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B9 4.0c Texture Reduction Pack (Extreme)


attosecond

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This is a texture reduction package for the B9 Aerospace 4.0c mod. B9 is created, distributed, and maintained by bac9.

You MUST have B9 Aerospace 4.0c installed to use this package.

This reduction pack frees up 1.09GB of the 1.30GB RAM footprint claimed by B9 4.0c running on a Windows platform. You WILL notice some loss of texture quality when viewing the B9 parts at extreme close range. Examples include: blurred-out lettering, fuzzy-looking rust patterns, less detail on heat tiles, etc. When zoomed out so that the entire craft is visible, the quality loss in the textures is hard to discern.

If you enjoy bac9′s beautiful artwork and want to keep all the details, do not install this package. If you rarely spend time examining your craft from 10cm away and are more concerned with freeing up RAM for other mods, then this is the right package for you.

To use:

1) Install B9 Aerospace 4.0c.

2) Download the texture reduction pack on Spaceport: click here (mirror download on MediaFire).

3) Unzip the archive into your KSP root folder. Agree to merging folders and overwriting existing items with new ones.

To uninistall:

Re-install B9 Aerospace 4.0c.

Following bac9′s preference, this work is licensed under 88x31.png.

This package contains model textures only and does not include any plugins or other functionality of the B9 Aerospace 4.0c mod.

Credits for the original work:

bac9-flcl – 3D modeling, textures

Taverius – Configs, craft design, testing, 3D modeling

Screenshots

Here's a look at some of the original textures by bac9:

SsEz4fN.png

Here's the same craft using the reduced textures:

GTfdPkx.png

Edited by attosecond
now with before and after screenshots
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So, how much does this reduce the textures to? 256? I usually rescale my textures based on part scale and detail. The biggest parts get a 512*512 texture, while the very smallest get a 128*128 texture. I also always rescale normal and emmissive maps to half of the diffuse, though I never reduce them to under 128*128. Also, especially with B9, I find that a reduction from 1024 to 256 definitely is noticeable, even during normal flight.

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Thanks so much for this, even with the low textures I had to delete B9 as it was just too big. Of course if the Squad reduction pack gets updated that might change but for now I'll take whatever lets me use more mods.

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So, how much does this reduce the textures to? 256? I usually rescale my textures based on part scale and detail. The biggest parts get a 512*512 texture, while the very smallest get a 128*128 texture. I also always rescale normal and emmissive maps to half of the diffuse, though I never reduce them to under 128*128. Also, especially with B9, I find that a reduction from 1024 to 256 definitely is noticeable, even during normal flight.

For the most part, the textures were reduced by a factor of 4: 1024x1024 -> 256x256. It was not automated, however. Textures were evaluated on a per-file basis, and the most complicated were reduced less (or not at all, in the case of two IVA views). A few received more reduction, due to their simplicity. With proper choice of bicubic sampler in Photoshop, the image quality loss can be somewhat mitigated. I don't notice the changes during normal flight, but then again I wear glasses. Maybe someone with better eyesight would see something troubling.

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Its weird how some things take up a lot more memory than others. I supremely hope that as we approach KSP v1.0 that something is done so that we can have lots of nicely detailed parts and moderately complicated craft without needing too much of an expensive recent computer. It does seem, to my inexpert eye, that there is a lot of memory being used unnecessarily sometimes. All credit to the devs of course, Im sure its part of the process.

In the meantime, packs like this enable me to run more parts and bigger ships without crashing every transition (that seems to be where most of my memory-bottlenecks happen). Have just finished trimming enough parts from my mods to re-stabilise after installing B9 4c, this pack means I can squeeze a few more parts back in :D

(I'd vote for a KW pack also...Kethane also has some pretty high-res textures)

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First, KSP isn't using the page file, which is a very serious bug, probably with Unity itself. Fixing this would pretty much solve the crashes when running out of memory. Second, it's pretty much keeping two copies of every texture through the entire loading time. Fix those two issues, and it'll suddenly become possible to run as many mods as in pre-0.14 versions.

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That would definitely explain why increasing the size of it didn't seem to have any impact...

It seems to me to also be loading up everything when not everything is being used. Eg: if you have lots of mods, you will crash even if you build a small stock-only craft. Feels like it loads every single part for the VAB and keeps them in memory regardless of what you are using, which is usually only a small fraction of the parts you have.

Is this my imagination or is there some basis in reality?

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Can we get some example screenshots? I personally like to see what im getting before installing a mod, especially mods that change things visually. A before and after comparison would also be appreciated, but not a necessity IMO. Im glad someone did this though, B9 is an absolutley awesome mod but its quite the memory hog, and since the new update iv had to take it out, it just takes too much. Thank you for your hard work.

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For the most part, the textures were reduced by a factor of 4: 1024x1024 -> 256x256. It was not automated, however. Textures were evaluated on a per-file basis, and the most complicated were reduced less (or not at all, in the case of two IVA views). A few received more reduction, due to their simplicity. With proper choice of bicubic sampler in Photoshop, the image quality loss can be somewhat mitigated. I don't notice the changes during normal flight, but then again I wear glasses. Maybe someone with better eyesight would see something troubling.

it is not a factor of four

you reduce each dimension by a factor of four and you have 2 dimensions here

it's a factor of 16.

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That would definitely explain why increasing the size of it didn't seem to have any impact...

It seems to me to also be loading up everything when not everything is being used. Eg: if you have lots of mods, you will crash even if you build a small stock-only craft. Feels like it loads every single part for the VAB and keeps them in memory regardless of what you are using, which is usually only a small fraction of the parts you have.

Is this my imagination or is there some basis in reality?

Yea Loading every part and keeping it in the memory is really slowing ksp down. Ksp runs nice without any mods but as soon as some mod packs go in boom. I got KW, B9, American Pack, and two other really small mods installed and Im always close to the 3.5gb limit =/ it hovers right now ay 2.9 ish even with the mod authors reduction packs. I will have to try this mod today.

I feel like if ksp could have a dynamic loading system where the parts are semi loaded into the game and when you click on that part to use in the vab/sph it fully loads that part. No need to have every part in the game running and loaded at once. Then again it falls back to the Unity limitations again. =/ UNITY WHY YOU HOLD PEOPLE BACK! Lets hope next update with Unity 4.2.2 helps a lot!

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Wow, it really doesn't detract much from the texture quality, the impact is bigger whe I do it using paint.NET. How much does photoshop cost? Is it free (as in free beer)? Because a lot of people have that program.

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Thanx for the screenies Attosecond, thats exactly what I was looking for, perfect mod by the way.

I see a lot less difference than I expected compared to the original. I understand the B9 guys love their artwork, and it is beautiful, but when it starts crashing peoples games and is practically the only mod you can have, it then starts getting replaced by the more practical mods. Super detail on my SSTO is great for screenies and videos but I don't need to be able to read the type next to the fuel cap when im trying to get a squirly craft into orbit.

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For those of you asking for a KW Rocketry pack, I just finished one. It turns out that the pack I created only does a measly 4MB better on the RAM footprint than the existing reduction pack by PolecatEZ. Since he's already fostered a relationship with the KW Rocketry creators and taken on the responsibility for producing a quality texture reduction package, I'm going to step away from this one. Download PolecatEZ's KW Rocketry texture reduction package on Spaceport: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/kw-rocketry-texture-reduction-pack-0-1a/

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