Why is my game lagging suddenly??

[Regina George]

My game used to be very smooth, but now it lags/ is slow. Turning the camera around, using the WSDA keys to move, and even moving the mouse are super slow. I've deleted all my past loads except for three, which I might revisit, and I've cleaned my laptop multiple times to try and cut down the amount of things on it (my laptop keeps complaining about low disk space and I have cleared some things). I even took off some of my mods, yet no matter what I do it still lags/ is super slow.

I can't play like this!! Any help/ advice would be advised!

[Hatsune Neko Gaming]

Laptop's don't like Kenshi much.
One thing you can try is importing your save. Kenshi suffers from save file bloat.

Then go rhrou and uninstall more. If you are using an ssd. Performance will suffer until your drive space has more then 70% of its space filled.

Also having a small amount of ram will affect your performance on top of your computer being a laptop.

[Bandy]

Could be many things. Recent OS update? Check windows video/display, and GUI settings, sometimes personal adjustments go back to default settings.

[SnugSnug]

Couple more things to try;

Thinning out your saves folder if its getting excessively large.

Checking the kenshi_log and other *.log files immediately after a play session and make sure they're not getting to large and functioning like a memory leak.

[Bandy]

"excessively large" and "not getting too large" is relative to what?

Search Kenshi folder for .log and subfolders...
kenshi.log
kenshi_info.log
other .log files: save.log, Havok, MyGUI, dxgi.log, and terrain

For me Terrain.log has the following line repeated 81 times, and not sure if is an issue?
Warning: Map feature in wrong zone - feature: FloodedForest_Processor04 zone: 18,15 position: -62639.7 96 -78336.7

How proceed with purging .log files safely?
Is it safe to overwrite old save files? Asking b/c it is not recommended for some games.

[SnugSnug]

Originally posted by Bandy:

"excessively large" and "not getting too large" is relative to what?

Search Kenshi folder for .log and subfolders...
kenshi.log
kenshi_info.log
other .log files: save.log, Havok, MyGUI, dxgi.log, and terrain

For me Terrain.log has the following line repeated 81 times, and not sure if is an issue?
Warning: Map feature in wrong zone - feature: FloodedForest_Processor04 zone: 18,15 position: -62639.7 96 -78336.7

Well for example if your save folder is 20GB then that's probably more than enough saves. Time to move some of them to a seperate location and trim down the un needed ones.

Like wise if ones *.TXT is average KB then that's normal but if it's 100's mb etc then it's excessively logging some sort of conflict/error and that will really start to slow the game engine. Anecdotal but one of my TXT reached 0.5GB because it was reporting same error pattern several times a second for whole game session. Not saying it's normal or even regular but worth checking for just in case.

Edit: The logs are created / overwritten every session. A crash dump if generated can be safely moved for the purposes of reporting.

2nd edit: Just to clarify not recommending or advocating the deleting of logs - doesn't achieve anything. More that they are a quick visible symptom of a bigger issue, more often than not cause by mod conflict.

[Hatsune Neko Gaming]

There is no need to remove the logs.
The problem could be your save file's and how large they might be.
But it sounds like its not just the game files.

You need to go through your computer and remove unwanted program's/game's or ones you rarely ever use.

And import your kenshi saves to reduce save file bloat.

[caverat749]

having the same problem as OP , but on desktop , system up to date - same specs, same mod list, for over 2 years ever since the new updates the game started crashing and lagging like mad....500 Gb freespace is not enough??
- uninstalling and reinstalling everything doesn't help
- importing saves (cause I sometimes hate to redo the char bit, just load the save with the title and play) buuut still just gets buggy bits
- ctrl+shift+F11
plus the modlist tool kit is a pain to update/reload - check - some bits are constantly validating, atm but can't see which mod is the troublemaker
any advice?

[Hatsune Neko Gaming]

Op hasn't given computer stats. Just said laptop.

We need more information from both to even try and help better.

GPU, CPU, how much ram. Including ram on video card.
SSD or HDD.
How much drive space is left on the laptop.

Full kenshi install requires about 12gb just by itself.
Each save can go into gigabyte range over time.

Virtual memory should be 1.5x to 3x your ram

SSD'S need least 30% of the hard drive left open or performance drop's fast.

[Bandy]

Should always monitor/log temperatures as well, there may be overheating and thermal throttling. Blow out the dust and cat fur every couple of months (or more) always helps.

[Cattrina]

Only thing besides switching to PC and SSD is to import your game often. That reduces the save size.

[caverat749]

Some point made on the post here and on the forum are good, but it didn't fully sort the problem since I already do them - dusting, not letting my gerbil sleep in the desktop unit
Guess my specs aren't good enough for this anymore :Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz ;Nvidia gtx 1070
It already has 500Gb free space...changed the fan recently, but other games are running fine apart from some ping issue for a few sessions in DRG, but now it's golden...
Always had long loading times issues with Kenshi and ATOM RPG but right now, Kenshi is really lagging and the ragdoll effects are really ...gravity defining
Had guys from my squad and NPC's even phasing out of buildings ...made stealing even more difficult lol. Switching cells takes 1-3 minutes to load, camera angle kinda locked despite the spread of my squad
decimated my saves as suggested in the forum (only had 5 to begin with, apart from the automatic 4) but it only worked partially - lag kept creeping back, gonna try and import again, but hate losing prisoners and injured allies (free training and faction boost)

[Hatsune Neko Gaming]

I'm gonna guess that since you have 500gb free that you are using a HDD.
Kenshi loads much slower on one. I use one as well and game lags due to it. There is nothing that can be done due to it except upgrade to an SSD.
Where much of the load time is eliminated.

[SnugSnug]

Originally posted by caverat749:

Assuming that your mod list isn't causing the issues. There are a couple more mods one could try specifically Kindrads KPM mod and Scar's Nvidia Fix mod. I'll add links in a sec.

One could also try avoiding compressed texture style mods, thinking being in your instance it sounds like the front loading is where the issue is and having mods that swap out a lot of textures for other smaller textures will help with the pipeline in game play - but the game has to load the original textures, then the mod textures initially which will add to the upfront load times when its caching it's libraries. Theory may not survive contact with reality though.

This is where mods like Kindrads may help as they're not a texture fix but it's a re-working of how the shaders and particles are used in the *.hlsl files. sry that was his other mod.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2800302311
https://www.nexusmods.com/kenshi/mods/804

[Bandy]

Originally posted by caverat749:

...Guess my specs aren't good enough for this anymore :Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz ;Nvidia gtx 1070 It already has 500Gb free space...

Your system specs are perfectly fine except for SSD, but suspect you know this already since you played before. BUT, 4.2 GHz on K chip means you have overclocked the CPU. Just for shts'n'giggles, turn off your overclock in bios *hope you have default profile) and see if that resolves it. OC sometimes causes strange behaviour in some games, so just try it.

Will also ask, do you have games on a separate hard drive from the OS? Do you play with any sort of overlay active? nvidia experience? MSI afterburner? Disable them all.

If your game install is good (has anyone mentioned to check steam game file integrity?), and you do not have a mod conflict, then perhaps you have unseen background processes hogging performance. What you describe is the sort of thing that happens when windoze is updating and read/writing lots of files. Or hate to say perhaps a virus.

[Nyu]

sometimes it helps to import and save in a total new slot. overwritting makes somehow savefiles bigger or even kan break them.

imo overwritten is never a good solution in a long run. you rather create new saves and delete old once.
same reason you should rather load from a manual save than autosave.
atleast for me with a good pc and ssd it makes the game run smoother.