Start KSP 1.8.1 with alternative graphic settings for home & away

[archiebald]

Hi guys,

Sorry if this has been asked before,

Recently I've been playing KSP at home on a lightweight 13 inch notebook (Asus Zenbook 3 with Intel i7-856U) connected to an eGPU running an Nvidia GT1080 card then out to a 27 inch monitor.  With this setup I can enjoy very nice graphics at 60fps+ even with Scatterer, EVE and a bunch of other visual mods.

But, I would also like to play the same career occasionally while traveling using the notebook's integrated graphics and 13 inch screen.  I could go into settings and change everything, or I could copy and paste two versions of settings.cfg into the game directory but it would be a hassle to do this repeatedly.

So instead, to get reasonable UI sizing, smooth frame rates etc. I'd like to start the same career as a separate instance with a modified copy of the settings.cfg file and avoid loading some of the heavy graphic mods.  I know that Anyres can change the resolution easily but I also need to change anti-aliasing, detail level, shadows, reflections etc.

So the questions are;

1. Is there a command line option I can add to the shortcut to force the game to load in an alternate settings.cfg file?  I could then have a "Home" and an "Away" shortcut.

2. Is there a way to start the game with a different set of mods loaded?  I open via CKAN and it seems to have something called "Manage KSP Instances >> Clone or Fake KSP instance" but it is not clear how to set up or if this will do what I need.  I used to play Silent Hunter 3 with a startup mod similar to CKAN that would do this very thing.

Thanks in advance

 

[Harry Rhodan]

1. You could make two different settings.cfgs and then make two short scripts or batch files that either set a symbolic link to the cfg you want, rename the cfg or move the cfg before launching the game.

2. Don't know about CKAN but you could basically do the same as in 1.: make two different GameData folders and then use a script to add a symbolic link to the one you want to use before launching the game.

[Cavscout74]

Alternately, if you have the space you could just have 2 separate KSP installs - one with graphics mods & high settings, the other without the graphics mods & low game settings.  Just copy your save back and forth as needed.  As long as just the graphics mods changed, there shouldn't be a problem.  It also gives you a completely separate backup save in case of a catastrophic bug in one of the installs.

[archiebald]

7 hours ago, Harry Rhodan said:

1. You could make two different settings.cfgs and then make two short scripts or batch files that either set a symbolic link to the cfg you want, rename the cfg or move the cfg before launching the game.

2. Don't know about CKAN but you could basically do the same as in 1.: make two different GameData folders and then use a script to add a symbolic link to the one you want to use before launching the game.

Thanks Harry, I was hoping for a simpler solution (not being a great coder) but your point number 1 seems to be the way to go.

For your No.2 solution, I will just keep the mods  related to ship parts and functionality in a second folder but not include any visual enhancements.

If you have any suggestions on how to best create the scripts I'd appreciate it.  I am just a tinkerer when it comes to programming.

3 hours ago, Cavscout74 said:

Alternately, if you have the space you could just have 2 separate KSP installs - one with graphics mods & high settings, the other without the graphics mods & low game settings.  Just copy your save back and forth as needed.  As long as just the graphics mods changed, there shouldn't be a problem.  It also gives you a completely separate backup save in case of a catastrophic bug in one of the installs.

Cavscout, thanks for the suggestion, it makes me wonder if there is some type of folder synchronize software usable within Windows 10 (similar to what I have to sync files on mySynology server)

Cheers guys, it has given me something to research, if I get a result I will post it.

[archiebald]

Just to update,

It is not my preferred solution, but for the sake of simplicity I have decided to go with two installations of KSP in separate game folders. 

1. My original "Home" version has hi-res graphics and anti-aliasing settings and my full set of mods and is set for my 27 inch monitor
2. My new "Away" install is set up to lower resolution, easier graphic settings and the same mods, but minus the heavy visual ones such as Scatterer.

For my mods, I can manage and start either of the two instances from CKAN.

For my Career saves, I have found and installed a free, folder synchronizing app that keeps my two "saves", "Ships" and "Screenshots" folders fully synchronized in real-time. It can even be set up to make backups of my saves to a completely separate folder or my home network.

https://freefilesync.org/

Looks like a very useful utility that I may use for other purposes too.  Might even make a donation!

Again, thanks for your input.

[Harry Rhodan]

7 hours ago, archiebald said:

If you have any suggestions on how to best create the scripts I'd appreciate it.  I am just a tinkerer when it comes to programming.

Well I'm not using Windows but from five minutes of Google i would try to use something simple like this

@ECHO OFF

mklink "\full\path\to\KSP\settings.cfg" "\full\path\to\modified1.cfg"
start "\full\path\to\KSP.exe"

https://docs.microsoft.com/de-de/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/mklink (or https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2016/12/02/symlinks-windows-10/ )

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Windows_Batch_Scripting#START

[Superfluous J]

I'd make 2 files, settings.small and settings.large (or whatever you want to name them). Then write 2 batch files:

d:
cd \path\to\ksp\
del settings.old
ren settings.cfg settings.old
copy settings.large settings.cfg
start /wait ksp.exe -whateverswitchesyounormallyuseifany

I'm not 100% sure the start /wait is necessary but I used it in my own batch file because it's part of a larger setup I have to launch games using batch files.

In case it's not obvious, this is large.bat and you'd need to edit the first, second, and final lines for your own purposes. Small.bat would look the same except line 6.

Then put both of those batch files somewhere (you can even just put them in your KSP folder) and open that folder in Windows Explorer. Right-click-drag them one by one to the deskop and instead of copying them, use "create a shortcut". Now, you can run the appropriate shortcut to launch KSP in your preferred mode.

And as to the renaming to settings.old, that's just so you always have a backup of whatever the last settings file was, in case you made some keybinding changes and forgot to copy them to your settings.large or settings.small file before restarting the game. Not that I've ever done that or anything

Edited January 7, 2020 by 5thHorseman

[archiebald]

Thank you both, very much appreciated