UPS ingame

[PadreSperanza]

Hey guys,

please don't throw any stones onto my head but I have two little questions:

For understanding: UPS are the updates per seconds - so the calculations the game makes within 1 second, right? So now for my understanding: Is the UPS just limited by the growth of my factory (bigger factory means less UPS) or depends this also by the hardware used. E.G.: a high-end PC is stronger and can handle more UPS even with the same megabase than a mid-core PC can? Or is just the size of the factory a limit to this?

And the second question: While ingame you can press nearly every key with function. But which key is to toggle those information like PS ingame? I really want to see those datas to check my setups

And please do not throw stones - I know it's not normal to ask these

[Loewchen]

For understanding: UPS are the updates per seconds - so the calculations the game makes within 1 second, right?

It is not the amount of calculations, it is the frequency of the games update cycle, one cycle meaning every entity has been updated once. It will increase with processing power and decrease with amount of entities in your game.

But which key is to toggle those information like PS ingame?

I do not understand what you are asking, what is PS? Keybindings can be found here: https://wiki.factorio.com/Keyboard_bindings

[PadreSperanza]

I do not understand what you are asking, what is PS? Keybindings can be found here: https://wiki.factorio.com/Keyboard_bindings

oh sorry I meant UPS... my keyboard is not as fast as my hands are sometimes

thanks for the link. I knew it must be easy to set up UPS/FPS ingame but I didn't know it was so easy to just press F4... I am ashamed ... seriously

[Drury]

For understanding: UPS are the updates per seconds - so the calculations the game makes within 1 second, right? So now for my understanding: Is the UPS just limited by the growth of my factory (bigger factory means less UPS) or depends this also by the hardware used. E.G.: a high-end PC is stronger and can handle more UPS even with the same megabase than a mid-core PC can? Or is just the size of the factory a limit to this?

UPS measures performance, so yes, it depends on hardware. It's almost exactly as you said, a big factory demands more processing power, which can be provided by better hardware. It's a bit more complicated though, and there are actually two metrics to keep track of - FPS and UPS.

UPS is basically the "inner" loop, it's how fast the actual simulation is running. This is by default 60, as the game takes 60 "turns" per second (we call them "ticks" because they tick up one by one, like a clock), where in each tick a lot of things are being calculated (essentially every little change in your factory). If your CPU (processor) can't keep up with all the calculations, it asks for UPS to be lowered, it gives less ticks per second, and in effect the game will run slower, kinda like bullet time in Matrix.

FPS is the "outer" loop. This is basically the graphical part. It takes the ticks calculated by CPU and represents them as colorful pixels on the screen using mostly the GPU (graphics card). Each tick for which it draws a screenful of beautiful graphical representation is called a "frame" (because it's like a film frame on those old film tapes). Now, when CPU is sending 60 ticks a second but your GPU can't keep up drawing all of them as frames, it will skip some, which is shown as a lower value on the FPS counter, and show up as visible "tearing", "lagging" or "hiccups". The UPS will remain 60 (since CPU can keep calculating everything no problem) and the simulation will continue at the same speed, but FPS can drop a bit, to like 50, 40, or even 10. Inversely, if the CPU can't keep up calculating ticks but GPU keeps drawing frames of them without issues, you will get the aforementioned slowdown effect. If neither can keep a stable 60... You get tearing and slowdown.

Note this is an oversimplification, it's not exactly how it works, but it should help for basic understanding.

And the second question: While ingame you can press nearly every key with function. But which key is to toggle those information like PS ingame? I really want to see those datas to check my setups

Press F4 to access the debug menu, tick "show-fps" and press F4 again to close the menu. This brings up FPS and UPS counters.

[PadreSperanza]

...UPS is basically the "inner" loop, it's how fast the actual simulation is running. This is by default 60, as the game takes 60 "turns" per second (we call them "ticks" because they tick up one by one, like a clock), where in each tick a lot of things are being calculated (essentially every little change in your factory). If your CPU (processor) can't keep up with all the calculations, it asks for UPS to be lowered, it gives less ticks per second, and in effect the game will run slower, kinda like bullet time in Matrix

....

Note this is an oversimplification, it's not exactly how it works, but it should help for basic understanding.

...

Press F4 to access the debug menu, tick "show-fps" and press F4 again to close the menu. This brings up FPS and UPS counters.

This is a really good answer. Thank you