Optimisation

[peadar1987]

So at the moment, my copy of KSP starts to lag at about 70 parts (which limits my missions and makes me sad).

There have been lots of rumours about KSP getting a big optimisation pass before 1.0 comes out.

Just wondering if anyone had any ideas about how much this has the possibility to improve game speed?

[sal_vager]

It'd help to know more about your hardware, if it's weak there may be no option other than to upgrade, also some software you may be running while playing KSP can be taking system resources you want for your gaming.

70 parts is very low, how much lag do you get? If it's just a yellow timer but the game is still playable then adjusting the delta timer in the settings may be enough, if it's 1 frame per second then there's something going on.

[peadar1987]

It'd help to know more about your hardware, if it's weak there may be no option other than to upgrade, also some software you may be running while playing KSP can be taking system resources you want for your gaming.

70 parts is very low, how much lag do you get? If it's just a yellow timer but the game is still playable then adjusting the delta timer in the settings may be enough, if it's 1 frame per second then there's something going on.

I'm running Windows 8.1, CPU is an i3, 1.9GHz, 4GB of RAM (not that that really matters for KSP). IF I go into task manager, the limiting factor seems to be memory. With a 100-part ship, I'm getting maybe 1/5 game speed.

I am also running quite a few mods, so the question wasn't really about "how can I make KSP run smoothly all the time with 1000-part monsters", but more "Is there enough potential for optimisation in the current game that I might be able to play one day on my laptop with all the mods I want".

[Guest]

The game runs considerably better now than it did just 3 releases ago. There's been alot of work done "under the hood" already and I'd be surprised if it gets "a whole lot better" just through code optimization. In your case, it looks like you could use a hardware upgrade. I noticed you said "laptop". I've played quite a bit on my old laptop, which has integrated graphics and a 2.2 Ghz intel duo. I've played alot on my old desktop too, which has a 2.8 Ghz pentium 2 core and a NVIDIA GeForce GT 610. While the desktop has an older cpu, the graphics card, while cheap, makes a HUGE difference, like night and day. Most laptops just can't handle the higher part counts, mainly do to the lack of dedicated graphics card memory.

[Technical Ben]

I'm running Windows 8.1, CPU is an i3, 1.9GHz, 4GB of RAM (not that that really matters for KSP). IF I go into task manager, the limiting factor seems to be memory. With a 100-part ship, I'm getting maybe 1/5 game speed.

I am also running quite a few mods, so the question wasn't really about "how can I make KSP run smoothly all the time with 1000-part monsters", but more "Is there enough potential for optimisation in the current game that I might be able to play one day on my laptop with all the mods I want".

Nah, it will be the CPU, not memory IMO. Unless you have a lot of mods. Laptops don't like this game.

[Xaiier]

I'm running Windows 8.1, CPU is an i3, 1.9GHz, 4GB of RAM...

I'm going to assume its a i3-3227U since that fits the bill.

To be brutally honest, that's a terrible CPU, especially for KSP. With (currently) single threaded physics, its entirely understandable that it slows to a crawl with very few parts. Not to mention that its likely also running on integrated graphics, which means graphics could also be contributing to the slowdown.

That being said, Unity 5 is coming out soon, and it offers potential for a number of performance enhancements, and there is also quite a bit of KSP that could eventually be optimized much better.

In the end though, you do seriously have to consider the possibility that no, you won't be able to run KSP well on your laptop. While KSP is more forgiving than most on the hardware side, it is a quite intensive game and you cannot expect to run well on anything.

[peadar1987]

I'm going to assume its a i3-3227U since that fits the bill.

To be brutally honest, that's a terrible CPU, especially for KSP. With (currently) single threaded physics, its entirely understandable that it slows to a crawl with very few parts. Not to mention that its likely also running on integrated graphics, which means graphics could also be contributing to the slowdown.

That being said, Unity 5 is coming out soon, and it offers potential for a number of performance enhancements, and there is also quite a bit of KSP that could eventually be optimized much better.

In the end though, you do seriously have to consider the possibility that no, you won't be able to run KSP well on your laptop. While KSP is more forgiving than most on the hardware side, it is a quite intensive game and you cannot expect to run well on anything.

Well that's discouraging, unfortunately, my computer really isn't optimised for gaming, I got it for free from the university for my PhD, so I didn't have any input over the build (but also, hey, free computer, I can't really complain!) Good to know that there is still potential for improvement. If I use tweakscale, there isn't really any reason for even my biggest craft to go much over 200 parts, so maybe with a bit of luck, I'll be okay.

Also, nice going with the time control mod, I've been having loads of fun playing around with it, and the 3D album in my signature would have been impossible without it.

[Laie]

I'm running Windows 8.1, CPU is an i3, 1.9GHz, 4GB of RAM (not that that really matters for KSP).

I'm occasionally running KSP on a similar rig, and upgrading RAM made a quite noticable difference. Apparently KSP can easily hog ~4GB for itself. If there's more than just KSP running at the same time, something's gotta give -- the whole box was constantly swapping. Note that it still doesn't run well, not on a 2GHz i3; but the situation improved from "unbearable" to "will do in a pinch".

You might get similar results if you can shut down most everything else besides KSP, which was/is not an option for me.

[Starman4308]

While slow framerate is usually a factor of weak CPU (or really weak GPU), I'm suspecting the same thing as Lale: while 32-bit KSP can't use more than 4 GB memory, with a lot of mods, it could hog the entire 4 GB RAM on your computer, and since background processes also need memory, something has to give, and that is to start sending stuff to hard drive, which takes an eternity to access.

I suggest Active Texture Management, and if that doesn't work, just deleting mods, or some of the parts/textures from mods.

[peadar1987]

While slow framerate is usually a factor of weak CPU (or really weak GPU), I'm suspecting the same thing as Lale: while 32-bit KSP can't use more than 4 GB memory, with a lot of mods, it could hog the entire 4 GB RAM on your computer, and since background processes also need memory, something has to give, and that is to start sending stuff to hard drive, which takes an eternity to access.

I suggest Active Texture Management, and if that doesn't work, just deleting mods, or some of the parts/textures from mods.

That seems quite likely actually, previous versions worked okay, even with mods, so perhaps it's not the CPU (or more likely, not entirely the CPU), maybe it's the new SP+ and NASA mission parts hogging memory and causing the problems.

It's not unplayable by any stretch of the imagination, it just makes things less fun than they would otherwise be, 15 or 20 minutes to orbit is a long time if you're building a space station or modular interplanetary ship!

[Nemrav]

You could search around for part welder if it still works, if anything you could just make your self 1 part per stage (solar pannels excluded) ship that should run fine...

Oh well, its better now that water lag has been fixed... Seems they could still delete the parts of the water that are covered by terrain...

Another thing to keep note of, is that while resolution makes 0 difference to KSP (ty squad 4 using unity), anti-aliasing can alone halve your fps (so turn it off completely)..

Another mod I think could help is texture reducer, might be an extreme if you are pressed for ram...

Can't really think of other on the spot optimisations really...

Or maybe you could simply always build with SLS size parts...

[Xaiier]

Actually, to echo what others have said, more RAM might get you a small improvement. Before I built my current computer, I played on a MacBook Pro, and there was a ton of swap going on while playing KSP. When I upgraded the RAM, I noticed a significant boost to the FPS, because it no longer had to swap.