My biggest concern about KSP 2!

[fizy45]

Just like any of you I am also eagerly waiting KSP early acsess to come out. But there is one problem I keep seeing in every and KSP trailer and thats the frame rate of the gameplay. I mean its always looks like lagging. I tried to ignore it a year ago thinking that its a very early developlent build preview but its still there and even in the lastest PC Gamer interview it can cleary be seen and as far as I know those footage was kinda new.

I hope that wont be the case with the early acsess. I expect to see lots of bugs and encounter many problems and missing features and its normal thats what early acsess actually means but a game running at 10-15 fps is not something I can play.

I wish devs are not planning to make us play KSP 2 with that lag can you give me any information on that?

[intelliCom]

3 hours ago, fizy45 said:

Just like any of you I am also eagerly waiting KSP early acsess to come out. But there is one problem I keep seeing in every and KSP trailer and thats the frame rate of the gameplay. I mean its always looks like lagging. I tried to ignore it a year ago thinking that its a very early developlent build preview but its still there and even in the lastest PC Gamer interview it can cleary be seen and as far as I know those footage was kinda new.

I hope that wont be the case with the early acsess. I expect to see lots of bugs and encounter many problems and missing features and its normal thats what early acsess actually means but a game running at 10-15 fps is not something I can play.

I wish devs are not planning to make us play KSP 2 with that lag can you give me any information on that?

We've seen this post on this forum multiple times. We've all got the exact same concern, but the devs have said absolutely nothing. Nate recently mentioned it in an interview with PC Gamer, but nothing of what he said can be confirmed nor denied until we see footage newer than pre-alpha, and performance issues can't be rectified until Early Access releases.

All we can do right now is hope that it won't be the case in Early Access, and the game runs normally. There's nothing else we can do for now.

I'm going to repeat a piece of advice I've told a few people before; if you're in a strong KSP mood, and can't get its current progress out of your head, try playing a really difficult challenge like returning from the surface of Eve or using mods like Kerbalism or JNSQ.

Edited November 24, 2022 by intelliCom

[GoldForest]

1 hour ago, fizy45 said:

Just like any of you I am also eagerly waiting KSP early acsess to come out. But there is one problem I keep seeing in every and KSP trailer and thats the frame rate of the gameplay. I mean its always looks like lagging. I tried to ignore it a year ago thinking that its a very early developlent build preview but its still there and even in the lastest PC Gamer interview it can cleary be seen and as far as I know those footage was kinda new.

I hope that wont be the case with the early acsess. I expect to see lots of bugs and encounter many problems and missing features and its normal thats what early acsess actually means but a game running at 10-15 fps is not something I can play.

I wish devs are not planning to make us play KSP 2 with that lag can you give me any information on that?

Firstly, it's PRE-ALPHA FOOTAGE, it's going to be buggy and choppy. Optimization comes last. Don't worry about it, at least not until 1.0 launch. We will see choppy frame rates throughout EA. That's the nature of an EA game. 

Secondly, Nate has addressed this. The latest footage we saw was in the interview posted yesterday, Nate said it was 3 months old, and said not to worry, they've improved the frame rate. He didn't exactly tell how much, but he did say they were improving it for Early Access.

39 minutes ago, intelliCom said:

but the devs have said absolutely nothing.

Nate did address it in his interview. See reply above for details. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by GoldForest

[intelliCom]

3 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

Nate did address it in his interview. See reply above for details. 

My mistake, but the rest of my point still stands. We can't do anything for now. To not go insane from intrusive thoughts, fill mind with other thoughts.

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, intelliCom said:

My mistake, but the rest of my point still stands. We can't do anything for now. To not go insane from intrusive thoughts, fill mind with other thoughts.

Oh, I agree that we shouldn't panic about frame rates, especially for a, and I'm starting to feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, pre-alpha game.

Go play KSP 1 until KSP 2 EA comes out, and when it does come out, still don't worry about the frame rate, not unless it's still a problem at 1.0 launch. 

[jastrone]

it could be the recording program they use. or they run the game on low fps because they dont want the game to crash but they will want to show max settings.

they cant release a game which cant be run over 15 fps. it will defenetly be fixed before release

[intelliCom]

11 minutes ago, jastrone said:

it could be the recording program they use. or they run the game on low fps because they dont want the game to crash but they will want to show max settings.

they cant release a game which cant be run over 15 fps. it will defenetly be fixed before release

"Recording program" doesn't make a lick of sense. If their recording equipment is the reason for poor framerates, they would get that fixed. Instead, they chose to show footage that has a choppy framerate to it.

Agreed on second point, no way they're going to be stupid enough to leave it at that framerate when it releases... right?

[Kerbart]

2 hours ago, intelliCom said:

We've seen this post on this forum multiple times. We've all got the exact same concern, but the devs have said absolutely nothing.
All we can do right now is hope that it won't be the case in Early Access, and the game runs normally. There's nothing else we can do for now.

That os not true. Nate addressed this in the interview:

• Game architecture is built from the ground up, working far more efficiently than KSP1
• Game will be multi-threaded using multiple CPU's and G{U's
• Some of the pre-alphas were still herky-jerky but performance is important, is a lot better now and under continuous improvement
• Aim is for large ships to run smoothly on mid range oc's

None of that might be true of course, but it's definitely been addressed.

[intelliCom]

14 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

That os not true. Nate addressed this in the interview:

• Game architecture is built from the ground up, working far more efficiently than KSP1
• Game will be multi-threaded using multiple CPU's and G{U's
• Some of the pre-alphas were still herky-jerky but performance is important, is a lot better now and under continuous improvement
• Aim is for large ships to run smoothly on mid range oc's

None of that might be true of course, but it's definitely been addressed.

I was corrected earlier by GoldForest. The point in general still stands:

Nothing we can do about it, best to think about other things.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Nate flat out said that every week they get closer to the EA release that the framerates are improving.  To the point of them playing the game for fun... Not just testing this feature or that. 

He went into this whole thing about increasing part counts and improving frame rates on 'mid-tier machines'. 

My impression is that optimization is the primary focus of effort between now and Feb. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Kerbart]

1 hour ago, intelliCom said:

Nothing we can do about it, best to think about other things.

Then why bother?

[intelliCom]

9 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Then why bother?

Why bother with what? I'm arguing that we shouldn't bother if we can't change anything. When Early Access releases, that will be a far better opportunity to discuss performance problems. Since it hasn't even released yet, complaining about the pre-alpha footage's poor frame rate like the dozen or so people who already complained about it makes this forum feel like a broken record. I believe we could do with less of that.

Could you please elaborate?

Edited November 24, 2022 by intelliCom

[Kerbart]

53 minutes ago, intelliCom said:

Why bother with what? I'm arguing that we shouldn't bother if we can't change anything. When Early Access releases, that will be a far better opportunity to discuss performance problems. Since it hasn't even released yet, complaining about the pre-alpha footage's poor frame rate like the dozen or so people who already complained about it makes this forum feel like a broken record. I believe we could do with less of that.

Could you please elaborate?

My bad, I thought you were the OP. I was wondering why someone would create this thread and then mention (correctly) that there's no point in getting upset over the alleged framerate of a product that hasn't been rleased yet. It didn't make sense to me. But you and him are not the same person. My apologies.

[Alexoff]

But I heard that the game will be released in the spring of 2020 and not in early access. I think it's time to stop believing words. So the developers created a special "show and tell" section, what they showed us there will definitely be in the game, and the rest of the streamlined wording can then be adjusted. Poor performance in demos is generally very bad, it's disrespectful to the consumer. I shot my videos for KSP1 with less than 1 fps, but for some reason I accelerated them to 30 or 60 fps and it was not very difficult. As for performance, the developers should talk about the system requirements of the game, maybe in order for a rocket of 200 parts to fly at 30 fps, RTX 5090i  is needed.

[Strawberry]

The vibe I get is right now the devs are focused basically entirely on the initial release of the game (which means a lot of optimization improvements), and will probably focus on optimization a bit past that. The nice thing about interstellar is it requires the devs to optimize the game well or it just will not work. With still three months to go, and the core code having a lot better bones then the code of ksp1 due to the people on the team being more experienced, the optimization will probably be pretty good on release, and get better after that. 

[The Aziz]

3 hours ago, Alexoff said:

it's disrespectful to the consumer.

What consumer? Did you invest any money in it already?

[Davi SDF]

Remember, all the footage that we got was from pre-alpha, in such phase, their focus is to just make the game work. 

I've saw some pre-alpha footage from other games, and the amount of optimization that can be done in proper Alpha and Beta is astonishing! 

[Alexoff]

22 hours ago, The Aziz said:

What consumer? Did you invest any money in it already?

Well then, should developers focus on T2 shareholders? Maybe they will play in KSP2? With this approach, I should expect the phrase "your expectations are your problems"

 

21 hours ago, Davi SDF said:

Remember, all the footage that we got was from pre-alpha, in such phase, their focus is to just make the game work.

I remember that regarding the optimization of KSP1, many on the forum said that it is very difficult to optimize the game because of the spaghetti code. In order for a 500-part rocket to have 30 fps, the developers need to redo the game from scratch! But in KSP2, emphasis will immediately be placed on further optimization of the game and everything will be fine. But judging by the fact that the game produces bad FPS without big rockets, we should not hope for this. Maybe later, in 2033...

[t_v]

We have some video evidence of slow-to-medium frame rates in atmospheric flight, and some video of smooth frame rates in vacuum flight. We don't know when these were filmed exactly, nor do we know if any footage has been edited to smooth it out. Because the developers decided to show us choppy frame rates, my inclination is to believe that they are not smoothing things out and the frame rate for ships at rest or under acceleration in space is fine. Beyond video evidence, we have words, which I am quoting from a transcript of an excerpt of the full PC Gamer interview. Click the little arrow if you want to go there and watch it yourself. 

On 11/23/2022 at 10:47 AM, MARL_Mk1 said:

if you've been watching the footage we've been releasing over the last few months, you've probably noticed footage from three months ago so it can be a little bit herky-jerky in terms of frame rate but we're seeing big improvements there.

I place less trust in statements than footage, but I still trust these statements somewhat, since so far, we've seen slip ups and mistakes, but nothing leads me to believe that the developers are intentionally misleading us, even to save face in PR. The footage somewhat corroborates this, as I've seen better frame rates than with, for example, the Artemis I re-creation launch in the atmosphere, and frame rates outside of the atmosphere seem to be a lot higher.

From what I can surmise, something in the atmospheric simulation is taking up a lot of processing power and needs to be heavily optimized (Not making any speculation on potential sources, sometimes code just runs slow). From what I've seen in the footage, this can be done, and from what I've heard in the interview, the developers have the intention to do it. As a future customer, my experience with the end product will be the same whether I saw this slow frame rate or not, and I have nothing to do except for hope that my inferences are correct, that the game will be nicely optimized upon release and continue to receive good optimization support. 

[GigFiz]

Well, one nice thing about early access is that they will get to test things on way more machines, over a greater spectrum of performance, than they could ever do in house, which is useful data. It's early access, issues are to be expected, that's part of the point; you should only get worried if the issues don't get acknowledged and worked on. If we get a few phases into early access with no improvements in performance whatsoever, and no comments about it from the dev team, then I'll get worried, but until then...eh. The initial finish line for optimization is release, anyway (at least theoretically...tell that to some AAA publishers though); obviously, the closer we get to 1.0, the better picture we will have, but until they decide Early Access is complete...concerns are fine, but death knells are likely premature.

Edited December 4, 2022 by GigFiz
forgot a word

[SciMan]

I thought of something to add here, finally.

KSP 2 in the Development Build version could have a lot of logging and debug features turned on, and sometimes the way they're coded causes a SEVERE performance impact simply because they might have to write something to disc EVERY FRAME (or not, it depends on what it's looking at).
That can easily become a LOT of data to load/write, and the game's almost certainly set up so that it won't even try to process the next frame until all the debug data from the CURRENT frame is at least put into system RAM in a file somewhere.

So, depending on how many debug options they have turned on, and what graphics settings they're running it at, KSP 2 could run pretty slow in the footage we see, but when we get our hands on it (even without much changed other than turning off the debugging/monitoring stuff) the game could be made to run MUCH better with literally zero work dedicated to optimizations.

Also, if they're using raytraced lighting (aka RTX), then guess what, doesn't matter much what you're doing those frames aren't gonna be happening that frequently even if you have a 4090.

Because as much as they said RTX was gonna make things look better, it kinda hasn't done so yet because anything RTX can do can be done by pre-baked lighting faster. Actually compiling the game to use RTX instead of pre-baked lighting (with NO pre-baked lighting) is a lot faster to finish compiling than having to bake the lighting into the scene, so it's useful in development, but for production versions of a game you're gonna want a hybrid (RTX for dynamic lights only) or prebaked-only approach.