Low frame rates with new hardware

[endl]

so i just bought new ram and a new VC im currently on a system with quad core 8gig ram and a R9 270 GPU yet on the launch pad im still getting 10FPS

playing on win7 with the 32bit ver.

i have around 60-70 mods

i have my settings to lowest

im using ATM

im using DDSLoader

im using command line forced openGL (also tried DX11)

also tried a "performance" optimizer from AMD (pretty sure it did nothing)

what gives? i used to get like 7fps with a HD 7770 i would hardly call this an improvement

[Agost]

It depends a lot from your CPU. Moreover, openGL usually gives less ram usage but also less performance.

Can you post your complete pc specs? Possibly with screen resolution and video settings used

[endl]

i already listed the specs:

athlon 2 x4 2.6ghz 8 gigs of ram radeon r9 270

as i said the settings are to minimum im running at 1080p with 2x AA everything else is off i have textures to half resolution even. its probably the part count of the rocket i sampled but i was expecting better performance from this card

[Agost]

It's probably CPU's fault. That's an old CPU, with low frequency and IPC. KSP relies on very high single thread performance on only two cores bacause of Unity bad optimization. Moreover Unity does not like AMD cpus very much

[endl]

It's probably CPU's fault. That's an old CPU, with low frequency and IPC. KSP relies on very high single thread performance on only two cores bacause of Unity bad optimization. Moreover Unity does not like AMD cpus very much

yea i doubt its the CPU, so basically unity blows i figured it might have been the part count but it probably isnt

[Agost]

You're going to get a better experience in every game even with just a 4th gen i3... I'd spare some money to get a better platform. If you RAM is DDR3, you can keep it.

[endl]

You're going to get a better experience in every game even with just a 4th gen i3... I'd spare some money to get a better platform. If you RAM is DDR3, you can keep it.

yes its dd3 its socket am3 the cpu is only 4 years old and am3+ is still the current gen.

why should i get a new cpu when unity is only using half my current cpu

[peachoftree]

Because you cpu has two cores, basically it can run two things at once. Obviously you can run more than one program at a time because each core is split into threads, which allows more than two processes to run at a time. However, the most processing power a single thread can use is the processing power of a single core, since you have two cores, unity is maxing out its thread and cannot expand. Some programs get around this by multi-threading which is where they run on more than one thread. Unfortunately, Unity (and most games for that matter) is not multi-threaded. If you were to look at the occupation of each core of the CPU, you would probably see that unity is taking up 100% of its core.

TL;DR: Unity can only take up one core of your CPU, of which you have two so you see unity as running at half power.

[Agost]

Because you cpu has two cores, basically it can run two things at once. Obviously you can run more than one program at a time because each core is split into threads, which allows more than two processes to run at a time. However, the most processing power a single thread can use is the processing power of a single core, since you have two cores, unity is maxing out its thread and cannot expand. Some programs get around this by multi-threading which is where they run on more than one thread. Unfortunately, Unity (and most games for that matter) is not multi-threaded. If you were to look at the occupation of each core of the CPU, you would probably see that unity is taking up 100% of its core.

TL;DR: Unity can only take up one core of your CPU, of which you have two so you see unity as running at half power.

He's got an athlon x4, not x2.

yes its dd3 its socket am3 the cpu is only 4 years old and am3+ is still the current gen.

why should i get a new cpu when unity is only using half my current cpu

You CPU is very outdated and so are the "top" AM3+ FX CPUs ( they came out in 2012 )

AM3+ is a dead socket, AMD has no interest in it and it won't get any better CPU. If you have money, I'd consider switching to intel

Edited December 5, 2014 by Agost

[crush3dice]

Sorry but opengl is in general faster than directx even on windows. You can read that everywhere on google. I don't know how the performance is in the case of ksp in general, but as far as i can tell from the benchmark i made i can say that there is no significant difference between opengl and directx on my computer except the lower ram usuage of opengl. I have a i5 2500k clocked to 4.8ghz and even i have massive laggs here and there. So i would recommend you to only buy a new cpu if it is the bottleneck in other games too.

[Agost]

Sorry but opengl is in general faster than directx even on windows. You can read that everywhere on google. I don't know how the performance is in the case of ksp in general, but as far as i can tell from the benchmark i made i can say that there is no significant difference between opengl and directx on my computer except the lower ram usuage of opengl. I have a i5 2500k clocked to 4.8ghz and even i have massive laggs here and there. So i would recommend you to only buy a new cpu if it is the bottleneck in other games too.

There is a HUGE gap between a 2500k and his athlon x4, even at stock speeds. Are you 100% sure your OC is stable and you're not getting thermal throttling? The only slowdowns I encounter are during ship/ksc loading and I have an i7 920 @ 3.67 GHz ( 3.8 on the first two cores with turbo), so much less ST performance compared to yours.

I've always read that opengl on ksp runs slower but with less memory usage and no, opengl isn't always better in performance than dx in other games. DirectX are actually pretty good libraries, if used well

[endl]

once again the cpu is not the issue here, i dont have any framerate issues of this nature with any other game. and yes i have 4 cores not 2 i dont see a reason to make an expensive purchase because 1 game is poorly optimized.

i just tested the game with a sub 30 part count rover in the builder i get 70FPS, if i launch it drops to 12fps, clearly there are performance issues here beyond the CPU

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Edited December 6, 2014 by endl

[crush3dice]

once again the cpu is not the issue here, i dont have any framerate issues of this nature with any other game. and yes i have 4 cores not 2 i dont see a reason to make an expensive purchase because 1 game is poorly optimized.

Well every game is programmed different. Ksp is indeed poorly programmed. Calculation wich should be made on the gpu run on the cpu instead. I would just check if your gpu can run on 100% in other games or if the cpu limits the speed.

My cpu runs ofcourse stable and the temps are also fine (in ksp up 45°C). I think in my case the problem are the docking ports (i got many of them). I have tried to make a planetary station. Divide it in small parts and add docking ports to dock it back together. I already found out that there are some parts like the grabbing units that cost many frames (1 grabbing unit costs me 3 frames. When i make a ship with 20 grabbing units i have about 5 frames). Also the game doesnt use all my ressources my cpu runs barely on 70% and my gpu on 12% and i don't want to spend so much time on solving the problem. I just think the game is not yet in a playable stade.

[Tarrow]

once again the cpu is not the issue here, i dont have any framerate issues of this nature with any other game. and yes i have 4 cores not 2 i dont see a reason to make an expensive purchase because 1 game is poorly optimized.

As is very well documented in many places in the support forums you've got two things working against you - KSP is generally a single threaded application and it doesn't support GPU offloading for much, if any, of the graphics. GPU selection is largely meaningless. What matters most is single-threaded CPU performance and from experience that's something the athlon II series processors weren't that good at - remember they were low-budget when they were released, and that was more than 5 years ago.

[endl]

As is very well documented in many places in the support forums you've got two things working against you - KSP is generally a single threaded application and it doesn't support GPU offloading for much, if any, of the graphics. GPU selection is largely meaningless. What matters most is single-threaded CPU performance and from experience that's something the athlon II series processors weren't that good at - remember they were low-budget when they were released, and that was more than 5 years ago.

well then if thats my only option ill just have to shelve this game until squad implements better optimization because theres no way this game will continue to function well offloading to one CPU core, its going to only get worse until they actually address the elephant in the room dropping to 10 fps on a 30part model is pathetic even for an "older" cpu, i mean its just sitting there theres no actual physics to calculate because nothing is triggering

[Agost]

well then if thats my only option ill just have to shelve this game until squad implements better optimization because theres no way this game will continue to function well offloading to one CPU core, its going to only get worse until they actually address the elephant in the room dropping to 10 fps on a 30part model is pathetic even for an "older" cpu, i mean its just sitting there theres no actual physics to calculate because nothing is triggering

It's because of Unity limitations, not squad's fault. It can use only 2 cores and, like you've been told, your cpu is quite old and Unity does not like AMD cpus very much.

However, with that CPU you are limiting your GPU in many other games, trust me.

[crush3dice]

I also think that we should wait for a proper release. I have a fast cpu and it is still laggy. I would really not get a new cpu and expect that ksp runs just fine then. But indeed the cpu will limit your gpu in some games. Anyway i wouldnt get a new one if it is just about ksp.

[Roadkill]

endl, it's true that your cpu may be a little out of date, but I believe it should be doing better than what you are describing. Maybe there is something else slowing you down? What other processes do you have running? Anit-virus? Unknown crap? I think it's likely that you may benefit from a tune-up. Screenshots of your task manager showing running processes from all users would be a good place to start. I think it would probably be worth it to eliminate all unnecessary processes before running KSP to see if there is any improvement. You may benefit from something like razer's game booster, which shuts down the unneeded crap for you. Also, try running the free version of malwarebytes to make sure there are no infections.

Edited December 7, 2014 by Roadkill

[endl]

endl, it's true that your cpu may be a little out of date, but I believe it should be doing better than what you are describing. Maybe there is something else slowing you down? What other processes do you have running? Anit-virus? Unknown crap? I think it's likely that you may benefit from a tune-up. Screenshots of your task manager showing running processes from all users would be a good place to start. I think it would probably be worth it to eliminate all unnecessary processes before running KSP to see if there is any improvement. You may benefit from something like razer's game booster, which shuts down the unneeded crap for you. Also, try running the free version of malwarebytes to make sure there are no infections.

my system is clean, i have a passive AV so its not memory intensive, i also only have 59 processes running for win 7. i disabled some FX mods (better atmosphere,planet shine, collision FX,etc) and was able to get my fps to 35+

Edited December 8, 2014 by endl

[Kobymaru]

What's your part count?

A part count of about 1000 parts will bring down even the strongest CPU.