GHz and 1 Core the MET is yellow when i give all cores to KSP the MET is green.

is there are option in 1.3.0 to show the FPS? I play this KSP-Version without steamoverlay, to prevent automatic updating.

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