Number of parts until yellow Timer

[Paulestrada]

After looking in to the internet, I couldn't find any info of what is a good CPU performance in KSP (measured in parts).

I just want to know whats the limit of parts your CPU can handle until your timer becomes yellow.

Spoiler

I'm running a crappy laptop and I can handle like 40 parts. 

 

[Gargamel]

You mean like.... goes from red to yellow?  

You seem to imply there are colors other than red or yellow. 

[Enceos]

Twitch streamer EJ_SA has overclocked liquid cooled Intel Core i7 8700K Hex Core (4.9GHz), his CPU can run KSP with 2000 parts while still in green.

According to https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html, and considering overclocking, his CPU has around 21000 PassMarks.

These PassMarks are pretty accurate and you can predict how many parts a certain CPU will handle in green before buying that CPU. The correlation is linear. Just divide the PassMark number of the processor by 11 and you'll get a rough estimation.

These calculations are true only for unmodded KSP  

CPUs of all time and their rankings are here: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

Currently in the beginning of 2018 the best performance/price processor is Intel i5-8400, costs around $185 and handles up to 1000 parts in green.

Edited April 6, 2018 by Enceos

[Harry Rhodan]

2 hours ago, Enceos said:

These PassMarks are pretty accurate

But only if you look at the single thread rating on any single CPU entry. Comparing the score of a multi core benchmark for a game that in most cases only uses a single thread is not a good idea.

[Dimas152]

i have AMD A6-6310 APU 1.80 GHz with Radeon R4 Graphics, 6 gigs RAM (roughly 5 gigs usable), lags asf at 200 part
is this normal?

[LoSBoL]

5 hours ago, Enceos said:

Twitch streamer EJ_SA has overclocked liquid cooled Intel Core i7 8700K Hex Core (4.9GHz), his CPU can run KSP with 2000 parts while still in green.

According to https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html, and considering overclocking, his CPU has around 21000 PassMarks.

These PassMarks are pretty accurate and you can predict how many parts a certain CPU will handle in green before buying that CPU. The correlation is linear. Just divide the PassMark number of the processor by 11 and you'll get a rough estimation.

These calculations are true only for unmodded KSP  

CPUs of all time and their rankings are here: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

Currently in the beginning of 2018 the best performance/price processor is Intel i5-8400, costs around $185 and handles up to 1000 parts in green.

2000 parts and still in the green? I can't believe that. 

Single core physics calculations have not progressed that much to get such an explosive gain in KSP performance. Something must be off, maybe some tweaking of the physics delta frame calculations?

[LordFerret]

It's more than just number of parts the rocket has... it's also how many other 'Flights' you have running, and the debris setting, (and other graphics settings)... also certain parts, like lights when they're turned on vs off.

[Pi_]

As I was building my ISS replica, when part count reached about 500 I began to see the MET clock digits flashing yellow... but mostly it was still green.

I just checked the completed station in orbit, the game clock is steady yellow.  The ratio is 10 seconds in game time to 12 seconds in real time.   There is no gameplay lag while working at the station, like when docking a Soyuz or doing an EVA.  However there is a noticeable pause on approach to rendezvous when entering physics range.

KSP v1.4.1,  no mods of any kind,  all stock parts

Part Count:  959

Computer:  i7-4790 (non-K), 16GB DDR3 Ram, GTX 970 video card

[Just Jim]

4 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

It's more than just number of parts the rocket has... it's also how many other 'Flights' you have running, and the debris setting, (and other graphics settings)... also certain parts, like lights when they're turned on vs off.

Agreed... some parts have more polygons or whatever as well... they're just more complex 3D models.

I tend to start seeing yellow at 400-500 parts... but that's not set in stone... besides parts and lights and all that, I turn my graphics up as nice as my computer can comfortably handle to take screenshots. I could probably get away with more parts if the graphics were turned down a bit.

 

Edited April 6, 2018 by Just Jim

[LordFerret]

3 minutes ago, Pi_ said:

However there is a noticeable pause on approach to rendezvous when entering physics range.

Yes, that would be around the 2.5km mark. The pause is the game loading the craft and enacting the physics on it.

[Pi_]

55 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

Yes, that would be around the 2.5km mark. The pause is the game loading the craft and enacting the physics on it.

Yes exactly.  Sorry, I should have explained that better... instead of just saying "there is a pause when entering physics range".  I took it for granted that players knew about physics not loading outside 2200 meters.

And btw, if your rendezvous target has a high part count, try not to be in time warp as you cross that physics loading threshold.  Sometimes off nominal things can happen.

[DerekL1963]

9 hours ago, Paulestrada said:

I just want to know whats the limit of parts your CPU can handle until your timer becomes yellow.

It's not just parts...  It's also what's happening and what's on screen.  During launch (highest part count plus a ton of physics calculations) I can go from yellow-occasionally-flashing-red to pure green simply by pointing the camera at the sky so that the ground isn't being rendered.  In Kerbin orbit, I put my bigger stations above 250km because the game shifts to a simpler/faster method of rendering terrain at 250km.

You can also gain performance by turning down your rendering settings in the Settings menu.

[Paulestrada]

5 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

It's not just parts...  It's also what's happening and what's on screen.  During launch (highest part count plus a ton of physics calculations) I can go from yellow-occasionally-flashing-red to pure green simply by pointing the camera at the sky so that the ground isn't being rendered.  In Kerbin orbit, I put my bigger stations above 250km because the game shifts to a simpler/faster method of rendering terrain at 250km.

You can also gain performance by turning down your rendering settings in the Settings menu.

I should have been more specific, I only do planes, and never leave the atmosphere, so the craft remains the same.

13 hours ago, Enceos said:

Twitch streamer EJ_SA has overclocked liquid cooled Intel Core i7 8700K Hex Core (4.9GHz), his CPU can run KSP with 2000 parts while still in green.

According to https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html, and considering overclocking, his CPU has around 21000 PassMarks.

These PassMarks are pretty accurate and you can predict how many parts a certain CPU will handle in green before buying that CPU. The correlation is linear. Just divide the PassMark number of the processor by 11 and you'll get a rough estimation.

These calculations are true only for unmodded KSP  

CPUs of all time and their rankings are here: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

Currently in the beginning of 2018 the best performance/price processor is Intel i5-8400, costs around $185 and handles up to 1000 parts in green.

Thank you

[DerekL1963]

15 minutes ago, Paulestrada said:

I should have been more specific, I only do planes, and never leave the atmosphere

Then calculations based on parts counts (which are suspect to start with) are going to be even less useful as the amount of physics calculations and rendering the surface are also going to bog down your processor.

[Enceos]

22 hours ago, Harry Rhodan said:

But only if you look at the single thread rating on any single CPU entry. Comparing the score of a multi core benchmark for a game that in most cases only uses a single thread is not a good idea.

KSP x64 divides CPU load between cores, especially when there are multiple vessels around. It is generally better to have several medium part count vessels than one with high part count. Most of the load is laid on one core when there's only one vessel in the scene.

 

19 hours ago, [INDO]dimas_1502 said:

i have AMD A6-6310 APU 1.80 GHz with Radeon R4 Graphics, 6 gigs RAM (roughly 5 gigs usable), lags asf at 200 part
is this normal?

Have you tried running 200 parts in stock KSP with no mods? Your CPU should do fine unless there are heavy background processes running on your OS.

Edited April 7, 2018 by Enceos

[LoSBoL]

48 minutes ago, Enceos said:

KSP x64 divides CPU load between cores, especially when there are multiple vessels around. It is generally better to have several medium part count vessels than one with high part count. Most of the load is laid on one core when there's only one vessel in the scene.

It does indeed divide load between cores, but sadly, the physics calculations have always been bottlenecked by single core performance in KSP. Raising the number of cores can help a bit in performance, but with every new iteration of CPU's you see a mere maximum of 5% increase in KSP performance (if your lucky) due to single core performance reaching physical limitations which basically stops further development. Gaining single core performance over the last 4 years has been due to very small efficiency steps and raising the core clockspeed.

The 2000 parts machine you've mentioned earlier looks like wizardry, take a look at the recently started thread, and you'll see we've been hitting hard rock bottom in performance increase for years in succesion.

KSP'er @Aeroboi mentioned his machine, which is even faster then EJ_SA's machine, and 700 parts is making him run for the hills (which is basically in line with what you can expect)

 

Edited April 7, 2018 by LoSBoL

[RealKerbal3x]

I have an i5 with 4GB RAM, the clock is yellow almost always.

Needless to say, this laptop wasn't built to play KSP on.

[Geonovast]

16 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

this laptop wasn't built to play KSP on.

Most aren't, as they're generally clocked lower to keep down on heat. 

My old laptop has a 2.1ghz i5 (IIRC, 2nd gen).  I didn't know the green clock existed on that.

When I built my desktop, initially I had another i5.  But it was a 7th gen 3.4ghz.    Both i5s, but the desktop ran it so, so, so much better.

Now I have a 4.2 ghz 7th gen i7.

[Dimas152]

On 4/7/2018 at 3:10 PM, Enceos said:

Have you tried running 200 parts in stock KSP with no mods? Your CPU should do fine unless there are heavy background processes running on your OS.

it was tried on stock 1.3 long ago, i was loading azimech's stock heli that time

[Enceos]

12 hours ago, [INDO]dimas_1502 said:

it was tried on stock 1.3 long ago, i was loading azimech's stock heli that time

You made me lose faith in AMD once again. Looks like my laptop's Core 2 Duo P7450 does a better job in KSP.

[shdwlrd]

On ‎4‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 7:21 AM, [INDO]dimas_1502 said:

i have AMD A6-6310 APU 1.80 GHz with Radeon R4 Graphics, 6 gigs RAM (roughly 5 gigs usable), lags asf at 200 part
is this normal?

I was using a A6-3670K then I upgraded to an A10-7870K. But both APUs wouldn't really start lagging noticeably until I reached about 300 parts. (The funny thing is that my I7-3630QM w/ GTX675M laptop can handle about 700+ parts before lagging too bad.)

6 hours ago, Enceos said:

You made me lose faith in AMD once again. Looks like my laptop's Core 2 Duo P7450 does a better job in KSP.

Don't lose faith just yet. The new Ryzen based processers and APUs are looking to be a huge improvement from what was AMD a couple years ago. It's just a waiting game for more Ryzen based systems to hit the market.

[Harry Rhodan]

Yeah, those old AMD APUs had an extremely abyssimal single thread performance. And using a lower clocked laptop version will definitely not help to mitigate that.

[MR L A]

On 4/6/2018 at 1:21 PM, [INDO]dimas_1502 said:

i have AMD A6-6310 APU 1.80 GHz with Radeon R4 Graphics, 6 gigs RAM (roughly 5 gigs usable), lags asf at 200 part
is this normal?

I'm running an A10 - 7870K and I try not to have part counts that high... but yeah, It would be laggy af for me too at 200 parts.

Though in fairness, I've noticed that some designs do end up with the counter going yellow even though they have less parts than some that remain consistently green (all during launch). 

 

Edit: by laggy "af" I do ofc mean by the standards I consider acceptable, which apparently are higher than the other commenter

I'm really interested to see how well the Ryzen APU's perform, particularly the 2400g. Anyone using one???

Edited April 9, 2018 by MR L A

[shdwlrd]

10 hours ago, MR L A said:

I'm really interested to see how well the Ryzen APU's perform, particularly the 2400g.

Yeah, me too. Since the review sites don't use KSP as an benchmark, it's hard to say if it's worth upgrading for just KSP. But comparing it the old APUs to the new Ryzen APUs with the general benchmarks that the sites use, it maybe worth it. But the single thread performance is still looks to be lack luster when compared to the competing Intel processors, but is far better than the older APUs.

[AngrybobH]

I haven't played a stock game in a very long time (1.2.1 maybe). I also have not played 1.4.x at all. I downloaded it but I'm waiting for mod support and more bug fixes.

My desktop is a Ryzen 5 1600 on an MSI x370 pro gaming board with 32GB of memory(all that memory does not help KSP) and a GTX 970. KSP and the OS (Win10....yeah, I know) run off a Samsung 960 EVO M1 SSD. Boot time from cold to putting in my password is 12 seconds.

In 1.3.x with over 70 mods(half are performance killers), all in game gfx settings at max, and the Ryzen running at base speed (3.2ghz) I can get about 150 parts(all stock parts) in atmo flying with a flickering yellow clock. At the "turbo" speed (3.6ghz) it is near 200 before yellow. I have overclocked to 3.9ghz but never got it fully stable(I didn't tinker long enough) but KSP seemed like it was faster and the 200 part plane did not flicker yellow on the clock. But this is all dependent on the actual parts the ship is made from and position of the camera.I have never seen a red clock with this rig but, I have seen a yellow clock with as low as 25 parts and green with over 500 parts. Also, I still have a yellow clock with over 1800 parts (3 vessels, 1200 on one of them) landed on minmus. So, part count and color of the clock isn't as telling as one might think.