Optimisation survey

[Captain Deathbeard]

We're getting to the final optimisation stage soon, and I'd like to know people's needs and get some technical feedback for the problem areas.
The problem is everyone talks about stuff under the umbrella term of "needs optimisation", which is too vague, so I'm going to clarify terms and then ask what you guys need.

1- Frame Rate:
This refers to the actual frame rate when EVERYTHING IS LOADED and running along consistently. Not when loading foliage or zones or anything else. Your best frame rate. We will refer to this as "speed".
The situation affects things too:

• In the middle of nowhere (in theory this should be smooth for anyone, unless you have an ancient video card or have your graphics settings too high)
• In a large town (this points to problems with the efficiency of buildings or characters)
• In a certain biome (this means problems with the foliage system, or maybe a certain biome just has too much high-detail foliage)

2- Loading times
This is when the "LOADING" message is visible. It's always gonna be there, but maybe if you notice certain biomes are insanely slow loading then it could point to that area needing more optimal foliage

3- Background loading
This is when there is NO loading message visible on screen, but there are lots of frame rate hiccups and stutters as it loads in data in the background. Usually just after loading a new zone. We will refer to this as "smoothness".


So I want to know where the problem areas are for you guys. Don't just say "fix everything", don't expect it to run smooth on a really ancient system, do mention at least your graphics card (SSD, CPU and RAM are good to know too) and a summary of what graphics options you are running with.

Also let me know what you expect from it, for instance I run Kenshi on a NVidia 970M and I think it runs great for me, but maybe someone with the same system thinks it should be faster/smoother/, or maybe are expecting to be able to run with higher settings.

NOTE: Also be careful of your graphics settings, especially [view distance], [terrain detail] and [shadows] can ruin your performance.

NOTE: you can reset your graphics options by deleting settings.cfg
NOTE: fullscreen/borderless mode runs a lot faster than windowed
NOTE that the shadow systems are not considered 100% finished, i suggest you turn them off for this.

Please try to stay on topic and avoid unnecessary posting in this thread

[Hatsune_Neko]

its allways the area loading for me, mostly because i don't have a SSD and no funds to get one any time soon. so my system is about 5 years old so can't really upgrade anything for a while. but i also get frame rate drop when i zoom down and look up as far as the game lets me. though i know it's trying to render all that view, my FPS realy tanks then. even more so near cities.

and of course since i'm the queen of making massive armies out of the NPC's with my Mods a bit of tweaking in that area would help for me and those who use my Mods. though that's a bit lower on the expectation list since i am after all modding the game beyond its default settings. but the game does let you go 4x the normal NPC/nest number so that's why i included that.

forgot
i usually run on high settings to medium. during one update it reset my settings i had and put everything on ultra, i could run the game but my FPS dropped to around 10 to 20 in towns depending on size of city and population. i have since readjusted back to a high setting but with shadows and water reflections disabled or set to minimum.

Main Computer as of 11/3/2012
CPU AMD FD8150FRGUBOX FX-8150 Processor - Eight Core, 3.60GHz (4.20GHz Max Turbo)
Video Card: AMD Radeon R9 270X
Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 MHz
Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz
24GB Total Ram
Seagate Barracuda 7200 3 TB 7200RPM SATA 6 Gb/s NCQ 64MB
Toshiba Canvio External USB-3 5TB HD
Windows 10 64 byte bit byte bitter OS Home Edition

[Messala]

I was juggling between "background loading" and "fps with lots of characters around". I chose fps with lots of characters around just because the frames dropped much lower than when any background was loading. In one of the bars in Clownsteady there were at least around 50+ characters(I had 30 in my squad) and the frames dipped around 25-30 frames (My usual is 50-60). Many interesting things happen in Kenshi when there are lots of characters around ( like War) I feel like having very optimized fps during these situations would be best.

As a side note however, when I am in the wilds near the map's coasts, I get 60+ frames looking toward the horizon away from the main chunk of the map, but dips to around 30 frames looking at the horizon into the meat of the map. Which is odd since nothing is loading except mountain horizons and gray distance fog (nothing complicated should be loading? I don't think?) and even more odd that the fps doesn't dip when I look at horizons in the middle of the map. Overall I would rather have more fps with many many characters present.

Intel Core i7 4.0 Ghz
8gb Ram
GTX 970
non ssd harddrive (1tb)

Running the game on High settings

[Sol Lignum]

My votes goes for FPS in towns, overall FPS and background loading, guess i'm more or less with the majority yet.

I did a quick run around, from Flotsam, through foresty area to the Worlds End and into cannibal plains, to the ghost town, accompanied by MSI Afterburner. And from that little trip i think that for me World's End was the end of my happy-around-30-FPS experience.

I don't think it was caused by a lot of characters on the screen, because i don't really remember any performance drops with hoards of cannibals or fog people around.

Foliage seems to be fine, from what i can tell, almost as if it isn't there at all.

Ingame loading times - almost unnoticable for me, since they're mostly distributed over a small time frame, and doesn't happens all at once. They are only really bothering me when i'm running across the map full game speed. And they're maybe a bit longer if town is loading along with the other stuff.

Background loadings are a bit spiky at times, and it's somewhat frustrating to get performance drops after "Loading" message dissapeared, so it needs some optimization. I'd say either do it so it's loaded with smaller bits but over larger time frame, or stick all you can into a "Loading" message, so it's longer, but once gone, is gone for good, and not much loading is happening afterwards.

Initial loading times are a pain, but i can for one wait a few minutes if gameplay's going to be nice and smooth. Thus goes overall frame rate. Several tweaks here and there would always be appreciated.

So, i think i'd like to run Kenshi on the given settings, with addition of some shadows, at 20 min FPS. If it's at all possible, I'd call it a day, really.

I hope that helps, although my knowledge of the map is not exhaustive though, and there're still areas i've never been to. My specs are in the signature, and here're my settings:


P.S. Shadows needs some love. CSM is ugly and power-hungry, RTWSM is a bit glitchy, and no shadows at all is a party pooper in 2017.

P.P.S. Fix everything!

[Shidan]

For me it's usually perfectly tolerable, in the 20s and 30s FPS range. This often drops lower (but still playable) in certain biome areas, down near Clownsteady and the Slave Farm (so, The Hook I guess?) specifically comes to mind. Though I've experienced it in many places with high amounts of foliage.

I also get a fair number of "smoothness" issues after the loading of new areas, once I've been travelling a bit. I'm usually good for the first few areas, but the further I go the worse it gets. If I pause and wait a while it eventually goes away, only to come back after the next loading instance.

My Hardware:
Nvidia Geforce GTX 950
AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 640 Processor 3.0 GHz (Quad Core)
16GB Ram
2TB Internal HDD

My settings. (I could probably stand to turn some things down, but I'm usually good with this.)

[CastleBlack]

all of them,i can't even turn the games gfx up without it running bad. everything set to off and low where i can just to play it.On a gtx 760 i can max out gta 5,most other games.But the loading is prolly the most annoying.

[vicwiz007]

I dont know why so many people voted for background loading/hiccups. I assume this is what is meant by when you are running around, in which case, i see no need for it to be improved. Yes it may be annoying, but does it truly affect gameplay? No.

What TRULY affects gameplay is when you get a constant 15fps in your settlement and the nearby city. Thats just unplayable. The game doesnt need 60fps either, just 30fps because of the nature of the game. Not a twitch shooter.

With an i7 2600, r9 290 vapor x, 16gb ram, i cant have a squad of 15-20 and manage a stable 30fps at my settlement.

Almost all the mid-end game content is based around city building, and diplomacy as it has it later in the future... so this is what we NEED fixed.

[Shidan]

I dont know why so many people voted for background loading/hiccups. I assume this is what is meant by when you are running around, in which case, i see no need for it to be improved. Yes it may be annoying, but does it truly affect gameplay? No.

Keep in mind, that option isn't for the loading pop ups themselves. It's for if frame rate drops and stutters WITHOUT that message, often shortly after it goes away. In my opinion, it certainly does affect gameplay to have it freezing for a moment every few seconds.

[vicwiz007]

I dont know why so many people voted for background loading/hiccups. I assume this is what is meant by when you are running around, in which case, i see no need for it to be improved. Yes it may be annoying, but does it truly affect gameplay? No.

Keep in mind, that option isn't for the loading pop ups themselves. It's for if frame rate drops and stutters WITHOUT that message, often shortly after it goes away. In my opinion, it certainly does affect gameplay to have it freezing for a moment every few seconds.

ok, well if it is that, then it does affect gameplay a little... but as much as the huge performance decrease when in towns or around a lot of NPCs? Cmon, we see which is more important when such a large portion of the game is based around that.

[Sol Lignum]

(...) Cmon, we see which is more important when such a large portion of the game is based around that.

Everyone plays diffirently, for settler it's a pain to manage 15FPS, for a traveler it's a pain to struggle with stutters and lags. Basically, the reason why this survey exist, is to pinpoint the most problematic areas, and mind you, FPS in towns is by far shares 3rd place, along with overall framerate, which i'm sure would help with towns as well.

[vicwiz007]

(...) Cmon, we see which is more important when such a large portion of the game is based around that.

Everyone plays diffirently, for settler it's a pain to manage 15FPS, for a traveler it's a pain to struggle with stutters and lags. Basically, the reason why this survey exist, is to pinpoint the most problematic areas, and mind you, FPS in towns is by far shares 3rd place, along with overall framerate, which i'm sure would help with towns as well.

I get what youre saying. I actually started to notice these stutters just normally even when not traveling, so id say that along with performance around towns and many characters. As i said, im fine with 30fps as long as its consistent, because this isnt a game that requires 60fps to be enjoyable imo

[Bookhorse]

Please look at the screenshot here:


Every time I turn the camera towards this mountain ridge behind Blister Hill, even at that distance, my framerate drops badly. It hardly ever happens to any other direction, and even if it does, it's not so severe. What might be so special about it?

Or maybe my PC is just a potato.

i3 3333MHz
GTX 750Ti 1Gb
DDR3 4Gb Corsair (fast)
SSD

[Reignhardt]

Optimal, per the store page on Steam:
OS:Windows 7 64-bit
Processor:Quad-core 64-bit
Memory:8 GB RAM
DirectX®:11
Hard Drive:14GB HD space

I am above on all of these settings, however with shadows on, and terrain detail higher than 25%, the framerate tanks.

Don't get me wrong, this is an awesome game!

Please optimize the shadows and overall performance for terrain detail and I will be happy!

[Mattk50]

If you haven't considered it yet, might be a good idea to add a benchmark button that outputs a reliable log file with details about cpu and gpu usage and timers for all the categories mentioned in the op so you can see what the state of things are across many different setups. Right now it seems like both CPU and GPU get under-utilized even with low framerates.

[Growbag]

Perfornmance when around Towns is the biggest priority for me.

Also would like to add that the latest experimental build (0.96.27) navmesh changes have significantly improved the loading times and general smoothness when moving the camera around.