KSP physics; oscillating and just random thing blowing up

[Jimbodiah]

I've been playing for a few days and already frustrated to the point of quitting and just asking my money back... If you build anything larger than the crappy stock ships thing start to oscillate randomly until they destroy themselves, or sometimes stuff just blows up with no reason what-so-ever. The physics engine seems to have a glitch where it just goes haywire, and all the lose joints in the parts don't really help much. I'm tired of using fifty struts to hold everything together because of a structural error in the game.

Nevermind the fact that for some reason this game loads up every single texture into RAM to the point where the game just crashes on startup-up or after 30+ minutes of gameplay.

Seriously, is this game still in beta?

Modded and unmodded, it doesn't make a difference.

[stickman939]

Kerbal Joint Reinforcement

Active Texture Management

Use. These. Two. Mods.

It may simply be down to your PC. If you're running x64 bit, you're definitely out of luck as that version is buggy.

Crashes are a regular part of the game until they get it optimized to run on more than 4gbs of ram regardless of how much ram you have, phys or digital.

Also, meet the Kraken. Destroyer of ships.

If this doesn't work, then I dunno how to fix this.

[Jimbodiah]

Thanks for the tip, will install them and hope it doesn't crash sooner I tried the joint mod, but saw no difference really, will see what it does with the texture mod.

I also increased the physics setting to 0.12 as my PC has no problems with lag, maybe that might help keeping things more stable.

Edited November 3, 2015 by Jimbodiah

[Jimbodiah]

OK, installed both... played for two days... KSP is still a toaster.

The textures look crap and half the icons in the game can't be recognized now with that Textures mod. Reinforced links does nothing at all, thing just fall off easier now it seems; parts that attach and are green in the hangar just drop off with the shake you get when you go to launchpad or runway.

I wiped all my probes/stations and started over, waste of countless hours building and sending to orbits. If I build anything over 200 parts (or have 2-3 ships close to each other that sum to those parts) the game just freezes up or goes nuts. My GPU and CPU are barely noticing any load, my setup is not the issue (4790K/16GB/SSDs/GTX650Ti-Boost). I am running the game on a second pc with all the graphics set to 1980's mode (low res, low textures everything set like your GPU was a turd) and it has the same issues.

You basically have to stick with the stock 30-40 part reject spacecraft and delete it after you use it, or the game will crash or just go haywire. Not even mentioning the fact that every planet's surface is frictionless and everything on it has a tendency to start sliding away, good luck trying to do anything when they added brakes that don't do anything.

This game is a disaster. The promise of what it can do is the most awesome thing I have ever come across, but the realization of that idea is utter garbage.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Jimbodiah

[Jimbodiah]

Don't get me wrong, I love building ships like this:

[MalevolentNinja]

Kerbal Joint Reinforcement

Active Texture Management

Use. These. Two. Mods.

With almost every mod using compressed textures natively, as well as the stock game having been converted over to compressed textures, you shouldn't be using ATM any more.

The real issue is a Unity (the game engine) bug with DirectX 9 that keeps a copy of textures in system memory in addition to offloading them to the video card. The best workarounds we have today are to force OpenGL or DirectX 11 via the command line switches -force-opengl or -force-d3d11 (use one or the other, not both). They both have their drawbacks (for example no shadows in OpenGL, messed up fonts with DirectX 11) but they both work well at reducing the memory footprint to a reasonable level, even with a lot of mods installed. I recommend you try both and see which works best on your system.

64-bit KSP in theory can also work around the memory issue by allowing the software to address more than 4GB of RAM, but it is know to have other, serious issues and I would recommend avoiding it. This only applies to KSP running in Windows.

---

On the oscillation... If you have KJR installed and are still experiencing this, you need to redesign your vessel. You can't go from 1m to 2m to 3m parts and back again, with a huge thrust engine behind it all and expect the vessel to hold together. With a more reasonable design, and KJR installed, you will never see oscillation, even without any struts at all.

I understand some level of frustration, but you have to work within the limitations of the physics engine if you want to enjoy KSP.

Edited November 5, 2015 by MalevolentNinja

[Jimbodiah]

I'll try those and see if it helps on the 32-bit version.

The oscillating just happens on a stationary ship space, it will just sit there while I get closer to dock and suddenly it will start to move a tiny little bit and it will amplify until the entire thing goes wild and just comes apart. If I switch to another vessel or to the ground station then it will be gone, but if I stay there it will self destruct. I'll try to film it next time, looks really weird. Since 2-3 days now I have increased the time physics gets to calculate and have not seen the issue, but actually I do not build larger things because I now they will just blow up (had an entire Mun colony destroy itself for no reason andonly found out after a few saves; due to KSP crashes I am OCD with saving my builds/progress.

[MalevolentNinja]

Yep, you are describing the infamous krakken. It has bit us all - it's part of KSP In my experience it only seems to effect very large ships (in orbit). Bases, however, are especially prone to the krakken, and (again, in my experience) seems to be triggered when your base crosses over a tile that changes elevation slope. I have some successful large bases on the Mun and Eve that never jump but I was especially careful to build them all within the confines of a single, relatively flat tile.

My last suggestion is to avoid clipping parts. I believe this angers the krakken immensely and almost always triggers his (its?) appearance.

Edited November 5, 2015 by MalevolentNinja

[Boris-Barboris]

...I also increased the physics setting to 0.12 as my PC has no problems with lag, maybe that might help keeping things more stable.

Don't do that. 0.04, not more. And yeah, if you wanted smooth 400+ parts supercraft builder, you're out of luck. KSP is a victim of the engine the developers chose many years ago. We're just used to it, that's the only way for us.

[Jimbodiah]

Euhm, where do I set those command line switches? I made a batchfile with "ksp.exe -force-d3d11", or am I too old?

[edit] Yeah, the 32-bit version doesn't crash on loading now as it did before, only takes up around 2.2Gb now while it uses to run 4+ and crash at startup.

Don't do that. 0.04, not more.

Isn't more time better so the physics engine will no freak out? It seems to run smoother at higher setting for me, and I don't see any time difference (ie Kerbal second lasting longer than a real second).

Edited November 6, 2015 by Jimbodiah

[MalevolentNinja]

Euhm, where do I set those command line switches? I made a batchfile with "ksp.exe -force-d3d11", or am I too old?

[edit] Yeah, the 32-bit version doesn't crash on loading now as it did before, only takes up around 2.2Gb now while it uses to run 4+ and crash at startup.

Isn't more time better so the physics engine will no freak out? It seems to run smoother at higher setting for me, and I don't see any time difference (ie Kerbal second lasting longer than a real second).

The batch file works, or you can create a shortcut to the exe (right drag the exe to your desktop and you'll get a pop up menu when you let go) and specify the switch in the properties of the shortcut, in the Target field, after the double quote. For example:

"D:\Games\Kerbal Space Program\KSP.exe" -force-d3d11

You can check KSP.log to verify the switch is working. For example:

Kerbal Space Program - 1.0.4.861 (WindowsPlayer)
OS: Windows 8.1  (6.3.9600) 64bit
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5930K CPU @ 3.50GHz (12)
RAM: 16286
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (3072MB)
SM: 50 (Direct3D 11.0 [level 11.0])

[Jimbodiah]

Nice PC you have there

OS: Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (6.1.7601) 64bitCPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz (8)
RAM: 16327
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST (1989MB)
SM: 50 (Direct3D 11.0 [level 11.0])

Looks like it is.

Thanks for the tip. I'll see what happens and let you know.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Jimbodiah

[Boris-Barboris]

Isn't more time better so the physics engine will no freak out? It seems to run smoother at higher setting for me, and I don't see any time difference (ie Kerbal second lasting longer than a real second).

Of course it runs smoother, you're making your physics engine dumber with your own hands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiff_equation

[Jimbodiah]

If dumber means my ships do not oscillate into oblivion for no reason... well... dumb it down!

BTW: 32-bit still working fine after the force gpu line. Knock on wood.