Performance tips for a modded install on a high-end PC (+VR) - advice on mods and settings

[RomanDesign]

Hi, I'm a KSP noob, and got hooked immediately. Just made it to the moon, but I have some issues I need to resolve and optimize. I have a high-end PC (RTX 4090, 5900X, 64Gb RAM, fast SSDs etc. + a 4K display, so SKP runs at 4K), so I maxed out the settings and as I'm also a big VR fan I installed the VR mod and some suggested visual quality mods listed as working with VR mod (+ dependancies). Despite KSP being an old game and huge resources available, I get a lot of stuttering and unstable frame rates, for example when close to the moon surface. This also affects VR of course. I'm sure folks here figured out what are resource hogs and what graphics settings could be reduced without much impact. I still want it to look as close to a modern game as possible. 

Here's the list of mods I installed with CKAN. Any advice on what else do I need, or what should be removed, is welcome:

Spoiler

ASET Agency (ASETAgency 1.0)
ASET Avionics (ASETAvionics 2.1)
ASET Props (ASETProps 1.5)
Astrogator (Astrogator v1.0.0)
B9 Part Switch (B9PartSwitch v2.20.0)
Chatterer (Chatterer 0.9.99)
ClickThrough Blocker (ClickThroughBlocker 1:2.1.10.21)
DE IVAExtension (DE-IVAExtension v1.0.2)
Docking Port Alignment Indicator (DockingPortAlignmentIndicator 6.10.0.0)
Environmental Visual Enhancements - Stock Planet Config files (EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements-HR 2:EVE-1.2.2-1)
Environmental Visual Enhancements Redux (EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements 3:1.11.7.1)
Ferram Aerospace Research Continued (FerramAerospaceResearchContinued 3:0.16.1.1)
Firespitter (Firespitter v7.17)
Firespitter Core (FirespitterCore v7.17)
Firespitter Resources config (FirespitterResourcesConfig v7.17)
FreeIva (FreeIva 0.2.5.2)
Harmony 2 (Harmony2 2.2.1.0)
HullcamVDS Continued (HullcamVDSContinued 0.2.2)
JSI Advanced Transparent Pods (JSIAdvancedTransparentPods V0.1.24.0)
JSIPartUtilities (JSIPartUtilities 0.5.0.5)
Kabrams Sun Flare Orange Medium (KabramsSunFlaresPack-Orange-Medium 001)
KASA Loading Screen/Flag Pack (KASAS1LoadingScreens v1.6)
Kerbal Alarm Clock (KerbalAlarmClock v3.14.0.0)
Kerbal Engineer Redux (KerbalEngineerRedux 1.1.9.0)
Kopernicus Planetary System Modifier (Kopernicus 2:release-1.12.1-145)
KSA IVA Upgrade (KSAIVAUpgrade v1.6.4)
KSPBurst (KSPBurst v1.5.5.1)
MechJeb 2 (MechJeb2 2.14.2.0)
ModularFlightIntegrator (ModularFlightIntegrator 1.2.10.0)
Module Manager (ModuleManager 4.2.2)
NavUtilities continued (NavUtilitiesContinued 0.7.2)
Parallax (Parallax 2.0.6)
Parallax - Stock Planet Textures (Parallax-StockTextures 2.0.0)
Parallax - Stock Scatter Textures (Parallax-StockScatterTextures 2.0.1)
Probe Control Room Recontrolled (ProbeControlRoomRecontrolled 1.2.4.2)
RasterPropMonitor (RasterPropMonitor 1:v0.31.10.1)
RasterPropMonitor Core (RasterPropMonitor-Core 1:v0.31.10.1)
Real Plume (RealPlume 2:v13.3.2)
Real Plume - Stock Configs (RealPlume-StockConfigs v4.0.8)
ReStock (ReStock 1.4.3)
Reviva (Reviva 0.8.1)
Rocket Sound Enhancement (RocketSoundEnhancement 0.9.6)
Rocket Sound Enhancement - Default (RocketSoundEnhancement-Config-Default 1.2.4)
SCANsat (SCANsat v20.4)
Scatterer (Scatterer 3:v0.0838)
Scatterer Default Config (Scatterer-config 3:v0.0838)
ScienceAlert ReAlerted (ScienceAlert 1.9.20.2)
SmokeScreen - Extended FX Plugin (SmokeScreen 2.8.14.0)
Spacedocks Redeployed (SpacedocksRedeployed 0.3.0.4)
SRB Waterfall Effects (SRBWaterfallEffects 2.3.5)
Through The Eyes of a Kerbal (ThroughTheEyesOfaKerbal 2.0.4.4)
Toolbar Controller (ToolbarController 1:0.1.9.9)
TUFX (TUFX 1.0.5.0)
TweakScale Redistributable (TweakScale-Redist v2.4.6.19)
Vessel Viewer Continued (VesselView 2:0.8.8.6)
VesselView-UI-RasterPropMonitor (VesselView-UI-RasterPropMonitor 1:0.8.8.6)
Waterfall - Restock (WaterfallRestock 0.2.3)
Waterfall Core (Waterfall 0.9.0)

Piloting in VR is amazing! But I also have a problem with something KSP crashing after a little while when I have any of the camera feeds showing in the cockpit (not sure if it would happen without VR). I only switch to VR to be in the cockpit, but sometimes I do look from the outside and it's gorgeous in full 3D.

[JonnyOThan]

See the "performance" part of the "troubleshooting" block here: 

See the VR performance tips here: https://github.com/JonnyOThan/Kerbal-VR/wiki/Performance-Tips

If you're up for it, you can grab a unity profiler capture (follow this guide: https://gist.github.com/gotmachine/d973adcb9ae413386291170fa346d043) and send it to me.  You have a ton of mods that have completely unknown CPU performance impact.  FAR, RocketSoundEnhancement and VesselViewer are particularly terrible but I have no idea about most of the rest.  You might want to try playing with just the bare VR dependencies and then gradually add in things.

 

[RomanDesign]

23 minutes ago, JonnyOThan said:

FAR, RocketSoundEnhancement and VesselViewer are particularly terrible

Great advice, thanks a lot! If you think any of my mod are not good or not worth the impact, let me know. I'll try to temoprarily remove the ones you mentioned. It's definitely the CPU, because with RTX4090 the GPU isn't really overworked I think, though I haven't measured. What's interesting is that performance impat drawing terrain close to the Mun. That happens both in 4K pancake mode and in VR. So maybe something that's retexturing the engine or adds pebbles and terrain mesh (if it does that at all) is doing it, but I'm not sure what. So I'll read up on Parallax, I was suspecting it being the culprit. I'm sure there's some tuning I can do. 
Edit: I don't see a Performance section there... strange... Maybe it's lower in the thread?

You're the guy who did the VR mod, right? Amazing work. I'm a huge fan of VR  and simulators - I even designed and built my own DIY motion simulator VR cockpit for MSFS (I hope links are allowed) and getting into the KSP cockpit with working full instrumentation feels amazing! Even the external views are so much better with the sense of depth in VR. I use HP Reverb G2 (WMR). Thanks for your work, and everyone else that participated in the VR mod!

Edited January 30, 2023 by RomanDesign
parallax info

[Superluminal Gremlin]

5 hours ago, RomanDesign said:

RTX 4090

holy moly

[JonnyOThan]

3 hours ago, RomanDesign said:

Edit: I don't see a Performance section there... strange... Maybe it's lower in the thread?

You're the guy who did the VR mod, right? Amazing work. I'm a huge fan of VR  and simulators - I even designed and built my own DIY motion simulator VR cockpit for MSFS (I hope links are allowed) and getting into the KSP cockpit with working full instrumentation feels amazing! Even the external views are so much better with the sense of depth in VR. I use HP Reverb G2 (WMR). Thanks for your work, and everyone else that participated in the VR mod!

https://imgur.com/a/MyFLrQZ

That cockpit looks awesome!

[RomanDesign]

4 minutes ago, JonnyOThan said:

That cockpit looks awesome!

Thanks, it feels out of this world LOL. Too bad FlyPT Mover software can't get the data out of Kerbal (it can out of 30 games or so, notably MSFS and DCS and most racing sims). VR roller coaster feels pretty sick (in more ways than one LOL), my kids love it. However I do have a profile that just responds to the joystick movements, so this could drive the joystick-based accelerations, which would be close to what you can feel in zero G I guess. But because the whole game is not working well in VR and a monitor is still needed, I'm not using my cockpit for KSP.

20 minutes ago, Superluminal Gremlin said:

holy moly

Well, RTX4090 is the only thing that can drive MSFS in VR with full 4K per eye resolution reasonably well (still not perfect though). And I use it for work too. But I did expect better KSP performance, considering its age... So it must be CPU-limited, though my CPU is no slouch either.

[Superluminal Gremlin]

2 hours ago, RomanDesign said:

(still not perfect though

Interesting. How much more performance would one need to achieve perfect 4k per eye?

[JonnyOThan]

2 hours ago, RomanDesign said:

So it must be CPU-limited,

Yes, KSP usually is.  You’re running dozens of mods that were likely written with very little attention to performance.

[JonnyOThan]

12 hours ago, RomanDesign said:

FlyPT Mover software can't get the data out of Kerbal

What would this entail?  KSP mods can do basically anything, if all you need is orientation and accelerations that should be really easy.

[RomanDesign]

On 1/30/2023 at 9:17 PM, Superluminal Gremlin said:

Interesting. How much more performance would one need to achieve perfect 4k per eye?

In MSFS such hardware does not exist yet. 4090 + 5900X, even with the help of DLSS and/or OpenXR Toolkit can drive mostly stable 30 FPS (with motion reprojection tripling it to 90Hz) or 45FPS in sparse areas. Nothing can drive 90Hz native resolution with any settings. That said, I have almost perfect subjective smoothness most of the time, but the problem is occasional stutters, and the problem is inherent in MSFS. It is mitigated (but never fully cured) by a stronger CPU, so I'm waiting for 7950X3D release to upgrade the rest of my system (needs new AM5 motherboard and DDR5, whcih I need 64Gb of = ouch!). With my system I'm CPU-limited in VR. Most games on pancake wouldn't be a problem at 4K (Cyberpunk 2077 is perfect), but VR+MSFS is unbelievably hungry.

On 1/31/2023 at 8:07 AM, JonnyOThan said:

What would this entail?  KSP mods can do basically anything, if all you need is orientation and accelerations that should be really easy.

FlyPT Mover has "source" modules for many games. A new source needs to be created that gets that data. The software is not open, and has not been updated by the creator in a year or so, which is worrying. It's still the best there is in its flexibility, but those "sources" can't be added by users. However there is a universal source that reads data from specific memory addresses that you can specify, so that you can manipulate that data later. It is beyond my skills to do that though. It's not that difficult for most games. It's regurarly done by the community for Elite Dangerous for example, and every time game updates those addresses change and need to be rediscovered. It must be possible to get those values from Kerbal in similar way, I think. Maybe a plugin could be written so they are output to the same addresses all the time. But that's beyond my skills of available time.

Another issue is that a whole game can't be played in VR for now. Map doesn't work well, for example. And in VR motion rigs, you dont' have a monitor with you. Though I guess you can bring one into VR with a desktop app if yu really would want to. I do have a trackball but operationg keyboard is not practical in VR. Some things can be done with voice commands via Voice Attack as I do in MSFS. It's doable, basically, but someone needs to invest a lot of time into making it work.

[RomanDesign]

On 1/30/2023 at 2:39 PM, JonnyOThan said:

See the VR performance tips

Thanks again for that advice, I did some of it and it seemed to help a lot - I didn't have stutters when orbiting and landing on the Mun.

Another question: I can't figure out EVA in VR: when I use controllers I get strange movements and rotations of not just the kerbal but his head inside the suit. I can't just look straght and use the jet pack. And even inside IVA moving freely, some buttons make him move in directions locked to where you are rotated, others in lateral motions unrelated to where you are looking. up/down are not available at all without looking up or down and moving forward or backward. I'm very confused.

As a matter of fact I'm confused even with flatscreen IVAs - I've done several rescue missions and I'm lost: though jetpack is working fine as I mapped it, the kerbal himself is sometimes locked to camera and sometimes camera wildly rotates when jetpack is perating. And sometimes kerbal is stabilized with SAS on, other times hes freely rotates and impossible to stabilize.

Another question is not related to VR, just a general one (maybe I need to post it in other topic): when I plan the maneuver that has for example prograde + normal vectors, what direction do I burn at? It seems that the blue "maneuver" icon on the ball indicates where the maneuver point is, not where to point the spacecraft. When it's just one vector, it's easy, but when it's combined, how do I know where to point etc.?

Edited February 1, 2023 by RomanDesign

[JonnyOThan]

5 hours ago, RomanDesign said:

Thanks again for that advice, I did some of it and it seemed to help a lot - I didn't have stutters when orbiting and landing on the Mun.

Another question: I can't figure out EVA in VR: when I use controllers I get strange movements and rotations of not just the kerbal but his head inside the suit. I can't just look straght and use the jet pack. And even inside IVA moving freely, some buttons make him move in directions locked to where you are rotated, others in lateral motions unrelated to where you are looking. up/down are not available at all without looking up or down and moving forward or backward. I'm very confused.

As a matter of fact I'm confused even with flatscreen IVAs - I've done several rescue missions and I'm lost: though jetpack is working fine as I mapped it, the kerbal himself is sometimes locked to camera and sometimes camera wildly rotates when jetpack is perating. And sometimes kerbal is stabilized with SAS on, other times hes freely rotates and impossible to stabilize.

Another question is not related to VR, just a general one (maybe I need to post it in other topic): when I plan the maneuver that has for example prograde + normal vectors, what direction do I burn at? It seems that the blue "maneuver" icon on the ball indicates where the maneuver point is, not where to point the spacecraft. When it's just one vector, it's easy, but when it's combined, how do I know where to point etc.?

I've never experienced what you're describing, so I'd suggest removing everything except the bare minimum VR dependencies. It's possible some other mods are interfering with the camera and messing things up.

The dark blue marker on the navball is indeed where you should be aiming for the burn.

[Krazy1]

On 1/30/2023 at 10:30 AM, RomanDesign said:

I get a lot of stuttering and unstable frame rates, for example when close to the moon surface.

Yeah, it certainly does. The terrain suddenly changes shape and it also stutters. It really detracts from the game experience. I'd like to see a 1% low framerate graph with the recommended PC. 

You can try KSP Community Fixes. This is one of the performance improvements listed. I noticed it was smoother but not a cure. 

• PQSUpdateNoMemoryAlloc [KSP 1.11.0 - 1.12.5]
  Prevent huge memory allocations and resulting occasional stutter on PQS creation happening when moving around near a body surface.