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[BulbasaurWizard]

Long time player, first time poster. Essentially during bigger battles like attacking a Luddic Path battlestation, my FPS can drop to 17-20, and also feels like everything is slowing down too. I do have 300 size battles. On 0.9 version

I’m running some quality of life mods (essentially Nemo’s current Vanilla list) as well as Diable Avionics, DME, Junk Pirates, and Shadowyards.

I have an i7 2600, 16Gb of ram, and an Nvidia 1060 6Gb on windows 7

I have already increased my ram allocation and tried disabling Graphics lib (shader to false)

It seems like my computer should be able to handle it, so I am just wondering if there is more troubleshooting I can do or if this is my life now.

[Alex]

Hmm - do you know if you have similar performance in similar battles, but without mods? The performance you're describing sounds considerably lower than what I'd expect here - I'd probably expect some dips to the 50s or maybe even 40s during the most intense parts of the fights, or maybe not even that, but not what you're seeing.

One thing you could try is setting devMode to "true" in settings.json, and then picking the "edit variants" -> run simulation option from the main menu to quickly set up a similar kind of battle to test - when you deploy there, you can deploy enemy ships as well as friendlies (use the tabs at the top of the deployment dialog to switch, can only deploy one side at a time) and there should be some stations available as opponents, as well. (Caution: possible spoilers in opponents list.)

[Midnight Kitsune]

Are you making sure SS is using the dedicated card instead of the integrated one? I have a 1060 mobile version and it runs butter smooth on it

[Histidine]

I've also experienced periodic framerate drops while in combat, with a (nominally) lightly modded game (only utility mods). Win7 Home Premium 64 bit, i5 760, 8 GB RAM, GTX 1050 with 2 GB VRAM.
Having lots of my (Khopesh-laden) carriers on the field seemed to make it worse, but I can't tell if they're the cause as such.

If I have the time, I'll try to run a profiler and see if it reveals anything.

[BulbasaurWizard]

Sorry, I have been away for the holidays and haven't been able to test until now.  I forgot to mention one thing.  I am running at 1440p with a gsync monitor, however, it seems like it doesn't ever go above 60/62 fps.  I saw the vsync option in the settings file and switched it (to off and 144hz). After seeing possibly worse performance (I didn't test it long), I reverted back to default. Also, just a thought, but I'm launching it through steam as a non-steam game.  Don't think that should matter, but I figured I'd mention it.  I'm using Steam's FPS monitor.

Okay, so I've tried the dev mode simulation battle.  I don't think they are quite as large as some of the ones i've been in, but somewhat close.  The battle frequently dipped down to 32 fps, and once or twice into the 20s.  So it is better, but I'm really getting the feeling it is just less going on in the battles, and I haven't found the root cause yet.  Some of that may be due to mods adding some crazier weapons and fighters and effects.

I did read how Starsector or Java might try and use the onboard video, but I don't know how to determine or force this.  Any advice on this front would be helpful.

P.S. Since Alex himself responded to my post, I just wanted to gush about your Dev Blogs.  They are without a doubt the best I have read.  I really love how you include your thought process of how you are getting to the end goals.  Just wanted to let you know you had a big fan when it comes to them.

[Midnight Kitsune]

Two things I would suggest to you:
1: Make sure the NVIDIA GPU activity system tray icon is saying that it is running java.exe. If not then you need to set the java.exe in the STARSECTOR folder (Starsector\jre\bin\java.exe) to run on the GFX card
2: Try running SS by itself, not through Steam. I THINK that might be an issue if your GFX card IS currently running the game.

[Alex]

P.S. Since Alex himself responded to my post, I just wanted to gush about your Dev Blogs.  They are without a doubt the best I have read.  I really love how you include your thought process of how you are getting to the end goals.  Just wanted to let you know you had a big fan when it comes to them.

Thank you! <3


Yeah, what Midnight said sounds good.

Also, in NVIDIA Control Panel, under "Manage 3D settings", there's an "OpenGL rendering GPU" option - I'm not 100% sure that'll be relevant, but it'll still be good to make sure that points to your main graphics card.

[BulbasaurWizard]

Okay...

So, the tray icon that is saying it is running Java is AMD Gaming Evolved, which is odd since I haven't had an AMD graphics card in my computer for over a year and a half.  It also seems like that app was discontinued a long while ago, so I'll probably just uninstall it shortly.  However, I'm having trouble seeing how to run the Java application specifically with the Nvidia card.  I assume we are talking about Starsector>jre>bin>java.  Right clicking it doesn't have an option for it.  I did add the java program to the list in the Nvidia control panel > Manage 3D Settings > Program Settings, but that didn't seem to change the tray icon conundrum.  I should also mention I tested this with another game (Deep Rock Galactic through Steam), and it also showed the AMD Gaming Evolved as running the game.  I'm quite sure onboard graphics isn't running that game.

I have tried, but did not test (big battle) Starsector while running alone (not through Steam).  Is there an easy way to verify fps with another program?

I also did not see anything for "OpenGL rendering GPU" option on the Nvidia control panel.  Weirdly, I can't even find the "Preferred graphics processor (Only on systems using NVIDIA's power-saving GPU technology.)" option other than in the help file, which I suppose means either something is wrong, I'm an idiot, or my system isn't using the power saving GPU technology.

Thanks for the continued help!

[BulbasaurWizard]

I have a couple updates.  I uninstalled all AMD software on my computer including that useless Gaming Evolved BS.  I am having a hard time now determining where to see what Starsector is running on.  I have tested it without running it through Steam, and it appeared to bog down the same. 

The most important information, is I opened CPUID HWMonitor and was checking my GPU power and fan speeds.  Running a simulation fleet that would dip into the 20's showed very low power and no/little fan speeds.  Compare that to Deep Rock Galactic which usually runs at 60-90 fps, and it immediately jumped in both power and fan speeds.  This to me suggests that the previous advice about it not running on the GPU is likely the issue.  However, I can't figure out how to get it to run on the GTX1060.  I would appreciate some help there.

Thanks again.

[Midnight Kitsune]

Do you have NVIDIA Control Panel on your computer? You should be able to right click the desktop and bring up the control panel if it is.
In the menu bar, you should see Desktop. There you can enable the system/ notification tray app that will tell you if something is using the 1060
To force the usage of the 1060:
-Go to "Manage 3D Settings" on the side bar, then the "program settings" tab.
-Click the "Add" button, then you will have to navigate to the SS folder's java.exe (*install location*\Starsector\jre\bin\java.exe)
-Select the java.exe file then in the "Select the preferred graphics processor for this program" dropdown menu, select "High-performance NVIDIA processor"
-Scroll to the bottom of the "Specify settings" box and make sure VSYNC is OFF! If it is on, it can and most likely WILL effect loading times. Like to the point of being unable to load the game in any reasonable time frame

[Histidine]

On my control panel, the relevant option seems to be "OpenGL rendering GPU"

I've also experienced periodic framerate drops while in combat, with a (nominally) lightly modded game (only utility mods). Win7 Home Premium 64 bit, i5 760, 8 GB RAM, GTX 1050 with 2 GB VRAM.
Having lots of my (Khopesh-laden) carriers on the field seemed to make it worse, but I can't tell if they're the cause as such.

If I have the time, I'll try to run a profiler and see if it reveals anything.

Turns out the slowdowns on my machine resulted from the CPU overheating and throttling its maximum frequency. Cleaning the fan and reapplying the thermal paste made the framerate drops go away.