VAB will "stutter" with large crafts.

[Vaporo]

When I have a large craft in the VAB, it will freeze for about one second every second. Between freezes, it operates at high framerates and gives me normal performance. The freezes seem to occur more often after reloading several craft and after placing several parts. I do not remember this happening to me in stock KSP, so I suspect that it is a mod.

Using KSP 0.24.2 32 bit

modlist:Log file: http://www./view/izxdnzjt9e6venf/KSP%283%29.log

[Padishar]

From what I can see there, I would say the most likely causes are MechJeb's deltaV calculations or possibly the calculations that FAR does. I would expect both of these mods to not do any complex calculations if their windows are not open but this might be optimistic thinking.

It might be helpful if you could upload a complete output_log.txt (or player.log for Linux/OSX) as there may be some indications in there...

[Thanny]

That's Unity garbage collection, and happens with or without mods installed. Whether or not KSP can do anything about it is a question I don't know the answer to. I'd be inclined to think there is, however, since it doesn't happen all the time, even with the same ship, and seems linked to game run time. There's probably some more explicit object freeing that could be done to prevent the engine from doing this annoying pause routine.

[Padishar]

Well, it is actually mono garbage collection but close enough. Anyway, if you are just sat in the VAB then very little garbage should be created, certainly not enough to require a second of collection every second...

I'm on mobile at the moment so can't check your log but there must be some code running that is allocating and freeing lots of objects for the collection to take that long...

[Xaiier]

FAR is spamming errors about not being able to find modules.

[WRN 07:04:48.649] [Part]: PartModule FARBasicDragModel at largeAdapter2, index 0: index exceeds module count as defined in cfg.
Looking for FARBasicDragModel in other indices...
[ERR 07:04:48.651] ...no FARBasicDragModel module found on part definition. Skipping...

In the loading section of the log, there are a lot of errors relating to various mods being unable to find certain PartModules, particularly B9 and "ModuleCrossfeed" as well as various ones for PWings. This is likely what is causing FAR to freak out in the editor.

I can't give reason as to why said failures are happening, though the usual try a fresh install might work.

[stupid_chris]

Thats not the right log, cannot help you with that. We need the output_log.txt, not the KSP.log.

But to be specific, does the hanging happen when you add/remove a part to the vessel?

[Vaporo]

The first post seems to have got it right. I removed the Mechjeb pods and the stuttering mostly went away.

[Vaporo]

The first post seems to have got it right. I removed the Mechjeb pods and the stuttering mostly went away.

Never mind. It's not as bad with MechJeb gone, but it's also happening in flight now.

[ferram4]

@Xaiier: Nope, that's expected behavior. That's supposed to happen and doesn't cause FAR to freak out. That's just what happens when KSP tries to load a module that has no definition for it in the part.cfg and ignores it.

[Xaiier]

@Xaiier: Nope, that's expected behavior. That's supposed to happen and doesn't cause FAR to freak out. That's just what happens when KSP tries to load a module that has no definition for it in the part.cfg and ignores it.

Oh, is it? It's spamming one error per problematic part per second. That sounds remarkably similar to the 1 second stuttering he is getting.

EDIT:

Hmm perhaps not.

Could you provide a log where you load up KSP and go into the editor, sit there for a minute or so experiencing the issue, and then exit the game?

Also the output_log.txt in KSPData along side it would help greatly.

Edited October 3, 2014 by Xaiier

[Vaporo]

I fixed the stuttering in flight. I was using an old version of Smokescreen. Still getting VAB stutters. And one second is just an approximation. Sometimes it happens at five second intervals, sometimes at half second intervals.

And I will get the other log files.

Edited October 4, 2014 by Vaporo

[Padishar]

Does it always pause for a long time each time? A second is a long time for garbage collection...

Can you try scrolling the vab up and down with keys so you are always looking at the inside of the vab? Are the pauses any different?

[ormaaj]

I have the same problem in both Windows and Linux, both 32 bit and 64 bit, with or without mods. Anybody know of a workaround?

My guess was the GC so it's interesting to find this thread.

Edited November 4, 2014 by ormaaj
Do some testing before speculating.

[steve_v]

I have the same problem in both Windows and Linux, both 32 bit and 64 bit, with or without mods. Anybody know of a workaround?

I too would be most interested in finding out what is causing this.

I'll post here since I suspect that it's the same issue that's been bugging me for a while.

I usualy play in GNU/Linux, but fired up a Windows install to check, it's there too.

I'm getting a small 'hitch' or pause on a single frame with an otherwise good framerate (even at 120+FPS), most easily seen when rotating or panning the camera in editor or flight scene. With higher part counts in flight also causes the mission clock to flicker yellow.

In flight, this appears to happen even when on rails / warp, though somewhat harder to spot.

Logs are clean.

AFAICT, it's happening all the time, higher part counts (or lower overall perfomance) simply make it more obvious.

My stopwatch says every ~5 seconds, every second 'pause' (i.e. 10s) is slightly more noticeabe / longer.

I'm not seeing a 1 second pause, more like 0.25s. Still enough to be really annoying.

Stock or modded, 0.25 and 0.24.2, 32 and 64 bit.

Plugin based mods exacerbate the problem, MechJeb being the biggest offender.

Looking over the CPU-Performance-Database thread it would seem this is a common problem.

Consensus points to GC.

Any Idea what, if anything, can be done about it?

I have tried to get some profiling going, but currently having issues building a working mono from unitys git repo (and finding time to muck with it).

My complete lack of mono / C# knowledge is probably not helping, and if it's a unity issue this may not reveal anything anyway.

Anyone else care to try?

Edited November 6, 2014 by steve_v
Test on 32bit too.

[Vaporo]

Oh, totally forgot about this thread. I remember I looked through the output_log file and didn't see anything that would indicate a problem (which is why I didn't bother to upload it), but I have gathered some more data about the bug's its occurrence.

1. It happens more often after being in the VAB for a long time, or after placing numerous parts (not sure which).

2. Going to the flight scene (and maybe other scenes) and then back to the VAB will often reset the stutter.

3. Said this before, but the stutter occurs most often when a high part count ship is in the VAB.

4. The stutter can occur in the flight scene (though not nearly as bad as in the VAB), but quickloading seems to reset the stutter. The stutter returns after looking at the map view.

Also, I can confirm that it is not FAR causing the problem, as I removed it and the bug still occurs.

[Guest]

Oh, totally forgot about this thread. I remember I looked through the output_log file and didn't see anything that would indicate a problem (which is why I didn't bother to upload it), but I have gathered some more data about the bug's its occurrence.

1. It happens more often after being in the VAB for a long time, or after placing numerous parts (not sure which).

2. Going to the flight scene (and maybe other scenes) and then back to the VAB will often reset the stutter.

3. Said this before, but the stutter occurs most often when a high part count ship is in the VAB.

4. The stutter can occur in the flight scene (though not nearly as bad as in the VAB), but quickloading seems to reset the stutter. The stutter returns after looking at the map view.

Also, I can confirm that it is not FAR causing the problem, as I removed it and the bug still occurs.

Try turning off the VAB crew to see if things improve. I think it's SHOW_SPACE_CENTER_CREW = False in the settings.cfg. Also, it would be nice if you posted the requested logs. It would help some of the sharp folks around here to help you.