can this rendering engine handle the growth of the KSP?

[tsakali]

Hello fellow ksp'ers! I'm here to voice a concern for the future as well as maybe find some answers that may or may have not been dealt with here before.

As I was in the process of concentrating a few landers on one small area on the mun by trying to simulate some type of munar base, each following landing became progressively choppier , until I got to my 6th lander which gave me about 1 frames per second hence was impossible to complete, no matter how low I set my graphics quality settings. My system is a quad 3.2 ghz cpu with a 9800GTX video card and 8gigs of ram so it's not a push over by any means.

I'm guessing, the presence of all the already stationed landings in that location made processing the environment virtually impossible. These landers are not extravagant in design by all means... they actually composed of a capsule, 4 tanks and landing engines, an advanced sas, 4 maneuvering rsc, an 4 landing feet. (?).

What really gets me is that even when all the other landers are not in my field of view, it seems that they are still being rendered since no matter where I turned the camera it had no effect in the choppiness. Now I know I have seen massively more complicated scenes on other video games that can handle alot more, and I also understand that this is basically not a finished game yet, but I'm thinking that the rendering engine is not something that is easily developed, nor easily edited. SO I'm willing to guess that the game's current development point should really not be taken under consideration when talking about the capabilities of the rendering engine that is implemented here. Or am I wrong? is this an issue that is known and will be addressed in the future?

How will this game cope with it's expansion, of capabilities? How can we even dream about creating munar bases without first taking a serious look at the rendering limitations of this game?

No flames please, this is not a troll, I really enjoy this game, but I have genuine concern that this will greatly limit the possibilities of enjoying a richer kerbiverse.

Edited September 1, 2012 by tsakali

[Nibb31]

KSP is alpha software with a lot of room for optimization before anyone can claim that the graphics engine is not up to the task. Until now, the devs have been concentrating on adding features and getting the game mechanics ironed out. Optimization has not been a priority and usually comes later in the development cycle.

[Atimed]

Unity on its own isn't the most powerful engine out there but it could handle a lot more than you think..

Game is still i Alpha and ATM they are just adding content, without proper optimization..

We/You need to be patient until Beta, Then will they start working on the optimization..

---

About the lag, its simulation anything that in 2.5km radius from the current craft.. so your 6 landers and each 20 parts..

That's ~120 Softbodies to render,calculate,keep track on position, calculation shadows, AO etc.... /30 times every second..

And it a lot of stress on the processor(s).. Not so much on the Graphic card..

[tsakali]

oh ****, this thing uses Unity? that explains a big part of it

but ok, I'll go against my logic and take your word on the possibility of improvement on such a fundamental aspect.

And I guess, any aspect of base intended parts, won't have to be "soft" bodies as you call them so that in itself sounds like good news.

Edited September 1, 2012 by tsakali

[Atimed]

oh ****, this thing uses Unity? that explains a big part of it

but ok, I'll go against my logic and take your word on the possibility of improvement on such a fundamental aspect.

And I guess, any aspect of base intended parts, won't have to be "soft" bodies as you call them so that in itself sounds like good news.

I'm not sure but i think "Rigid-bodies" are the core feature, because each rocket part acts like a independent module, that's why they break apart, each having its velocity,strength,heat,mass, pressure,drag.. etc..

---

They (might be) are using Rigid-body based simulation mechanics..

For more info a Dev should have more accurate answers..

...In KSP, ships aren't simulated as a single physical point, with forces and torques acting on it. They're simulated as multiple linked rigidbodies, each with its own velocity...

Edited September 1, 2012 by Atimed
Correction

[tsakali]

Aye, whatever they are called, I get your point...a base panel won't have to be simulated at all! But I still hope both base and space station creation will be just as open to innovation as the rockets are.

[thevegimobil]

I was thinking my gpu was th problem for some laggy scenes but after reading this threadit makes sense. My gpu is pretty low end but the problem was when I added ladders to my space station for easier evas and there was alot of them. So mybe the engine may need some updating.