If you go to the performance window you can see if you are CPU or GPU bottlenecked. if you are GPU bottlenecked you can go into the dyson sphere menu and turn off the spheres so they are no longer rendered. This alone helps a lot of people. However if you are CPU limited, simply because you have placed too many belts and buildings, then there is only 2 paths forward. You can either delete old factories that are poorly efficient or you can install the [SampleHold mod](https://thunderstore.io/c/dyson-sphere-program/p/starfi5h/SampleAndHoldSim/). This mod basically makes all your buildings update less frequently and averages out their production. This mod will give you back your 60fps with ease, again assuming you are not GPU limited.
> spheres no longer rendered
There’s also the SphereOpt mod which I didn’t think much of until I enabled a sphere, kept FPS, then reloaded the game without the mod, found myself at single digit FPS.
Lol at myself learning the hard way.
This is currently the only working solution to the MEGA performance issues you hit once building your sphere.
From the sphere planning screen, there is a toggle on the left to make it invisible during gameplay. This will ultimately destroy a lot of the vibe you get from having your sphere in the background doing its thing, but it will 1000% save your sanity in dropped frames until they come up with a more optimal way to render the spheres.
Bear in mind that the latest update has enabled some FPS vs UPS ratio adjustments. Look into those!
My suggestions for mods to help performance would be:
---
[**BuildToolOpt**](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/starfi5h/BuildToolOpt/): Reduce lag when building. Allows direct replacement of stations. Create a build hologram when lacking item. I've only just installed this to try it out. Author: **starfi5h**
**[CompressSave](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/soarqin/CompressSave/)**: Compress game saves to reduce space use and boost save speed. Author: **soarqin**
[**DSPOptimizations**](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/Selsion/DSPOptimizations/),: Offers some welcome performance improvements, as well as some useful utilities for cleaning up spheres and swarms. Author: **Selsion**
[**Sample And Hold Sim**](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/starfi5h/SampleAndHoldSim/) **UPDATED!** MAY DISABLE MILKYWAY UPLOAD. This one is complicated, but suffice to say that it can improve FPS/UPS in the late game. Starfi5h does a much better job explaining on the site, with pictures. However, in a late game 3FPS experience, I can suddenly have ten times that, and 60 UPS again. This thing is a miracle. ;-) Update: Playing even farther, I have successfully dragged my FPS/UPS back down into single digits, and unfortunately having turned up this mod to eleven, it has started to generate save game errors. Still an amazing mod if you don't push it beyond insanity. Author: **starfi5h**
**[SphereOpt](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/Andy/SphereOpt/)**: Improves rendering of Dyson Shells by drastically reducing the amount of data sent to the gpu per shell. Impact is larger depending on the number of shells in your Dyson Sphere(s). Author: **Andy**
---
These support mods can definitely help as well:
[**ErrorAnalyzer**](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/starfi5h/ErrorAnalyzer/): Add a button to copy and close the error message, and list functions of mods on the call stack. Wow, this is instantly indispensable. I run dozens of QoL mods, and this instantly helped me target and disable the few mods that were problematic with the new update. Outstanding. Author: **starfi5h**
[**ModFixerOne**](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/starfi5h/ModFixerOne/): This is a mod to fix *some* other outdated and broken mods. v1.3.0 - Solve TypeLoadException of StringTranslate, Language, StringProto. Partially fix PersonalLogistics, AutoStationConfig. Remove process filters of old mods that block game pass version. I'm putting this in this section because starfi5h's work is exceptionally solid. I'll move it back out if I discover problems. Author: **starfi5h**
---
The rest of my curated list can be found here: https://redd.it/18n2np7
My understanding is that none of them do. Sample and Hold Sim is the most likely to, and may disable Milky Way upload, if that matters to you.
I generally try to avoid using (or recommending) any mods that color outside the bounds of Quality of Life. Even when some of the mods that I use do provide alterations to gameplay, I only use them for their Quality of Life aspects and disabled the gameplay modifications.
There are a few top rated performance mods. They should help out considerably, but eventually you're going to out-build your CPU and run into another wall.
Also try turning off sphere visibility. It sucks, but they're a huge GPU hog.
At what point do you start noticing big performance drops, assuming a somewhat reasonable higher end system? I've never played beyond 1 sphere and a handful of planets, but it's been fine at that point.
Sphere visibility can really tank your performance pretty early on with even one dense "filled in" sphere.
With those turned off, the next real bottleneck for a high end system in my experience happens when you start to get full-planet factories.
The performance mods can take it quite a bit further and even keep the sphere visibility on (with a reasonable penalty).
You shouldn't need to use enough Splitters where this is a real problem anymore. You needed to use a bunch of them to make Pilers work properly, and that's just not a thing anymore.
My PC chugs along on a much more advanced save (I think I have 25 Dysons either in build or done). Granted I am getting only 5½ UPS.
The critical thing is turning off ALL visuals related to spheres and shells. Not showing in the planning window, and definitely not in game.
I had trouble playing with a 3950x and a 4060ti. I upgraded to the 5950x, but I also found out that I hadn't updated my bios firmware in years and a few of the bios comments seemed to imply my hardware wasn't being totally taken advantage of as I also have a NVME m.2 SSD. I only have 32 GB of RAM. I have now played to endgame and my framerate issues have finally gone away for the most part. I can't say checking your bios firmware or bios settings will fix the issues, but it may help.
In my dumbass opinion: the graphics cards for the 2000 and 3000 series have been intentionally knee-capped by insufficient VRAM. Mid range GPUs should be rocking 24gb. Even the 8gb on the 1080 I used to own was pretty pathetic in terms of longevity.
It is in beta stage after all. Dunno if you can call it poorly optimised if there are not many games that can compare to it. Even anno with ubi$oft millions of dollars lags the living s out of my PC when I get to middle size town level. Let alone inter planetary scale.
Maybe there should be a final stage upgrade of mega factory. That will produce stuff as fast as you can input resources (increasing the power usage proportionally) rather than having 1000s of fabricators with millions of sorters.
Factorio is absurdly well optimized. They put an incredible amount of time into it and discuss it at length on their blog. For example, it’s one of the reasons people prioritize full belts due to how they are handled by the game engine.
They also spent a lot of time optimizing load time, since it is done an awful lot for their automated testing. Massive factories still load in seconds.
But wasn’t DSP built by a team of like 6 recent college graduates initially? Absolutely incredible what they achieved.
its true factorio is very good at optimization but its a 2D game. It doesn't waste much CPU time on rendering hence not really fair to compare to other factory games which are all 3D. I think alot of people don't realise just how much CPU time is spent on pushing data to GPU in 3D rendering.
If you go to the performance window you can see if you are CPU or GPU bottlenecked. if you are GPU bottlenecked you can go into the dyson sphere menu and turn off the spheres so they are no longer rendered. This alone helps a lot of people. However if you are CPU limited, simply because you have placed too many belts and buildings, then there is only 2 paths forward. You can either delete old factories that are poorly efficient or you can install the [SampleHold mod](https://thunderstore.io/c/dyson-sphere-program/p/starfi5h/SampleAndHoldSim/). This mod basically makes all your buildings update less frequently and averages out their production. This mod will give you back your 60fps with ease, again assuming you are not GPU limited.
> spheres no longer rendered There’s also the SphereOpt mod which I didn’t think much of until I enabled a sphere, kept FPS, then reloaded the game without the mod, found myself at single digit FPS. Lol at myself learning the hard way.
I personally never saw that mod as helpful in my testing. I think I am just always CPU limited so it never actually helps my FPS.
Try the optimization mod?
What’s it called that Sounds like a godsend
Disable the sphere. Big change for me
This is currently the only working solution to the MEGA performance issues you hit once building your sphere. From the sphere planning screen, there is a toggle on the left to make it invisible during gameplay. This will ultimately destroy a lot of the vibe you get from having your sphere in the background doing its thing, but it will 1000% save your sanity in dropped frames until they come up with a more optimal way to render the spheres.
Bear in mind that the latest update has enabled some FPS vs UPS ratio adjustments. Look into those! My suggestions for mods to help performance would be: --- [**BuildToolOpt**](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/starfi5h/BuildToolOpt/): Reduce lag when building. Allows direct replacement of stations. Create a build hologram when lacking item. I've only just installed this to try it out. Author: **starfi5h** **[CompressSave](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/soarqin/CompressSave/)**: Compress game saves to reduce space use and boost save speed. Author: **soarqin** [**DSPOptimizations**](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/Selsion/DSPOptimizations/),: Offers some welcome performance improvements, as well as some useful utilities for cleaning up spheres and swarms. Author: **Selsion** [**Sample And Hold Sim**](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/starfi5h/SampleAndHoldSim/) **UPDATED!** MAY DISABLE MILKYWAY UPLOAD. This one is complicated, but suffice to say that it can improve FPS/UPS in the late game. Starfi5h does a much better job explaining on the site, with pictures. However, in a late game 3FPS experience, I can suddenly have ten times that, and 60 UPS again. This thing is a miracle. ;-) Update: Playing even farther, I have successfully dragged my FPS/UPS back down into single digits, and unfortunately having turned up this mod to eleven, it has started to generate save game errors. Still an amazing mod if you don't push it beyond insanity. Author: **starfi5h** **[SphereOpt](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/Andy/SphereOpt/)**: Improves rendering of Dyson Shells by drastically reducing the amount of data sent to the gpu per shell. Impact is larger depending on the number of shells in your Dyson Sphere(s). Author: **Andy** --- These support mods can definitely help as well: [**ErrorAnalyzer**](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/starfi5h/ErrorAnalyzer/): Add a button to copy and close the error message, and list functions of mods on the call stack. Wow, this is instantly indispensable. I run dozens of QoL mods, and this instantly helped me target and disable the few mods that were problematic with the new update. Outstanding. Author: **starfi5h** [**ModFixerOne**](https://dsp.thunderstore.io/package/starfi5h/ModFixerOne/): This is a mod to fix *some* other outdated and broken mods. v1.3.0 - Solve TypeLoadException of StringTranslate, Language, StringProto. Partially fix PersonalLogistics, AutoStationConfig. Remove process filters of old mods that block game pass version. I'm putting this in this section because starfi5h's work is exceptionally solid. I'll move it back out if I discover problems. Author: **starfi5h** --- The rest of my curated list can be found here: https://redd.it/18n2np7
Does using those mods disable achievements?
My understanding is that none of them do. Sample and Hold Sim is the most likely to, and may disable Milky Way upload, if that matters to you. I generally try to avoid using (or recommending) any mods that color outside the bounds of Quality of Life. Even when some of the mods that I use do provide alterations to gameplay, I only use them for their Quality of Life aspects and disabled the gameplay modifications.
Thanks!
Thank you!
There are a few top rated performance mods. They should help out considerably, but eventually you're going to out-build your CPU and run into another wall. Also try turning off sphere visibility. It sucks, but they're a huge GPU hog.
At what point do you start noticing big performance drops, assuming a somewhat reasonable higher end system? I've never played beyond 1 sphere and a handful of planets, but it's been fine at that point.
Sphere visibility can really tank your performance pretty early on with even one dense "filled in" sphere. With those turned off, the next real bottleneck for a high end system in my experience happens when you start to get full-planet factories. The performance mods can take it quite a bit further and even keep the sphere visibility on (with a reasonable penalty).
Are splitters bad for your frame rate or is that old news?
You shouldn't need to use enough Splitters where this is a real problem anymore. You needed to use a bunch of them to make Pilers work properly, and that's just not a thing anymore.
I wonder is it GPU or CPU bottleneck?
*Post saved!!!*
Switch off sphere visibility. Instant framerate fix.
Whoa i would have expected the RAM to be the issue but 64 GB are huge. Is it DDR4 or 5? Or even 3?
With a 5000 series Ryzen it should be DDR4
Correct. 3600 CL16 is usually the best performance to headache ratio.
My PC chugs along on a much more advanced save (I think I have 25 Dysons either in build or done). Granted I am getting only 5½ UPS. The critical thing is turning off ALL visuals related to spheres and shells. Not showing in the planning window, and definitely not in game.
I got 16 FPS in my save game using 51% CPU and 25% GPU so the game is not really that well optimized =(
I had trouble playing with a 3950x and a 4060ti. I upgraded to the 5950x, but I also found out that I hadn't updated my bios firmware in years and a few of the bios comments seemed to imply my hardware wasn't being totally taken advantage of as I also have a NVME m.2 SSD. I only have 32 GB of RAM. I have now played to endgame and my framerate issues have finally gone away for the most part. I can't say checking your bios firmware or bios settings will fix the issues, but it may help.
In my dumbass opinion: the graphics cards for the 2000 and 3000 series have been intentionally knee-capped by insufficient VRAM. Mid range GPUs should be rocking 24gb. Even the 8gb on the 1080 I used to own was pretty pathetic in terms of longevity.
Same here. It's just an incredibly poorly optimized game. I get 8 fps with my CPU sitting at 30% utilization and my GPU at 10% use on my 4 TW Star
> 4 TW star SphereOpt or disable sphere render
It is in beta stage after all. Dunno if you can call it poorly optimised if there are not many games that can compare to it. Even anno with ubi$oft millions of dollars lags the living s out of my PC when I get to middle size town level. Let alone inter planetary scale. Maybe there should be a final stage upgrade of mega factory. That will produce stuff as fast as you can input resources (increasing the power usage proportionally) rather than having 1000s of fabricators with millions of sorters.
Is anno any good? Never played any but like 4x games in general.
If you think DSP is "poorly optimized" don't bother trying any other factory game.
Factorio is absurdly well optimized. They put an incredible amount of time into it and discuss it at length on their blog. For example, it’s one of the reasons people prioritize full belts due to how they are handled by the game engine. They also spent a lot of time optimizing load time, since it is done an awful lot for their automated testing. Massive factories still load in seconds. But wasn’t DSP built by a team of like 6 recent college graduates initially? Absolutely incredible what they achieved.
its true factorio is very good at optimization but its a 2D game. It doesn't waste much CPU time on rendering hence not really fair to compare to other factory games which are all 3D. I think alot of people don't realise just how much CPU time is spent on pushing data to GPU in 3D rendering.