KSP is coming to the Wii U

[xtoro]

This will all end in regrets I'm sure of it. With the little amount of RAM consoles have, it will be interesting to see how they'll handle memory management. Load on demand parts and textures? And as someone else mentioned, they will be limited on part count unless U5 does some multithreading magic because I don't know how they expect low spec CPUs to handle things that high spec PCs do ok with. Perhaps the porting company really has no idea what they're getting into?

[Lord Aurelius]

They might as well port the game to android as well at this point. I'm pretty sure that some of the high end android devices have comparable or better cpu performance than the wii u (I don't have any hard data on this, just an educated guess given that the wii u basically has the same cpu as the xbox 360).

Not to mention how awesome it would be to play this game on a mobile device (hp stream 7 notwithstanding).

[magnemoe]

This will all end in regrets I'm sure of it. With the little amount of RAM consoles have, it will be interesting to see how they'll handle memory management. Load on demand parts and textures? And as someone else mentioned, they will be limited on part count unless U5 does some multithreading magic because I don't know how they expect low spec CPUs to handle things that high spec PCs do ok with. Perhaps the porting company really has no idea what they're getting into?

The ram issue is Wii U only PS4 and One has 8 GB, cpu is more of an problem but hopefully the multi-treading helps here.

User interface is more of an problem on PS4 and One. Building and doing stuff with ships like transferring fuel.

[Halo_003]

So when can I play KSP on my iPhone?

This is not totally unexpected, if going to Xbone and PS4 they may as well do all of the consoles.

[Randazzo]

Some of the above speculation inspired me to investigate the Wii U a bit. While I still think it feels like the best platform yet for KSP (aside from us mustard racers, of course), it's specifications do cause me to raise a brow.

Per Wikipedia:

[TABLE=class: infobox hproduct vevent, width: 22]

[TR]

[TH]CPU[/TH]

[TD]1.24 GHz Tri-Core IBM PowerPC "Espresso"[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TH]Memory[/TH]

[TD]2 GB DDR3[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Now I know there is less demand on console CPUs and much less of a memory load, but this is still a fairly narrow margin for KSP, what with it's mysterious scene change "memory leaks" that slowly but surely push the RAM demand higher.

From this information, only speculation can be gleaned.

1. It will be a terrible flop. Squad is disgraced, forced to release Bikini Beach Pork Defenders with Flying Tiger to make up the loss financially.

2. The Unity 5 upgrade provides a very significant performance boost, perhaps even more-so than Squad has let on thus far. KSP lovers everywhere rejoice. Squad becomes universally loved (then purchased by EA, tears flow).

[NWDogg]

Is it at all possible that Squad has sneaked in some optimization methods during their move to Unity 5, and just haven't announced them yet? Things like on-the-fly part welding, on-demand texture loading, asset unloading, etc.. I can't see how they will be able to get a very high quality port onto the Wii U without some major optimizations like this. PS4 and Xbone, sure, they mostly have the power for it, and just need a UI update (which Squad already announced anyway.) The RAM limitations of Wii U are the biggest worry, as has been stated already, and it just seems like without *something* done to the way the game actually works, the port just won't work that well.

Or maybe it will, and Flying Tiger are awesome at porting, who knows? I am not against porting to other systems at all. I love the idea, in fact. I can see KSP getting to near-Minecraft levels of popularity, especially since this game actually has characters with real...character. Minecraft has no real 'character', in either sense of the word, and yet that sees books, toys, game spinoffs, the works. A Kerbal movie and cartoon series wouldn't be out of the question if it even becomes somewhat successful on consoles. However, none of that is possible if the console ports don't work or are very sub-par, so I am *very cautiously* optimistic about this.

[Dafni]

they might simplify how physics on crafts (or better yet, parts) work. And textures and all that too. They might even over simplify the whole thing and it becomes something else entirely. Like you build a rocket and it comes out of the VAB as one single part, maybe a few weak "links" to keep the kerbal way going... something like that. Maybe.

[xtoro]

Or the console versions will be completely different than the PC version. Used to see things like that with the old PSP. Killzone on playstation, awesome first person shooter. But on PSP it was a third person view from above like playing the original legend of zelda, horrible...

[cantab]

KSP can run in 2 GB of RAM, just about - it takes using OGL or maybe DX11 and dropping texture resolutions but it's possible.

As for CPU performance, that's harder to judge since unlike the PS4 and XBone the Wii U's processor isn't similar to widely-benchmarked x86 processors. One discussion quotes figures that suggest the Wii U's processor offers comparable single-threaded performance to the PS4 and XBone, though they're really rather crude estimates.

Quite probably the performance variation between the three consoles will come down to how well PhysX and Unity have been written on them, and not so much either Flying Tiger's work or the underlying hardware.

Incidentally, there's a very simple way for Squad and Flying Tiger to majorly improve KSP's performance: Procedural Parts.

[Tankman101]

Cool.

I mean it makes the KSP doomsday cult come out of the woodwork, but cool.

[windows_x_seven]

/facepalm

The game isn't even finished yet.

What will the FPS on Wii U be, 10 frames per second?

[Red Iron Crown]

Still waiting for the Android version. I don't care if it runs at 0.01fps in flight, I just want a mobile VAB.

[Renegrade]

Or the console versions will be completely different than the PC version. Used to see things like that with the old PSP. Killzone on playstation, awesome first person shooter. But on PSP it was a third person view from above like playing the original legend of zelda, horrible...

Yeah, it's pretty much gonna have to be that way (SimpleRockets style perhaps?), or 3 fps.

:/

Oh well, they can do whatever they want, so long as none of this bullstuff interferes with PC KSP development. Since it's a third party developer, that will hopefully be the case.

As for CPU performance, that's harder to judge since unlike the PS4 and XBone the Wii U's processor isn't similar to widely-benchmarked x86 processors. One discussion quotes figures that suggest the Wii U's processor offers comparable single-threaded performance to the PS4 and XBone, though they're really rather crude estimates.

Not (entirely) buying it. The PPC has wandered off to embedded land, the place where performance goes to die. The focus there is more on stability and power savings rather than throughput - that's good for your car's ECU or a router, not so good for your gaming/heavy work PC.

IPS rates for processors are pretty much unchanged from the Pentium Pro era (leaving aside the P4 potato cookers); the fairly large gap in mhz between the Pee-yew (1240mhz) and the PoS4 (1600mhz) and X-bone (1750mhz) will be surely felt. Note also that the architecture is based solidly around the Gamecube's Broadway CPU (PPC 750-Apple people might call this a 'G3') and may have..infelicities or datednesseses..eseses..es..

Of course that completely ignores the vast gulf between any of the above and a modern CPU (2600-3600mhz+).

Quite probably the performance variation between the three consoles will come down to how well PhysX and Unity have been written on them, and not so much either Flying Tiger's work or the underlying hardware.

Truths.

[regex]

vOv Doesn't really affect me.

Squad has consistently shown a desire to make oodles of cash rather than a quality product. I suppose that's not bad, especially if you're hoping for a Minecraft-style brand sell-out in the future (and I think KSP might be good enough for them to pull that off, if they can fix all the bugs and lag) but I can't help feeling like this game is a huge heap of wasted potential. Oh well, at least we have mods.

Still happy I only paid $17 for it.

[bonyetty]

More children will have access to a great fun learning tool about space if KSP is released on more and more platforms. PS4 then XONE and now wii u thing.

And for me KSP on the Kouch.

What's in it for you?

The K thing so bad it's cool again

[regex]

What's in it for you?

Nothing, really.

[Lord Aurelius]

I did a bit of digging and KSP on ARM actually is looking like a fairly reasonable proposition given the performance of the newer devices. This article is a little old, but it shows ARM performing comparably (and faster in many cases) compared to the atom CPUs. I know that atoms aren't exactly performance chips, but they're probably at least in line with what the wii u has. Not to mention that more and more android devices have 3GB+ ram now and that 64 bit support will soon be mainstream.

[Red Iron Crown]

Merged in another thread.

[Robotengineer]

vOv Doesn't really affect me.

Squad has consistently shown a desire to make oodles of cash rather than a quality product. I suppose that's not bad, especially if you're hoping for a Minecraft-style brand sell-out in the future (and I think KSP might be good enough for them to pull that off, if they can fix all the bugs and lag) but I can't help feeling like this game is a huge heap of wasted potential. Oh well, at least we have mods.

Still happy I only paid $17 for it.

Who would they sell out to? SpaceX?

[regex]

Who would they sell out to? SpaceX?

Oracle.

[Robotengineer]

Oracle.

The horror...

[regex]

The horror...

I, too, pine for the days of Sun Java.

[Bekiekutmoar]

Concerning this I'm more or less neutral (if any remaining development of the PC-version of KSP doesn't get hampered though)

[RogalDorn]

If it means more money for squad then I am ok. We all know where their first love will always be!

[cantab]

Squad has consistently shown a desire to make oodles of cash rather than a quality product.

This is rather unfair. Yes Squad rather pushed the "1.0" branding, and yes they've added features without fixing old bugs, and yes they are targeting new users with the consoles. But in a world full of day-1 DLC, pay-to-win microtransactions, abandoned early access games, and all the other ways game developers have found to keep milking the money out of the same players, Squad have avoided all of that.