KSP lite?

[Yeet_TheDinosaur]

KSP is a very demanding game. Sure, the game's very smooth on a high spec gaming pc, but on  a potato computer, KSP is VERY laggy. It's not even laggy, it's beyond low fps. My frame rate drops to 10 even if I place ONE part in the VAB. and I have the newest Macbook air.

So is it possible to reduce this lag? All I want to do is build stations in the VAB and the spaceplane hangar, not fly them. Is it possible to delete files to reduce the lag in the VAB? Is there a mod that does that?

Thanks for reading this.

[paul23]

If the VAB is laggy I am afraid there's little you can do; you can delete as many parts as possible so those don't "load", but that only matters for the lag when you enter the VAB. - How much ram does your computer have? And how much free ram during play?

 

KSP really wants  4gb+.

 

So if you have less than that just buy a small ram stick, even for laptops they are typically only 40-50 euro.

Edited November 25, 2019 by paul23

[DStaal]

I've played KSP with some very slow machines - much slower than your new Air.  Your problem is likely RAM - if you got the base Air, you had 8GB of RAM, and the OS needs at least 4.  So even at best you'll be in swap.  Unfortunately, the Air can't be upgraded with more RAM.

I'd nearly recommend a cheap Linux laptop just to run KSP.   

[RealKerbal3x]

33 minutes ago, paul23 said:

So if you have less than that just buy a small ram stick, even for laptops they are typically only 40-50 euro.

He said he's on a Macbook...unfortunately Apple don't support upgrades to their computers. Generally all of the RAM is soldered in, and there are no expansion slots (usually there aren't even any screws on the bottom to get into the computer).

[linuxgurugamer]

Apple loves built in obselance 

[paul23]

Just now, RealKerbal3x said:

He said he's on a Macbook...unfortunately Apple don't support upgrades to their computers. Generally all of the RAM is soldered in, and there are no expansion slots (usually there aren't even any screws on the bottom to get into the computer).

Well nice thing about solder is, is that it is reversible (in contrast to welding). I've soldered many things to my pi. But besides that, are you sure there aren't extra slots, it's more expensive to make a custom motherboard than to reuse a well known board, which always have quite a few reserve slots for ram. Opening the case shouldn't be a problem: the pc will be out of warrantee anyways if it has trouble running ksp, and you can just use a hot air dryer to make the glue soft again, and then use a screw driver to carefully detach the plastics.

 

It's a good idea to do this yearly anyways, cleaning up the interior by using a brush of cat hair/staticless hair to remove all dirt will actually improve performance of a laptop by 10-20%. Thermal throttling is the biggest bottle neck.

[DStaal]

51 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

He said he's on a Macbook...unfortunately Apple don't support upgrades to their computers. Generally all of the RAM is soldered in, and there are no expansion slots (usually there aren't even any screws on the bottom to get into the computer).

He said he's on a MacBook Air - Apple's least-upgradable, least-powerful, machine they make.  IIRC, it's glued shut.

[Harry Rhodan]

9 hours ago, Yeet_TheDinosaur said:

and I have the newest Macbook air.

The most obvious problem here is that those only have passively cooled CPUs that can only deliver their full power for a few seconds before having to throttle down significantly.

[paul23]

25 minutes ago, Harry Rhodan said:

The most obvious problem here is that those only have passively cooled CPUs that can only deliver their full power for a few seconds before having to throttle down significantly.

Oh if it is indeed only passive cooled you most certainly wish to invest into a heavy cooling pad. Thermal throttling is with my MSI with extra fans already a big problem. I can only imagine what it is on a laptop with a glued face, with hardly any opening stuff put close together to minimize size. I'd use the advice here to verify your situation. 

[Incarnation of Chaos]

12 hours ago, paul23 said:

Well nice thing about solder is, is that it is reversible (in contrast to welding). I've soldered many things to my pi. But besides that, are you sure there aren't extra slots, it's more expensive to make a custom motherboard than to reuse a well known board, which always have quite a few reserve slots for ram. Opening the case shouldn't be a problem: the pc will be out of warrantee anyways if it has trouble running ksp, and you can just use a hot air dryer to make the glue soft again, and then use a screw driver to carefully detach the plastics.

 

It's a good idea to do this yearly anyways, cleaning up the interior by using a brush of cat hair/staticless hair to remove all dirt will actually improve performance of a laptop by 10-20%. Thermal throttling is the biggest bottle neck.

Even if the pads are there on the PCB for the DRAM chips, apple normally has some firmware/BIOS loveery that will brick the machine if it detects a configuration that doesn't match what the machine had from the factory. Also there's not SO-DIMM slots on the MacBook; even their 2012 ones had soldered DRAM. New ones are even worse; the SSD is also soldered on them also. So basically any post 2017 MacBook is a paperweight if you want to go beyond whatever the shipped config was (They do allow you to use external GPU's and get half the performance of w/e chip you bought, so that's nice)

Note this all only applies to their Laptops; their desktops still have replacable RAM if I recall.

[έķ νίĻĻάίή]

Which Is why I use windows. I literally just upgraded my laptop last week and it works like a dream

[DStaal]

For all the Apple hate: A comparatively-speced and performing Windows laptop will be priced similar, from what I've seen.  And while it's annoying that Apple has dropped the ability to upgrade their laptops, the actual hardware is quite good usually, and if you think and plan what you want/need you'll get a good machine that will last and hold it's value.  I run KSP just fine on my Macbook Pro.  (But I bought my laptop knowing it was going to be my main computer, and that I wanted to both work on it full-time and play games like KSP or XCom2 on it, so it's speced to match.)

[Fierce Wolf]

I like to fiddle with my computers, therefore, PC is for me. Others might think otherwise.

[Incarnation of Chaos]

On 11/26/2019 at 8:37 AM, DStaal said:

For all the Apple hate: A comparatively-speced and performing Windows laptop will be priced similar, from what I've seen.  And while it's annoying that Apple has dropped the ability to upgrade their laptops, the actual hardware is quite good usually, and if you think and plan what you want/need you'll get a good machine that will last and hold it's value.  I run KSP just fine on my Macbook Pro.  (But I bought my laptop knowing it was going to be my main computer, and that I wanted to both work on it full-time and play games like KSP or XCom2 on it, so it's speced to match.)

If you buy identical hardware sure, but that's ignoring the best part of PC. Which is that you have a plethora of parts available with the same performance. But i digress; this isn't a Mac V PC thread and shouldn't be.

[paul23]

On 11/26/2019 at 3:37 PM, DStaal said:

For all the Apple hate: A comparatively-speced and performing Windows laptop will be priced similar, from what I've seen.  And while it's annoying that Apple has dropped the ability to upgrade their laptops, the actual hardware is quite good usually, and if you think and plan what you want/need you'll get a good machine that will last and hold it's value.  I run KSP just fine on my Macbook Pro.  (But I bought my laptop knowing it was going to be my main computer, and that I wanted to both work on it full-time and play games like KSP or XCom2 on it, so it's speced to match.)

What is a windows laptop?

 

I buy hardware and install software.

 

A windows MSI laptop most certainly outperforms the apple version I could get, for 1800 euro I got about the same as a 3k macbook at the time, and those macbooks always thermal throttle (just like hps). Except on weight obviously.