comprehensive RAM testing points to 2 mods w/ large RAM use increase from 0.90

[Drew Kerman]

The thread was originally looking to figure out why I had such a nasty increase in RAM usage from 0.90 with 1.0.4 under similar installation conditions. Better testing has gotten this straightened out.

Here's the comparison:

0.90 w/ATM Basic - GameData folder size 631MB (ATM folder removed for size check)

1.0.4 w/ATM Basic - GameData folder size 437MB (ATM folder removed for size check)

[TABLE=class: grid, width: 450, align: left]

[TR]

[TD][/TD]

[TD=align: center]KSP 0.90[/TD]

[TD=align: center]KSP 1.0.4[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Main Menu[/TD]

[TD=align: center]2.965GB VRAM[/TD]

[TD=align: center]3.286GB VRAM[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Space Center[/TD]

[TD=align: center]3.307GB VRAM[/TD]

[TD=align: center]3.602GB VRAM[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Flight Scene[/TD]

[TD=align: center]3.367GB VRAM[/TD]

[TD=align: center]3.936GB VRAM[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

The game crashes at just over 4GB VRAM as reported by Process Explorer. The game will also crash out of memory on load to the main menu if I don't use ATM. I haven't installed any mods in 1.0.4 that I don't also use in 0.90 except for RealHeat. Both installs are set up as similarly as possible - the only reason the 0.90 GameData is larger is because of the same part textures using larger file sizes.

This is rather disappointing :/

Edited August 13, 2015 by Gaiiden

[John FX]

Interesting. At least the game now does not crash at 3500MB and crashes instead at about 4000MB.

[Drew Kerman]

Interesting. At least the game now does not crash at 3500MB and crashes instead at about 4000MB.

no, it crashes around 3.5GB of "Working Set" RAM. I'm quoting "Virtual Size" RAM (as they are called by Process Explorer). VRAM has been a much more reliable indicator to me as to when the game is about to tank on the next scene switch

[ColKlonk]

I'm of the opinion that Squad cannot solve this problem cos they don't know how too.. without breaking it.

I suspect they're going full tilt for the 64 bit hoping this will get around the problem... but it won't.. and only will delay the impending fiasco..

By that time they will have moved on.. and say that you must buy a new KSP product... based on Win10..etc... but the problem won't go away...

Ultimately KSP will be dropped.

Edited August 11, 2015 by ColKlonk

[mythbusters844]

It's probably just some bloat from using 4k textures for icons or even more memory leaks in the game. It even might be a massively oversized sound clip in the game somewhere.

[Drew Kerman]

well I had to strip down to stock + a small set of mods to look into a separate issue and I'm no longer seeing an additional 300MB being allocated when the game loads into the flight scene, so yea it's def a mod or several. I'll get started with the bin sort to try and track it down...

[Drew Kerman]

Okay, first of all I realized my initial comparison test was not very well setup - I hadn't realized two mods I had installed in 1.0.4 were not being used in my 0.90 install (I had them moved out of GameData). Secondly, when I stripped to stock to test a separate issue I noticed my VRAM usage in the Flight Scene was actually less than in the Space Center and got a better appreciation for how much mods can allocate additional memory when loading into the Flight Scene. So I did some more comprehensive testing, starting with a bin sort of my entire GameData folder (minus Squad of course) to see if I could track down any large memory hogs. Along the way I recorded several instances of the Flight Scene loading with less VRAM than the Space Center even as I put more and more mods back into the GameData folder. Two stood out however: SCANsat and HullCameraVDS. Here are the full results from Excel:

As you can see, my 1.0.4 install now matches up properly with my 0.90 install for the Main Menu and Space Center (my 0.90 install has a larger GameData folder but I've confirmed that the additional size is from textures, in which case ATM would treat them in 0.90 similar to how they are loaded in 1.0.4 so the GameData folder size difference is not a factor).

My 1.0.4 install is loading up an extra 200MB VRAM more than my 0.90 install, and removing HullCameraVDS and SCANsat confirm that they can more than make up for this difference, although interestingly when they are both taken out at the same time the RAM savings isn't quite as great as indicated, yet still substantial.

Doing the same with my 0.90 install also provides some interesting results - most notably the fact that with both mods out of both installs, the VRAM usage in the Flight Scene is very close to identical, with 1.0.4 actually coming in slightly under 0.90.

My guesses are that for HullCameraVDS, the addition of the new camera filters and docking cam view are what bloated the mod in the Flight Scene. For SCANsat, DMagic came up with a way to have maps load faster, but I fear background loading of the maps is bumping up its RAM usage. I'll be addressing these issues in the appropriate threads. I know it doesn't seem like much, but 200MB of extra RAM is a couple of more scene changes before the game crashes.

Edited August 13, 2015 by Gaiiden

[Wolf Baginski]

While SCANsat is one of the Mods that gives a good science return without being crazy, I can certainly see the point of not using it. I may be setting up a separate install for sandbox-style ops, without the extra Science stuff, though it does seem to rather miss the point. Maybe somebody should set up a decoration-only science mod which just has a few colorful boxes to stick on your craft?

A quick check of the .cfg files shows that everything is done by the .dll, so just removing that folder would kill both the data collection and the part animations. I suppose the Module section would need deleting from the .cfg to stop any error messages. But that would give you a SCANsat lite as a placeholder, so that existing savefiles wouldn't be broken. The actual models and textures would still be there, referenced by the same internal name.

And now I am wondering where SCANsat stores its data. It must store the locations scanned somewhere, even if the actual map data is generated from existing in-game sources.

Yep, that data is in persistent.sfs

Edited August 18, 2015 by Wolf Baginski
An obvious answer found...

[Drew Kerman]

DMagic has put in effort to reduce SCANsat's memory footprint, with good results too. No word yet from AlbertVDS, prob taking a needed break after the large update

[Wolf Baginski]

I'm trying out my own Lite-version suggestion, since I'm currently running games that are maxed out on Science, as far as the Tech Tree is concerned.

It does reduce memory usage enough to be making a difference, and I haven't seen any warnings. Sentinel hasn't flashed me any red-level memory warnings today, even when I was testing a very complicated situation that has been giving somebody else problems. (It's still maybe too-complicated but not hitting RAM limits.)

It's improved, and I'd certainly use it were I starting a career or science game from scratch.