Ways to increase framerate

[Ming]

Unfortunately, there is not much squad can do, they are working with a physics program they do not own, so they can't really optimize it for KSP. They can however, optimize KSP for the physics engine, however, that is a task many times more difficult with a much smaller impact on your frame rate. And just so you know, yes, I too experience a massive performance drop when two craft come within physics range of each other, making docking very, very time consuming. And please, you've told us that you have three modules, but we don't know how complex those are, give us the damn part count if you want us to stop assuming that you have a 2000 part moon-base. If you aren't using some high end gaming computer, you're out of luck unless your knowledge of how these stupid boxes of rocks work rivals that of Bill Gates. At least you can upgrade, I'm playing KSP on a laptop with reviews that all say "Not for gaming", and upgrading my hardware isn't even an option, so I have to patiently set my delta time to the 0.03 while I still completely ignore everyone else's idea of stupidly high part count. This isn't just a bit of bad code, or Squad being unable to fulfill their promises, or even the limitations of Unity, KSP is rocket science after all.

I think I understand most of what you said. However, your "Squad being unable to fulfill their promises" has me a bit stumped. Can you elaborate? Thanks

[Chail]

What about some flags to skip some of the physics calculations on various parts

This is probably more feasible than my approach. Could this become a mod?

[Deadweasel]

This is probably more feasible than my approach. Could this become a mod?

I don't think there's a way to get the engine to ignore what it's doing on individual non-static parts. At least, not with the current incarnation of the API that's accessible to modders, as far as I know. Honestly, I think we can expect a huge improvement in the game's performance and elimination of a lot of stupid little quirks once they're able to start optimizing the game as a whole.

Thing is, optimization creates even more headaches if it's done when the code is still in development, so later changes down the road are more difficult to implement. Normally I would expect code to be optimized before each release, but given the relatively small programmer base Squad is likely working with, doing so would mean we'd only see new releases after a lot of work has been done, resulting in far less frequent releases. This is why it's still considered an Alpha-stage product, because it still exists very close to its "raw" state.

In fact, I'd wager this is actually the basis behind all the noise regarding expansions later on down the road. What they're doing now is expanding the game's core functionality, developing it to get to the point that they'd originally envisioned with it. After that point, the whole thing gets optimized and released at least as a beta, if not a full General Release (v1.0/Gold/etc). This effectively "locks-in" the core vanilla game.

From there, any changes to the game's behaviors or features require a greater level of effort; almost enough to warrant their own dedicated development cycles, which is what I suspect is the reasoning for the paid expansions concept that was being tossed around before.

[ZenithRising]

KSP's primary bottleneck is the CPU, physics calculations can only run on a single core due to engine limitations which are out of Squad's control.

Ooof. Love what Unity has done for indie gaming, but that's pretty bad. Computers haven't seen much improvement in clock speed in years. If you aren't taking advantage of multiple cores you aren't taking advantage of modern computers. Anyone know if the Unity devs have plans to work on that?

[Beeman]

They're undoubtedly working on it right now, since they've talked to SQUAD a couple times recently at like GDC and what-not. I think. They've also give SQUAD a couple tips and workarounds to help KSP run a little better or help them do certain things. So that's good.

But until Unity gets full-on multicore physics processing we'll have to focus on building things with lower part counts, as everyone's mentioned. I suppose that's fine, though, since career mode will eventually(probably not in the next update or two) give us a budget to work with as well as limited technology to start with. So we'll have to work with lower part counts anyways. May as well get used to it now

[boxman]

What I find kinda funny is how people keep saying they should port it to another engine, but my reading shows that most engines including big engines like unreal does not do multicore for physics either.

I wish those who beg for a new engine would at least tell us which engines actually does this....

[Chugle]

The problem is the RAM. If you have more than 4gb of ram then KSP ignores the rest.

[Plasma Bot]

I have a Dual core 3.30 Ghz processor but it still lags.

[Rezdoggy]

Allow me to go a bit off-topic here then, in the hopes that maybe I can see an improvement in performance. In the interest of being specific, my current CPU is an Intel i5 2300, at 2.8ghz stock. I run my computer with the tower panels removed and a simple external fan blowing on the motherboard, and the ambient temperature surrounding my tower is always cold (75 degrees or less). How high could I safely OC my CPU and whats the best software to do it? I have experience overclocking my GPU with MSI Afterburner, but for some reason I always strayed away from OC'ing my CPU.

Just gona add, don't take the panels off your tower. Removing the panels ruins the airflow around the case, which should be enclosed and have for example, intakes at the front, with air going through and hot exhaust air coming out the back extractor fan. With no case panels this airflow won't work, and may not be as cooling-efficient