KSP versions 1.6 and 1.7 with 20 FPS Cap

[gsantos9489]

Hey guys.

My game is behaving extremely bad, I got about 20 fps on the flight scene and the time label is always yellow
Others scenes in the game are fine.
Main menu: 180 fps (with an 6 to 7 sec lag to menus start its fading process)
VAB: 80 .. 90 fps 
Flight: 10 .. 20 fps 
I'm not using any MOD, did a clean 1.7 install through STEAM;

I had stopped playing for a few months, I believe that I stopped in version 1.5, by the time my laptop was performing fine in the game, obviously not compared to a top-of-the-line machine but he'd handle it. 
It kept about 45 to 60 fps on the flight scene, and the time label was always green.  
So when I installed 1.7 to play again, I noticed this issue.

My settings are: 
I7 4700MQ 2.4 GHz (Turbo 3.3GHz)
32 GB RAM DDR3 1600 MHz 
GeForce 770M 3GB DDR5
SSD 240 GB
M2 SSD 32 GB (Game installed here)
Windows 10 Education

Some facts and tests made:
• All tests made here were without any MOD on version 1.7.2, unless otherwise noted;
• The only peripheral connected to my notebook is my mouse;
• Game is always running thru nvidia card;
• I have both DLCs, I've already tried to play without them, no success;
• The low FPS issue in flight scene seems to occur only in versions 1.7.1, 1.7.0 and 1.6.1;
• In version 1.5.1 the game runs fine:
a.    Main Menu (both unmoded and moded): 180 FPS (less than a sec lag to Menu start its fading)
b.    UNMODED : 80 FPS
c.    MODED : about 38..40 FPS on flight scene;
• Running game via Windows Clean Boot mode, no success;
• Clean Windows 10 installation, I've played the game with only Windows (base, no updates), Drivers, Steam and KSP installed. no success;
• With some deep tests I figured out the problem is due to Render Quality Setting (https://imgur.com/k8MkrQ6):.

• Made the tests of Render Quality vs. Texture Quality on 1.5.1 (https://imgur.com/9tZ64vZ):

Didn’t made tests thru lower Render Quality, higher ones speaks for themselves...

• Tried to rollback Nvidia driver, no success;
• In a New Career file, the FPS is a bit higher, 25 (Tier 1 launchpad)... but still the time label is flickering yellow and green. Then FPS goes low just after the loading disapear, while the screen is still black;
• Steam Overlay is disabled, Windows XBOX overlay is uninstalled and Nvidia overlay is there just to show me the FPS counter, didn’t noticed any diference with it off. (While Nvidia overlay was off, i used the debug menu to check the FPS);
• Max Physics Delta-Time per Frame:
a.    Minimum (0.03): 25 FPS (Time label always yellow)
b.    Maximum (0.12): 25FPS (Time label Always green)
• Window Mode:
a.    Full-Screen: 25 FPS (as as it is my default screen preference)
b.    Windowed: 25 FPS
c.    Borderless: 26 FPS (due to a bit lower resolution I guess: 1680 x 1050)
• Running with -force-d3d11 or -force-opengl, no success;
• Tried diferent ships, no success;
• Launched a rocket from launchpad at 20 fps... at arround 50 km high, fps suddenly raised to 25, so I had the idea of using the cheat menu to go do the others bodies (lowest possible orbit):
a.   Sun: 32 FPS
b.   Moho: 14 FPS (label yellow)
c.   Eve: 29 FPS
d.   Gilly: 26FPS
e.   Kerbin: 24 FPS (label flickering yellow/green)
f.   Mun: 33 FPS
g.   Minmus: 33 FPS
h.   Duna: 19 FPS (label yellow)
i.   Ike: 23 FPS (label flickering yellow/green)
j.   Jool: 31 FPS
k.   Laythe: 20 FPS (label flickering yellow/green)
l.   Vall: 14 FPS (label yellow)
m.   Bop: 23 FPS (label flickering yellow/green) 
n.   Tylo: 23 FPS (label flickering yellow/green) 
o.   Pol: 23 FPS (label flickering yellow/green) 
p.   Dres: 21 FPS (label flickering yellow/green) 
q.   Eeloo: 22 FPS (label flickering yellow/green)
r.   Random asteroid rendezvous: 33 FPS
• Tried with an external monitor (1920x1080), no success;

 

Key concepts:
• Render Quality
• Flight scene with low FPS, after version 1.6
• Main menu lag, after version 1.6

Hope someone here could help. I'm also in touch with official KSP support, but until now we can't figure out what is causing this issue...

Thanks in advance!

Sorry for the long post, here is a potato

[linuxgurugamer]

How big are the rockets and planes in the scenes?

[Hoozemans]

Thanks for the carbs. I'm getting an FPS of less than 2 with some of my 1000+ part launches, on a pretty decent i7. I'm guessing we're just scr*wed unless someone comes up with an entirely new physics model.

[gsantos9489]

11 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

How big are the rockets and planes in the scenes?

Really small... Jumping flea is an good example of 20 FPS.

Dynawing has much more parts and it's also cap on 20 FPS...

Please, take a sample:

https://imgur.com/QsjwLu4

Edited July 16, 2019 by gsantos9489
image inserted

[linuxgurugamer]

When you install the nVidia driver, reset all the settings, it has an option to clear all settings and reset it to a clean install.

Do you have any other programs installed which might be artificially limiting the FPS?

[Serenity]

Are your pc temperatures ok while running Kerbal? If you dont have a monitor program i use https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html , its not a bad program to check if all is well.

Edited July 16, 2019 by Boyster

[gsantos9489]

8 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

When you install the nVidia driver, reset all the settings, it has an option to clear all settings and reset it to a clean install.

Do you have any other programs installed which might be artificially limiting the FPS?

Hey there, sorry for the delay... I tried to reset the driver, didn't solved the problem...

Forgot to mention that GPU is on 100% use with those 20fps only.

 

Others games and 3D applications are all OK. This problem occurs only on KSP 1.6.[all] and 1.7.[all].

Just thinking here, In some way this could be related with the 5 to 6sec menu lag* (the menu lag is much small in version 1.5, 0.1 sec)?

*forget to talk about it, but the graphics freezes in the main menu just after the game loads and I can't take any action during this time, but sound and mouse movements are normal. This happens just once, after the main menu shows for first time, 1.6 and 1.7.

Also noticed that before lag starts, Kerbin planet has an smooth texture, but when lag is over, Kerbin textures changes to a much more detailed one... Maybe it's about texture compression, idk...

2 hours ago, Boyster said:

Are your pc temperatures ok while running Kerbal? If you dont have a monitor program i use https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html , its not a bad program to check if all is well.

I'm using hwinfo to check it... Temperatures seems to be fine.

Edited July 17, 2019 by gsantos9489
Added details on menu freezing issue

[gsantos9489]

Hey @SQUAD, @linuxgurugamer !

I've finally found what was causing the FPS cap.

It's the "Reflection Refresh Mode" parameter, when it is set to "Every Frame", the game stucks on 20 FPS.
But if I select just one step below, "Medium", games runs fine.

Also, if we change the Reflections Texture Resolution, overall performance changes too (without cap).

@SQUADMaybe there is a way to check if this could be optimized in the future releases? (I will open an official ticket to notify this with all the details).

@linuxgurugamer thanks for the brief help!

Edited November 27, 2019 by gsantos9489
More Details Inserted