Please help, heavy FPS drop in Space

[Drelam]

Hello guys,

i have been struggeling if i should open this thread in the first place, but to be honest i don't know what else i should do anymore.

My problem is i get really low FPS when playing KSP.

Space center view, in SPH and VAB, i have cozy 55-60 FPS. Even if i build very large constructions (500+ parts) i never get less than 25 FPS there.

The first thing i was suspecting was that wher just having too many part heavy mods. The strange thing is when i'm on ground (Launchpad or Runway) FPS doesn't go lower than 25, but as soon as the ship (any ship or size) enters space or high altitudes (around 50Km) FPS drops to 5-8. (...and that's just one space ship at a time, not mentioning if two are in proximity or even docked)

My second thought was the physics was overstrained, but "KerboKatz - SmallUtilities - PhysicalTimeRatioViewer" doesn't indicate any big FPS drop from this side (being constantly around 95%).

I have been running many mods for a long time, but i haven't encountered this kind of problems before.

Reinstalling KSP didn't help and resetting the Settings.cfg didn't help either.

-force-opengl didn't had any apparent effect too.

Mod list:

Active Texture Management - Agressive

BDArmory v0.9.6

Chatterer

ClampsBeGone

CommunityResourcePack

CommunityTechTree

ContractConfigurator

Contract Pack: Advanced Progression

Contract Pack: Anomaly Surveyor

Contract Pack: Base Constuction

Contract Pack: Field Research

Contract Pack: Innitial Contracts

Contract Pack: Kerbin on Fire

Contract Pack: Kerbin-Side Jobs

Contract Pack: Rover Missions by Whyren

Contract Pack: Useful Space Stations

Contract Window+

Crew Manifest

Crossfeed Enabler

Editor Extensions

EVAManager

Extraplanetary Launchpads

FantomWorks - MK2 SR-71

Field Experience

Filter Extensions - plugin

Final Frontier

Firespitter Core

Habitat Pack

Heat Management

Interstellar Fuel Switch

Interstellar Fuel Switch Core

KAP Pack 1 - Early Tech

KASHCorp shared Assets

Kerbal Foundries Wheels and Repulsors APLHA

Kerbal Joint Reinforcement

Kerbal Konstructs

Kerbin Side

KerboKatz - SmallUtilities - Disable TempGauges

KerboKatz - SmallUtilities - FPS Viewer

KerboKatz - SmallUtilities - PhysicalTimeRatioViewer

KerboKatzUtilities

Klockheed Martian General Plugin Functions - Gimbal module

KSP AVC

Landing Height Display

Layered Animations

Lithobrake Exploration technologies

LLL

LLL Extra Parts

Makr IV Spaceplane System

MechJeb 2

MK2 Stock-a-Like Expansion

MK3 Mini Expansion Pack

Module Manager

ModuleRCSFX

Near Future Construction

Near Future Electrical

Near Future Electrical Core

Near Future IVA Props

Near Future Propulsion

Near Future Propulsion Extras: Reduced Thrust Configs

Near Future Solar

Near Future Spacecraft Parts

OPT Space Plane Parts

Procedural Parts

Procedural Parts - MainSailor's Gamma textures

RCS Build Aid

Solaris Hypernautics

Spacetux Shared Assets

StageRecovery

Star Trek TOS colored Space Suits

Stock Bug Fix Modules

Stock fuel Switch

Stock Plus

Stockalike Station Parts Expansion

SXT - Stock eXTension

Texture Replacer

Toadicus Tools

Toolbar

Tweakable Everything - Engine Staging Toggle

Tweakable Everything - Fairing Staging Toggle

Tweakable Everything

TweakScale - Rescale Everything

Using CKAN v1.12, so all of them should be up to date

CKAN file: LINK

Many mods are simply there, because of dependencies of other mods.

KSP 32bit

Computer:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX760 4GB

16GB Memory

AMD FX-8350 Eight Core Processor

Windows 7

DXDiag: LINK

Any help would be appreciated!

[Padishar]

Can you upload an output_log.txt from a run that includes a bit of this low fps flight? I suspect you may be getting log spam which is slowing the game down. See the "How to get support" sticky thread for details of where to find the file if you don't already know...

[Drelam]

Here's the Output.log file you requested.

(I'm sorry i haven't included in the opening post)

Thanks in advance!

[Joshwoo70]

My guess is you use mechjeb dev builds? There is a spam of error from mechjeb

A another thing.. there is this : input is null. That also causes issues however u am not able to pinpoint due to it.

Do you have A LOT of debris? It also can slow down tour computer.

[Drelam]

My guess is you use mechjeb dev builds? There is a spam of error from mechjeb

A another thing.. there is this : input is null. That also causes issues however u am not able to pinpoint due to it.

Do you have A LOT of debris? It also can slow down tour computer.

I'm using Mechjeb2 2.5.3, the version CKAN has installed. I have no idea if CKAN downloads dev versions of mods or not.

I'll try to reinstall MJ2 again, let's hope there's any improvement.

There shouldn't be and debris at all, since i'm simply testing stuff over and over again, to get the game running smoothly.

[Joshwoo70]

Go to settings and turn persistant debris to 50.

Did you use -force-opengl?

[Drelam]

Go to settings and turn persistant debris to 50.

Did you use -force-opengl?

Yes, opengl is enabled and "max peristent debris" is set to 0.

[Joshwoo70]

hmm is there a lot of asteroids?

[Drelam]

hmm is there a lot of asteroids?

There are 7.

I can't get around the impression that it has something to do with parts heating up or solar radiation.

I have completely reinstalled KSP (downloaded from Steam and reinstalled mods via CKAN), but no improvement as far as i can see.

EDIT:

There's one funny thing i have noticed. When i put a lander on eeloo, framerate went up to 55 again. But when switching to the mothership in orbit the FPS goes down to 5 again...

Edited August 20, 2015 by Drelam

[Gkirmathal]

@Drelam, it has to do with how KSP uses your graphics card.

If I'm correct (please someone correct me if I'm wrong):

at a certain altitude from a body, KSP switches (planetary terrain system PQS?) to physics mode, which only uses the CPU with less processing being done on your GFX card.

You can test and see this this by installing the windows utility "GPU-Z" and logging what your GPU does when you switch from low altitude (where terrain is rendered) to orbital altitude (when only the hires planetary texture is loaded and no terrain is rendered)

You will see that at X altitude your GFX load reduced by some 10's%.

For me 1.0.x it goes from a 60+% load at the pad/launch/surface/flight, to ~40>50% when in any orbit. KSP 0.9 was much worse for me btw.

[Drelam]

@Drelam, it has to do with how KSP uses your graphics card.

If I'm correct (please someone correct me if I'm wrong):

at a certain altitude from a body, KSP switches (planetary terrain system PQS?) to physics mode, which only uses the CPU with less processing being done on your GFX card.

You can test and see this this by installing the windows utility "GPU-Z" and logging what your GPU does when you switch from low altitude (where terrain is rendered) to orbital altitude (when only the hires planetary texture is loaded and no terrain is rendered)

You will see that at X altitude your GFX load reduced by some 10's%.

For me 1.0.x it goes from a 60+% load at the pad/launch/surface/flight, to ~40>50% when in any orbit. KSP 0.9 was much worse for me btw.

So.. plain speaking there's nothing i can do about it, aside from buying a new computer?

(just for KSP, lol)

[Gkirmathal]

So.. plain speaking there's nothing i can do about it, aside from buying a new computer?

(just for KSP, lol)

KSP up till now is very heavily single threaded focused, so a good ips scoring cpu will give better performance. AMD is not too good on that front currently

Overclocking increases your current ips, single threaded, performance a bit so that might help somewhat on the short run.

But don't be all gloom and doom about it!

KSP 1.1 is set to switch to Unity 5, which introduces multi threading on physics calculations, so you will profit from having your 8 core. How much of a gain I regretfully don't know.

Btw I'm in sort of the same boat, aving an older Intel which has about the same single sthreaded performance as you cpu.