How can I make ksp run better?

[Rutabaga22]

I used to play heavily modded installs, but recently KSP has been running terribly, I installed BdB only and it's causing my computer to overheat. Are there any steps I can take to make it run better? It was doing better with Nvidia's Game Ready Driver 535.98, but the latest drivers have somehow made it worse.

Specs:
Computer: Aorus RC47
CPU: Intel Core I7 10750H
GPU: Nvidia RTX 2060
RAM: 16gb

Edited June 21, 2023 by Rutabaga22

[Lisias]

Try the MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU=1 stunt and see if something changes.

It's a bit convoluted on Windows, however. But I helps a lot on my MacPotato, and I have notice it also makes things smoother on Windows (at very worst, it allows the garbage collector to run more times, helping preventing memory leaks).

https://www.alphr.com/set-environment-variables-windows-11/

 

[Rutabaga22]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

It's a bit convoluted on Windows, however. But I helps a lot on my MacPotato, and I have notice it also makes things smoother on Windows (at very worst, it allows the garbage collector to run more times, helping preventing memory leaks).

 

Where should I direct the variable?

[Lisias]

5 minutes ago, Rutabaga22 said:

Where should I direct the variable?

On this Window:

Click on New and

On Variable Name type MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU and on Variable Value type 1 (One). Then click OK.

This will not solve all the performance problems, but will mitigate them a bit.

On my rig, the benefits were the CPU running 2ºC cooler (seriously) while the rest of the machine remained useable (without this stunt I can't listen to music or watch videos while playing KSP). My rig is crappy enough to any performance enhancement on the game to go unnoticeable (I may had earn 2 or 3 FPS), but some internal KSP processes (as the Garbage Collector) started to run more times, as the KSP's memory usage didn't increased too much anymore on long gaming sessions.

Of course, remember the stunt as maybe you would need to remove it to play other Unity games. On MacOS, things are way easier… 

[Rutabaga22]

13 minutes ago, Lisias said:

On this Window:

Click on New and

On Variable Name type MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU and on Variable Value type 1 (One). Then click OK.

This will not solve all the performance problems, but will mitigate them a bit.

On my rig, the benefits were the CPU running 2ºC cooler (seriously) while the rest of the machine remained useable (without this stunt I can't listen to music or watch videos while playing KSP). My rig is crappy enough to any performance enhancement on the game to go unnoticeable (I may had earn 2 or 3 FPS), but some internal KSP processes (as the Garbage Collector) started to run more times, as the KSP's memory usage didn't increased too much anymore on long gaming sessions.

Of course, remember the stunt as maybe you would need to remove it to play other Unity games. On MacOS, things are way easier… 

My GPU is running much cooler, and the CPU is staying about the same, but hopefully, this helps.

 

Ksp loaded, they are both down 10 degrees.

[Lisias]

6 minutes ago, Rutabaga22 said:

My GPU is running much cooler, and the CPU is staying about the same, but hopefully, this helps.

Ksp loaded, they are both down 10 degrees.

Check if the overall performance remains the same.

The GPU running cooler caught me with my pants down, this was essentially a CPU trick…

Check if the FPS dropped...

[Rutabaga22]

1 minute ago, Lisias said:

Check if the overall performance remains the same.

The GPU running cooler caught me with my pants down, this was essentially a CPU trick…

Check if the FPS dropped...

My main issue was fps and it's a lot better! Heat went back up to normal tho, but that's an issue with my actual computer.

 

[Lisias]

1 minute ago, Rutabaga22 said:

My main issue was fps and it's a lot better! Heat went back up to normal tho, but that's an issue with my actual computer.

Sweet!!

Thanks for the confirmation of an already long standing hypothesis!

Cheers!

[zer0Kerbal]

on my system:

TL;DR: dramatic effect both on SSD based and RAMDISK based

RAMDISK (with cache - 2668 patches)

Spoiler

MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU = 1 set

[LOG 15:23:21.979] [ModuleManager] Total loading Time = 25.931s

[LOG 15:02:27.231] ExpansionsLoader: Expansions loaded in 0.193s

[LOG 15:02:27.231] Loading Systems: Elapsed time is 23.15744s

[LOG 15:02:30.983] Total startup time to MainMenu: [T+00:29]

with  MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU not set

[LOG 15:05:51.342] [ModuleManager] Total loading Time = 28.484s

[LOG 15:05:47.095] ExpansionsLoader: Expansions loaded in 0.184s

[LOG 15:05:47.095] Loading Systems: Elapsed time is 25.80487s

[LOG 15:05:50.925] Total startup to MainMenu: [T+00:32]

 

 

from SSD (with cache - 4465 patches):

(corrected)

Spoiler

MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU not set

[LOG 15:20:34.222] [ModuleManager] Total loading Time = 65.829s
[LOG 15:20:29.272] ExpansionsLoader: Expansions loaded in 0.189s
[LOG 15:20:29.272] Loading Systems: Elapsed time is 62.76733s
[LOG 15:20:33.109] Total startup time to MainMenu: [T+01:09]

 

with  MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU = 1 set

[LOG 15:14:47.048] [ModuleManager] Total loading Time = 45.529s

[LOG 15:14:42.456] ExpansionsLoader: Expansions loaded in 0.214s

[LOG 15:14:42.456] Loading Systems: Elapsed time is 42.79828s

[LOG 15:14:46.001] Total startup time to MainMenu: [T+00:48]

 

I didn't look at CPU/GPU utilization nor CPU/GPU temps / framerates because the heat system is heavily overengineered (250W+++ for a thermal load of 150w (oc'd i7-10700K running at 5.08ghz with a RX 6600)

Edited June 25, 2023 by zer0Kerbal
update links and lasso the birds