Do you think Kerbal Will be available for

[DarkDante1]

Hello Guys, I’m new on the forum, and I have been in love with this Game since was released. You know is simply amazing. All you know that.

 

and I know probably I’m asking the same stupid thing, but guys! This is a great Game, and I do not have an Xbox One, or a PS4, nor a PC. All that I Have is a: Nintendo Switch.

so here we go again (I think):

(I know all the technical Stuff and how difficult is to port it, I Know is a Heavy Software)

but, Do you think there will be a Chance to Have KSP on the Switch?

and if an admin is reading or someone of the staff, you know, you will have my Money ready for KSP on the Switch and you know very well that will not be only my Money. 

[Geonovast]

Given the debacle that the Xbox One/PS4 ports have been, I wouldn't be too hopeful.

Also it appears the switch has severely weaker hardware than the other two.  KSP likes clock cycles, and according to this, the switch doesn't even have a full ghz.

Your best bet would probably be to pick up a halfway decent refurbished PC from NewEgg or similar and forget the console version altogether.

 

Welcome though!

Edited January 22, 2018 by Geonovast

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Welcome to the forums!

Yeah...the Switch just doesn't have the hardware to run KSP in a reasonable fashion I'm afraid.

Very poor clock speed, and only 4Gb of shared RAM.

Edited January 22, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[ZooNamedGames]

54 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

the switch doesn't even have a full ghz.

39 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

only 4Gb of shared RAM.

Coming from a player who used to play on a very weak end computer (1.2Ghz AMD E-4000 iirc, a tablet APU processor (the mutant fusion of a CPU and a GPU) in a desktop with 4GBs of RAM) and the game was playable. For some it would've been gut wrenching but it did actually play and for 3 years or so it got me immersed into the world of KSP until I got my slightly more powerful computer with 1.5Ghz. So the Switch would be capable of running it in a low settings mode in my mind. The fps would be rather poor but it does open the option to players who don't have a computer, PS4 or Xb1.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

6 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Coming from a player who used to play on a very weak end computer (1.2Ghz AMD E-4000 iirc, a tablet APU processor (the mutant fusion of a CPU and a GPU) in a desktop with 4GBs of RAM) and the game was playable. For some it would've been gut wrenching but it did actually play and for 3 years or so it got me immersed into the world of KSP until I got my slightly more powerful computer with 1.5Ghz. So the Switch would be capable of running it in a low settings mode in my mind. The fps would be rather poor but it does open the option to players who don't have a computer, PS4 or Xb1.

These are all fine points, and I used to play on bare minimum specs at abysmal frame rates myself. However, we chose to put that on ourselves.

You can't sell a product like that to the general public. There is a certain expectation of quality, especially if you want to get that shiny "Nintendo seal of approval."

You could certainly make the argument that "anything is better than nothing" but I don't think T2 or Squad wants to stake their reputation on that logic.

[SnailsAttack]

How would they even fit all those controls into the damn thing? Seems like an awful difficult challenge all on its own.

[ZooNamedGames]

1 hour ago, SnailsAttack said:

How would they even fit all those controls into the damn thing? Seems like an awful difficult challenge all on its own.

I was able to play KSP on a SNES controller. I think they could find a way.

[DAL59]

What about a Wii(not Wii U) port?  You could point the joystick at the screen to use as a cursor, rather than the difficult "cursor" used by the Xbox.  Wii controllers are also very tilt sensitive.  Wii seems like the best port for ksp.    

[Geonovast]

9 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

What about a Wii(not Wii U) port?  You could point the joystick at the screen to use as a cursor, rather than the difficult "cursor" used by the Xbox.  Wii controllers are also very tilt sensitive.  Wii seems like the best port for ksp.    

Because 729 Mhz processor and 88 MB of RAM.

Also it's a deprecated system.  When was the last time a Wii game was released?

[Capt. Hunt]

AFIAK, Wii would suffer even worse then the Switch.  Nintendo put all their effort into the wiimote control system, as a console, the Wii is far too weak.

[Ruedii]

5 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Coming from a player who used to play on a very weak end computer (1.2Ghz AMD E-4000 iirc, a tablet APU processor (the mutant fusion of a CPU and a GPU) in a desktop with 4GBs of RAM) and the game was playable. For some it would've been gut wrenching but it did actually play and for 3 years or so it got me immersed into the world of KSP until I got my slightly more powerful computer with 1.5Ghz. So the Switch would be capable of running it in a low settings mode in my mind. The fps would be rather poor but it does open the option to players who don't have a computer, PS4 or Xb1.

Yes, they would have to cap at 30fps, and likely be a part cap per vessel.  Texture quality might not be too much of an issue considering the fact that there are 4GB of RAM, and it should be able to run with GL-ES 3.x and ASTC texture compression.  This means far lower texture overhead than D3D.

Direct CPU access to the texture memory also reduces texture memory usage further.

The use of flash memory for storage should reduce problems with processor time in ground quad loading ground height-map through the use of precomputed cache.  This comes into a bigger advantage if sparse texture support is added.

It is notable that the processor on the switch gets more instructions per cycle than your average PC processor.  I am not sure if this is usable, though, considering the limitations of the Unity engine.

Edited January 22, 2018 by Ruedii
more details.

[eddiew]

30 minutes ago, Ruedii said:

Yes, they would have to cap at 30fps, and likely be a part cap per vessel. 

I find it hard to do anything with less than 100 parts. I doubt 30 fps would be a cap, more a wistful dream...

And if the Switch processor is not a standard x86 compatible architecture, then it really is asking the impossible to have a port unless Unity already exists for it. That would be far beyond the scope of the KSP devs. XBone and PS4 are both customised PCs in fancy cases, which has made porting to/from them an absolute breeze compared to previous generations.

[DAL59]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

Also it's a deprecated system.  When was the last time a Wii game was released?

2017.  Its still actively updated.  

[Geonovast]

6 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

2017.  Its still actively updated.  

Interesting.

Unfortunately the hardware is still way, way too underpowered for KSP.  Even if it wasn't, I don't think a port would ever be in the works, despite the interface being an advantage.

[DarkDante1]

Yup, o think switch is probably not enough for the Game, but come on, i would buy it even it it have Low FPS, or Low Textures, all that I want is to launch Spacecrafts, I think is Possible, not the best quality but it would Work I think, actually I used to play when the game was released on a Dual core CPU and a 512 MB video Card. 

[Geonovast]

22 hours ago, DarkDante1 said:

Yup, o think switch is probably not enough for the Game, but come on, i would buy it even it it have Low FPS, or Low Textures, all that I want is to launch Spacecrafts, I think is Possible, not the best quality but it would Work I think, actually I used to play when the game was released on a Dual core CPU and a 512 MB video Card. 

Unfortunately I doubt there's enough of you to warrant the port, especially when it would likely barely work anyway - if at all.

 

[Rolex]

I dont think so. Hopefully no-one asks for mobile. Ha....

[Geonovast]

49 minutes ago, Rolex said:

I dont think so. Hopefully no-one asks for mobile. Ha....

There's been at least one thread about that.  I do remember one person saying they actually played it on a Windows Phone.  Not well, but it apparently worked.

[DarkDante1]

Yes, i think it could Work, how i said it doesn’t matter if works with low FPS or low textures or low everything. What matrers is the game. Im not buying a pc nor ps4 to play it. 

[Rocket In My Pocket]

12 hours ago, DarkDante1 said:

Yes, i think it could Work, how i said it doesn’t matter if works with low FPS or low textures or low everything. What matrers is the game. Im not buying a pc nor ps4 to play it. 

Look, we all sympathize with you that you just want to play the game. I hope you get the chance someday!

It's not just about whether it'd be borderline possible though, you'd be spending a lot of money and doing a lot of work to make a very underpowered and lack luster representation of the game.

Playable part count would likely be so low, that it'd be almost like a different game entirely. Controls are also a huge issue as the other console releases are already having complaints with theirs and they have more buttons available to them. You'd literally be trying to squeeze 10 pounds of "you-know-what" into a 5 pound bag.

Edited January 24, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Geonovast]

14 hours ago, DarkDante1 said:

Yes, i think it could Work, how i said it doesn’t matter if works with low FPS or low textures or low everything. What matrers is the game. Im not buying a pc nor ps4 to play it. 

Unfortunately it really doesn't matter how much of a toned-down game you're willing to play.

What matters is how many of you there are.

I have absolutely no information on how much it costs to commission a port of this game, but I'm betting it's a wee bit more than 40 bucks.  My guess would be that number has, at minimum, 5 digits.

I understand you're set on playing it on the Switch.  But understand that Squad isn't going to intentionally lose money to cater to a very small amount of people in an already niche demographic on a project that's likely to be more problems than not, if it works at all... especially after the troubles they're having with the beefier consoles.

If you want to play this game, you're simply going to have to get different hardware.

 

[Rolex]

On ‎24‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 7:52 AM, Geonovast said:

There's been at least one thread about that.  I do remember one person saying they actually played it on a Windows Phone.  Not well, but it apparently worked.

Oh ok. I meant Apple products like iPhone and iPad.

[Ruedii]

On 1/22/2018 at 4:23 PM, eddiew said:

I find it hard to do anything with less than 100 parts. I doubt 30 fps would be a cap, more a wistful dream...

And if the Switch processor is not a standard x86 compatible architecture, then it really is asking the impossible to have a port unless Unity already exists for it. That would be far beyond the scope of the KSP devs. XBone and PS4 are both customised PCs in fancy cases, which has made porting to/from them an absolute breeze compared to previous generations.

Unity already exists for the Switch.

As of the part cap, it's more likely to be around 256, 512, or 1024, not 100.   If you are having trouble building things under 100 parts you really need to rethink your designs. 

I can get a basic satellite into orbit with 10 parts, including the satellite itself and the fairing.   (Satalite is 6 parts, decoupler is one, fairing is one, fuel tank is one and lifter engine is one.)  

As of the myth that the X-Box and PS4 contain "PC Hardware."  The X-Box One and PS4 are not what could be described as standard PC hardware.  They are X86-64 embedded hardware.   Their hardware does not have a PC Standard OS or BIOS, and they have limited subset rendering libraries.  Porting a game to them is not simply copying it over to the disk and reducing the rendering quality.

They also do not have many of the standard hardware and firmware functionality elements that a standard PC has.   (X-Box One being a variant of Windows Mobile with a limited subset of Direct3D 12, removing most legacy extensions and the PS4 being a variant of FreeBSD with a subset of OpenGL, with many extensions removed, and others mandating to be thread-safe when the GL standard says otherwise.   Unity does not support Windows Mobile or FreeBSD.)  Neither of them have the standard APIC subsystem or ACPI firmware setup required for any modern PC OS.  They also lack any form of BIOS, instead relying on a thin boot-loader closer to what is found in your smart phone. 

Additionally, it is worth noting that Kerbal Space Program is not written in system specific code.   That is the whole point of using a platform such as Unity.

 

Edited February 5, 2018 by Ruedii

[Ruedii]

On 1/22/2018 at 5:27 PM, Geonovast said:

Interesting.

Unfortunately the hardware is still way, way too underpowered for KSP.  Even if it wasn't, I don't think a port would ever be in the works, despite the interface being an advantage.

The problem isn't so much that the Switch is weak, so much as that it's power is spread over 8 cores.   The upstream platform for Kerbal Space Program, on the other hand, is severely limited in multi-threading capability (as are many other game dev kits.)

This has been the limiting factor in any third party devs getting decent performance out of the Switch.  

The projects necessary to fix all the world thread locks on Unity3D have been stalled on their timeline since before Kerbal Space Program started, with only minimal progress.   Unfortunately, the KSP Devs can't switch horses mid-race hear, and are thus pretty much stuck with Unity3D.

Personally, I wish that Nintendo had allowed the switch's CPU to operate in either 4 core 2Ghz or 8 core 1Ghz mode.  This would have retained reasonable power requirements while providing more processing power to low-thread-count games.

[IncongruousGoat]

21 minutes ago, Ruedii said:

Personally, I wish that Nintendo had allowed the switch's CPU to operate in either 4 core 2Ghz or 8 core 1Ghz mode.  This would have retained reasonable power requirements while providing more processing power to low-thread-count games.

That's not how it works. The switch has 8 physical cores in it, and they physically can't be combined in order to achieve higher clock rates for single-thread things like the rigid-body physics that KSP uses. Designing the Switch to have 2 modes would require hyper-threading of some description, and ARM processors (like those used in the Switch) don't support hyper-threading.

Edited February 5, 2018 by IncongruousGoat