Alpha 18x | Opt-in Experimental Build Now Available

[Dan Dixon]

We’ve released an experimental build so users can test the major changes we’ve made to physics computation in Universe Sandbox ². The new “Native” computation mode is much faster and should show a huge performance boost.

Native mode is enabled by default for Windows and Linux users. To see just how much faster it is, you can switch back to the old Managed mode in Home > Settings > General tab > Computation Device > ManagedCPU.

You can also display the frames drawn per second by enabling 'FPS Info' in Home > Settings > Debug tab or press Alt + F.

You must own Universe Sandbox ² to participate. You can buy a Steam code from our website or Steam:
http://universesandbox.com/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/230290/

To switch to this build:
1. Right-click on Universe Sandbox ² in your Steam Library and select 'Properties'
2. Click on the 'BETAS' tab
3. Select ‘experimental’ in the Beta dropdown list
4. Click the 'CLOSE' button and wait for the version to update
5. Click 'PLAY' and enjoy!

Please let us know if you run into any major issues when running in Native mode. Thanks for trying it out!

[WitheHole18]

176 point 

[vmorgo]

Got the new beta....but no joy.  Computation device is defaulted to "ManagedCPU" and there is no "Native Mode" option available to switch to.  :-(   It does seem to run considerably more smoothly than 17.1 did, but that may just be because I have a smaller sim running.  I do note that the DDouble CCaps problem remains and there is a new bug where the rendering of a planet in the "Show Body Preview" pane at the top of the page for specifying features of the planet such as climate, materials, etc., is very poor, ugly and blocky unless the planet is shown very close up on the main screen.

Enabling climate on a fictitious world I created (based on a modified version of Mars) results in the temperature remaining constant and never rising or falling as it should--the only way to get the temperature to work in what I presume to be a proper fashion is to DISABLE climate and "let it ride".

Currently have a machine that has 24 cores, 2 TB 7200 RPM HDD, and an nVidia 730.  A memory upgrade to 24 GB (from 12) was not installed due to the fact that they shipped me a 48 GB kit, so I've got 48 GB!!!!  YAY!

Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help, especially as to enabling "Native Mode" over Managed CPU.

I am running Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa, which is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTE.  It is 64-bit and the desktop UI is MATE.

Thank you--Still loving this program--wouldn't have bought this incredible rig just to run Ubox2 if I didn't!!!

A./

[Dan Dixon]

@vmorgo
 
We just posted Alpha 18 and made a changes to native on Linux. Please let Steam update Universe Sandbox ² and try again... please let us know if that fixed it.

[vmorgo]

Will do when I get home.  That'll be a few hours hence, so please stay tuned--and thank you for all that you're doing!

BTW:  They shipped me the wrong memory upgrade for the 24-core machine.  Instead of a 24 GB upgrade, they sent me 48 GB!  Just thought you might like to know, in case you have some big models or betas you want to send my way....

A./

P. P. S.  Linux Mint 17.3 "Rosa", 64-bit.  NVidia 730.  May replace with some sort of ATI board at some point.  Any recommendations?  Insufficient power to run the NVIDIA M2090 GPGPU, so that'll have to go in one of the other servers....  A half-way decent ATI video card should make up for that, yes?

A./

[vmorgo]

Hey Dan, Everyone!

Seasons greetings and happy new year!


Newest Alpha 18b does work with native mode, but there are some pretty inconsistent results when "Climate" is enabled.  Not sure yet if this is just something that needs to run a while before it actually starts producing reasonable climate approximations.  Initially, what I see is that where temperature would rise (sometimes to ridiculous levels) with "Enable Climate" set to off, turning it on seems to function more as a temperature lock than any real approximation of climate.  When Enable Climate is on, temperature either stays flat and doesn't change at all, or it varies a few degrees C around whatever temperature I choose, but that's it.  I also see "snow" flickering on and off on the planet in a very unrealistic way--may have something to do with the planet orbiting the smaller red dwarf in a binary star system, but I don't think so.  NOTE:  Planet is tidally locked.  It does have a small moon, not that I think any of that should matter.  If you like, I could upload the simulation to you, though I'm not sure how to do that in a way that includes the related planets and moons...

The native mode does seem far faster than Managed mode, and it seems quite stable, so that's all good, but it sometimes seems to "Flip back" to ManagedCPU and, despite having "Remember Settings" turned on, the program always starts in "ManagedCPU" mode. 

Planet renders in the "preview" screen if become poor and angular if one moves away from the planet in the main view.  This doesn't happen with stars.  Only planets.

Program still seems to self-terminate after about 10 to 12 hours, which is unfortunate, because I would like to run some very long simulations (I'm testing for stability in the systems I am creating).  I no longer think this is a "crash" or "out of memory" issue, unless it is localized within the Ubox2 code.  Certainly, Shandong (The system running Ubox2) is not memory-constrained--it has 48 GB RAM!--so that's not an issue.  Even with this much RAM, the program still won't run more than a few hours to a half-day at a time.  Not clear as to why this is so.

Finally, it seems that there is still a problem with graphic--anything over about 20 years and after a fairly short time, the program clearly begins to struggle, the animation becoming slow and herky-jerky.  Closing any open graphs resolves this nicely.

Thank you!

[Dan Dixon]

Thanks for posting these details... very helpful.