fps goes down on re-entry?

[killernerd]

I recently build myself a cargo plane/SSTO thingy to carry me to pretty much anywhere in the kerbin system.

The tests i've done so far are pretty promising. It controls very well for its size and is so balanced that dumping it back into the atmosphere is child's play.

I actually did the most boring re-entry ever, taking so long and slowing down so gradually that i never even got re-entry effects...

But, as it consists of 900-something parts it does slow down the game. Initially it's very playable, 20fps when sitting on the tarmac, 15 once i ignite the engines.

And it stays there.

UNTILL I want to get back down again. The lower i get the slower the game becomes, eventually I end up with a slideshow in stead of a game.

There's something about trying to land (loading the terrain perhaps?) that destroys the remnants of my fps.

By the time i touch down it's gone down to approximately 3 fps. (Good luck landing a 16-engined (12 turbo jets and 4 nuclear engines) cargo plane on some rugged terrain on duna...)

And this happens consistently, no matter which planet. But only if i've gone into orbit (doesn't really matter how high up, as long as ksp recognizes it as "space").

So, I did search around a bit but so far I haven't really found the solution.

I increased the phsyics engine's "max delta time" slider.

I tried lowering the terrain and overall graphical settings to minimum.

I even installed that welding mod to try and weld some parts together but it doesn't really do what i want it to do... As soon as i weld, say, a wing it suddenly wants to attach from the center rather than its edge. so that's not useful... (unless i'm doing something wrong that is.)

None seem to really help. Any suggestions?

[SpenSpaceCorp]

In your settings try turning down aerodynamic effects.

If that doesn't work, do a test and look up (away from the planet) and if you see improved frame rate from looking up, the ocean (or terrain) may be lagging you, which you can configure in the settings config file.

[killernerd]

tried that as well, no difference :\

Mind you that the in flight fps is fine, it's when i come out of "an orbit" around "a planet" to land that my framerate suffers and becomes unplayable.

[WOODY01]

tried that as well, no difference :\

Mind you that the in flight fps is fine, it's when i come out of "an orbit" around "a planet" to land that my framerate suffers and becomes unplayable.

I had the same problem and was using B9, KW, AIES, other part mods, and of course none part mods. I did not want to turn down my settings and solved it by deleting parts from mods. I got improvement by only deleting KW fuel tanks.

EDIT: Forgot to add that when I suffered this my part ccoount was not as high as yours.

Edited December 12, 2014 by WOODY01

[boxman]

It would help if you told us some specifications like what kind of GPU you have.

When terrain and graphical effect causes frame rate to drop like that, it is usually because of a low end GPU and only way to get around that is to turn graphical settings down.

[killernerd]

@WOODY01: mods are probably not the cause since i'm only running 2 or 3 and they don't add alot of parts. (mechjeb, alarm clock and now that welder thingy)

@boxman: i7 3820, 2x HD7970 (allthough ksp probably doesn't use crossfire), 16 gigs ram. So specs probably aren't the issue

small edit: normally my fps hovers around the 100 mark.

Edited December 12, 2014 by killernerd

[boxman]

@WOODY01: mods are probably not the cause since i'm only running 2 or 3 and they don't add alot of parts. (mechjeb, alarm clock and now that welder thingy)

@boxman: i7 3820, 2x HD7970 (allthough ksp probably doesn't use crossfire), 16 gigs ram. So specs probably aren't the issue

small edit: normally my fps hovers around the 100 mark.

Yeah would think it would run fine with those specs.

[killernerd]

I did find that ksp's physics engine is only single threaded. Perhaps that's what kills my fps? because my cpu is barely even touching 25% usage.

And is it true that the unity engine is 32 bit only? Because that would suck... big time. Ksp would only be able to allocate ~4 gigs of memory.

So perhaps it's because ksp is hitting its memory limit? And probably because there's only so much work you can do on a single thread.

It doesn't explain everything but at this point i don't think there's much i can do. :c

Edited December 13, 2014 by killernerd

[wolfedg]

I dont know if this is the issue you are having, but I sometimes have trouble when I approach the space center if there are vehicles and the like on the ground nearby, probably because it tries to load them when you get close.

[oglommi]

I did find that ksp's physics engine is only single threaded. Perhaps that's what kills my fps? because my cpu is barely even touching 25% usage.

And is it true that the unity engine is 32 bit only? Because that would suck... big time. Ksp would only be able to allocate ~4 gigs of memory.

So perhaps it's because ksp is hitting its memory limit? And probably because there's only so much work you can do on a single thread.

It doesn't explain everything but at this point i don't think there's much i can do. :c

I got a I7-3820 680gtx sli and I experience the same thing with parts rich spacecrafts. The 64 bit version is don't work. The I7-3820 is a Sandy Bridge and unlocked up to 4.4 GHz so you can overclock if you got a decent cooler. ( The huge majority of Sandy Bride CPU's can reach 4.4 GHz OC, unlike later Intel models like Ivy-Bridge and Hashwell wich you need more luck to get a CPU wich can reach 4.4 GHz)

Edited December 15, 2014 by oglommi

[killernerd]

@Wolfedg: i considered the possibility of debris cluttering the ksc but i tried a landing on duna and had the same result. Unplayable fps.

@oglommi: yeah, i know that large crafts can bog down your system quite heavily. But i thought this was quite bad for the amount of parts my craft has. with ~900 parts i figured it should at least keep steady at 15 fps but the longer i fly the craft, the slower the game runs. And then, when i come in for a landing, it just turns into a slideshow.

I don't have it overclocked at the moment, primarily because i'm lazy... I do have the cooling (Noctua NH-D14) and the motherboard (asus rampage IV extreme) for it since I was originally planning to OC it. Perhaps i'll occupy myself with that next week since I've seen people getting this cpu up to a stable 5 GHz.

And yes I realize that this motherboard is complete overkill for the cpu... I was originally going to get a 3960 but hey, .... happens...

[Guest]

Whenever I experience lag that just doesn't make sense in a particular scenario, I hit alt-f12 and check the debug log for spam. If the ship will take off, it should land also. It might be a hardware problem, ram usage spiking or heat buildup or something, but I would definitely check the debug screen first.

And by the way, the welding mod's latest releases are at the end of that thread. Are you sure you have the most recent updates?

Edited December 15, 2014 by Otis

[killernerd]

good idea to check the debug screen, totally forgot about that

Heat buildup is not very likely though. RAM usage is not really an issue with 16 gigs.

And I do believe i have the latest update, the one for .25 somewhere at the end of the topic. The issue with the welder mod is not that it doesn't work, because it does.

The issue is that when I try to attach a welded part it doesn't want to be placed the way i want. It seems like it wants to attach through the middle rather than one of its edges.

edit: allthough the welder mod does glitch whenever i try to weld a part. It does work... But i have to click on the "show weld menu" button to "de-glitch" it.

edit edit: checked the debug window and the welder mod does spam me with NRE's whenever i press the weld button for a part. Perhaps that has anything to do with it? Other than that the logs are normal.

Edited December 15, 2014 by killernerd

[oglommi]

I don't have it overclocked at the moment, primarily because i'm lazy... I do have the cooling (Noctua NH-D14) and the motherboard (asus rampage IV extreme) for it since I was originally planning to OC it. Perhaps i'll occupy myself with that next week since I've seen people getting this cpu up to a stable 5 GHz.

If you want to hit 5GHz you need to fiddle with the CPU strap to 1.25 thingy. Used to run mine at 5GHz, but my G.Skill RAMs don't like the X79 chip so it turned unstable.

[killernerd]

I'm not that crazy... I'm not going to run it at 5GHz.

If i can get it to 4.5 or so i'll be more than happy.