Settings for lowend pcs

[Blondkid117]

I've been playing starmade off and on now for the past 2 years. I'm having a lot of trouble with frame rate and would like to know if there are any ways I can help my Starmade run smoother.

 

[DrTarDIS]

for single player.
Search settings.cfg and turn almost every "true" to "false"(including asteroid dynamic physics, simulation, etc),
set sector sizes to something large (to avoid loading/unloading sectors so often, even if more can be in each sector)
set planets and asteroids to small values.
set npc factions per galaxy to zero, turn length to -1, etc.straight delete the NPC faction config files and NPC faction folders(throws console errors, but disables them)
manually set your textures to the 64 pack in the config (it usually fails to properly set it, and still uses 128 even if you select 64 in the game)
open block config and disable animations for shields, power, etc.

You may also consider running the SP server in "battlemode" or "personal sectors" to just straight chop-off the extra frameworks.

You'll be left with a fairly barren galaxy but you'll be able to build in SP. If you can't get FPS in multyplayer, the manual settings of texture pack might be your bet, you can also set java to "above normal" or "realtime" priority in the task manager of windows(ctrl+shift+esc, may cause system instability aka B.S.O.D.)
You can also go though task manager and "end process" a bunch of whatever bloatware you have on your PC to free up memory and cycles (antivirus and firewalls are top priority here, they tend to screw over programs on low end systems by making execution take extra steps.) Some of that may need you to run msconfig (winkey+r, "msconfig", enter) in selective startup mode to disable "stubborn" things like adobe update, etc...

 

[Batavium]

set sector sizes to something large (to avoid loading/unloading sectors so often, even if more can be in each sector)

For Single Player:


Set your sectors Small. This is the big mistake i keep seeing. You do not exist in a single sector. But in a 3 by 3 by 3 sector bubble. That is 27 sectors in total. Cross a sector boundary and you load up another 9 sectors.

There is fierce debate on sector size and it mostly boils down to a specific group who cry because it takes away room for duels. In there opinion. I am a pvp player and rather have a server with small sectors and 40 people on it without lag. It is a specific need and not something you need to cater to if your playing StarMade as a single player on a weak computer.

Use the maximum server speed to limit sector crossings. StarMade used to have a 50m/s max speed. Now it is default 75 m/s. Leave it at that or go back to 50 m/s. You can always use an overdrive to get more speed.

To move about from sector to sector use a jump drive. Increase the jump distance if it takes to long. Use your thrusters to move within a sector. If you go on long range travel only use the jump drive and do not use your thrusters.

For Multi Player:


The Server will take care of the above. So find one that uses small sectors and play there. Shadows, high texture detail, and filters are the most intensive to calculate and they add nothing to the game play so just turn them off. As a pvp player I tend to turn everything off as fps is the only thing that matters. I do not care how it looks. Apart from maybe some backgrounds.

 

[DrTarDIS]

For Single Player:


Set your sectors Small. This is the big mistake i keep seeing. You do not exist in a single sector. But in a 3 by 3 by 3 sector bubble. That is 27 sectors in total. Cross a sector boundary and you load up another 9 sectors.

There is fierce debate on sector size and it mostly boils down to a specific group who cry because it takes away room for duels. In there opinion. I am a pvp player and rather have a server with small sectors and 40 people on it without lag. It is a specific need and not something you need to cater to if your playing StarMade as a single player on a weak computer.

Use the maximum server speed to limit sector crossings. StarMade used to have a 50m/s max speed. Now it is default 75 m/s. Leave it at that or go back to 50 m/s. You can always use an overdrive to get more speed.

To move about from sector to sector use a jump drive. Increase the jump distance if it takes to long. Use your thrusters to move within a sector. If you go on long range travel only use the jump drive and do not use your thrusters.

For Multi Player:


The Server will take care of the above. So find one that uses small sectors and play there. Shadows, high texture detail, and filters are the most intensive to calculate and they add nothing to the game play so just turn them off. As a pvp player I tend to turn everything off as fps is the only thing that matters. I do not care how it looks. Apart from maybe some backgrounds.

my experience on sector sizes is entirely opposite. Large sectors do not lag (espescially client FPS lag) anywhere near as much as small sectors. The load/unload is a major component of traveling, and lower speed(or fast HDD) CAN mitigate that. The main problem I notice is there's a lot of background artifacts that get rendered in small sectors, where with large ones they are outside your FoV/render distance. A 50km sector with 9 ships in it is less laggy to me than a 10km one with 9 ships.

 

[Batavium]

You are missing out on a lot if you let the client render distance be smaller then the space you exist in. The 3 by 3 by 3 sector bubble. Everything also gets very small. You can get more fps by letting a large sector push everything out of your field of view. But it is not the road i would take. The game is already very empty. Knowing what is around you is a key part of this game. I do not understand people that like traveling 30 odd kilometer in every sector. There is simple nothing there apart from maybe some asteroids or a station at the very center of a sector.

But it are two ways of going about it. The perfect one has yet to be invented I am sure. And personal preference also plays a part. Blondkid117 has some settings to toy with and see what best suits him.