Low End Performance Benchmark

[silent_prtoagonist]

System Specs:

• CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K @ 3.50 GHz
• GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 980, 4 GB VRAM
• Memory: 16 GB DDR4
• Storage: HDD
• OS: Windows 10
• Display: 2560x1080 @ 60 Hz
• Settings: 2560x1080/Lowest
  • See note below on ultrawide resolutions. 

Results:

• Main Menu: 100+ FPS
• Space Center: ~30 FPS
• Assembly Building: ~60 FPS
  • Parts initially load with missing models/textures, resolves after a couple frames.
• Tracking Station: ~60 FPS
  • Celestial bodies take a bit to load in.
• Flight:
  • With very small part count: ~20 FPS looking at ground, ~50 FPS viewing space and vessel only.
  • Performance degrades as expected with increasing part count, have not tested large craft past ~50 parts. 
  • Noticeable hang-ups whenever a new asset is loaded, e.g. bringing a new building into view, engine ignition, etc.
  • Performance similar viewing other planets, not just Kerbin/KSC. (Tested at Minmus) 
• Loading Screens:
  • Loading times are long. (Expected with HDD)
  • The exception is assembly building -> launch, which is very quick. 
  • "Pumping Sim Once" is going to become a meme, you heard it here first. 

Verdict: Playable, but not a particularly pleasant experience. 

• GPU limited in pretty much all cases. 
• Biggest performance bottleneck appears to be rendering planets, hopefully this will be relatively easy to optimize. 
• When not looking at a planet in flight mode the game runs surprisingly well. (But then looking at planets is kind of the point.) 
• Aesthetically on minimum settings the game is comparable to KSP 1 with moderate graphics mods. Some things are prettier (mainly the rockets) some things similar (low clouds are not volumetric) some things worse (aliasing, etc). I have not yet experimented with optimizing the graphics settings. 
• For me I think it's good enough to play around with/provide feedback, but I'll need a hardware upgrade to really enjoy playing for itself. I'm probably going to wait for the latest-gen low-end GPUs to come out and reevaluate then. 

Note/Workaround for Ultrawide Resolutions:
The game does not appear to natively support resolutions for aspect ratios other than 16:9, however you can apparently "trick" the game into doing it by setting it to borderless window mode and then back to fullscreen without changing any other settings. 

Edited February 25, 2023 by silent_prtoagonist

[dr.phees]

It is weird, that the same game is in need of

- a frame limite, or my machine would explode from displaying the menu at 160fps with a screaming GPU

- no frame limiter at all when videos are displayed or when in an empty VAB, since fps are suddenly in low double digits and even single digits ranges...

[whatsEJstandfor]

I'm going to see if I can possibly get this to run on a laptop I bought from a dude in a trailer for $100 about 5 years ago. It was already about 7 years old at the time, and I now run the Xfce-flavored version of Linux Mint on it because Cinnamon was too taxing lmao

Update: It will not even install rofl

Edited February 25, 2023 by whatsEJstandfor

[miyagi]

Here are some numbers from my 7 or 8 year old system:

Ryzen 7 1800x, 16GB, nVidia 1080

With the display mode set to full screen, the numbers were OK-ish. A little better than I expected. Then I changed to Windowed mode, and the numbers went up a little and were even more OK-ish.

Space Center Menu = steady 30fps
VAB = Steady 60fps
Launch Pad = 25-30ish fps
Launch (stock K1 rocket) = 19-30ish fps (increased at higher altitude)
Orbit = steady 60fps Looking out at space. 20-ish if you are actually looking at something, like Kerbin.

Edited February 25, 2023 by miyagi

[Stevex]

R9 270  2Gb

i5 12100f

16Gb Ram

I managed to build a small rocket and launch it.

I was unable to run the tutorial  and switching between buildings seemed to crash the program. I think the GPU needs maybe 6 Gb  of memory to achieve this. I will get another GPU and give this another go.

[snkiz]

I'm copying this here because this is a more appropriate thread title.

 

[Basketcase]

i5 10600k

GTX 3060 TI

32 GB RAM

 

1440p and all high settings:

Launch Pad:  25

Flying plane over KSC:  30

Space above Kerbin with large rocket:  33

Sitting on runway with large plane:  42

VAB:  53

Small rocket flying 3km over Mun:  63

Standing on Pol with rocket out of view:  67

 

Edited February 25, 2023 by Basketcase

[rmaine]

I've got a GTX 2080. It was a top-of-the line card when I got it, but I guess that was a while ago. Game seems to run fine in the little time I've spent with it. However, the fan noise from my graphics card tells me it's getting hotter than I like. For me, that's a much bigger issue than frame rate. I'm turning down the settings quite a bit to keep from frying the poor card. Granted, that would give me an excuse to buy a new card, but I don't  think right now is the best time for that. :-)

[Rocket Farmer]

4090, 13900 Water cooled, 64GB DDR5, Firecuda drive.  

Launching a 40 part ship.  Ultra 4K.

85-90 FPS launch and first 30 seconds after.

60-65 FPS going through cloud layer.

But here is the interesting part.

While in space if I face Kerbin it’s 77 FPS while my GPU is 100%.

If I face space it’s 150 FPS while my GPU drops back to 63%.
 

 

 

 

[Klapaucius]

The graphics card seems to be key. I've got a pretty high-spec system: i7, 32 GB ram, 8 cores but a GTX 1060 with 6GB.

Like you, flying was a chore. Anytime over terrain, especially landing away from the KSC, and it slowed down to a crawl.  I did not encounter that same lag when landing on the Mun.

[TheTechnobear]

indeed, as per OP,  as far as Ive seen KSP2 is totally GPU bound...  even on relatively humble systems, the CPU is hardly being taxed.

also, I noticed that changing the graphics settings, including resolution did not seem to affect GPU usage/frame rates as much as expected. 
which was quite surprising given the GPU load.

so, this leaves room for some hope... perhaps  a GPU bottleneck, which once unblocked, may allow the processing to be better balanced over GPU/CPUs
 

[Hofnaerrchen]

I am not sure it is the GPU limiting performance. On another thread - I think it was on reddit - someone mentioned physics to be problem and I think he was right.

I am playing the game on a system powered by an R7 5800X in conjunction with an RX 6900XT and 32MB of RAM at 3440x1440. With this configuration I am getting 20 FPS on the launchpad while the menu - using FrameView - is running at 330 FPS - 100% GPU, 18% CPU.

Other things that I observed in conjunction with graphics settings: 

- Changing the resolution on the launchpad - even to 720p - does do not much to improve FPS. But it screws up my multi-monitor-setup completely, even changing the resolution on the second display. Maybe the used GPU driver (23.2.2) is another factor.

- Borderless window is not working as intended - if I tab into another window the game is minimized but GPU and CPU fans ramp up massively - the GPU load goes to 100% almost immediately, something that is not the case while being on the launchpad at 20 FPS the GPU would turn the FANS of if I had enabled Zero-Fan-Mode. Load is so low (sometimes below 20%), that fans are at minimal RPM.

- Flying a plane supports the theory of physics being the problem. It's even worse than on the launch pad - 16-19FPS while the game is running but as soon I pause the game FPS go to 50. Even turning SAS off alone improves the FPS to almost playable 29-33 FPS and SAS is most likely handled by the CPU.

- FPS in the Tracking Station, looking at Kerbin is 90 FPS/1% low in the 50s while the GPU load is in the mid to high 40%, CPU load 20%.

- All observations were done with VSync off and no frame limiting in place.

Edited February 25, 2023 by Hofnaerrchen

[Streetwind]

47 minutes ago, Hofnaerrchen said:

I am not sure it is the GPU limiting performance. On another thread - I think it was on reddit - someone mentioned physics to be problem and I think he was right.

There can be multiple limits, which come into play at different points.

VRAM is a huge problem as soon as you drop below 8 GB on 1080p or 10GB at 1440p. Performance will degrade hard anytime any part of a celestial body is in view; for my 6GB card, I can go from 60 FPS when viewing my vessel against the backdrop of space, to 10 FPS just by turning the camera so Kerbin is in the frame. Larger VRAM counts do not experience this massive drop.

Your card has 16GB VRAM, which is easily enough for 1440p, so you're probably running into a different limit.

[Hofnaerrchen]

Which will probably require optimization by PD to fix the problem. From what I've read so far there are quite a lot of different results from very similar systems which is rather strange to some degree. What I find rather frustrating is the fluctuating GPU load and that borderless windowed mode is not working as intended - switching to an individual resolution (went with 2400x1200 by editing the KSP2 settings) in windowed mode "fixed" that issue.

Just had a ship return to Kerbin and opening the chute dropped FPS to 10 from 20ish above Kerbin (with a ridiculous 10-20% GPU load), as soon as the chute was cut it went up to 35 and 100% load in a heavily vegetated area with tons of trees - not great in terms of performance but at least the GPU load was were I expect it to be in a game like this. Not that the eye candy you get would justify such low FPS on my GPU. If I had to guess I would say the game is being CPU bottlenecked in physics heavy situations. And while I am typing this CPU-Fans in the PC are at 100% again while the game is not even on screen and there's only load on a single core. This game is in a very poor state even for EA considering it was delayed THREE years.

[silent_prtoagonist]

Yeah my 4 GB of VRAM is pegged full pretty much all the time. Wouldn't surprise me if that's the dominant factor in my case. 

[Jebsded]

wimps, try playing pumping sim once on an NVidia GeForve GTX 960 with 4gb. hour long load screens and the noodliest noodlez to ever noodle

 

[JeanRenaud]

My specs :

  - CPU: Intel Core I7 6700K @ 4 GHz
  - GPU: NVidia GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB
  - System RAM: 16 GB DDR3 RAM
  - Storage: SSD M.2
  - Display: 1080p, 60 Hz
  - Settings: 1080p, High/Low does not make any difference, so everything on HIGH but VSync OFF
  - Vessel parts count: 20 (including two launch clamps)

Results :
  - 60 FPS in VAB
  - ±200 FPS in main menu
  - 60-70 FPS in space, looking only at the vessel and the sky
  - 15-20 FPS in space looking at Kerbin (filling 100% of the screen) and the vessel
  - 30-40 FPS at Kerbal Space Center
  - On LaunchPad, awaiting launch, 35-40 FPS orienting the camera to NOT see the ground, then 25-30 FPS when looking at the ground
  - On ascent after launch, 25-30 FPS orienting the camera to NOT see the ground, then drops as low as 12 FPS when looking at the ground

Turning on VSYNC can drop the FPS to single digit in the worst case.

Clearly, the physics have indeed an effect on the framerate (awaiting launch VS ascending), but they are not the only culprit, since looking at the planet worsens a lot the FPS.

Again, outside the VSync, the other settings at HIGH or LOW does not seem to change the performance significantly. If i get 25 FPS at HIGH, i can get 27 FPS at low. 27 is still poor so i don't consider it an improvement.

[JeanRenaud]

My specs could be worst, though.  I tried it while unplugging my dedicated GPU and using the integrated graphics card, an Intel HD 530, and i was getting 2 FPS, and that's half the time. The other half, the game crashed while loading a saved game.

KSP 1 with low graphics setting on the integrated GPU was running ok, at least 20 FPS on ascent.

[Lasty]

The real problem is deeper, maybe in the code...

With an i9 9900K, 32GB of DDR4 3200mhz, a RTX 4070 Ti, SSD NVME: The first fly is fine, 90 fps+...but THEN..the second one, the FPS got cut by half... then the thrid one fps got again cut by half...

 

Ending with 3 fps after like 5 6 fly running at the same time..and its reproductible, just get the first stock rocket in the game, throw it in the space, and go vab to reload one...after a few lunch, the game become unplayable ..even with small stock rocket...

Edited March 2, 2023 by Lasty