64-bit KSP

[Kristure]

Hi,

 

Is there a 64-bit version of KSP? I do not own a copy of this game, and reading around all negatives I've found is the lack of 64-bit and how this results in ram issues.

 

Kind regards

Kristoffer Sture
 

[Red Iron Crown]

Welcome aboard!

Currently 64-bit is only officially supported on Linux. There are community workarounds for 64-bit on OS X and Windows, they work but can be glitchy.

Official support for 64-bit on OS X and Windows is expected in the next release, which is likely a month or so away. Edit: That time estimate is a guess, I have no inside information.

Finally, 64-bit only really matters if you are using a lot of mods. For a stock install or one with a more modest amount of mods, 32-bit works just fine.

[Sovek]

As @Red Iron Crown mentioned, there are 64bit versions currently, but unless you know what you are doing in Linux and have a powerful GPU (something better than a GTX460 BTW), don't bother. OpenGL isnt near as fast as DirectX for some unknown reason, and I could never KSP to start under Ubuntu anyway.

The community workaround has several drawbacks, there are some bugs (like the Stragegia mod being unuseable in late game), mouse button issues, building issues and all around unstable (but more stable than an install full of mods). If you want to play stock or with a few mods, 32 bit works just fine.

[softweir]

At present there is no 64-bit version of KSP for windows or OSX. This is because KSP is based on Unity, and the Unity 4.x system couldn't produce stable 64-bit builds for those OSs. (The 64-bit build for Linux is stable and much enjoyed by Linux users.)

However, Squad are in the process of rebuilding KSP to run on Unity 5.x, and it is expected that this will enable 64-bit builds.

Aaaand, I was ninja'ed by Red Iron Crown. 

As RIC says, the only advantage in using 64-bit is for those who use huge numbers of mods. The game plays at similar speeds regardless of word size, indeed some players find 64-bit is fractionally slower. This is because the game uses only 32-bit words for most entities, which are less efficiently manipulated in 64-bit mode. This is true of the vast majority of games!

[Friend Bear]

I echo what was said.

64-bit matters for me because I use over 35 mods, from those that add planets and parts to those that allow for more ease in complex situations, such as thrust allocation according to the rocket's center of mass and satellite telemetry for difficult. Even then, I don't get crashes often because I use the work arounds. Nonetheless, I am waiting for the next release.

 

You do not own a copy of the game which means, once you do, you will be spending countless hours getting down to the nitty gritty on the core game. You MAY download a few mods here and there but nothing that will cause ram issues, I assure you.

 

I have over 1,000 hours of play, the reason I feel compelled to use these mods and make the game as difficult as I can.

[soulsource]

1 minute ago, softweir said:

The game plays at similar speeds regardless of word size, indeed some players find 64-bit is fractionally slower. This is because the game uses only 32-bit words for most entities, which are less efficiently manipulated in 64-bit mode. This is true of the vast majority of games!

While I agree that 64bit software tends to have worse performance than 32bit, I think the reason is a different one, namely the increased address space size, which increases the chance of cache misses, and the larger size of the pointer data type (which is on Windows the only data type that's different between 32bit and 64bit software), which leads to increased memory usage. Both combined lead to a higher amount of data that has to be transferred between memory and CPU.

The numerical calculations shouldn't differ much between 32bit and 64bit, as the main workhorse on both is SSE, which uses 32bit floating point numbers.

[swjr-swis]

25 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Official support for 64-bit on OS X and Windows is expected in the next release, which is likely a month or so away.

Can we quote you on this?!?  Oh wait, I just did...

(retreats to the barn to sharpen the pitchfork for T-30 days...)

[Jhawk1099]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't there going to be a 64-bit version come 1.1?

[Red Iron Crown]

@swjr-swis I don't have any inside information on the schedule, I'm just guessing based on previous QA/Experimental cycles. 

[Kerbart]

55 minutes ago, Kristure said:

Is there a 64-bit version of KSP? I do not own a copy of this game, and reading around all negatives I've found is the lack of 64-bit and how this results in ram issues.

Hello Kristoffer, if you are completely new to the game I'd recommend trying out the demo version first. If you're like most people here you will probably buy the full version before you even hit the limitations the demo version has built into it.

As mentioned, 64 bit is mainly an issue when you use a lot of mods, and mods are bit like lenses in photography; when starting out you're better off by not acquiring too many. By the time you've developed an appetite for the amount of mods that require 64 bit it is very likely that the upgrade will already be there. It's even likely that you will never hit the 32 bit limitation in the first place.

 

[NathanKell]

It's also worth noting, regarding the x64 hacks, that most modders refuse support to anyone using them (because they are very buggy in various hard-to-detect ways) and sometimes also lock the mod in the presence of the hack.