Does game booster work very well for KSP?

[Rocketeer Hopeful]

I got it to see how much of a performance boost I could get out of it, and well there wasn't very much difference. Here are some framerates at sea level and 100km orbit (looking away from Kerbin) unplugged, plugged in, and with gamebooster active (I have a laptop, so unplugging it will put it into a powersave mode that throttles the CPU). These were all done with the same 59 part ship.

Unplugged on Launch Pad:~17 FPS

Unplugged at 100km Orbit: ~34 FPS

Plugged in on Launch Pad: ~26 FPS

Plugged in at 100km Orbit: ~52 FPS

Gamebooster Active on Launch Pad: ~28 FPS

Gamebooster Active at 100km Orbit: ~50 FPS

My laptop is an HP Pavilion m6.

CPU: AMD A10-4600M APU at 2.3Ghz (Quadcore)

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit (I presume)

RAM: 6 GB

Graphics: Radeon HD Graphics

My settings for KSP:

Textures: Full

AA: 4x

Terrain: Low Settings

Rendering: Fantastic

Vsync: Off

Could gamebooster be shutting something off in the background that may actually help KSP run better? Or is my laptop doing the best it can? Just wondering, thanks for the help. (Also, if someone could tell me if it was possible to turn on turbo boost or if it even applies to my computer, that'd be great, thanks!)

Edited June 13, 2013 by Rocketeer Hopeful
Question

[stupid_chris]

KSP is a game in 32bit, meaning it can't go for over 4Gb of ram and this is the really limiting factor with it right now. So game booster would help a bit... but you already have a very powerful computer and KSP is probably already running to it's max, so it probably won't have any noticeable effect. It would probably more with lower end computers.

[Qumefox]

'Game booster' software is useless.

Think of it like this.. Would you solve resource limitations (which is in actuality, what speed problems are.) by installing software that reduces said resource pools even farther? (uses ram, eats CPU cycles)

KSP is a highly CPU intensive game. No software is going to change that.

[Rocketeer Hopeful]

Okay, I was just wondering! As a side question, what is it about terrain that makes it seem to eat up frames?

[Qumefox]

They're large textures. The higher the resolution they are, the more GPU power and video ram is needed to store/render them.

[stupid_chris]

Actually, game booster clears out all your memory caches temporarly, cleans your ram and closes any background program unnecessary for gaming. Then it just goes to sleep mode. So it doesn't eat CPU at all, and it opens a lot of free space. I get +40% CPU boost when I start game booster. KSP just can't take in any more resources from a computer due to it's 32 bit limitation, that's why it can be slow.

[Fel]

Actually, game booster clears out all your memory caches temporarly, cleans your ram and closes any background program unnecessary for gaming. Then it just goes to sleep mode. So it doesn't eat CPU at all, and it opens a lot of free space. I get +40% CPU boost when I start game booster. KSP just can't take in any more resources from a computer due to it's 32 bit limitation, that's why it can be slow.

Wait... it "unloads DLLs that will just reload themselves and otherwise destabilizes the system" (RAM Cleaners are seen as "Junkware").

I understand that, for those who have no clue how to disable the plethora of junkware that windows comes with, it is an okay tool... but come on... at best you're saying "GameBooster disabled my pathetically useless Anti-Virus that soaks up 90% of my CPU for no reason (viruses don't exist for people who don't download viruses ;p)"

Don't run the CPU heavy processes in the first place, and then you won't need the software.

[Brabbit1987]

Wait... it "unloads DLLs that will just reload themselves and otherwise destabilizes the system" (RAM Cleaners are seen as "Junkware").

I understand that, for those who have no clue how to disable the plethora of junkware that windows comes with, it is an okay tool... but come on... at best you're saying "GameBooster disabled my pathetically useless Anti-Virus that soaks up 90% of my CPU for no reason (viruses don't exist for people who don't download viruses ;p)"

Don't run the CPU heavy processes in the first place, and then you won't need the software.

I do mostly agree with this post. However, I also slightly disagree. It most certainly can help boost performance, especially for those that don't know how to turn off unwanted services and programs at boot. I don't think there is anything wrong with using the program and in all actuality it can keep an unstable game more stable then it would be other wise.

Also it doesn't unload DLLs that would cause instability. It closes the programs that are not needed and slow down performance.

Edited June 14, 2013 by Brabbit1987

[Guest]

Wait... it "unloads DLLs that will just reload themselves and otherwise destabilizes the system" (RAM Cleaners are seen as "Junkware").

I understand that, for those who have no clue how to disable the plethora of junkware that windows comes with, it is an okay tool... but come on... at best you're saying "GameBooster disabled my pathetically useless Anti-Virus that soaks up 90% of my CPU for no reason (viruses don't exist for people who don't download viruses ;p)"

Don't run the CPU heavy processes in the first place, and then you won't need the software.

I'll second the motion that game booster is not needed. I tried it, and it made me nervous, on top of the fact that I didn't notice any major boost, because I already have a clean system. It's better if you learn what is good and what is bad on your own. As for antivirus, I have come to the opinion that most antiviruses that claim "real-time protection" are nothing but viruses themselves. Try to completely remove AVG and you'll see what I mean. I like scanners that only run when you tell them, like malwarebytes. Even better, stay away from those sites that are bad in the first place, like free coupons or "free" anything for that matter. A tip that does seem to help my laptop(windows 7), is control panel, system, advanced system settings, performance-settings, and tick for "best performance" instead of "let window's choose what's best for my computer". You can change this back and forth whenever you're ready.

[Pontiac]

+1 @ Otis. You said it better than I was going to.

I DO NOT run AV on all but 1 of my 12 machines (yes, 12 - all real hardware, not the 7 VMs I'm running on one of them). And that one single machine is my router which sniffs my traffic. NONE of my machines have speed issues, even though some of them are coming close to being 8 years old, and would run KSP. (Socket 478@3ghz/533mhz FSB with 4gig of PC3200 downed to PC2700 speeds due to FSB. Don't remember if she's got HT on her though).

I looked at things like Gamebooster once upon a time, and I just said "Screw it... Wheres the services tab, and where is HiJackThis?"

[Tiron]

A program that opens up more resources by closing stuff for you isn't going to help KSP, because its limitation is that it can't USE all the resources in the first place. RAM aside, it can't use more than one CPU Thread, and thus, more than one core.

Now a program that say, forced it to multithread, by emulating a single CPU to the game while actually multithreading it behind the scenes...that would help a LOT. It'd be absurdly hard to do(absurdly, ridiculously hard), but it'd help.

Be easier to just port a non-crappy physics engine as a Unity plugin.

[stupid_chris]

As far as I know, I have a perfectly clean system. And in my first post, I did say it wouldn't be useful for KSP because it can't use all of your system's resources. Game booster automatically shuts down after it cleans up, so it's not using resources at all. And every computer has some background programs and services running when you boot the machine that are useless for gaming. When I play a slightly more graphically demanding game, this can get me this little extra that can let me play on the highest graphics without any lag against some slight but annoying lag without it.

Of course if your machine is cluttered by random stuff because you don't manage your computer properly it's pretty helpless, but it does have it's uses. But I do't think KSP is within it's reach because as said above, it can magically make Unity multi-threaded.

Edited June 14, 2013 by stupid_chris

[Brabbit1987]

I like how so many "think" they know what they are talking about. Wannabe computer experts I guess. Truth of the matter is the program works as intended. No spyware, or viruses. It improves performance in game for the most part. Some game will not benefit, and the program works best for older builds. Most newer builds would hardly notice the difference in performance. A lot of people use it for Skyrim, it's a well known program in that community which is why I know about it as much as I do.

Would it help KSP? Probably not unless your computer is old as I stated before. KSP is limited by itself. It isn't able to use all the resources a computer has to offer. Would it hurt to run game booster with KSP? No, not likely.

[Guest]

I guess I should apologize if my post came off as condescending. I simply want to point out that nothing can take the place of research. If there is a process running in your task manager that you don't know why it's there or what it does, google it. Study and find out. This information can come in handy in the future. I am far from an expert, but I have been around. My first game machine was pong. A box with a switch and 2 dial controllers. My first pc was a commodore 64.

[Fel]

@stupid_chris:

I was only responding to your claim of +40% CPU Performance... a number that large means you're running an atrocious number of background processes, one of which is likely to be an Anti-Virus Suite.

Of course, I may have gone a little overboard (I meant the "Ram Cleaner" as a joke, it's kind of an "in joke"... nvm...)... and the Anti-Virus rant was mostly because... I consider them viruses as Otis does. (I mean, other than a software firewall; and stringent browser security; I really don't have much "protection" yet every pass I do over the system for the past 5 years has come up clean)

[stupid_chris]

Just a quick test:

Before:

After:

It's not a HUGE change, but it's still relevant. The CPU curve has a lot less spikes from programs suddenly requiring attention, liberated a LOT of ram, a lot less threads and handles going through the CPU, general performance improve of about 44%, that's still something. Checked the complete list of programs running in the background: automatic update programs, windows services, etc. I won't tell those things not to boot on startup, because you know, sometimes I need them. Game booster just does a rapid cleanup. I know what's going on on my PC

Edit:

@stupid_chris:

I was only responding to your claim of +40% CPU Performance... a number that large means you're running an atrocious number of background processes, one of which is likely to be an Anti-Virus Suite.

Of course, I may have gone a little overboard (I meant the "Ram Cleaner" as a joke, it's kind of an "in joke"... nvm...)... and the Anti-Virus rant was mostly because... I consider them viruses as Otis does. (I mean, other than a software firewall; and stringent browser security; I really don't have much "protection" yet every pass I do over the system for the past 5 years has come up clean)

As you can see in the bottom right corner, Game Booster didn't even stop my antivirus, Avast.

Edited June 14, 2013 by stupid_chris

[TwoHedWlf]

I'm skeptical of a 40% increase in performance. A lot of those programs just make stuff up, what's the proven change in performance? Since the game is usually CPU limited a simple frame rate comparison should work reasonably well.

And just because you have a lot of ram used doesn't necessarily mean that you're losing performance. Windows will hold a lot of data cached in ram which can increase performance and will drop some if a program needs more. You can lose performance by changing that.

[Fel]

First you run KSP to drive up the memory, then you run a "RAM Optimizer" that moves everything KSP loaded into your page file.... (Windows 8 should be ~1GB standard usage, I believe. Even then, 4GB as your base is absurd.

You disabled 11 of the 112 processes (for me, that number is 14. Say it with me, Fourteen [as in, 14 background processes AT START, and at most 25 after loading various programs. 112 is a SERIOUSLY bad number.]) (I know it says it stopped 13 processes... but the taskmanager disagrees) [Heck, even right now I only have 256 threads... what the heck are you running on that system]

You have 4 cores which means that the CPU utilization drop of 2% is meaningless (just set affinity to another core).

Look, it shows you pretty numbers... but those numbers don't mean anything unless you know what they are!

*** AND CLEAN UP THAT SYSTEM! ***

sheesh, 112 processes....

Edited June 14, 2013 by Fel

[Brabbit1987]

First you run KSP to drive up the memory, then you run a "RAM Optimizer" that moves everything KSP loaded into your page file.... (Windows 8 should be ~1GB standard usage, I believe. Even then, 4GB as your base is absurd.

You disabled 11 of the 112 processes (for me, that number is 14. Say it with me, Fourteen [as in, 14 background processes AT START, and at most 25 after loading various programs. 112 is a SERIOUSLY bad number.]) (I know it says it stopped 13 processes... but the taskmanager disagrees) [Heck, even right now I only have 256 threads... what the heck are you running on that system]

You have 4 cores which means that the CPU utilization drop of 2% is meaningless (just set affinity to another core).

Look, it shows you pretty numbers... but those numbers don't mean anything unless you know what they are!

Actually you can look up many tests with FPS increases in many games if you know how to use google :3. Like I said though, you will not notice much of a difference on newer rigs. BTW, I would also like to point out you have full control over the processes it ends. You can configure every aspect for each game executable. It defaults at recommended settings, but you can go through the list yourself. The other thing the program does is it keeps your memory clean. Which is why it can help make an unstable game, more stable.

Honestly though, if you have a really good computer, you wouldn't see much benefit in using it. Again though, it wouldn't hurt either way.

[stupid_chris]

Sigh. I do know what those numbers mean. Don't get so angry.

Do you have Windows 8? The task manager in 8 shows literally every program that was booted on start up and every service currently working with Windows.

Also if you take a look at the running time, you notice my computer had been running for 7 hours straight, meaning it's caches are starting to fill up and some opened programs didn't shut down.

So I just rebooted my laptop.

After the reboot and everything loaded up:

Quite different, because you know, my computer hasn't been running for seven hours. And my base ram isn't 5Gb good lord, KSP was running in the Background cause I was playing earlier and I forgot to turn it off. Game Booster turned it off by the way, that's where the big decrease came from.

Then, since you find that number so bad, I took the time to screenshot my whole running program list:

Now please use consideration to see where my screenshots separate before shouting out loud that four pages is way too much. As you can see, on those "100 programs", 28 of them are windows services that 8 counts in. No programs yet and I busted your 14 because windows 8 none sense. Then there's the task manager running. Most of them are update programs or necessary services i.e. apple Bonjour. Could I prevent them from booting? Totally, but I prefer it that way. My computer can handle it without any problem as far as I'm concerned. By the way, it did close 13 programs, but I just needed them and I rebooted them. Those are: iTunes and the said taskmaster.

I haven't done a System Mechanic cleanup in a while. Why: because I'm not feeling like waiting five hours to get a slightly improved performance, I only do it when I actually start to see performance decreasing. But that is a part of the clutter.

And I ran Game Booster again, performances went like this:

That's the list of what he stopped. And as brabbit said, you can go through the list to optimize what you want it to close: I didn't. It already gives me what I need like this and I just never did it.

Just be a bit nicer, if you see something that should not be running, don't yell at me. Honestly I am aware of every single program running there and I leave it there knowingly.

Edited June 14, 2013 by stupid_chris

[jwenting]

ALL such things are bogus. Most either don't do anything and just report bogus figures about how they're improving performance, spam you with equally bogus messages about how you should buy the "system cleaner" or other equally bogus software the maker sells (which does nothing except trigger a flag in the free thing to not send that message again for a while), or actually installs malware like keyloggers and trojans.

[leax256]

1)I would say the limitation is the fact that it is a 2.3 ghz cpu. KSP only runs on one core, bla,bla,bla we hear it 1000 times.

2)The GPU on the A10 is overkill for anything ksp can throw at it.

3) Your OS is windows 7 home premium, lower end OS's are only on netbooks(the super small laptops) and the higher end OS's are only on Workstations

4) Game booster is always gonna be case by case basis, It will depend on the bottlekneck and the amount it bottleknecks. feel free to try it.

[Brabbit1987]

ALL such things are bogus. Most either don't do anything and just report bogus figures about how they're improving performance, spam you with equally bogus messages about how you should buy the "system cleaner" or other equally bogus software the maker sells (which does nothing except trigger a flag in the free thing to not send that message again for a while), or actually installs malware like keyloggers and trojans.

Wrong, please don't comment. Game booster is actually a legit program that does not have anything you said it does. Nor is it bogus. If you knew even a little about computers you would know what it does and how it works and why it isn't bogus. Again I wish people would stop commenting on crap they know nothing about. Pull everything they say right from their a**.

>.>

[stupid_chris]

ALL such things are bogus. Most either don't do anything and just report bogus figures about how they're improving performance, spam you with equally bogus messages about how you should buy the "system cleaner" or other equally bogus software the maker sells (which does nothing except trigger a flag in the free thing to not send that message again for a while), or actually installs malware like keyloggers and trojans.

But not Game booster. Never prompted me to buy something, there's no payable version that I am aware of, I remember a prompt asking if I wanted to donate to the developer team to help^them when I installed and that's all.

It does close programs, it tells you which one you should and you shouldn't, let's you choose, comes with a ram defragmenting tool... It's an actually working tool. It's not "press here and magical system upgrade", it does what and only what you tell him to do. And trust me, I had a lower end computer before and it had a huge impact on my gameplay.

Edited June 14, 2013 by stupid_chris
oops lol

[motorbreath03]

I use gamebooster and don't notice any profarmace boost, but the one nice thing about it especially for steam users is that, when "offline mode" dosen't work when you are offline you can still play KSP!