Computer Performance in KSP

[steffen_anywhere]

Hi all,

I was wondering what kinds of computers you guys play KSP on and how your performance is. Below I'll post mine. Then you guys can follow my example:

I play on a Mid-2010 13-inch MacBook Pro:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4 GHz

RAM: 4GB 1066MHz DDR3

GPU: NVidia GeForce 320M (256MB) --> Not that relevant since it is KSP after all, but just out of interest...

OS: OSX 10.9.1 (obviously)

My Performance I usually get:

<100 parts - no slowdown, constant green time, whether in atmosphere or space

100-200 parts - game runs at real time most of the time, only if you look at planet, it drops speed a little.

<300 parts - everything in that range is perfectly playable without major slowdown or lag

>300 parts - still playable (i've launched big rockets with 500 parts and that's slow but still acceptable)

>400 parts - properly functional range of part count ends here for my laptop, after that it becomes unpleasant to play

How about you guys? I know that KSP only uses a single CPU core, which is dumb, but the developers are limited to Unity 3D and I understand that. After all, KSP is still really awesome!

[minerman30]

I'm currently using my dad's MacBook for Reasonsâ„¢ but my main computer is a home-built Win7 PC with:

3.4gH quad-core4670K i5 processor

16gB of 1600mH RAM

GeForce GTX 650 Ti

1tB HDD

Preformance:

1-500 parts: just fine

500-800 parts: okay

800-1500: laggy

1500-beyond: slideshow

[steffen_anywhere]

Sounds cool, how is the performance as part count increases?

Edit: I'm asking because even you single core performance should be much higher than mine

Edited February 16, 2014 by steffen_anywhere

[_Aramchek_]

There is already a wonderful thread comparing performance based on a sort of "standardized" benchmark.

Right here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/42877-CPU-Performance-Database

[steffen_anywhere]

Oh cool, thanks. I didn't know...

@minerman30: Yeah as I said...(I feel like my computer is slow... but it IS a laptop after all) Thanks for updating though.

[davieholgate]

I have £410 custom built PC, and I just cant find the big receipt to remember my hardware...

But, anything around 300 parts turns it into a nice slideshow of docking craft smashing into station with so much destruction, Micheal Bay would be proud of.

[steffen_anywhere]

Hehe..

"Not sure if my PC is too slow and I can't play because of it, or if my docking technique is just miserable... :)"

No but seriously that is not too much... Not bad either (given the price...)

Thanks for sharing tho

[Mazlem]

I have £410 custom built PC, and I just cant find the big receipt to remember my hardware...

If it's running Windows, right-click on 'Computer' and open Properties. That'll tell you the CPU and memory.

[qromodynmc]

Im playing on my Asus n56vz with i7 3610qm and Gt650m. Playing on 1080p with maximum settings (Except aliasing which is 2x.) up to 100 parts are perfectly fine, around 60fps,when I exceed 300parts goes down to 20-25 fps,When I exceed 500 parts I get around 10-15 fps.

Probably problem is Ksp is not using all cores,My cpu has 4 core but slow clock rate(2.2 ghz I guess.) so on single core,Im not getting much performance.

[razark]

I've got an Intel Pentium D 925 with two cores at 2400 MHz, 3 GB DDR2 RAM, GeForce 9800 GT 512 MB, running Vista 32-bit. Bought it in 2007, and I've replaced the graphics card twice and added 1 GB RAM.

I've gotten quite used to seeing the yellow in the MET, but I can usually keep it in the green if I build small. I did stop using ScanSat and RemoteTech due to lagging, but otherwise I'm rarely complaining about the performance. Hopefully I'll be getting a new box soon.

[steffen_anywhere]

I've got an Intel Pentium D 925 with two cores at 2400 MHz, 3 GB DDR2 RAM, GeForce 9800 GT 512 MB, running Vista 32-bit. Bought it in 2007, and I've replaced the graphics card twice and added 1 GB RAM.

I've gotten quite used to seeing the yellow in the MET, but I can usually keep it in the green if I build small. I did stop using ScanSat and RemoteTech due to lagging, but otherwise I'm rarely complaining about the performance. Hopefully I'll be getting a new box soon.

On that note, I've got tons of mods installed, that's also the reason why my KSP uses around 4GB of RAM alone (and therefore everything I do in other apps during playing, if not still in the wired RAM, is quite slow as it needs to page in and out a lot from and to a comparatively slow hard drive) Game performance isn't affected too much by those mods, but the game takes an estimated 10-15 mins to load up (obviously the real time it takes is more like 3-5 mins, but that's still long).

[NASAFanboy]

I think I have a right to complain that my computer lags when mining BitCoin and building a 20,000 part station in LKO.

Do I?

[steffen_anywhere]

I think I have a right to complain that my computer lags when mining BitCoin and building a 20,000 part station in LKO.

Do I?

Computer specs plz... No seriously I don't think any computer could handle 20,000 parts due to the way in which KSP handles its Physics. If we could use hardware accelerated opencl for those physics as well as multicore support, that might happen on a top of the line Mac Pro. Please no Mac vs. Gamers hate here, Thank You very much

BTW: Bitcoin mining is pointless on a normal Computer... Litecoin however, is viable

[turkwinif]

I play on my laptop, which I would call "average" to "not good". It only starts to turn into a slideshow after about 800+ parts for me. I have most of my settings on low, except for part fallback shading ('dem high-res parts look goooood). Looking at Kerbin and other ocean bodies induces lag.

From what I can tell, I have a crap graphics card. Good thing KSP mostly relies on CPU!

OS: Windows 8 (64-bit)

CPU: 2.7 GHz Dual Core AMD A6-4400 APU w/ Radeon HD Graphics (2.7 GHz is apparently the maximum)

Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 7520G (whenever I try to play Blacklight: Retribution, a box pops up saying that I have a video card with 256 MB or below. No idea what that really means, but I assume that that means that my graphics card is crap)

RAM: 4 GB DDR3 (3.5 GB max, apparently)

These stats came from Device Manager and Task Manager. I just can't wait to build my own gaming PC, I have a good amount of money saved that I could potentially use to build one.

[mythbusters844]

OS: Windows 7 64 Bit

CPU: Intel® Core i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz (Gives me some nice performance on ships with lots of parts, but limited by the potato that someone put in my computer that serves as the graphics card [see below])

"Graphics Card": I opened my computer and saw a potato in there with wires sticking out, with a DVI connection for a monitor. It says on the potato that it's an Intel HD Graphics 2000 Integrated Graphics card. This is the root cause of my performance issues.

RAM: 8 GB of DDRsomething RAM

So about my graphics card...something with even 200 parts will start to eat away at the framerate, not to mention a solid 7 FPS at sea level Kerbin with no other ships on rails or loaded and with a one part spacecraft. I really want a better graphics card

[Tripzter]

RAM: 4 GB DDR3 (3.5 GB max, apparently)

Odds are that this is the limit of your motherboard.

My stats.

[Mobjack]

CNo seriously I don't think any computer could handle 20,000 parts due to the way in which KSP handles its Physics. If we could use hardware accelerated opencl for those physics as well as multicore support, that might happen on a top of the line Mac Pro.

I don't think any computer can handle 20,000 parts based off math. I believe that the way the physics scales in KSP, every time you double the part count, you need 4x the computing power.

Multicore computers and GPU calculations will help, but it wouldn't be an order of magnitude change. You are going to hit a new wall and it will be likely sooner than you think.

[Blaster]

@turwiknif: Odds are that you are running 32-bit Windows, which can not allocate more than 4GB RAM to everything. Some RAM is left over, reserved for the hardware, which is why 3.5 GB available. It will be able to use 4+GB if you reinstall with 64-bit Windows. Unless its a netbook, most DDR3 systems support 8GB RAM at the very minimum, and often go up to 16GB to 64 GB max.

Until I saw that Pentium D, I thought I was the dinosaur on the forums with my old AMD Phenom II "B55" (555 dual core with 2 more cores unlocked) system.

Biostar TA970 Socket AM3+

AMD Phenom II "B55" Quad Core OC 3.8 GHz

G.Skill Ripjaws 8 GB DDR3 RAM

AMD Radeon 7770 Graphics

WD Caviar Black 640 GB and 1TB

Windows 8.1 Pro x64

Lubuntu 13.10 x64

It's a system I put together with parts on ebay, and over the years upgraded part by part. AMD systems are easy to upgrade this way.

Edited February 17, 2014 by Blaster

[steffen_anywhere]

OS: Windows 7 64 Bit

CPU: Intel® Core i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz (Gives me some nice performance on ships with lots of parts, but limited by the potato that someone put in my computer that serves as the graphics card [see below])

"Graphics Card": I opened my computer and saw a potato in there with wires sticking out, with a DVI connection for a monitor. It says on the potato that it's an Intel HD Graphics 2000 Integrated Graphics card. This is the root cause of my performance issues.

RAM: 8 GB of DDRsomething RAM

So about my graphics card...something with even 200 parts will start to eat away at the framerate, not to mention a solid 7 FPS at sea level Kerbin with no other ships on rails or loaded and with a one part spacecraft. I really want a better graphics card

With integrated graphics, there wouldn't be an actual discrete graphics card. So I'm curious as to what that actually was? Just an adapter to have all the connection on i guess (assuming that that is what you meant by potato LOL). And yes the HD 2000 was just awful... In fact so awful that Apple skipped that generation of Intel processors entirely because they got MUCH better performance on the latest Core 2 Duos. My MacBook Pro was actually affected by that too and I'm happy that they chose to go that way. So yeah, Geforce 320 M is said to offer something like 4 times the real world performance as the HD 2000 counterpart even though the thing is a year older.

Only after HD 3000 and onwards, Intels integrated chips got acceptable, but those were STILL slower than the 320 M. With HD 4000 they got quite good and with the new Iris and Iris Pro, Intel built something quite amazing imo...

Anyways... As long as your motherboard supports it, go for a budget ATI or Nvidia card that fits your computer and the performance will be magnitudes better still. You should be able to disable the integrated one, or use both at the same time then...

[TheFactory]

Im using a laptop too!

Sony Vaio i7 with 4Gb of RAM

Anything upto 500 parts is fine, I've not built anything bigger though.

It does kick out some heat when its playing though!

[fastbikkel]

Dual core 2.4ghz

4gb ram

Geforce 8800GT

Game runs quite well i must say, but it crashes after 3 launches or so, depending on how big the rocket was the previous launch.

KSP also does not like saving a lot, nor does it like switching back and forth between space and the center.

I have quite a load of these error dump dirs.

[Jas1126]

I run a Quad core I7-2600 overclocked at 3.40Ghz

16 GB ram

Window 7 64

AMD Radeon R9 200 Series

And this game still runs ridiculously slow.... Is it not taking advantage of my Multicore CPU and two GPU's?

[steffen_anywhere]

I run a Quad core I7-2600 overclocked at 3.40Ghz

16 GB ram

Window 7 64

AMD Radeon R9 200 Series

And this game still runs ridiculously slow.... Is it not taking advantage of my Multicore CPU and two GPU's?

Nope, sadly doesn't... We'd all love that to happen but due to the outdated implementation of these things in the Unity 3D game engine, this is rather hard, or impossible, to change at the moment. Squad said they won't convert to a different game engine, which is understandable give that they are not Gearbox or Ubisoft, and they can't 'write' their own as that would take longer than creating the actual game itself. So we can only hope for Unity to get an update so that Squad can just port to the newer version of Unity (which would be mud much easier than any of the other solution and the only one likely to happen).

[turkwinif]

@turwiknif: Odds are that you are running 32-bit Windows, which can not allocate more than 4GB RAM to everything. Some RAM is left over, reserved for the hardware, which is why 3.5 GB available. It will be able to use 4+GB if you reinstall with 64-bit Windows. Unless its a netbook, most DDR3 systems support 8GB RAM at the very minimum, and often go up to 16GB to 64 GB max.

Huh, weird. Is my computer lying to me then? Now that I think about it, my laptop may actually be a netbook. Here's pics of my specs (copying what a guy did above me):

NOTE: In the bottom left is a modification from a certain website that brings back the start button for Windows 8. I am NOT running Windows 7.

I can't help but notice that under Graphics-->Total Available Graphics Memory-->Dedicated graphics memory, that dedicated graphics memory only uses 512 MB, while the rest of the system "shares" the remaining memory. Is there any way to give more memory towards dedicated graphics memory rather than shared? Is it even worth it? I believe this 512 MB limit may be the problem. Then again, I'm not too tech savy, so I could be completely wrong

Edited February 18, 2014 by turkwinif

[steffen_anywhere]

Huh, weird. Is my computer lying to me then? Now that I think about it, my laptop may actually be a netbook. Here's pics of my specs (copying what a guy did above me):

NOTE: In the bottom left is a modification from a certain website that brings back the start button for Windows 8. I am NOT running Windows 7.

http://i.imgur.com/YO21nqj.png

http://i.imgur.com/zuY6rqK.png

I can't help but notice that under Graphics-->Total Available Graphics Memory-->Dedicated graphics memory, that dedicated graphics memory only uses 512 MB, while the rest of the system "shares" the remaining memory. Is there any way to give more memory towards dedicated graphics memory rather than shared? Is it even worth it? I believe this 512 MB limit may be the problem. Then again, I'm not too tech savy, so I could be completely wrong

Well it depends.You have integrated graphics. They usually share system memory i.e. RAM as a frame buffer, but sometimes have a small dedicated buffer, which is much faster (we're talking around 64MB maybe of DDR5). Dedicated GPUs have their own VRAM onboard, often very fast. This is the much faster and better solution.

However, if your GPU is not too powerful, more than 512MB is really not needed...

I'll do a search on how powerful that GPU is later and reply based on that. In Intel systems the shared VRAM is determined by the total amount of RAM on the system. An Intel HD 4000 chip would use 512 MB of 8GB i believe. If you were to upgrade your system to 16GB, your Intel HD 4000 would utilise 1GB. Sorry you'd have to Google about your system, I' a Mac user and not familiar with AMD/ATI.