64 bit KSP.

[Alshain]

32 minutes ago, steve_v said:

Unless you want to play a game...

It still sits on the tray when you are playing the game.

Quote

So what? That's still resources used that have no bearing on the task at hand.

You realize that it doesn't affect your game at all though?  Your operating system is likely running more resources for unnecessary functions than Steam.

Quote

When Steam clearly states the DRM status of the products it sells and allows all DRM-free titles to run without Steam open, I may reconsider.
Aside, DRM of any kind is pretty much a guaranteed no-buy for me. If anything, it encourages piracy.

3rd party DRM is listed on the store page for the game (example) and games where the publisher decides to allow it can be run without Steam running... in fact there is this one game you may have heard of that does just that, it's called Kerbal Space Program.  However, it is the publisher's choice, not Valve's.

Quote

Login to download is fine. Login to use local content is not.

Again, publisher's choice.

Quote

Can I skip or roll-back updates too? Can I go back 3 revisions, or to the initial release? What if I want to patch a copy I have squirreled away somewhere else? Just give me the patches so I can do what I want with them.

If the publisher allows it yes.  Again, publishers choice.

Quote

Any advertising, and popup advertising in particular, is too much advertising. I already bought stuff from you, stop harassing me.

You bought stuff from me?  I don't think so.  Anyway, Steam has no advertising, except on the Store page, which isn't any different from other digital service.  You can configure the client to not start at the Store page too.  Mine starts at my game library, it doesn't even load the store page unless I click it.

Quote

I have a perfectly good storage array that could be classified as "all in one place". Why would I want to download things "again and again" anyway?
If I want to take a copy with me, I use a flash device... Oh, wait, I'd also need an internet connection for a pointless Steam login.

You don't need an internet connection once the game is downloaded.  Steam can operate offline, also it won't try to download updates in offline mode even if the computer is online.  As for downloading again and again, new computers, hard drive crashes, lack of disk space.  There are many reasons.

Quote

The brokenness of SQUADs updater is another matter, and entirely unrelated to Steam.
What's unfortunate is that many developers seem to see the existence of Steam as an excuse for not providing basic support services themselves.

It's a detractor to buying from the store.  It's completely related to the topic of why would you want to buy from Steam instead of the Store.

Edited April 22, 2017 by Alshain

[mikegarrison]

14 hours ago, LordFerret said:

Yes, it is. Steam needs to go away. Steam is way too intrusive into ones system, it has been for a long time. It was all thanks to Steam that tens of thousands of players of Half-Life and it's various mods, like DoD, found their games abruptly stop working one year (2004?) - Steam's enforcement of a specific DirectX version, whether or not your game/mod used it. People were forced to either buy a new computer or do without. Some like to call that progress. I'm sure other games were affected by this move of theirs as well. I'm sure somewhere in a buried PC Gamer magazine there's an article about the outrage and controversy over this as well.

I have a serious beef with Steam about this. Steam was one of the major factors of the MammJamma DoD Gaming Community dissolving (MammaJamma.org, I still hold the domain**). We had several game servers running, of which I owned one (OldSkool). I also had a serious vested interest in the forums, I owned its PsychoStats host. We were GeoRanked (globally) the #1 DoD Avalanche server for 4 years straight. Quite an accomplishment. It's a very bitter pill..... can you tell?

 

** For those of you who done the search on Google; No, I am not Bill McGill. Bill is however a friend of mine.

Yeah yeah yeah, but Steam is WAY more convenient for most people and most games that trying to maintain all that stuff yourself. I have actually bought old games from Steam that I have on disk in my house ... somewhere. But I would have to find the disks, and then load the games, and then find and load the patches, and then hope a game from 1995 will run on my 20 year newer Win10 machine. Versus paying $15 for the game again on Steam and having them do all that for me. That's totally worth the $15 to me.

46 minutes ago, steve_v said:

The brokenness of SQUADs updater is another matter, and entirely unrelated to Steam.
What's unfortunate is that many developers seem to see the existence of Steam as an excuse for not providing basic support services themselves.

I would prefer the good game developers to spend their time DEVELOPING GAMES, rather than spending it trying to do game distribution management.

Face it, Steam is the Amazon of gaming. They can manage the selling, DRM, patching, etc. better and cheaper than most game developers can, just like Amazon can sell your book for you cheaper than you could do it yourself. Unlike Amazon, Steam will even distribute free games. Amazon has a minimum price they will allow people to sell things for.

[LoSBoL]

15 hours ago, Archgeek said:

*Quietly runs the game on a win7 box with exactly 4 gigs*

Admittedly, I do have to close browsers and/or restart a rogue servicehost (300+ megs, really?) to stop my box going swap-crazy on me.

I always thought that there was an 3 GB memory adressing limit for 32 bit applications, so even with just having 4 GB memory it could benefit from running it in 64 bit mode (as long as you have a 64 bit windows version offcourse).

 

As for Steam, for me it's grown from a nuisance when I had to use it for Half Life 2 (almost 11 years ago) to a very mature platform it is today. I now solely use Steam to play any game I have, even if not bought through Steam, and that includes 3 instances of KSP.
The big game changer for me to run everything threw Steam is the 'inhouse streaming function', which makes it possible to fluently run the most demanding games on my inferior laptop(s) without battery drain, heat or noise. Combined with 'Wake on Lan' and 'Remote Desktop Protocol' turning my gaming PC on or off and playing is just one click away.

[Freshmeat]

To give a positive note to all this, thanks for reminding me. I finally added a shortcut to ksp64 on my task bar.

[kBob]

1 hour ago, Alshain said:

You don't need an internet connection once the game is downloaded.  Steam can operate offline, also it won't try to download updates in offline mode even if the computer is online.  As for downloading again and again, new computers, hard drive crashes, lack of disk space.  There are many reasons

A lot of people seem to not realize this.  I find it very handy when my internet goes out (I'll admit usually the power goes out too but sometimes it's just the internet)--though there are a couple of caveats.  Sometimes you have to try a couple of times before it will give up trying to log on and just launch the game (it's rare enough that I have no idea why this happens) after a period of a few weeks if you have DRM games it will want you to briefly connect, then you can go off-line again (this last part is annoying to people who have to haul their computer somewhere to get an internet connection).

 

As for 64 bit, I'm just thankful KSP has it, too many old games suffer because they were never converted and either slow down towards the end of the game or stop working under complex mods.  That said sometime you get surprised like the recent update to Sins Of A Solar Empire: Rebillion which while it's still a 32bit game they reworked it and made it more efficiant so it can make much better use of the 4GB limit (and they added a scalable UI so it works in 4K wow).  Now the big question is when will we get games that break the 64 bit address limit?  After all 2^64 only gives us 18446744073709551616 bytes to address.

[steve_v]

32 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

I always thought that there was an 3 GB memory adressing limit for 32 bit applications, so even with just having 4 GB memory it could benefit from running it in 64 bit mode (as long as you have a 64 bit windows version offcourse).

You are entirely correct. A 32bit OS (sans PAE) can see only 4GB - memory-mapped I/O etc, which works out to about 3.5GB. Most OSs also partition that space into e.g a 3GB/1GB application/kernel split, so apps on a 32bit OS get a 3GB address space.
The "large address aware" flag on windows can modify that split, but you're still bound by the 3.5GB limit.

 

32 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

The big game changer for me to run everything threw Steam is the 'inhouse streaming function', which makes it possible to fluently run the most demanding games on my inferior laptop(s) without battery drain, heat or noise. Combined with 'Wake on Lan' and 'Remote Desktop Protocol' turning my gaming PC on or off and playing is just one click away.

You can totally do that without Steam (at least on GNU/Linux). That's how I can play KSP on my 1GHz netbook, or at work (internet connection, workload, time-of-day and boss-proximity permitting OFC).

Edited April 22, 2017 by steve_v

[LoSBoL]

42 minutes ago, steve_v said:

You can totally do that without Steam (at least on GNU/Linux). That's how I can play KSP on my 1GHz netbook, or at work (internet connection, workload, time-of-day and boss-proximity permitting OFC).

Why am I not surprised?  
There are probably a few other ways to achieve this to, but for me, I'll stick with windows and the convience that it's implemented within Steam.

 

[The Aziz]

How the hell did this thread go from "why does one need KSP_x64" to "why is steam so bad"?

Guise.

[steve_v]

3 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

How the hell did this thread go from "why does one need KSP_x64" to "why is steam so bad"?

"Why 64bit" leads to "why-not 64bit" which leads to "it's a dumb steam default", which leads to "steam is dumb in general".
Elementary, my dear Watson.

[DoctorDavinci]

34 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

How the hell did this thread go from "why does one need KSP_x64" to "why is steam so bad"?

Guise.

Murphy's Oil Soap Law 

[Zeiss Ikon]

11 hours ago, Alshain said:

How is it more convenient?  I have both versions at my disposal with one download.  You have to download twice, and again for each update to do the same.

Unless, like this Linux player, you see no reason to even bother with the 32-bit version.

[steve_v]

9 minutes ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

Unless, like this Linux player, you see no reason to even bother with the 32-bit version.

Indeed, what's the point of downloading both?
Even on Windows, there's no point in downloading the 32bit version if you run a 64bit OS, it just makes for a bigger download.
Then again, if you run Steam, you probably don't get the choice.

Edited April 22, 2017 by steve_v

[Zeiss Ikon]

8 minutes ago, steve_v said:

Indeed, what's the point of downloading both?
Even on Windows, there's no point in downloading the 32bit version if you run a 64bit OS, it just makes for a bigger download.
Then again, if you run Steam, you probably don't get the choice.

As I understand it, there were serious bug issues with the 64-bit Windows version until 1.2.2 came out -- which might make Windows users a little wary of the 64-bit version.

[steve_v]

6 minutes ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

As I understand it, there were serious bug issues with the 64-bit Windows version until 1.2.2 came out

As I understand (and experienced) it, there were serious stability problems with 1.1.x x64 on any platform...
And prior to tthat there was no 64bit version for Windows that wasn't a grubby unofficial hack and chock full of bugs.

1.2.2 x64 is quite stable on all platforms, there's no reason for Steam to download both.

Edited April 22, 2017 by steve_v

[Zeiss Ikon]

20 minutes ago, steve_v said:

1.2.2 x64 is quite stable on all platforms, there's no reason for Steam to download both.

Worth noting that some Chromebooks are 32-bit hardware, even as recently as a couple years ago -- perfectly capable of running minimal KSP (most of those have 2 GB RAM and some are expandable to 4 GB), but 32-bit controller chipsets even if the CPU is 64-bit capable.

[steve_v]

12 minutes ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

Worth noting that some Chromebooks are 32-bit hardware, even as recently as a couple years ago -- perfectly capable of running minimal KSP (most of those have 2 GB RAM and some are expandable to 4 GB), but 32-bit controller chipsets even if the CPU is 64-bit capable.

Really? Even my 2010 atom netbook is 64bit. Hell, my router is 64bit. The mind boggles.
I'd still argue that 64bit should be the default, actual 32bit machines are an endangered species. If you have one, you're in the minority, and a separate download isn't a big deal anyway.

Add a few more parts to KSP and 32bit will be a non-starter anyway, it's getting close to the limits as it is. And if you want to run texture-heavy mods, it's dead and decomposing.

Edited April 22, 2017 by steve_v

[Archgeek]

9 hours ago, LoSBoL said:

I always thought that there was an 3 GB memory adressing limit for 32 bit applications, so even with just having 4 GB memory it could benefit from running it in 64 bit mode (as long as you have a 64 bit windows version offcourse).

Hehe, sort of.  More like 3.6 gigs or so, mostly due to the old AGP aperture (graphics card protocol from before PCIe) and some other IO stuff windows liked to map to high RAM.  Though the limit's more for a 32b OS -- a 32b application on a 64b OS can gleefully use all 4 gigs, as the MMIO stuff is way the heck up on $FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF and down a bit, instead of $FFFFFFFF down to nearly $8FFFFFFF.  Unless of course some reflection of the limitation has been written into the application itself for some reason instead of just letting the OS handle memory relocation like usual.  Not that any of that matters hugely for me, because while I may be quietly running the game on exactly 4 gigs, my win7 box is indeed 64b -- the mobo's just from nearly a decade ago and only supports 2 gig ram sticks, and 2 of the 4 slots do not work due to suspected cracked traces from a startling amount of flex the board underwent on its first mounting when the RAM sticks were pushed in.

In defense of not wanting to fire up steam for games, though, I will note that sometimes the steam webhelper process will get a pretty nasty memory leak, and it likes to run two of itself for some reason, so I've usually got steam not hanging out in the tray.   Not that that matters much for KSP, which I keep multiple folders for so as to have clean and modded versions running around.

[RocketBlam]

On 4/21/2017 at 8:41 AM, klesh said:

This is a good example of why the steam version should just launch into 64 bit.  

Or at least Steam should give you the option of remembering to launch in 64-bit without having to tell it every time.

[Kerbital]

On 4/21/2017 at 2:15 PM, LordFerret said:

Yes, it is. Steam needs to go away. Steam is way too intrusive into ones system, it has been for a long time. It was all thanks to Steam that tens of thousands of players of Half-Life and it's various mods, like DoD, found their games abruptly stop working one year (2004?) - Steam's enforcement of a specific DirectX version, whether or not your game/mod used it. People were forced to either buy a new computer or do without. Some like to call that progress. I'm sure other games were affected by this move of theirs as well. I'm sure somewhere in a buried PC Gamer magazine there's an article about the outrage and controversy over this as well.

I have a serious beef with Steam about this. Steam was one of the major factors of the MammJamma DoD Gaming Community dissolving (MammaJamma.org, I still hold the domain**). We had several game servers running, of which I owned one (OldSkool). I also had a serious vested interest in the forums, I owned its PsychoStats host. We were GeoRanked (globally) the #1 DoD Avalanche server for 4 years straight. Quite an accomplishment. It's a very bitter pill..... can you tell?

 

** For those of you who done the search on Google; No, I am not Bill McGill. Bill is however a friend of mine.

Did Steam kill your puppy or something? I've used Steam since Gabe run it from his garage and I never had any issues, or heard anyone having issues, with mods, etc. I never heard about anyone having to buy a new computer because Steam changed something. You have some serious rage issues if you can't forget something that happened over 10 years ago. Unless they did really kill your puppy. But even then, venting after 13 years, wow! Just wow!

What would you rather use? Origin, LOL:)

[LordFerret]

3 hours ago, Kerbital said:

Just wow!

I'm happy for you, I really am. You have no clue, and that's ok with me. Have a nice day.

[Red Iron Crown]

Lay off the Steam debate please, it's not what this thread is about.

[monstah]

Sadly I have exaclty 4GB RAM available, so 64bit really doesn't matter to me  

[thewayshemoves]

On 4/22/2017 at 2:05 AM, Alshain said:

In case you weren't aware, KSP has no DRM whatsoever, including the requirement that Steam be running that most Steam games have.  This means you can copy your game folder out of the Steam directories and it won't be affected by updates, and you can still play it and keep multiple copies of the game.

...I did not know this.  This is exactly what I need!  Glad I kept reading this.

[Overland]

KSP doesnt actually need steam once its installed

Trains eat up alot of resources with all the wheels and joints.. 

If im going for a serious drive or recording a video.. I run the KSP 64 exe directly from the game directory itself

With steam off i get more FPS and better video recording

KSP doesnt know any different

Its also how people can keep installs seperate happily

13 hours ago, monstah said:

Sadly I have exaclty 4GB RAM available, so 64bit really doesn't matter to me  

My last pc had 2gb, my current one 4gb

It would crash half way through loading with too many mods

Both pc ran fine and didnt crash in 64 bit KSP and windows 64 bit

 

[severedsolo]

On 25/04/2017 at 2:37 PM, monstah said:

Sadly I have exaclty 4GB RAM available, so 64bit really doesn't matter to me  

You are still better off running 64bit anyway. Assuming you use Windows, on a 32bit OS you would only have 3.75GB of that 4GB available, and KSP would only be able to use 2GB of that ram. Can't speak for other OS but I imagine it's a similar story.

Running a 64 bit OS, even the 32 bit version of KSP can address all 4 GB of ram. I would still run the x64 executable anyway, as when you hit that memory limit, it will just start paging (ie running slow) rather than crashing.