Zero optimization

[RealGecko]

HP Probook: Core i5-4200M 2.5 GHz, 8 gigs of RAM, Intel HD 4000

KSP 1.3.1 with 185 mods installed, Munar base with dozen of vessels landed:

10 FPS and 38% physical ratio.

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ASUS ROG Strix: Core i7-7700HQ 2.8 Ghz, 16 gigs of RAM, Nvidia GTX 1070:

Same setup, same number of mods, same save file, same scene:

13 FPS, 50% physical ratio.

Why? Whyyyy? WHYYYYY? Why this game has zero optimization?

[DoctorDavinci]

I'm not so sure this is an optimization issue as you are comparing a mid range laptop released in 2013 to a gaming laptop from the past year

just because their clock speeds are close doesn't mean they will perform the same as a computer that has the same clock frequency as another that is 4 years older will not garner the same results

[Gaarst]

8 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

I'm not so sure this is an optimization issue as you are comparing a mid range laptop released in 2013 to a gaming laptop from the past year

just because their clock speeds are close doesn't mean they will perform the same as a computer that has the same clock frequency as another that is 4 years older will not garner the same results

I think that he is pointing that the fact that a mid range 2013 laptop getting similar performance as a gaming laptop from the past year is a proof of non-optimisation: in an ideal world, the gaming laptop should vastly outperform the older one.

 

@RealGecko KSP isn't well optimised because it was never consistently coded throughout its history. There were many developers working on KSP, there never was a clear roadmap and other factors make it that KSP's code is just recent things added on top of older code, without much concern about stability of the overall code (which is why newer releases keep getting slower). As an example just remember that KSP keeps generating empty folders since Alpha: no one ever went back to the old code and removed the couple of lines responsible for these folders. I don't think optimising KSP without rewriting most of its code (or structure at least) is possible, and since Squad has more economic interest in stacking new features on top of the older code, it's probably never going to happen.

[Harry Rhodan]

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-4200M+%40+2.50GHz&id=2016

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-7700HQ+%40+2.80GHz&id=2906

On first glance the performance of the i7 is much higher, but if you look at the single core rating, which is the relevant score for KSP, you will notice that the i7 is only 25% faster than the i5. And that while already having a 12% higher clock rate. Ever since Intel released the second generation of core i processors the actual increase in processing power per MHz in each subsequent generation was pretty low. They mostly made progress in energy efficiency and performance per Watt consumed.

So having a 25% increase in framerate with a processor that is 25% faster seems ... reasonable?

[DoctorDavinci]

30 minutes ago, Harry Rhodan said:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-4200M+%40+2.50GHz&id=2016

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-7700HQ+%40+2.80GHz&id=2906

On first glance the performance of the i7 is much higher, but if you look at the single core rating, which is the relevant score for KSP, you will notice that the i7 is only 25% faster than the i5. And that while already having a 12% higher clock rate. Ever since Intel released the second generation of core i processors the actual increase in processing power per MHz in each subsequent generation was pretty low. They mostly made progress in energy efficiency and performance per Watt consumed.

So having a 25% increase in framerate with a processor that is 25% faster seems ... reasonable?

Sounds logical to me

[Ultimate Steve]

Wait... you've got nearly 200 mods, hundreds of parts across dozens of vessels, on the Mun while still managing to have 50% time and 13fps?

 

I will trade you.

[HebaruSan]

Optimization is not a substance that you can have "zero" or "some" or "a lot" of. It is a process of identifying performance bottlenecks and rewriting code to eliminate them. If JPLRepo notices a loop during the development of 1.3.1 that's doing unnecessary work and eliminates it, does that mean that 1.3.1 has "more optimization"? No, it just means that one specific slowdown is no longer there. Lots of optimization has been done on the KSP core code in the past, but you take it for granted now because the problems they fixed don't affect you.

Find some forum threads complaining about framerates for KSP 1.0 and earlier, and compare the part counts to what you have today. Nobody would have dreamed of the FPS you're getting on your munbase back then.

29 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

nearly 200 mods

This is the elephant in the room. Each additional plugin you install does its own work and impacts your framerate (even models and textures can be done in ways that are better or worse for performance). When a huge proportion of the code your CPU is running is from mods, those mods need performance profiling, analysis, and optimization just as much as the core game, but the tools and processes to facilitate that are missing. We almost certainly have performance problems today caused by mods, but we don't have anything like a mod profiler that can attribute slowdowns to specific mods, and it's very rare for issues to be reported on GitHub about mod performance.

[RealGecko]

4 hours ago, Gaarst said:

in an ideal world, the gaming laptop should vastly outperform the older one

Exactly!

3 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

So having a 25% increase in framerate with a processor that is 25% faster seems ... reasonable?

3 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Sounds logical to me

25% increased CPU speed = 25% increased framerate? Are you serious?

15 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Find some forum threads complaining about framerates for KSP 1.0

Yeah yeah, I've played version 1.0.5 that crashed every five minutes and performed like "HEEEY! Look! My year 2003 PC is able to start Crysis"

16 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Nobody would have dreamed of the FPS you're getting on your munbase back then.

Aha, we had a performance boost in version 1.2 caused by Unity upgrade I remember that too.

22 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

 We almost certainly have performance problems today caused by mods

Aaaaah, now I seeee, that all nasty mods are the cause of 120 FPS in VAB...

 

Or maybe it's VSync and 120 Hz monitor refresh rate...

I'm confused

[HebaruSan]

16 minutes ago, RealGecko said:

Aaaaah, now I seeee, that all nasty mods are the cause of 120 FPS in VAB...

You get 120 FPS in the editor scene (when the world is frozen and the few mods that are even active are waiting for you to click their toolbar button), therefore mods never cause performance problems in the flight scene (when vessels and celestialbodies are orbiting and resources are being consumed and communication networks are passing in and out of contact and forces and positions and velocities are being recalculated constantly)?

Deny all you like, but I've personally caused and fixed performance issues in my own mods.

[RealGecko]

23 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

therefore mods never cause performance problems in the flight scene?

That's what I'm talking about! Even absolutely vanilla game starts to slowdown as soon as you have dozen of flights in progress. Start new save, launch a vessel, everything is bright and shiny. Play a little, reach "10 flights in progress" mark, things are getting slower. Play more, reach "20 flights in progress" mark, land four 20-30 part vessels in the same spot and.... 13 FPS... have fun.

I played vanilla game for a few days long time ago (even no KER or MJ for deltaV readouts) and always encountered performance issues. Back at that days I thought it's caused by potato laptop. I was wrong.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

A fresh install can help as well, I know I was starting to experience some slowdown recently but migrating my save over to a completely fresh Steam install of KSP really helped quite a bit.

CPU is the only important upgrade you got there, and it wasn't exactly a huge upgrade either. KSP is primarily CPU bound, the other stats just hardly even matter.

Laptops in general are poor for gaming as they tend to under perform compared to their stats due to heat issues/build up of lint and such inside. Try blowing it out with compressed air or getting a "cooling stand" for it.

 

Edited November 6, 2017 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Greenfire32]

I don't know about anyone else, but I've played KSP from the time before the Mun was even in the game to now and I've done it all on the same machine. KSP's performance is vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly better than it used to be. So...optimizations have definitely taken place.

Perhaps there's something in the near-200 mods you have installed causing the game to not take advantage of the newer hardware? I feel like you would get a cleaner comparison between a vanilla KSP on the old machine and a vanilla KSP on the new one.

Also, this part of the forum is for unmodded installs...

Edited November 6, 2017 by Greenfire32

[RealGecko]

11 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Laptops in general are poor for gaming as they tend to under perform compared to their stats due to heat issues/build up of lint and such inside. Try blowing it out with compressed air or getting a "cooling stand" for it.

Lol, it's only two days out of shop, it has HQ processor (google it) and not M GPU (google it). It's runs DOOM® at ultra with 60 fps without cooling stand and "blowing" . So it's not hardware that I'm concerned about.

10 hours ago, Greenfire32 said:

I've played KSP from the time before the Mun was even in the game to now and I've done it all on the same machine. KSP's performance is vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly, vastly better than it used to be

Yeah, I performed propulsive Duna landing back in the days when there even was now maneuver planning (added in 0.18) and I remember that trying to quickload crashed the game constantly, now it's not, well quite an improvement

10 hours ago, Greenfire32 said:

Also, this part of the forum is for unmodded installs...

Yeeeeah, I'll conduct an experiment. Here's my career save .loadmeta:

saveMD5 = 31aa33bae5342fca826f38a87130412a
vesselCount = 33
UT = 1492190.6594925229
gameMode = CAREER
gameNull = False
gameCompatible = True
funds = 30756953.844446316
science = 1772
reputationPercent = 86
ongoingContracts = 32
saveMD5 = 31aa33bae5342fca826f38a87130412a

Overall 33 ships, this unclude 1 ship on it's way to Duna, Kerbin Space Station, Mun Space Station, Minmus Space Station, Munar Base (dozen of vessels landed nearby), Minmus Base (dozen of vessels landed nearby), few vessels in Mun-Kerbin and Minmus-Kerbin transits.

I'll start a new career game (so contract system and R&D will not be idle) on a clean (just right out of steam) unmodded game, with the only mod installed: ShowFPS, to track performance.

Goal: mimic my career save in a number of vessels and their placement, but on a completely unmodded game.

Edited November 7, 2017 by RealGecko

[RealGecko]

OMG, Quantum Break is only $20 on Steam, looks like experiment is gonna be delayed

[Rocket In My Pocket]

7 hours ago, RealGecko said:

Lol, it's only two days out of shop, it has HQ processor (google it) and not M GPU (google it). It's runs DOOM® at ultra with 60 fps without cooling stand and "blowing" . So it's not hardware that I'm concerned about.

A desktop with the same hardware/specs would perform better than that laptop. Which is what I'm saying; the hardware isn't the issue, it's the form factor it's been forced to fit into, which leaves no room for proper cooling.

When you buy a gaming laptop you are trading performance for portability, when compared to an equivalent desktop.

Anyways, that's hardly relevant with KSP. It sounds like you were expecting too much improvement for a game that is primarily CPU bound, when the CPU isn't that big of an upgrade. As others have said; deleting mods would help. Try a completely stock install for comparison.

Edited November 7, 2017 by Rocket In My Pocket

[RealGecko]

21 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

A desktop with the same hardware/specs would perform better than that laptop. Which is what I'm saying; the hardware isn't the issue, it's the form factor it's been forced to fit into, which leaves no room for proper cooling.

We're not discussing desktop vs laptop, we're discussing KSP vs performance

22 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

the CPU isn't that big of an upgrade

From 2 core to 4 core, yeah, just a tiny one

[steuben]

7 hours ago, RealGecko said:

 It's runs DOOM® at ultra with 60 fps without cooling stand and "blowing" .

Given Doom was released in '93, wouldn't call it much of a test.

 

[severedsolo]

27 minutes ago, steuben said:

Given Doom was released in '93, wouldn't call it much of a test.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_(2016_video_game)

I have nothing to add to this discussion, but I assume thats what he meant.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

1 hour ago, RealGecko said:

From 2 core to 4 core, yeah, just a tiny one

KSP (Like almost every video game ever.) is pretty restricted by single core performance, so those extra cores aren't doing much for you..unless you want to watch YouTube while playing or something?

Out of curiosity have you maxed your Delta Physics time in game options? Helps a lot with high CPU load.

Edited November 7, 2017 by Rocket In My Pocket

[RealGecko]

3 hours ago, steuben said:

Given Doom was released in '93, wouldn't call it much of a test.

Yeah, a little bit modded version of 93 game...just a little

 

2 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Like almost every video game ever

And some games do not even start in single core processors (google for Mass Effect single core patches), but who cares, we're in KSP.

2 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Out of curiosity have you maxed your Delta Physics time in game options?

I use default values that come with "vanilla"  game.

2 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Helps a lot with high CPU load

Thanks for advice, will try that.

But now it's time for Quantum Break