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KSP Loading... A closer look into Update 1.6


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10 hours ago, MikeO89 said:

Updated to 1.6 from 1.5.1 with all my mods and it was a pretty smooth transition. Some mods have to be updated to stop the beginning errors but that's to be expected. I have to say, in a pretty short time I could see/feel the game runs quite a bit smoother with 1.6 than it did with 1.5.1. 1.5.1 was the worst performing version of all I had used to that point.  1.6 is much better. Squad did something under the hood that my system likes a lot better.

From the looks of it, there's been some extensive fixes to some memory issues 

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After further playing of 1.6, while it runs smoother than 1.5.1, the load times (as in 1.5.1) are still quite horrendous. I have quite a few mods but still the same number as I did in 1.4.3. After playing 1.5.1 and 1.6, going back to 1.4.3 feels like lightning faster (just because the load times are so much faster). Load times are 2 to 3 times slower than in 1.4.3.

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47 minutes ago, MikeO89 said:

After further playing of 1.6, while it runs smoother than 1.5.1, the load times (as in 1.5.1) are still quite horrendous. I have quite a few mods but still the same number as I did in 1.4.3. After playing 1.5.1 and 1.6, going back to 1.4.3 feels like lightning faster (just because the load times are so much faster). Load times are 2 to 3 times slower than in 1.4.3.

That's most likely the mods being not completely compatible with 1.6. Without mods mine launches very quickly. Do you have KSP installed on an SSD? Because that might help.

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2 hours ago, MikeO89 said:

After further playing of 1.6, while it runs smoother than 1.5.1, the load times (as in 1.5.1) are still quite horrendous. I have quite a few mods but still the same number as I did in 1.4.3. After playing 1.5.1 and 1.6, going back to 1.4.3 feels like lightning faster (just because the load times are so much faster). Load times are 2 to 3 times slower than in 1.4.3.

Two things to remember when comparing load times.

1. Load stock or with identical setups.

2. Load twice since both your OS and the game caches data between loads.

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On 12/27/2018 at 1:52 PM, Castille7 said:

If KSP gets any better I will have to quit my day job! :D

Been there ages ago :D - This game is so addictive, i can only fight it with learning to code and playing Elite: Dangerous... which both do require the same obvious thing X.x

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4 hours ago, Frank_G said:

Been there ages ago :D - This game is so addictive, i can only fight it with learning to code and playing Elite: Dangerous... which both do require the same obvious thing X.x

Started in early 2014 or late 2013 and I can count on one hand the days I didn't Boot Up my laptop and KSP. When I first began I literally lost sleep over it!

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3 hours ago, steve_v said:

GNU/Linux joystick support remains MIA.
DLC remains unpurchased.

The wait for a non-broken KSP release continues.

Just because joysticks on Linux don’t work doesn’t mean the game is ‘broken’. I don’t know anything about the internals of KSP, but this issue could be something tiny and hard to find or fix.

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7 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Just because joysticks on Linux don’t work doesn’t mean the game is ‘broken’.

It worked, then an "update" was released and it didn't. Broken.

7 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

I don’t know anything about the internals of KSP, but this issue could be something tiny and hard to find or fix.

The issue is obvious (the garbage game engine's "new" input stack) and free code exists that fixes it.
Squad isn't interested in doing anything about it and has left it unfixed for 8 patches, so I'm not interested in purchasing the existing DLC or any future products.

Wake me up when this company is actually supporting the "supported" platforms, and I'll consider supporting them.

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29 minutes ago, steve_v said:

The issue is obvious (the garbage game engine's "new" input stack) and free code exists that fixes it.

It's not fixed. It's workarounded . It's a completely new stack, running in parallel with the mentioned garbage engine.

Other than that, I agree with your opinion. Squad is, indeed, responsible for this problem.

On the other hand, I don't know all the variables on the table. I already saw software licenses that plain forbid linking to anything else, by example. You must do exactly what they say to you, or you loose support or worse.

OK. Still Squad responsibility. But I'm a bit less harsh about this. (I'm not making any judge about your opinions, I just saying that I agree with you but on a lesser hard way).

8 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Just because joysticks on Linux don’t work doesn’t mean the game is ‘broken’. I don’t know anything about the internals of KSP, but this issue could be something tiny and hard to find or fix.

Joysticks work on Linux. 

On 12/27/2018 at 8:52 AM, T1mo98 said:

That's most likely the mods being not completely compatible with 1.6. Without mods mine launches very quickly. 

I'm on a MacPotato. And I'm restarting KSP 1.6 a lot.

The thing is slightly faster than 1.5 on loading when MM using the cache,  but not so fast when rebuilding the databases from scratch. The memory footprint is also better (finally!).

Of course, there're some glitches but until the moment, no showstoppers. 

It's not impossible that I would go back to 1.4.5 (or 1.4.3), but until the moment it's worthing the effort. And that said by a grumpy old fart that ditched 1.5.1 in 45 minutes of playing, it's something. 

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2 hours ago, Lisias said:

It's not fixed. It's workarounded . It's a completely new stack, running in parallel with the mentioned garbage engine.

I am aware of this. It does however solve the problem.
Receiving events from a generic joystick with SDL on GNU/Linux is not difficult.
Doing it well, as AFBW does, might be slightly more involved.
Not doing it at all, which appears to be all Squad is capable of achieving,  is an utterly pathetic effort.

 

2 hours ago, Lisias said:

Joysticks work on Linux.

Indeed they do, in every application that uses an appropriate API in an appropriate way.
Just not KSP >1.3.1, because Unity, and by extension Squad, seem unable to figure out how to do it.


I will take an official workaround, so long as it works. I'll even be happy about it.
I will not be happy with Squad leaving important functionality broken or missing because they are unwilling to deal with the consequences of their poor choice of game engine or game engine release.

 

Apologies @Lisias if this reads like a rant at you, I agree with all of your post. Except perhaps the harsh part.


See, I'm just getting really liquided off with the always-broken-somehow game engine, and the repeated low-quality, rush-job, oops-we-missed-that-massive-bug, needs-3-hotfixes releases.

I backed this game in alpha, expecting it to one day become a complete finished game free of major bugs and regressions.
Six years later, I'm still waiting. Six years later every single release is shipping with new bugs and regressions.
Six years later KSP is still slave to the vagaries of a third-party perpetual-beta garbage fire of a game engine, and Squad is still not owning their product.

This is a straightforward problem to solve. Working example code is available. Why am I still hearing "Waiting for Unity..."? Is this a game or a Unity demo?

This is why I will not be backing alpha games again. This is why I will never buy another title built on Unity3D.

 

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3 hours ago, Lisias said:

It's not fixed. It's workarounded . It's a completely new stack, running in parallel with the mentioned garbage engine.

Other than that, I agree with your opinion. Squad is, indeed, responsible for this problem.

On the other hand, I don't know all the variables on the table. I already saw software licenses that plain forbid linking to anything else, by example. You must do exactly what they say to you, or you loose support or worse.

OK. Still Squad responsibility. But I'm a bit less harsh about this. (I'm not making any judge about your opinions, I just saying that I agree with you but on a lesser hard way).

Joysticks work on Linux. 

I'm on a MacPotato. And I'm restarting KSP 1.6 a lot.

The thing is slightly faster than 1.5 on loading when MM using the cache,  but not so fast when rebuilding the databases from scratch. The memory footprint is also better (finally!).

Of course, there're some glitches but until the moment, no showstoppers. 

It's not impossible that I would go back to 1.4.5 (or 1.4.3), but until the moment it's worthing the effort. And that said by a grumpy old fart that ditched 1.5.1 in 45 minutes of playing, it's something. 

Then the issue is probably the Mac, since KSP isn't really built for it, and MacOS is pretty bad for games when compared to Windows.

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49 minutes ago, T1mo98 said:

Then the issue is probably the Mac, since KSP isn't really built for it

KSP advertises MacOS as being a supported platform, and the MacOS version is the same price as the Windows one.
Therefore I would expect KSP to work just as well on MacOS as it does on Windows, after accounting for hardware differences, and if not I would expect a refund.

Edited by steve_v
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4 hours ago, T1mo98 said:

Then the issue is probably the Mac, since KSP isn't really built for it, and MacOS is pretty bad for games when compared to Windows.

 

3 hours ago, steve_v said:

KSP advertises MacOS as being a supported platform, and the MacOS version is the same price as the Windows one.
Therefore I would expect KSP to work just as well on MacOS as it does on Windows, after accounting for hardware differences, and if not I would expect a refund.

Lines got crossed :)

The MacOS version is better than the Windows version - at least, until the 1.4.5 that was the last I cared to test in both systems.

More stable, slightly faster (when the GPU is not directly involved - MacMinis have a crappy GPU).

The only real drawback is the lack of proper Joystick Support, but that I put on Apple's shoulders that actively boycotts gaming on the Macs.

Currently, things are so stable on MacOS that I didn't bored (yet) to fix my Windows gig' GPU that got a cooler busted. :D What I need to do soon, as I have to test my add'ons on Windows too - just in case.

 

4 hours ago, steve_v said:

Apologies @Lisias if this reads like a rant at you, I agree with all of your post. Except perhaps the harsh part.

Language Barrier is a beach. :D 

What I'm trying to say is that I agree with your points, you are pretty right. I have some other opinions that make my posture on the problem a little less… like yours. Please don't apology, you have the right and the reasons for taking your stands (if they are "harsher" than mine or not, it's irrelevant). I'm just trying to explain some if the reasons that, besides agreeing with yours, I choose to take it differently (without any kind of prejudice to the way you choose, as it is perfectly valid too!).

Being harsh is not necessarily a bad thing. Life is harsh - and I'm pretty happy to be alive. ;) 

 

4 hours ago, steve_v said:

This is a straightforward problem to solve. Working example code is available. Why am I still hearing "Waiting for Unity..."? Is this a game or a Unity demo?

Yep. I agree completely - that should not be happening anymore. That's the reason I'm guessing there're something else on the matter that I don't understand, and so, I prefer (and it's only a preference) to try to look on the other side of the coin. And it's perfectly possible that if I manage to do so, I would become even "harsher" (please note the quotes) than you (and people that worked with me knows how really harsh I can be on some issues).

4 hours ago, steve_v said:

This is why I will not be backing alpha games again. This is why I will never buy another title built on Unity3D.

Neither do I. I'm researching the game's engine before buying. I will never, directly or indirectly, endorse such engine again.

And it's not about C# (that really doesn't cut it, but can be useful nevertheless). It's about the terrible job Unity Technologies is doing on supporting their customers. This crap must go down.

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18 hours ago, steve_v said:

KSP advertises MacOS as being a supported platform, and the MacOS version is the same price as the Windows one.
Therefore I would expect KSP to work just as well on MacOS as it does on Windows, after accounting for hardware differences, and if not I would expect a refund.

On Steam you can always ask a refund if you haven't played more than 2 hours. In that time you should be able pick up any performance issues the game may have on your platform.

Also, just because MacOS is supported, doesn't mean it's equally as supported as the Windows version. These are all things that should be pretty obvious to a Mac owner or someone who's interested in tech, Macs just are worse at games in general than Windows. That's why you'll almost never see a hardcore Mac gaming rig.

Btw, if you have any knowledge of software development, you'll know that new bugs pop up all the time, you can fix 1 thing and 3 other things break. I have a job in testing software, and each new release fixes things and breaks even more things. With a game that has so many complex mechanics, it's not easy, I'd say almost impossible, to completely crush every bug whilst not creating new ones. They're still a semi-indie developer, with nowhere near the resources of something like DICE, Blizzard or EPIC. 
Also keep in mind that if they were to switch game engines, they would essentialy have to rewrite the entire game or huge parts of it. The decision to use Unity was a very sensible one when the game was first developed, and there might just not be the resources they need to completely fix it.

It's very easy to criticize them for the decisions they made, but it isn't easy to actually make those decisions.

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i've noticed a bug in 1.6 just like 1.4 when you make station/structure in any planets or moons, when you close the game and run again and put your control/fly to the station you created, the station structure suddenly fly up into above/air, how can you fix this? not like in 1.5 ver.

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4 hours ago, edzsystem said:

i've noticed a bug in 1.6 just like 1.4 when you make station/structure in any planets or moons, when you close the game and run again and put your control/fly to the station you created, the station structure suddenly fly up into above/air, how can you fix this? not like in 1.5 ver.

https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/169206-131-15x-worldstabilizer-bugfix-for-vessels-bouncing-on-scene-load/

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16 hours ago, T1mo98 said:

Macs just are worse at games in general than Windows. That's why you'll almost never see a hardcore Mac gaming rig.

The hardware configurations of Apple machines are often not geared towards gaming, true. This is why I mentioned hardware differences.
The MacOS operating system however, is quite capable of running a game just as well as Windows, provided sufficient resources are committed to porting it.

The only reason there is a MacOS or GNU/Linux port of KSP at all is that Unity makes building one really easy.
The level of resource committed to these ports is illuminated by the current "we're not going to fix this nasty Linux only bug we introduced" scenario.
 

16 hours ago, T1mo98 said:

Btw, if you have any knowledge of software development, you'll know that new bugs pop up all the time, you can fix 1 thing and 3 other things break.

If for every bug you fix you create 3 more, you need to take a serious look at your code quality.
 

16 hours ago, T1mo98 said:

With a game that has so many complex mechanics, it's not easy, I'd say almost impossible, to completely crush every bug whilst not creating new ones.

Perhaps.
But the regression I was talking about is not the result of fixing something else, it's the result of a conscious decision to use a broken game engine release, then blame upstream rather than sorting out the problem.
It's the result of a conscious decision to ignore solutions presented to you, on the rationale that (if you translate the weasel-speak in the bug report) It's too much work, and it'd be better to just wait for someone else to fix it.

ed. This:

9 hours ago, edzsystem said:

i've noticed a bug in 1.6 just like 1.4 when you make station/structure in any planets or moons, when you close the game and run again and put your control/fly to the station you created, the station structure suddenly fly up into above/air, how can you fix this? not like in 1.5 ver.

Is an example of bug whack-a-mole on complex fragile systems. That this bug has recurred again speaks volumes about KSPs code quality.
Porting to a game engine with broken input handling is not, and it speaks volumes about Squads decision quality.

 

16 hours ago, T1mo98 said:

It's very easy to criticize them for the decisions they made, but it isn't easy to actually make those decisions.

The "Don't switch to Unity 2017 until we have a solution for the utterly broken input stack" decision seems like a fairly straightforward one to me.

Edited by steve_v
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