Forced dx11 FPS drops/stuttering with crewed vessels only, when -forced-d3d11 is used

[Gkirmathal]

Hello,

Sorry for the sort of double post, reason: I did a clean install and stock KSP 1.0.4 gives the same issues for me.

My problem is when using -force-d3d11:

-every crewed vessel, on the launchpad/outside the VAB, has major very short frequent fps drops, which result very stuttering game play.

- any uncrewed vessel has no problems. Gameplay is smooth without any fps drops/stuttering.

Two screenshots of a stock vessel on the pad with the Debug menu showing the FPS drops in the performance graph, clearly shows the issue.

http://imgur.com/Ssq84i6,g3pdheK#0

Anyone here who can clarify what I ran into?

PS OpenGL is out of the question for me due to it poor performance on my rig.

My system specs:

OS: Win7 x64

CPU: Intel X5460 @3.8

RAM: 6Gb ddr800

GPU: (2x) HD5770

[joe_da_cro]

check a few things.

CPU usuage

GPU usuage

VRAM usuage (your card has 512 to 1GB video memory)

by that screen shot you are running at ~15 fps and get spikes above that occasionally. personally i think its that your VRam usage is hiting your cards limit.but its only a guess at this point

[Captain Sierra]

check a few things.

CPU usuage

GPU usuage

VRAM usuage (your card has 512 to 1GB video memory)

by that screen shot you are running at ~15 fps and get spikes above that occasionally. personally i think its that your VRam usage is hiting your cards limit.but its only a guess at this point

I can confirm the issue and I have 2GB of VRAM.

And welcome to the forums, way to be helpful.

[Gkirmathal]

@joe, please review my second screenshots: uncrewed, has a constant 30+fps, no dips etc. Fluent gameplay.

If vram was the cause, what does one crewmemer add which causes this issue?

Ill check cpu usage tonight. Thougj nothing was out of the ordinary if memory serves me right.

[joe_da_cro]

it is odd i loaded the d3d11 version of the game and i dont have that problem.

i can tell you my ram usages is about 1.5GB also vram is about the same too. (this is straight stock install with 0 mods).

i guess the best thing we can do is set a control for what could be going on. So if you could replicate the conditions i had on my game.

- fresh install of the game

- start a new game

- build a command module and the basic solid fuel booster.

- report launch fps

- report inflight fps

my results are as follows.

launcher fps: 60 (vsynced)

inflight fps: 53

i have a 3770k @ 4.2Ghz

and a 770GTX 4GB

32 GB 1600Mhz ram with no swap files.

now to give some theory on what could be happening with manned and unmanned. when you are loading a manned mission you are loading the interiors and kerbals inside as well as the rest of the ship. the reason i suggested the control for the experiment is to reduce the parts and to see how your game reacts to a simple ship.

I posted my specs so you may compare to help find what is slowing your performance in game.

lastly try this experiment only if you are comfortable in doing so.**********

go into control panel > system > advanced system settings

make sure you have the advanced tab selected.

click on the settings button in the performance section

click on the advanced tab

click on change on the virtual memory section

untick automatically manage paging file size for the system. (or leave unticked if it already is)

click on custom size

set initial size to 16mb

set maximum size to what ever shows as recommended.

once you apply this, you will receive a message that windows will not be able to do error reporting with less than 800mb of page files. this warning is mostly for blue screens and you can change it back after you finish the experiment.

Now once you have applied the settings restart your PC

once restarted play kerbal firstly running the control settings i gave earlier to see if there is any diffference (there shouldnt be) then secondly launch a common style ship you like to use. the longer you play the better the test.

once you finish if you go back to the page file page i directed earlier you should see how much pagefile windows has assigned becuase it ran out of RAM and needed more. if the number is a few hundred MB then its not too bad and i have hit another dead end. if it is ~350+ it could be a possible cause of your issues.

Note if you do this experiment make sure you change it back to the settings before unless you dont mind the settings as they are. also when windows re sizes the pagefile file on your hard disk/ssd you will notice lag and slow downs. while this takes place and your pc will return to normal once it has finished the resize.

I hope there is some help here.

p.s one application i use when which i think is a god send. it is called process lasso. it is like an advanced task manager but it has other cool features like setting power profiles for certain applications, setting core parking, application priority, cpu affinity, io priority etc. it has a gaming mode too which will set your PC to high performance and not use its inbuilt CPU balancer on games while balancing other apps. helps for running virus scans while you are playing. i wont post the links here but you can easily google it and install the free version which is not as good as the paid version but still decent. i personally paid for the application after using the free version for a while.

[sal_vager]

Don't forget guys that the -force-d3d11 and -force-opengl command line arguments are Unity3d Game engine features, Squad didn't include them and have absolutely no control over them, and cannot address any issues that arise from using them, KSP is only tested on d3d9.

We volunteers and members can try to offer advice though, but all I can really suggest is that you try another graphics driver.

Also, if you have jumpy text in-game from using -force-d3d11, that's why.