RAM and how much one would need

[code99]

Hey,

Long story short, i bought a new gaming rig (finally) that has 8 GB DDR3 RAM installed (soon to be 16) and was wondering if thats enough for a heavy modded game?

Like, is there a general rule of thumb as to how many mods you can run KSP, or, if you have lots of ram you should be fine?

I have CKAN and after selecting the mods i'd like to have in my game i kinda realized i had quite a few, wondering if its a problem or not ...

Edited August 1, 2015 by code99

[cantab]

If you're running a 32-bit version of KSP it can only use 4 GB of memory, however much your system has. This imposes limits on modding - you will not be able to run multiple memory-hungry mods together unless you take steps to reduce memory usage.

If you're running a 64-bit version of KSP you won't have that problem. However only Linux has an official 64-bit version of KSP. For Windows there is an unofficial hack/patch that may or may not work well for you, and additionally many popular mods have been coded to not run on it because it's been so buggy. For OSX there is nothing, it's 32-bit only.

[code99]

Hmmm ... i guess I can try and see how it goes with the 64 bit on windows.

I am gonna be mad if its not gonna work because i really want these mods in there ...

I assume the x64 "hack/patch" is the one that you toggle in the launcher right?

EDIT: So, im finally downloading the mods via ckan ... i think i've selected too many (1.3 GB worth of them)

Edited August 1, 2015 by code99

[maceemiller]

Hmmm ... i guess I can try and see how it goes with the 64 bit on windows.

I am gonna be mad if its not gonna work because i really want these mods in there ...

I assume the x64 "hack/patch" is the one that you toggle in the launcher right?

EDIT: So, im finally downloading the mods via ckan ... i think i've selected too many (1.3 GB worth of them)

Im currently using the 64bit workaround KSP on windows and so far no crashes. Only a couple of small bugs which don't affect my gameplay at all. I have 8gb in my laptop and runs smooth as you like

[cantab]

Bear in mind that CKAN makes it easy to get carried away, and then if you have an issue you've no idea what mod is causing it. So advise more of a step-by-step approach, adding mods a few at a time.

[code99]

Bear in mind that CKAN makes it easy to get carried away, and then if you have an issue you've no idea what mod is causing it. So advise more of a step-by-step approach, adding mods a few at a time.

Yeah you're telling me, i started out with the idea to only check a few mods here and there and now look at me, 1.3 gigs ... Step by step (or manual) is how i used to do it in the past but now im just plain lazy and hope for the best heh

If i cant make it work, i will eventually take it manually and do it right.

[code99]

Oh well, apparently i got enough ram but my VRAM (GPU) isnt sufficient for all these mods lol ...

I got 4 GB of memory on my card but apparently not enough, it reaches 4GB and crashes

[sumghai]

Oh well, apparently i got enough ram but my VRAM (GPU) isnt sufficient for all these mods lol ...

I got 4 GB of memory on my card but apparently not enough, it reaches 4GB and crashes

KSP mainly uses RAM, not VRAM, so having a 4GB graphics card on a system with only 2~3 GB physical RAM is still insufficient.

Also, even if you have 4GB of physical RAM, in practice your OS will eat up at least 1.5~2GB of RAM, so having 8 or 16 GB of RAM means you'll be able to run a heavily-modded game while also leaving resources for other processes/programs.

[code99]

KSP mainly uses RAM, not VRAM, so having a 4GB graphics card on a system with only 2~3 GB physical RAM is still insufficient.

Also, even if you have 4GB of physical RAM, in practice your OS will eat up at least 1.5~2GB of RAM, so having 8 or 16 GB of RAM means you'll be able to run a heavily-modded game while also leaving resources for other processes/programs.

Well, I've got 8 GB of physical RAM and 4 GB of VRAM ...

The game reaches 4GB of ram usage (i thought before it was VRAM but it might be a phisical RAM) and crashes. Im running on x64 os and ksp ... my OS uses 1.2-2 GB of ram so i got 6 gigs available but the game crashes at 4 ... what gives?

Reason why i wasnt sure if it was VRAM or SDRAM was because i was using "Graphics Memory Module" mod and wasnt sure what it was showing when loading KSP ... i thought it was vram because it reached 4GB and just crashed so i assumed it was my gpu.

I managed to start the game by removing a bunch of mods, from 161 mods (yes, 161) down to 136 and i can reach the menu but the RAM usage is at 3.7-3.9 GB so just a little from 4GB and if it ends up loading something else it will crash again ...

It shouldnt crash at 4 GB, i've got 6GB free for the game to utilize ...

Edited August 2, 2015 by code99

[sumghai]

Okay, here's the thing:

Your OS may be 64-bit, but KSP is a 32-bit Unity game, which can only use up to 3.5GB of RAM before it crashes. Therefore, to minimize crashes, consider using less mods, or wait for the devs to optimize the game in future updates.

(Also, contrary to what certain users will tell you, do not use the KSP 64-bit hack for Windows - it is significantly unstable compared to the standard 32-bit game, and many modders including myself will not provide support to KSPwin64 users).

[code99]

Yeah so i was wrong, it was running at 32 bit as you pointed out (i ticked the box in the launcher for 64 but i didnt know it was disabled by squad?) and i didnt know about the community fix for this so ...

This sucks tbh ... I guess i have to disable tons of mods for this to work, really sucks.

Meh.

[JaredTheDragon]

Yeah so i was wrong, it was running at 32 bit as you pointed out (i ticked the box in the launcher for 64 but i didnt know it was disabled by squad?) and i didnt know about the community fix for this so ...

This sucks tbh ... I guess i have to disable tons of mods for this to work, really sucks.

Meh.

Since you appear to have a decent graphics card, you could try forcing KSP to run in DirectX-11. I've been doing this since .90, but in 1.04 it also works amazingly well and I'm able to pile on tons of mods before hitting the 3.7GB mark. You add this in by right-clicking your shortcut and selecting "Properties", then alter the target line:

To be clear, a 32-bit application has addressing for 2^32 bytes of memory, which is of course 4,294,967,296. That's why any 32-bit OS or program can only use 4GB of memory. So moving up to a 64-bit application gives it 2^64 addresses for memory, or 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 bytes. As you can see, it's a huge difference, and the chief reason for moving to 64-bit operating systems and applications. Most programs cap this for obvious reasons, and I believe Win7 Ultimate topped out at 256GB for example.

I'm running around 70 mods in 1.04, Win7 x64, and it rarely goes over 3.4GB of memory usage. The DirectX-11 mode is MUCH more efficient at purging memory and much more dynamic. Sure, the game still doesn't saturate the CPU or GPU properly, but those are limitations of Unity 4 and not KSP, as far as I know. For this reason, any decent gaming setup is overkill for KSP, since the game (for now) cannot utilize your resources fully, by a long shot.

[sumghai]

I would not recommend running the game on DX11, as the game is currently based on the Unity 4 engine, which doesn't fully support DX11 and will cause issues with certain shaders (i.e. some textures will turn black). Forcing OpenGL is an alternative that doesn't cause shader issues, but there will be a noticeable frame rate drop.

[cantab]

That's why any 32-bit OS or program can only use 4GB of memory.

True for processes but not true for operating systems, thanks to a technology called Physical Address Extension. I blame Microsoft for widely spreading the misconception that 64-bit was the only way past the 4 GB barrier for OSes. It's an issue largely in the past now though.