Optimizing KSP for my Chromebook

[Promessa]

Hi everyone, so I've been playing KSP on my main gaming rig which has a 4670k and it's great, but the 1.4ghz dual core Celeron in my chromebook isn't holding up so well. Turning down the graphics doesn't seem to do much. I get about 15fps when i look at Kerbin, just gets worse the more rockets i put on my ships. It's "playable", but a better framerate would be nice. So if you have any tips I'd appreciate it! Thanks.

[Jimbimbibble]

That tiny processor is getting bogged down by the physics calculations, which must be done on the CPU and chrome books don't have much of a graphics card either. I'm afraid there's not much you can do with changing settings, but reducing part count will help. Chrome books were not designed for games. On a side note, I'm also running a 4670k on my rig.

[eataTREE]

Yeah... a Chromebook has just enough horsepower to run Google Chrome, and basically nothing else. It really isn't built to handle the CPU load that KSP represents.

[bandi94]

That tiny processor is getting bogged down by the physics calculations, which must be done on the CPU and chrome books don't have much of a graphics card either. I'm afraid there's not much you can do with changing settings, but reducing part count will help. Chrome books were not designed for games. On a side note, I'm also running a 4670k on my rig.

Well KSP is coded a bit "wrong" way. The whole game is "build" on CPU power when other games are more "build" on GPU. The GPU as the CPU is capable to do calculations and it's not graphic proccessing only it's know'd as CUDA. The thing is that the GPU architecture allows the GPU to work much faster as the CPU , so many thing's could be transfered to GPU with CUDA that way the CPU will be less used and the proccessing speed would increase to.

As example the car crash simulators ( complex one's) use CUDA and GPU's power instead of CPU just becouse the GPU can work much faster that the CPU ( no mather if is a quad core 3 Ghz ) the CPU work's only 10% of time, 90% of the time is "idle" waiting/writing data from/to RAM. GPU has his in-build VRAM witch is much faster that the RAM.

[LethalDose]

The only configuration of your chromebook that would "optimize" it to run KSP is to physically place a new computer on top of it.

Chromebooks are great for low intensity applications (word processing, web browsing, acting as a remote terminal, etc), but without better hardware, it's not going to run KSP well.

[technicalfool]

Moved this to the unmodded support forum for now.

Also do try to make sure your suggestions are at least remotely helpful, guys.

[FenrirWolf]

There's not a lot of helpful advice to be given. Chromebook is a tool designed for certain purposes. Playing CPU-intensive games is not one of them. After a while you have to stop trying to optimize your hammer so that it can cut wood, and buy a saw instead.

[bandi94]

On topic : I agree a Chromebook is not made for games , so how sad it sounds , you can't make big deal to run KSP better , my laptop has an i3 2.5Ghz and it handle most of the games very well. If you want to play on a laptop you should buy atleast an i3 or i5 with a deticated GPU ( i prefer Nvidia)

Off topic :

There's not a lot of helpful advice to be given. Chromebook is a tool designed for certain purposes. Playing CPU-intensive games is not one of them. After a while you have to stop trying to optimize your hammer so that it can cut wood, and buy a saw instead.

Yes , but why to buy a saw when i could buy an optimizated hammer from the store at a lower price than the saw. Anyway gaming on PC is starting to be money depending , game maker's spend less and less time optimizated a game , instead they fast release a game ( after that a lot of bug patches ) take the money and they start making other game. Why is that on a PS3 you can play any games for 5-6 years and on PC you need to buy new stuff almost every year ? Games for Consoles are better optimization. A PS3 have 256-512 mb RAM and it can run BF4 , but if you look on PC you need at least 6-8GB to run it on 1080i when a PS3 can run it on the same spec's only with 512mb funny isn't it.

[Red Iron Crown]

Well KSP is coded a bit "wrong" way. The whole game is "build" on CPU power when other games are more "build" on GPU. The GPU as the CPU is capable to do calculations and it's not graphic proccessing only it's know'd as CUDA. The thing is that the GPU architecture allows the GPU to work much faster as the CPU , so many thing's could be transfered to GPU with CUDA that way the CPU will be less used and the proccessing speed would increase to.

As example the car crash simulators ( complex one's) use CUDA and GPU's power instead of CPU just becouse the GPU can work much faster that the CPU ( no mather if is a quad core 3 Ghz ) the CPU work's only 10% of time, 90% of the time is "idle" waiting/writing data from/to RAM. GPU has his in-build VRAM witch is much faster that the RAM.

The task has to be embarrassingly parallel for GPU to have any advantage over a CPU. KSP's constrained chain of rigid bodies for each vessel is not multithreadable.

[skeevy]

On topic : I agree a Chromebook is not made for games , so how sad it sounds , you can't make big deal to run KSP better , my laptop has an i3 2.5Ghz and it handle most of the games very well. If you want to play on a laptop you should buy atleast an i3 or i5 with a deticated GPU ( i prefer Nvidia)

Off topic :

Yes , but why to buy a saw when i could buy an optimizated hammer from the store at a lower price than the saw. Anyway gaming on PC is starting to be money depending , game maker's spend less and less time optimizated a game , instead they fast release a game ( after that a lot of bug patches ) take the money and they start making other game. Why is that on a PS3 you can play any games for 5-6 years and on PC you need to buy new stuff almost every year ? Games for Consoles are better optimization. A PS3 have 256-512 mb RAM and it can run BF4 , but if you look on PC you need at least 6-8GB to run it on 1080i when a PS3 can run it on the same spec's only with 512mb funny isn't it.

Comparing a PS3 to PC's is stretching it a bit.

On that BF4 comment....the PS3 and Xbox 360 are why the PC BF4 is limited in features and what it can do. EA/Dice intentionally limited BF4 on PC, PS4, and XB1 just so they could have PS3 and 360 versions. They also run on medium and low settings in 720p, maybe even lower (been a bit since I looked at the relevant info specific to BF4) where PC's can run it on high and ultra in 1080p and more. Some PS3 and 360 games, while in 1080i or p on your TV, are rendered internally lower than 720p and upscaled before being outputted to the TV. On a PC, BF4 is rendered, by default, to what resolution you set it to, but it's adjustable so you can render it with more or less detail depending on PC horespower.

Also, and this is the most important part -- PS3 is a fixed platform with a fixed OS with fixed hardware and fixed specs (other than HDD size). That's why games for consoles have better optimizations. Knowing all users will have the same hardware means the PS3 developers don't have to worry about supporting AMD or Nvidia or Intel GPU's, AMD or Intel CPU's, 32 or 64 bit, and Windows or Linux or OSX like Squad has to. Would you like it if Squad just dropped Windows and OSX support, heck, 32 bit support altogether, because KSP plays better on 64 bit Linux? It would be much more optimized like the consoles then.

You don't need to buy stuff every year to be a PC gamer. You don't even have to spend a lot of money to do so. I could build you a gaming PC for the cost of the Xbox 1 ($500 USD) that'll play any game up to this year with the highest settings. Just go to Newegg and find a 7850k APU DIY bundle for under $400, then buy an R7 250 GPU to crossfire with it, and you'll have a sub $500 gaming PC that'll handle modern games in 1080p. The only time you actually need new hardware if you build a system like that is if you have to play every game on max in 4k resolutions or in 3d or some new technology comes out that you just have to be a part of. Personally, I'm waiting on the Carrizo APU that'll be released next March or so and build my system around that (provided my PC doesn't die in the meantime and I go the Fx-8350 or 8370 route). Hopefully they'll have an 8 core model that'll work with my R7 260x...a 6 core version specs have been leaked, but no info in the GCN it's using or what GPU's it'll crossfire with.

On Topic:

There really isn't much to do in the way of optimizing them other than reducing the amount of crap the OS is running or replacing that with a lightweight Linux setup.

[Elthy]

Maybe you could try inhome streaming from your powerfull PC to your chromebook e.g. with steam...

[Rixram]

Maybe you could try inhome streaming from your powerfull PC to your chromebook e.g. with steam...

I have KSP on my regular computer. My son has a Chromebook that he travels back and forth to his mother's with. Yes, I realize that this is not a good platform for running KSP, but how would I even install KSP on his chromebook? It uses the Chrome OS, and steam is not supposedly compatable. Being the inventive types on this forum, has someone found a way to install KSP on the Chrome OS on a Chromebook?

I am willing to scale his graphics down to cut processor load, but just getting it to install is the key. Any suggestions?

Yes, I HAVE searched the forums, but I am not enough of a tech type to really even know what I'm looking for, from the technical aspect. Not a programmer type. Willing to experiment, but not even sure where to start.

[vexx32]

Theoretically it ought to be possible; from what I hear, Chrome OS is a highly customised flavour of Linux. I haven't the faintest idea how you'd manage it, though.