Guidance improving the visuals of KSP

[indigo_dc]

Until recently, my laptop (an alienware) was so, so bad it could barely run the game on the minimum settings in a 1024x window. Now I have a new laptop I want to see just how good the game can look!

I've been trying to use the latest release of CKAN to integrate all my mods - the game simply refuses to even load and crashes without errors.

So I am reverting to doing things manually and would like to know the best way to install various graphics mods that is known to work on 1.0.4

I have tried installing the following all together using CKAN plus any mandatory ones it recommended on top.

• Active Texture Management
  
• Astronomers Visual Pack - all options, 4k textures where I have that option
  
• Planetshine
  
• Smokescreen
  
• Distant Object Enhancement
  
• Environment Visual Enhancement
  

Even installing "only" these makes the game crash on startup

Is there a guide somewhere which shows what I can achieve and what order I should installl the improved graphics mods? Once I get the graphics stuff sorted I was then planning on installing things like remote tech, life support and so on.

I tried looking for a sticky but can't see anything.

[hab136]

Order doesn't matter, but there's a memory limit around 3 GB because KSP is 32-bit on Windows and Mac. You're probably just hitting that memory limit. See this post on how to check the logs.

KSP is 64-bit on Linux, so if you dual-boot to Linux, you can run as many mods as you have RAM for.

Part packs (KW, B9, LLL, etc) and graphics textures (Astronomers Visual Pack, Environment Visual Enhancement) use up the most memory.

The conversion to Unity 5 (currently under way) may or may not offer a 64-bit KSP for Windows. There's no ETA.