Is KSP unstable or is it OK for you?

[PnDB]

Stock install -- develops video issues (incorrect or blinking textures) after a couple of hours of play, and then freezes shortly thereafter when switching between crafts and/or KSC. If I don't quit soon enough, it freezes while trying to quit.

Lightly modded install (KER and ScanSat) -- Same behavior as the stock install.

[Flixxbeatz]

Pure stock, no problem

[Wombats_&Co.]

In my experience, Stock KSP is nearly perfectly stable - no crashes/bugs ever, unless you were doing ridiculously stupid things anyhow (like creating 4000 part ships... that isn't the best idea).

Slightly modded KSP (i.e., when below 20 mods) is also nearly perfectly stable. There are more bugs/crashes, but nothing that really obstructs me in my experience. Sometimes I need to restart KSP to fix some crazy thing.

Heavily modded KSP (which I have almost never reached, it is worth noting) is nearly perfectly unstable. I have experienced, in bad cases, crashes with every single vessel recovery, alongside random crashes at other times.

There are certain mods which I completely avoid simply because i have experienced nasty amounts of instability with just them installed.

And it is worth noting that I am not taking into consideration the memory-limit crashes on loading, as those are entirely my fault, not the game's.

I do think that Squad should perhaps be more ferocious with squashing bugs with 1.0, but I would expect the majority of them to come from newly implemented features. And I fully respect that I have no reliable experience with making games, nor with marketing, so they are probably better equiped to figure out what they should do.

[Deddly]

If you take a ship off (fly) from a body of water, the game things the ship is still "splashed down"

That sounds like a very frustrating bug! I spend a lot of time landing planes in water and taking off again and I have never heard of this bug. From your other comments, it seems you have experience playing both the 32 bit and 64 bit versions of the game - can you confirm that this happens also in the 32 bit version? If so I suggest you file a bug report.

[Yukon0009]

Game crashes a lot, but then again I'm doing this

[Umlüx]

stock is stable.

but my modded game is hard borderlining the memory limit and crahes sometimes. but this is not really the games fault.

[Arugela]

The problem isn't any bugs. It's lack of programming logic for both hardware support and game features. Like not having the logic to deal with a mirrored radial item properly and parts count limitation for those who like to build bigger things for fun.

[Green Baron]

I play KSP since 0.23 on Linux (different Debian derivatives) with quite a few mods and never had severe problems. Minor flaws of mods and the fact that it slows down when using crafts with many parts are tolerable for me. It's even playable on a small notebook with an i3, 4GB Ram and just Intel 4400 graphics.

Of course, an i7, 16GB and a fast nvidia-card work as well ...

To all those with problems under Linux: when switching from windows you are acustomed to not caring about your computers and the software on them. Big brother does that for you. On Linux: keep your install clean, remove old graphics-drivers if you use the proprietary ones, don't just install proprietary drivers over old ones, rtfm and follow the instructions. There is a pile of documentation for linux (especially debian based stuff like ubuntu) out there and even delivered with the systems ... enough to program your own OS ...

Ok, going back to space :-)

K.

[eddiew]

Many mods, running in OpenGL mode for memory conservation. Only two regular problems;

1) Memory leak. KSP starts with 2.2GB in use, and over about two hours will swell to 3.4, whereupon it will definitely crash. But I can see this coming and perform a graceful restart, so it doesn't bother me much. (Tbh, it keeps me hydrated by giving me regular breaks )

2) That darn thing where orbits change when you cross an SOI boundary, even at 1x timewarp. That's a bug and I don't think it's anything to do with mods.

Best advice for mod users; pay attention to memory use and know when you've got enough. Some mods simply eat too much memory to be combined. If your game is at 3GB on the menu, then you're going to be in the instability zone all the time.

Also, learn how to read your output log to tell you why you're crashing, if it's happening before the memory limit kicks in. Knowing which mod to update or report a bug for is a vital skill

*edit* Looking at the graphs, it doesn't actually look like stock is proportionately much better than a heavily modded game for stability. This is where the worries about 1.0 are coming from

[StarStreak2109]

In my GameData folder there are like 60+ mods (incl. Squad stuff). Using ActiveTextureManagement I end up with a memory usage of 1.4 GB (OpenGL) or 2.2 GB (DirectX). Depending on the mood of my computer, I usually can run a "normal" Kerbin-Mun-Kerbin mission w/o any hitch and then some. Sometimes it even runs much longer w/o crashing. Currently my only noticeable source for crashes are memory run-outs. My experience is that if you have an install with cleanly set-up AND using stable mods, running out of memory is your key source of crashing.

I had some issues with TweakScale and KerbalJointReinforcement, but those could be remedied with updating each mod.

[orosee]

Clearly the stabilty of KSP depends on the number and size of mods installed. I use plenty of mods but none of the huge ones (B9 etc.), mostly small fixes that the developers forgot to or refused to implement over the last 5 updates (Editor Extensions, Enhanced Navball, etc.) plus KAS and KSPI. BUT(!) compared to 0.25 where I used more and heavier mods, 0.90 is about as stable as jelly, using OpenGL is basically mandatory and what would I do without the ATR mod? I've already gotten used to playing without Texture Replacer and EVE just to get at least 30-60 minutes without crashes, and yet once I return to the Space Center from any mission, the game crashes as soon as I enter any building. Pfffft...

If it weren't for a few very nice cosmetic changes in 0.90 (placement of struts looks much better, for example) I'd probably go back to 0.25 completely, even with a full mod complement plus TR and EVE I had less memory footprint (on OpenGL) than stock 0.90 with DirectX 9.

I also noticed that there is a growing amount of negativity on Steam from long-term players with respect to 0.90.

[John FX]

I couldn't find the option for "I run quite a few mods but only get regular crashes due to hitting memory limits and the fact that changing scenes increases the memory footprint and this becomes more frequent as the stock game's base memory footprint increases and I expect it to worsen when we get extra features in 1.0"

[Superfluous J]

I couldn't find the option for "I run quite a few mods but only get regular crashes due to hitting memory limits and the fact that changing scenes increases the memory footprint and this becomes more frequent as the stock game's base memory footprint increases and I expect it to worsen when we get extra features in 1.0"

I've not made many polls on this site but I believe there is a character limit

Also, they fixed the terrain scatter memory leak, so there's hope for the scene changing one as well.

[Deddly]

I couldn't find the option for "I run quite a few mods but only get regular crashes due to hitting memory limits and the fact that changing scenes increases the memory footprint and this becomes more frequent as the stock game's base memory footprint increases and I expect it to worsen when we get extra features in 1.0"

Thanks for the input. I didn't want to include too many options in the poll otherwise it starts getting ambiguous. The last option most closely matches your experience

[BudgetHedgehog]

Hooray, my signature's relevant!

[SmallFatFetus]

I only experience the regular spinning beach ball sometimes. But I have been getting the undocking bug CONSTANTLY and I think it's KJR.

[Gerandar]

I only experience the regular spinning beach ball sometimes. But I have been getting the undocking bug CONSTANTLY and I think it's KJR.

Theres a fix for that somewhere on the forums pretty sure its in KJR thread

[cantab]

I guess the problem with the poll is that you can quite easily have one significant issue, for example the game crashing after playing for a bit. It's not "loads of bugs" but neither is it "no major problems".

[Fourjays]

For me...

On Windows it is stable, with a few mods. Even more stable with more mods if I run it in OpenGL.

On OS X it's barely stable running stock as it has a much lower memory limit for some reason (about 2.2GB). I honestly believe Squad are going to have to optimise the game's memory usage just to get 1.0 running on OS X if the trend of "new version = more RAM" continues.

[KerBlammo]

I was running KSP 64-bit windows. I only had it crash twice (both on the same game session so maybe it was related to something specific I was doing).

IMO there is NO excuse for a memory leak. Squad needs to fix that ASAP.

I'm still on hiatus since my computer died 2 weeks ago and intend on running 32-bit KSP on the new machine since the 64-bit version will no longer be supported.

[Deddly]

I guess the problem with the poll is that you can quite easily have one significant issue, for example the game crashing after playing for a bit. It's not "loads of bugs" but neither is it "no major problems".

Hi Cantab! Closest match depends on your subjective opinion from playing the game. Thanks!

Edited March 5, 2015 by Deddly

[celem]

I chose stock and loads of bugs. I do play modded and have RAM issues, but this isnt really KSP's problem. However there are a half-dozen bugs in the stock game that I find immersion breaking, infuriating or just irritating. Some of them have been around in 1 form or another for a while and some are fairly heisenbug and wont reproduce prettily.

Pet peeves:

In particular I'm quite annoyed that 0.90 seems to have returned a sticky-pad bug in some form, thought that must have been squashed ages ago, but no, I got rockets glued to the pad. I also still find the game horribly unstable the moment you have multiple high-part count missions outside Kerbin's SOI. Switching to a surface base attached to an interplanetary tug will usually summon the kraken and corrupt the entire save, KSP has never not had this issue for me. Despite loving KAC I dont actually multi-task missions because its just asking for trouble, none will reach destination before the universe implodes itself somehow. Ladder-slide is the other that really grinds my gears, just remove grab entirely if you cant actually get them to stay still. The state of the runway and landing gears, planes unpredictably diving for the ditch (the fact that taking off from the grass is always a better move)

I have played heavily modded games in the past but gave up long ago because i cant actually get anything of significant complexity to another planet without it all falling over anyway. (This is more likely RAM, many mod parts have really heavy textures)

TLDR. I find KSP to be pretty damn unstable to be honest, beyond the scope of RAM.

Edited March 5, 2015 by celem

[mrfire45]

I just run a changed config file to deal with lag. The only bug/crash I have had is in the SPH which occurred when I was making a space-plane, other than that, no bugs at all.

[scavenger]

I ensure all my mods are compatibles with KSP 1.0.2 and each others, and up to date with CKAN. Most of them are used by Scott but not all, as I don't use anything else than stock parts.

I start at 1600MB and can do between 4 and 6 launches depending on the ship size, until I eventually arrive at 3400MB. After that all I can do is exiting before the crash that occurs around 3700MB.

I can confirm that the most RAM eating process is the switch between the launchpad and the VAB.

Appart from the RAM mishandle, the game never crash for no reasons.

[SciMan]

Lots of mods, and AFAIK the game only crashes when it runs out of ram.

One of the mods I have is the temperature gauge killer, which helps keep the game's ram usage down.

The only bug that really causes issues for me is a massive slowdown in a few situations, (that I can likely reproduce on-demand).

One with fairings in the VAB/SPH, and one with rescue contracts that spawn the Kerbal in a MKS/OKS module (game slows down when MKS/OKS module is loaded)

Fairing slowdowns go away if I get rid of the fairing, and the MKS/OKS issue resolves itself if I save and re-start KSP.

Annoying bug, occasionally when I revert to VAB/SPH the parts don't sort into their categories properly, but exiting and re-entering the VAB/SPH solves it.

All in all, a few minor well-defined problems that don't seem to crash my game, so I'll say it's stable.