Kenshi Optimization Guide for Performance with max Visual Quality

This Guide is for Majority of Players who meet often more than minimal system requirements for kenshi and game
is still working like run with your old computer or if its working fine your fans are stressed to degree beyond AAA games on ultra

Guide contain a lot of Advice, settings and mods that require Efforts from the Player to implement correctly
This Guide is English only however you are more than welcome to translate it

Introduction

This guide was made based on my previous Guide quite popular in modding wiki for kenshi:
https://kenshi-modding.fandom.com/wiki/Kenshi_Modding_Wiki:SCAR%27S_Performance_Optimization_Guide

Guide collect multiple System Settings/Programs/Mods players can use to make kenshi run very fast

Goal of the guide is to increase Stability and the Framerate of the game

Guide Will be shorter and more to the point version of the original
Focused on most impactful choices for Kenshi
You can pause/play after each successful step and return later or skip things you don't wanna do now

Important Basics

Install the game on SSD

Kenshi have a lot of loading in itself
SSD help reduce loading and hold consistency while traveling thru the large map
Game will work from HDD, its just far worse experience
Especially load time from the menu to existing save, but everything will load longer...

System Stability Framework

we will prepare your in-game and system settings to naturally boost your performance

How you should even launch Kenshi!

if your launch settings are different than this, you are running the game wrong

• FullScreen - make aplication run simultaniously to your system, instead of under your system, it normally provide some performance related benefits, but in kenshi its less stable and also perform worse :)
  
• Borderless - modern fullscreen it make aplication run under your system as another window and let you Alt+tab normally and don't crash your system or mouse when game crash
  
• You wanna run and optimize your game around running in your native resolution if you can, however resolutions above 1920x1080 can have problems and bugs

What you should Install to run the game better

Runtimes:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170
Helps running the games and programs under C languages, very good to have
Microsoft things

Framework:
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet-framework/net481
can help throw error at you if something is broken, rarely can give you DLLs to run software
its more microsoft things - i do not own microsoft even if i should xD

Other Useful options

Disable Distant Towns:

by BAD MODS i refer to mods that add/edit cities made by lazy authors
everybody could generate proper distant files for their city-mod and include in package
OR at least instruct people to have it off when using mod, however since some poeple prefer to just ignore everything make quality of their mod sub-optimal and cause my blood to boil here we have this section...

• Sometimes lofi themselves might not have every distant in update package, however since all .mod files are in game installation folder they should generate without causing any crashes
  
• image all your city tweaker "advanced overhaul" need to do is go to data/buildings/distant and take over newly generated ones to the mod before uploading!...go ahead excuse your favorite lazy-ass i will wait...

Disc Space as Memory Allocation to optimize the game:

• Start > Control Panel > System.
  
• Under Tasks, click Advanced system settings
  
• In the System Properties window, click the Advanced tab.
  
• Click Settings under Performance.
  
• Click the Advanced tab, and click Change under Virtual Memory.
  
• Select Custom size and set Initial size (MB) and Maximum size (MB). For the initial size,
  
• I Recommend going for something like 8096 to 12144.

Your game works slow not because you have bad PC or because you need to lower graphics...
There are more settings you can check in order to improve the situation, but i wanna finish today

Advanced knowledge and minor black magic

While are you at it, lets start with GPU optimization

Goal of this post is to help you replicate some of the positives from this mod:
https://www.nexusmods.com/kenshi/mods/804
on any GPU - if you got the mod you can skip this step
Lets make the magic Happen:
Woah big magic, turn on Vsync :)
don't worry its a start:

• Find "Overlay" and switch it "off". I don't know what it does, in theory this enables OpenGL overlay planes, but no idea if they are used in Kenshi and how.
  
• Find "Exported pixel types" and disable that thing. This might be placebo, but my game ran faster without it and I can't notice any differences in the visuals, or anything else for that matter.
  
• Find Threaded optimization and turn it off - Kenshi does not support multi-core CPUs so by forcing it off every calculation will be send directly to CPU0 without delays or problems with resource mismanagement.
  
• Find "power management" and set "Optimal performance" or "driver controlled" if you have this option. Maximum performance only sounds good and even for a weaker PC you should not use it because it only diverts additional power to the GPU regardless of whether or not it is required
  
• Find "multiple screen boost/different GPU processors" and set "one screen mode". This force instant decision making about where to display the game and how to manage multiple screens.
  
• Find "memory allocation" and select "apply to needs". I need better testing with this option, seems like the aggressive setting made my game starting slower
  
• The description for this function was too cryptic for me, but from what I have seen "apply to needs" slightly improves game launch speed.
  
• Find "Anisotropic filtering" and set it to "off"
  
• This option allows Kenshi to render textures in higher resolutions and scale them down, turned off save resources, but can make game less graphically appealing (barely noticeable on a strong PC, and I can't spot the difference on a weak one)
  
• Find "triple buffering" and set it to "on" - if you have Vertical sync turned on in Kenshi options.
  
• Turning everything off doesn't necessarily provide performance boosts, this option doesn't (according to Nvidia and my tests). Important note, this boosts performance only when V sync is on in Kenshi settings.

Sources:

i made it all up (jk)
https://www.nvidia.com/content/Control-Panel-Help/vLatest/en-us/mergedProjects/nv3d/Manage_3D_Settings_(reference).htm
+ sources listed under Nvidia mods
+ my own tests and knowledge
+ digs from ancient forums

Advanced Black magic - good mods

this section will be dedicated to 2 mods:

Performance Fix

https://www.nexusmods.com/kenshi/mods/1216
Most complex Kenshi structure solution that does not modiify Exe
this mod scan the files and optimize than, scan the references and fix them
results are quite pleasing, but installation is also quite long (automated)

Particle System Override

https://www.nexusmods.com/kenshi/mods/950
First and most advanced and most updated Particle Replacer, this comes with replaced scripts, fixed textures, crash prevention and couple of more performance related buzzword that are better explain in the mod description

Cool, more text

Use Mesh updater if you use modded meshes and steam mods

Because quality control is rather poor, you might wanna scan over the modded stuffs too
https://www.nexusmods.com/kenshi/mods/1212
Mod started as Performance Fix older brother
Currently totally outperformed on the field on game files found new purpose in scanning mods
Performance fix and my code take poorly to request of scanning and Structure i use (basic windows code bash with advanced tools) does not identify DLLs to allow steam/gog check
Mod is pretty solid and much faster which i prefer for mods/quick change checks

DXVK/Vulkan for Kenshi

you can simply render complex graphical operation with Vulkan
either by using dedicated mod (currently up to date):
https://www.nexusmods.com/kenshi/mods/1294
or DXVK directly (we base new versions on DXVK and just compile new DLL with changes):
https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases

its not for every game or everybody, but generally its worth a shot

Foliage and clutter problems

Generally speaking Performance Fix + GPU optimizations should be enough to make foliage spam less painful, however its fair to say game still produce a lot of foliage and its hard to tell if all of it is essential for author vision for the game

i would recommend:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3054577051
Less Foliage Mod that doesn't block your doors

• its basic less foliage mod with Quality Control :)
  
• i believe we might have better solution in the future, im looking forward for mod: FASTR that might turn into essential foliage mod, but for now i chose this thing

or Foliage and Stones Total Rework

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3328905177
Remix of vanilla assets and files to decorate world better
with better performance too
i believe it can be better solution later down the line
use only one Foliage Mod

Conclusions and closure

There is a lot more you can do to improve your game

This list is not exhausted, i just wanted to highlight highest impact points
from most basic to advanced so everybody can have entry point to playing at solid framerate

you can find multiple modlists and guides sharing similar tips so i don't think its revolutionary, its just nice to have all of this together imo

Other things i do around kenshi:

i made more guides

on steam, i mostly wanna collect all the tips/guides/answers into easy to find steamguides so it will be easy to find for me and for others, idk i been answering a lot in community and its hard to have all the knowledge in head 4 years later
https://steamcommunity.com/id/SCARaww/myworkshopfiles/?appid=233860&section=guides

i do mods for kenshi

Most of my mods are on nexus, but whenever possible i upload to steam
https://next.nexusmods.com/profile/SCARaw/mods
i also mod a lot of games, not just kenshi, kenshi was just in dire needs to not dip bellow 30FPSes when i played it and i decided to go to war with all the loadings and lag spikes in the game!

i made giant calculator database thing

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pvr2X3ua34ItW2y-t9HlJFHKAp2o1y564tkqLvIgQNY/edit?usp=sharing
this doc is massive and it contain a lot of formulas and tools to calculate nearly everything player can dig out from the game info
basically excel recreation to the game engine. logic and mechanics xD without junky consistency errors of kenshi gaming

i do things around Fandom and help people in community

or ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dumb memes or weird responses
i recently been posting more memes to steam and nexus, idk how you call it where you post 1 meme everywhere so people just find it where they feel comfortable

• i still don't wanna use twitter, i hate this place

Have fun Playing

[SCARaw]

Thank you

[Berkaru]

good tips, it worked for me a lot

[Jablo]

I can feel your passion and know that what you're doing is much appreciated.

[SCARaw]

you can take this for the 1st part
https://www.hdt-project.org/borderless-windowed-or-fullscreen-does-it-actually-matter-no-it-doesnt/
idk if Steam will process my link tho

for the 2nd part it was mostly effects of tests and community feedbacks, i wasn't recording everything i do in the game in the past, i didn't know 5y later i will have to keep proving everybody every single day that i know how the game works xD

[jeremy]

do you have evidence of this?

"FullScreen - make aplication run simultaniously to your system, instead of under your system, it normally provide some performance related benefits, but in kenshi its less stable and also perform worse :)"

[SCARaw]

Disc space as memory is common trick in the 2010 era of games
you can use said memory in more than just kenshi, but it mostly help people under 8k
Personally i took SSD as memory drive because its faster
in skyrim if your memory disc is slow and you take big texture, it can cause camera spin stutter
as instead of rendering the lost from vision thru GPU and if RAM is full, it goes to HardDrive
Kenshi however never stops rendering almost anything and modern HDD with Zone Jump should steal be faster than rendering whole City again
TLDR: No, its common feature, kenshi is not the only game who can do it

[Kraneo]

Hello Scaraw. Big fan. I just wanna ask few questions. Can Disc Space as Memory Allocation cause any problem? and I need to choose the driver that has Kenshi in it, right? (dumb question)

[crunk aint dead]

ah so it wont generate a mesh, just remove errors you say? will do some more testing then

[SCARaw]

check the data of edition for distant towns
according to my check distant mesh was not changed by itself, just registered as created and did not produce "can't find distant_x.mesh error"

[crunk aint dead]

Hey scar so I got a question, you say that you can included updated distant meshes in a city editor mod but when I followed your suggestion included here for CATO it doesn't make any difference. Distant Town models are still not updated until approaching a town for the first time after an import.