Performance improvements for 0.21?

[Stealth2668]

I was wondering if they announced when or even IF they can/will be releasing performance updates? I know it's alpha and it's probably better to wait until at least better for more efficient development but as it stands now I can't even build a rocket big enough to bring a medium/large sized rover to another planet because the lag is just awful, borderline unplayable. Anyone with a mid range pc will know what I mean and don't say "buy a bettr pc Nubz0r", that's like driving your car with the handbrake on and being like "Get a more powerful engine", what needs to happen is you need to optimize the current situation first (release handbrake) that way everything runs as smooth as possible before considering more power. New parts are nice but it seems like this game opens in Microsoft PowerPoint...

Edited May 20, 2013 by Stealth2668

[Sabor]

I was wondering if they announced when or even IF they can/will be releasing performance updates? I know it's alpha and it's probably better to wait until at least better for more efficient development but as it stands now I can't even build a rocket big enough to bring a medium/large sized rover to another planet because the lag is just awful, borderline unplayable. Anyone with a mid range pc will know what I mean and don't say "buy a bettr pc Nubz0r", that's like driving your car with the handbrake on and being like "Get a more powerful engine", what needs to happen is you need to optimize the current situation first (release handbrake) that way everything runs as smooth as possible before considering more power. New parts are nice but it seems like this game opens in Microsoft PowerPoint...

How does your game run with small simple ships of just a few parts?

Usually it isn't the graphics and visuals that cause framerate issues in Kerbal, it's the physics calculations. A good CPU, or better a Multi-Core CPU, or even better, an Intel Multicore CPU with Hyperthreading will help big time in most people's cases rather than a bigger beefy video card where Kerbal's concerned. But this game does need some better optimization on using multiple cores, definitely

Luckily 0.20 is going to address some performance woes as far as Memory usage goes, so it should help speed things up here and there.

Edited May 20, 2013 by Sabor

[Pulstar]

Actually multiple cores add little advantage over single core CPUs for KSP. The latest version of the Unity engine KSP is running on has little in the way of multi-threading support, there's some IIRC but not enough to significantly improve performance.

[Stealth2668]

The game runs great with smaller ships. The problem is that there's no multi core support (is this 1997?). The devs are smart guys and I'm sure they have a plan to make the game run better, just wish they would do it sooner than later.

[TooManyErrors]

The game runs great with smaller ships. The problem is that there's no multi core support (is this 1997?). The devs are smart guys and I'm sure they have a plan to make the game run better, just wish they would do it sooner than later.

Thats a problem with Unity itself, not KSP.

[_Aramchek_]

or better a Multi-Core CPU, or even better, an Intel Multicore CPU with Hyperthreading will help big time in most people's cases rather than a bigger beefy video card where Kerbal's concerned. But this game does need some better optimization on using multiple cores, definitely

Please do not listen to this at all, unity has little to no multi-core support for the physx implementation, while i5's and i7's will run the game better than mid range hardware, significantly even, it's not because of multithreading or "moar cores", it's because the sb/ib architecture is very fast in general.

In fact, for the budget minded, if you were wanting to upgrade more or less just for this game, I'd suggest an i3 dual core if anything.

[Stealth2668]

Thats a problem with Unity itself, not KSP.

I know, that's what I meant

[enneract]

Please do not listen to this at all, unity has little to no multi-core support for the physx implementation, while i5's and i7's will run the game better than mid range hardware, significantly even, it's not because of multithreading or "moar cores", it's because the sb/ib architecture is very fast in general.

In fact, for the budget minded, if you were wanting to upgrade more or less just for this game, I'd suggest an i3 dual core if anything.

Additionally, even if KSP was properly multithreaded, hyperthreading is of questionable usefulness in most applications. It only works properly with a relatively small subset of cpu instructions, and can actually compromise the single-execution-unit performance of the system for the benefit of parallel execution with those instructions. The result is that i5 actually tend to bench and perform better than i7 for general use (and definitely have a larger OC headroom). Though, i7 really shine with highly parallel tasks which HT accomplishes well (video transcoding is a good example).

[RawChicken]

They have said in several occasions that they were going to address performance issues in future releases (including 0.2) where they have already announced a +40% improvement on memory usage.

Althou I have a good pc, I hope they make the game run smoother as it really need that polish-feeling

[3_bit]

*grumble grumble* multithreading... *grumble grumble* ... I'm no programmer even though I do know a lot about how computers work at all levels. Just multithread it and I'll be quiet for a few months until I get bored of my 2,000 part superships that dwarf the launchpad.

[austin4050]

I was wondering if they announced when or even IF they can/will be releasing performance updates? I know it's alpha and it's probably better to wait until at least better for more efficient development but as it stands now I can't even build a rocket big enough to bring a medium/large sized rover to another planet because the lag is just awful, borderline unplayable. Anyone with a mid range pc will know what I mean and don't say "buy a bettr pc Nubz0r", that's like driving your car with the handbrake on and being like "Get a more powerful engine", what needs to happen is you need to optimize the current situation first (release handbrake) that way everything runs as smooth as possible before considering more power. New parts are nice but it seems like this game opens in Microsoft PowerPoint...

Calm down we still have .20 to wait for! Let alone .21.

[Hyomoto]

This question pops up with extreme frequency, so here are some highlights and reading material:

Unity runs mostly in a single thread, specifically physics. Because of this it is impossible for the Dev's to simply 'go multicore'. Since Unity isn't 'thread safe', it is impossible to access game objects from additional threads. I'm not sure how much help something like UnityExtender may help with this either, since at the end of the day PhysX is holding everything up too.

Unity uses PhysX for all physics: cloth, water, rigid-body, soft-body, etc... PhysX can run from the GPU or the CPUâ€â€but when running from the CPU is single-threaded and makes use of the x87 instruction set. Fine, you might say, "I have nVidia anyways!" Wrong, Unity forces CPU physics on all systems (it's an equal opportunity employer!) Perhaps then, it is nVidia's fault. They could make use of SSE–and its modern revisions supported on all processors since 2002 (x87 being depreceated eight years ago)–or, CPU-based version the X360 and PS3 uses, they could provide proper multi-threaded support. Well, PhysX 3.0 did address these issues, too bad Unity uses 2.8.3. But even if they did upgrade, Unity would have to disable multi-threading for very same reason they forced CPU physics to begin with: Unity is not thread-safe.

The only thing I've seen that may be of use is what this guy was working on. However, he hadn't responded in over a year. In any case, it is proof that multithreaded physics not only matter, but can also be done.

Sources -

http://semiaccurate.com/2010/07/07/nvidia-purposefully-hobbles-physx-cpu/

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/phyx-ageia-x87-sse-physics,10826.html

http://entitycrisis.blogspot.jp/2012/08/really-really-easy-multithreading-in.html

Unity multithreading and physics is a huge debate, most of which has taken place is various forums and answer groups. Search for 'unity thread safe, unity threaded physics, etc...) and wade through conflicting opinions on the matter.

Edited May 20, 2013 by Hyomoto
Realized I didn't add Unity sources :O

[Stealth2668]

Calm down we still have .20 to wait for! Let alone .21.

Who said I wasn't calm? And I doubt 0.2 will bring huge performance increases. That will probably require it's own update and a decent amount of time.

[Eric S]

They could make use of SSE–and its modern revisions supported on all processors since 2002 (x87 being depreceated eight years ago)

Minor update on that, the version of unity in 0.18.3 and later does use SSE instead of x87 FPU instructions. This is probably where the improvement that some people saw in 0.18.4 over 0.18.2, but it wasn't as significant an improvement as I had hoped.

[_Aramchek_]

They have said in several occasions that they were going to address performance issues in future releases (including 0.2) where they have already announced a +40% improvement on memory usage.

Althou I have a good pc, I hope they make the game run smoother as it really need that polish-feeling

This does not mean that the game's performance will speed up by 40%, this is likely to be a small boost overall, and more likely will just keep things a bit smoother/more stable in certain situations.

Also, 40% of 15 fps is 6 fps, so if you're running the game slowly, and in the unlikely event that you got a 40% boost in the games rendering speed, you would be at 21fps, which is still going to be choppy.

Additionally, even if KSP was properly multithreaded, hyperthreading is of questionable usefulness in most applications. It only works properly with a relatively small subset of cpu instructions, and can actually compromise the single-execution-unit performance of the system for the benefit of parallel execution with those instructions. The result is that i5 actually tend to bench and perform better than i7 for general use (and definitely have a larger OC headroom). Though, i7 really shine with highly parallel tasks which HT accomplishes well (video transcoding is a good example).

This is why I saved myself $100 and got an i5, it just doesn't make a huge difference to have more cores/threads at the moment as the vast majority of the software/games out there do not make use of that yet.

Edited May 21, 2013 by _Aramchek_

[MR4Y]

Some pessimists will say that 0.20 will only add flags and nothing else, pretty much like Team Fortress 2 that gets bigger and bigger in size, but only seems to have more hats added.

[sadron]

When IS 0.20 coming out?

[Mishkin_007]

When IS 0.20 coming out?

Soonâ„¢

I am starting to get slightly impatient though.

[zzz]

This does not mean that the game's performance will speed up by 40%, this is likely to be a small boost overall, and more likely will just keep things a bit smoother/more stable in certain situations.

Also, 40% of 15 fps is 6 fps, so if you're running the game slowly, and in the unlikely event that you got a 40% boost in the games rendering speed, you would be at 21fps, which is still going to be choppy.

Only more stable, not significantly smoother (if you have enough memory) and no any fps boost. But at least some editor improvements and map filtering are nice. And now you can to litter parts folder by more mods

Edited May 21, 2013 by zzz

[_Aramchek_]

Only more stable, not significantly smoother (if you have enough memory) and no any fps boost. But at least some editor improvements and map filtering are nice.

I know, this is why I said that it won't speed the game up much, under some circumstances it may, but not by much.

And to be honest, I play vanilla and the game is rock stable, I think often mods are part of the reason some people get instability, I'm not knocking mods, or attacking people who use them in any way, but I do think they can add to the potential for instability.

[Ted]

Relax guys.

We know that 0.20 is in Experimental Testing and they're trying their hardest to keep things moving along.

Additionally, 0.20 will hopefully bring performance improvements for those with low amounts of RAM (see C7's blog for more details).

Edited May 21, 2013 by Ted

[Stealth2668]

I know, this is why I said that it won't speed the game up much, under some circumstances it may, but not by much.

And to be honest, I play vanilla and the game is rock stable, I think often mods are part of the reason some people get instability, I'm not knocking mods, or attacking people who use them in any way, but I do think they can add to the potential for instability.

Hopefully that is the issue. The rocket I built that gives me lag is almost entirely mods. KW mod I believe it was, because it gives you much needed, large fuel tanks and rockets. Hoping they add similar stock ones soon cause the game is lacking in parts atm. I have about 7 ish mods installed, adding 100's of parts.

[NASAFanboy]

I hate how the game has to load every single part one-by-one. ANNOYING.

[Hyomoto]

Minor update on that, the version of unity in 0.18.3 and later does use SSE instead of x87 FPU instructions. This is probably where the improvement that some people saw in 0.18.4 over 0.18.2, but it wasn't as significant an improvement as I had hoped.

I had not seen that, I'll have to look it up. The reported 'likely' improvement for SSE was around 20%; at best a two-hundred part ship gains a forty piece speed improvment. Good, but not great. Still nothing compared to the multi-threaded physics demo of five thousand rigid body objects running at 30FPS. The heated debate over 'whether or not it matters' pretty much had all its nails hammered in with that one. I suspect the biggest hurdle is difficulty. Once it's been cracked, we'll wonder how we ever did without it, but someone has to do it first (and make it accessible).

[zzz]

Hoping they add similar stock

It's not matter stock or mod parts is at all, amount of parts matter more.