Linux Camera Rotation Stutter

[Mastermind]

KSP Version: v0.24.2.559 Arch Linux x64 - Steam

What Happens: Game stutters/lags horribly when moving around the camera

Mods / Add-Ons: All Stock

Steps to Replicate:

1) Move around the camera

Result: Game stutters/lags horribly

Fixes/Workarounds:

- None

Other Notes/Pictures/Log Files:

- Rest of game runs fine (e.g. launching a rocket) as long as the camera angle is not being adjusted

- Kernel version 3.16.2

- HD6950 with open-source Radeon drivers

- Same issue with catalyst drivers

- Nothing interesting in Steam console output

- Player logfile: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/0a4df6c0dbd3dc845ca0

- (Quick) Video (keep an eye on the height counter):

I expirience this issue as game-breaking and find myself unable to play the game.

Looking forward to replies.

[sal_vager]

Hi Mastermind and welcome to the forums

I have not personally run into this issue but it may be fixed by deleting the settings,cfg file then starting KSP from the terminal with the LC_ALL=C command, like this:

LC_ALL=C ./KSP.x86_64

[Mastermind]

Hi Mastermind and welcome to the forums

I have not personally run into this issue but it may be fixed by deleting the settings,cfg file then starting KSP from the terminal with the LC_ALL=C command, like this:

LC_ALL=C ./KSP.x86_64

Thank you for the welcome and reply

Launching the game with the provided flag (as is also seen in your Linux thread) does not yield any favorable results. The issue persists.

How long a period of time should I allow to pass before creating an issue on the KSP bug tracker?

Best Regards,

Mastermind

[SolarSailor]

I can confirm this.

And apparently this issue exists everywhere, not only on Linux, but also on Windows with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Like many similar issues with KSP, it often makes the game unplayable on Linux, and is just sometimes noticeable on Windows. I'm surprised that this looks to be uncommon and nobody else is reporting that, because all my friends experienced this in KSP (with different OSes and very different hardware setup, multiple vendors, multiple configurations etc).

The FPS drop can be seen when you are trying to rotate the camera with mouse quickly. On Windows, even if your time counter is green ("no lag"), it can turn yellow when you are trying this. On linux, it breaks the game completely. When rotating with keyboard or rotating with a mouse slowly, everything is usually OK. (can be dependent on the rotation speed perhaps, keyboard rotation is slow)

[Ruedii]

The issue is with the handler of the terrain shader, last I checked. It happens on all platforms.

It is worse on the Linux open source drivers. It was so bad on the nVidia open source drivers I had to switch to the proprietary drivers.

For now, if you are using something newer than the AMD HD5xxx series you should probably be using the proprietary drivers. The HD6xxx series is almost as fast on Open Source drivers with a handful of games running faster, but the HD7xxx and later all currently perform rather poorly.

I think this bug has do with latencies in drawing the terrain, and I don't really think there is much you can do about it short of reducing the terrain detail.

[sal_vager]

I think I saw this before actually, but it was when I had the point light sources turned to max, the lights (and the fire effect) really pan my gfx card :/

[nalitia]

I noticed that camera stuttering was only happening when the UI was enabled. When I'd hit F2 to shut it off for a screenshot, the framerate shot back up. Try cutting back on UI-related mods, and close windows when they aren't needed. I noticed that Contract Window+ being open slows everything to a crawl.

[lodestar]

This seems to be a bug with the UI used by MechJeb, Scansat and a few other mods. It happens when you hold ANY mouse button and drag around with a MechJeb window visible. The problem doesn't happen when you move the camera angle with the keyboard or a controller, it doesn't happen when you drag the mouse around with no MechJeb windows visible. On the other hand, it does happen when drag the mouse around holding the left button anywhere on the screen, even when there's no window. If I had to guess, I'd say the UI is getting bombarded with movement events as you drag the mouse around.

[sal_vager]

I think you need to try the proprietary driver, the open source driver can be slow for some players

[lodestar]

I think you need to try the proprietary driver, the open source driver can be slow for some players

I am using the proprietary driver.

[D_U]

I've had exactly the same issue and I found a workaround/fix described in another thread, I hope that helps.

Just to be short: In my case it was the (usb-)mouse-polling-rate which caused the cpu and the game to lag whenever I dragged anything with the right mouse button clicked (camera, UI-elements,...). Changing that from 1000Hz in my case to 125Hz completely removed the stutter. My mouse is a Logitech G700s (but that problem would be caused with every mouse which supports higher polling rates).

(I hope that crossposting is ok since these two threads are dealing with the same issue and the other thread is already crossposting to this one).

[sal_vager]

Thanks for this D_U

[jsartisohn]

Just to be short: In my case it was the (usb-)mouse-polling-rate which caused the cpu and the game to lag whenever I dragged anything with the right mouse button clicked (camera, UI-elements,...). Changing that from 1000Hz in my case to 125Hz completely removed the stutter.

You, sir, are my hero of the year.

Thanks you. Thank you! Thank you!!

This stuttering was the single reason I always stopped playing after a while, because it became too unbearable. (Switching to Windows didn't make the experience better as it crashed too often with my mod set).

I just wanted to confirm that this fix/workaround worked for me and tell you that you'll be responsible for me playing many many hours of KSP in the future

[Insanitic]

I've had exactly the same issue and I found a workaround/fix described in another thread, I hope that helps.

Just to be short: In my case it was the (usb-)mouse-polling-rate which caused the cpu and the game to lag whenever I dragged anything with the right mouse button clicked (camera, UI-elements,...). Changing that from 1000Hz in my case to 125Hz completely removed the stutter. My mouse is a Logitech G700s (but that problem would be caused with every mouse which supports higher polling rates).

(I hope that crossposting is ok since these two threads are dealing with the same issue and the other thread is already crossposting to this one).

PIN, STICKY, WORSHIP, PRAISE, ADORE THIS POST PLEASE WHATEVER NECESSARY. This post saved me from giving up playing KSP with all my mods in Linux because of the awful stutter. Performance could still be better on linux, but it's perfectly playable now. A thousand thanks to you D_U.

[Eleven]

I'm glad your issue is solved, but I hate threads like this because I read them and think 'Hmm, is this something I need to look at? I wonder what my mouse-polling-rate is and how do I change it?'

And then...

I realize my mouse defaults to 125hz and I didn't even need to look into this issue

God I love linux!

[Jason Patterson]

I was experiencing this problem on Windows to a level that made the game all but unplayable. I spent ten times longer than necessary building vehicles because I couldn't rotate my camera properly, couldn't dock at all, and generally wound up swearing at the game a lot more than normal. I was actually typing up a support thread because Windows's default polling rate is 125 hz and I hadn't changed it, so I knew it wasn't that.

I found a separate solution to the issue that was unexpected. I replaced my wireless mouse's batteries. Problem solved immediately. The batteries were at ~30%, but it did the trick.

[lodestar]

Changing the poll rate helps, but it's a workaround, not a solution.

[sal_vager]

Well no, as the cause is a high polling rate the fix is to change the polling rate, this has to be undertaken by the player as it isn't possible to change the players mouse poll rate from within KSP.

Camera movement can be scaled, and this is already possible, but it won't change the number of mouse events thrown at KSP from the OS.

Closing as no longer needed