KSP and Unity (5.6)

[MR L A]

Hi everyone

Firstly, I'd like to apologise if this should be posted somewhere else, I don't often (ever) make new threads and I'm not good at finding old ones.

Anyway, Unity 5.6 has been released touting "Improved graphics performance with GPU Instancing and Compute Shaders for Metal..."

and, more importantly (possibly)

"Vulkan support for increased speed while reducing driver overhead and CPU workload" (http://www.eteknix.com/unity-5-6-released-improved-performance-vulkan-api-support/)

*I was wondering how and moreover IF these improvements to the Unity Engine would translate to anything at all in KSP. I'm completely unfamiliar with the relationship between the development of game engines and games in which they are used... Is it a similar relationship to GPUs and GPU drivers? i.e. driver update = better performance (game engine update = better game performance) or would these engine improvements have to be specifically implemented by SQUAD?*

Game performance is a huge thing for me (I would say issue but that's a very serious-sounding word) and any performance increase for KSP is a huge boon... particularly as I'm running the game on an AMD A10-7870K.. housed inside a DIY cardboard box "case" (I'm poor, feel free to send sympathy via PayPal ). 

So, yeah, if anyone could clarify the relationship for me, that would be great  

 

[Shadowmage]

There is no relationship.

KSP uses the Unity 5.4 engine.  I have heard of no plans to upgrade to any more recent versions.  Until/unless KSP upgrades to the newer version, it cannot use the newer features or improvements.

 

[0111narwhalz]

3 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

There is no relationship.

KSP uses the Unity 5.4 engine.  I have heard of no plans to upgrade to any more recent versions.  Until/unless KSP upgrades to the newer version, it cannot use the newer features or improvements.

I believe the question was based on the hypothesis that KSP will be ported to U5.6.

[Vanamonde]

This discussion of the game's development has been moved to Development Discussions. 

I could swear I saw a statement that they don't intend to change Unity versions for a while, but I can't find it now. 

[NoMrBond]

26 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

I could swear I saw a statement that they don't intend to change Unity versions for a while, but I can't find it now. 

Yes, I asked in one of the earlier threads and TriggerAu confirmed it's staying on 5.4 (for 1.3 at least)

[Edit 2] Honestly if Squad was going to spend devtime upporting to a new Unity version, I'd prefer them to target Unity 2017.1 since that will be using the .NET4.6 version of Mono (runtime upgrade at last = yes).

Edited April 4, 2017 by NoMrBond
5.4, not 5.4.4

[Alshain]

It will probably be updated at some point.  The Nintendo Switch uses Unity 5.6 natively, so if they want to go there then they will have to.  However, it's probably not in the upcoming patch.

EDIT: I guess technically it's the other way around, Unity 5.6 supports Switch natively.

(P.S. I'd still rather have KSP on Wii U)

Edited April 4, 2017 by Alshain

[Vanamonde]

21 minutes ago, NoMrBond said:

Yes, I asked in one of the earlier threads and TriggerAu confirmed it's staying on 5.4 (for 1.3 at least)

[Edit 2] Honestly if Squad was going to spend devtime upporting to a new Unity version, I'd prefer them to target Unity 2017.1 since that will be using the .NET4.6 version of Mono (runtime upgrade at last = yes).

Yep. That statement there. 

[Arugela]

They could do all of them. It could be for practice! >< Are they doing a lot of other development in the future?

Edited April 4, 2017 by Arugela

[MR L A]

Thanks for the responses guys, cleared things up a little bit for me!

I was attempting to ask (I guess) if incremental Unity updates were somehow automatically included in KSP (and all games running Unity), but you've cleared up for me how that works exactly

10 hours ago, NoMrBond said:

Yes, I asked in one of the earlier threads and TriggerAu confirmed it's staying on 5.4 (for 1.3 at least)

[Edit 2] Honestly if Squad was going to spend devtime upporting to a new Unity version, I'd prefer them to target Unity 2017.1 since that will be using the .NET4.6 version of Mono (runtime upgrade at last = yes).

I'm a bit unsure what the second part means... what would a "runtime" upgrade mean for the game (and what even is a runtime?)? and what is Unity 2017.1? Another, better version of Unity?

Thanks everyone!

[NoMrBond]

5 hours ago, MR L A said:

I'm a bit unsure what the second part means... what would a "runtime" upgrade mean for the game (and what even is a runtime?)? and what is Unity 2017.1? Another, better version of Unity?

It looks (to me) like a naming convention change, and Unity 2017.1 is (for all intents and purposes) Unity 5.7

Unity uses Mono (a free/opensource version of the .NET platform) which is intended to let you have a common language runtime (i.e. write once, run everywhere, which is good for supporting multiple platforms as Unity does)

Unfortunately the current version of the Mono runtime Unity uses is mostly .NET2.0 / C# v2 (circa 2005), and sort of .NET3.5/C# v3 (circa 2007), in a kind of uneven fashion.

The new runtime version of Mono (in Unity 2017.1) is going to be .NET4.6.x / C# v6 without any weird partial behaviour/s, as well as providing all the upgraded functionality/improvements on .NET/C#

Please bare in mind that while I am interested in Unity/Development I am not a programmer so my understanding of the gains/advantages of this move may be way off and/or unduly influenced by listening to programmer/dev chatter regarding the current state of Unity's Mono.