This guide (hopefully) resolves the infamous Starbound issue being locked to 1 CPU core.
 

Starbound ???????? Why is this? ?

Starbound is a game that almost everyone has experienced at least once in their time. It may be the insanely low frame rate drops from your home base, or stuttering while you fight enemies on unexplored moons. Sometimes it is as simple as picking up an object or dropping from a chest and your game freezes. This is not a great way to play through the game. It will cause immersion breaks and make it hard to enjoy the fight. Below are some of the factors that can cause a game's slowdown or invariably freezing. Also, details about how you can fix them.
 
 
The Game has its own issues
 
 

• Starbound runs entirely off your CPU. (This means that all graphical computations are handled entirely by the CPU. You will need to understand).
   
   
  FIX: It is impossible. This was the way the game was made.
• VSync can be enabled by default – Although this may not seem like a big issue at first, Starbound uses Starbound's CPU for all processes. VSync causes Starbound to slow down and, as such, unless you are on an old computer/monitor, vsync is unnecessary. I have been using it off and have not seen a single tear in my screen.
   
   
  FIX: enter your storage folder for your Starbound, typically located (storage with steam games on it)/Steam/steamapps/common/Starbound/storage/ Inside there is your starbound config file, open that up, scroll to the bottom where you will find "vsync" : true ,Switch that to "vsync" : false .
• 64-bit Starbound has a known memory leaking – This is the one that i don't get why it hasnt yet been fixed. It has something to do the Lua scripts. When you add or remove items from your chest it can literally spike your ram load and then go back to normal. Or it can just sit there for the remainder of your session.
   
   
  FIX:It's impossible. I believe this is an issue that requires a new game update or patch. You can also run the game 32-bit as 32-bit versions sometimes have issues. To resolve this problem, you can simply use 64-bit to do what 32-bit can't and then switch back to 32 bit.
• This original game was developed on Linux. This isn't a dig to Linux users or any operating system. Starbound was built on Linux and runs much faster than on Windows. The reason Starbound is in this inherent problem list? Because most people don’t run Linux, they mainly run Windows or MacOs. This means that the majority of users will experience a less optimized, more troublesome play experience, rather than someone who runs the same game with Linux.
   
   
  FIX: Use linux to run the game, or use your normal operating systems and hope that they fix these issues. Mods don't have the engine access necessary.
• The closer you zoom in, the more drawing will be required by the game.
   
   
  FIX: Turn on the zoom in the options and use a larger zoom.

 
 
Potentially Caused by The Player
 
 
Starbound's "Starbound" problems are not entirely due to Starbound as a system. However, there are some situations that can be caused by player actions. Here are some things that could be slowing down your game. The easiest solution to the majority of these is to simply not do X. X is whatever you see below.
 
 

• Too many quests Starbound controls how fetch quests are checked. Starbound is constantly running scripts to verify that each quest and its checkpoints are being met. This is insignificant for a small number of quests such as 5-10. However, as you accept more quests than 25, the lag and slowdown will become much more severe.
• Filling chests using items with complex buildsscripts Starbound uses a variety of methods to represent items in chests. Blocks, liquids crafting materials, codex entry, etc.) have very simple buildscripts. However when it comes weapons, armors, furniture, mech pieces and saplings, these items require more complex buildscripts that are represented in the inventory or chest inventories. All of these items can suffer from lag when stored together in large quantities.
• Large quantities of NPCs/farm animals, Enemies/enemies, and Tethered Npcs/pets will cause any game to slowdown. 10 is fine, 100 is excessive, the same goes for farm-able mobs. I will cover a possible way to allow more Npcs/mobs to be displayed at once in a later article, but that depends on each case.
• Rails are like all of – If you use unmodded vanillarails you will know exactly what you can expect, a laggy, skippy and bumpy ride ahead. You have a number of options to fix this issue. Please feel free to browse them.
• Broken/Outdated Mods– This one is on player. If you use broken or outdated mods, you could run into issues that are clearly not the intended function or outcome. In mild cases something isn’t craftable or a quest isn’t able to turn in. Worst case? Worst of all?
• Too many or script heavy mods A game that uses 150+ mods Will have lag. Period. If you're new to modding games, I recommend that you read guides or watch videos to help you understand the process. This will help you to avoid making mistakes and causing problems such as missing/inaccessible content, game corruption, game failure, or game failure.

 
It is also worth noting that any mods that claim simply to "IncreaseFPS" or "Unlock Thread/Cores", may be completely fraudulent and/or lie. Starbound Mods DO NOT do not have the engine access needed to perform feats like these mods claim. They lie about their mod, regardless of how plausible it sounds.
 
 
 

1 Core CPU FIX ??????? ?

Starbound only runs on CPU. But that is not the only oddity about it. Starbound also only runs with the first core of the cpu. There have been many mods that claim their mod is the key to unlocking all cores. However, as stated before, these claims were false. This has been the case for many years. At face value, this 2D game does not seem to be very intensive, but when you consider all the computations that the GPU would normally be handling, and everything else that the CPU handles, it eventually leads to a cascade/hard limit on what you can do in Starbound. Although the game might be updated one day, I wasn't willing to wait. So I started searching high and deep for ways to give Starbound more CPU power.
 
 
Starbound can be tricked into using as many cores by changing core affinity and going into task management.
 
 
To do this, you will need to open Starbound in either 32 Bit (or 64 Bit) mode.
 
 

• Open your task manger and go to details tab
• Right-click on Starbound.exe to locate it
• Open that option by going to the set affinity tab
• Uncheck your first (core. This is typically core 0 – and any additional cores. (It's important not to check all processors because the option to OK will be unselected)
• Once you have pressed OK, return to set affinity and recheck your cores. Press OK again
• Results.

 
 

 

 
I have been using the core affinity for the past two days and have noticed a decrease in stuttering, freezes, and overall smoother running than before. While this may not be a solution for everyone, as some people still experience lag, I wouldn't recommend it as a miracle cure. All the best!

 
 
Here we come to an end for the Optimization Guide (Also 1 Core CPU FIX) – Starbound guide. I hope this guide has helped you with your gameplay. If you have something to add to this guide or believe we forgot some information to add, please let us know via comment! We check each comment manually by approving them!