Poor Performance

[jpotter702]

Hi folks --

I'm having trouble with my frames per second. I'm getting at best in the 5-10 FPS range. Once I put a few mods on I get max 5 FPS to the point where the game is unplayable. I've turned down the settings to absolute minimum, installed ATM and the 60FPS cfg file. They've helped somewhat but I can't get hire than 10FPS. MAYBE 15 every once in a while. My time is always yellow and running at 33% physics time. My computer is an older gen i7 with an HD Radeon 6370M with 4gb RAM (laptop) So two questions, is there anything more I can do to increase my FPS and performance in general? Or should I just get a new computer? If so, what specs? I'm thinking of a new gen i core with an Nvidia graphics card and 8 or 16 gigs of RAM. Please any help is appreciated. I've been addicted to Kerbal lately and I realize I could run unmodded and get barely tolerable performance, there are so many great mods I'd like to run a dozen or so. I've seen people with 70 plus so I know it's possible.

[RSwordsman]

Can you run other games well? If not it might be because you have something running in the background and hogging the better part of your resources.

[Vaporo]

You say it lags all the time? Even with low part count ships? With an i7 processor (albeit an older one)? Well, what do your log files say? You can view the log by pressing alt-f2. Sounds to me like something is spamming nullreferenceexceptions. Look for anything in red. Also, if you really want support you will need to post the output_log file from the KSP_Data folder in your Kerbal Space Program directory.

[merlinux]

I am going to try and help here as I believe I have a similar type of machine. Not sure what older i7 you have but mine is a 3610qm and my graphic card is similar than urs (nvidia 630m) and I play ksp on playable levels with lots of mods. Although I use linux and the 64bit binary I am sure you can get your hardware to run the game a lot better.

1- Lower your settings (low to medium, half res text, no AA)

2- turn off any other program in the background (check your cpu and mem usage if you are unsure). You can also turn off all v isual/3d effects in your OS

3- CHECK YOUR CHIPs TEMPS AND FREQUENCIES. This, to me, is a likely culprit. A laptop a few years old is likely to have its vents clogged with lint and if you are unluky a caked up thermal compound. You should check both your i7 chip and your amd chip. If they get too hot, your OS would automatically freq them down. KSP is an excellent indicator for this problem if your laptop runs really hot on touch it is probably the problem.

4- get ksp running at acceptable fps with 4go of ram before going to 8Go.

Edited October 25, 2014 by merlinux

[oglommi]

Your CPU is strong enough, so the bottleneck is somewhere else. Most likely culprits are either that all the RAM is used elsewhere, or thermal throttling.

[capi3101]

OP, your box as is should be capable of running KSP just fine. You may want to check to see what processes you've got running in the background.

My own box is ultra-low end (an Athlon-II Dual Core at 2.9 GHz, 2 GB memory with an nVidia 7000-equivalent video card on-board). I've had luck with a mod called LoadOnDemand, which you might want to check out if you're really having severe issues. It basically loads up thumbnail textures in place of the standard textures KSP uses for parts, and manages when you need the standard texture (as opposed to loading them all into memory when the game first loads). It speeds up load times considerably.

Other thing I'll say is "watch your part count". Most folks really start getting lag around 400 parts or so.

[The_Rocketeer]

My top tip:

Run KSP in windowed mode and run Resource Monitor (from Task Manager) to see which computer resource (i.e. RAM, processor etc) you're running out of.

If none, check the processor affinity for KSP in the task manager too, as it may not be exploiting your multicore.

I also have a 4gb RAM rig and have found that I have to ration my mod use due to the RAM demands. However generally I've found the game will CTD - not stutter - if it actually runs out of RAM.

Edited October 25, 2014 by The_Rocketeer

[cantab]

I'm assuming Windows Vista, 7 , or 8 here. Right-click My Computer and choose Manage. Check in Device Management for graphics adapters. If it says "Generic VGA" or similar you need to update your graphics drivers, either let Windows find better drivers or go on your laptop manufacturer's website. KSP isn't very demanding graphically but it does need at least some hardware 3d acceleration. If you're on Linux get the proprietary AMD graphics drivers.

If that's not the issue, put a ship on the launchpad and see what the FPS is like. Then move the camera so you're looking up. If the FPS improves you have the infamous "water lag", and there are specific config file changes that can help this.

[Plusk]

I believe older i7`s are 32bit cpu`s. Use 32bit system, and 32bit version of ksp. I also have an old cpu, phenom 2 x4 @3.4ghz and im getting avg of 80fps unless i clip parts, go over 40parts per vessel, or use Mk1-2 command pod. Just a single Mk1-2 is capable of cutting my fps from 101 to 9 on launchpad. Hell if i know why. So i bet thats not cpu thats giving you troubles. With that amount of ram id stick to WinXP and some older KSP versions. Get Active Texture Menagement and forget about mods.

[The_Rocketeer]

I believe older i7`s are 32bit cpu`s

Nope. All i7s are 64-bit.

With that amount of ram id stick to WinXP and some older KSP versions.

Not at all (I have equivalent RAM, run current release on 64 bit Win7, and frequently use a selection of mods without performance issues). Your rig's build is almost certainly not the issue. Whether and how KSP is competing for and using it's resources probably is.

[Hodo]

If you are having poor performance across the board hit ALT-F2 and bring up your debug screen, and see what errors are coming up. Or check your output.log, it sounds like you have a mod or something that is throwing a bunch of errors.