KSP's RAM issue Is Getting out of hand {But it cant be fixed Right Now}

[Bej Kerman]

On 10/3/2024 at 6:43 PM, dandoesstuff said:

KSP1 modded runs worse than KSP2 for me.

On 10/3/2024 at 9:10 PM, Lisias said:

It's not what happens to me. Modded KSP¹ works best.

For the record, are you two arguing about the exact same set of mods?

[Iapetus7342]

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

For the record, are you two arguing about the exact same set of mods?

Likely not.

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, Iapetus7342 said:

Likely not.

Well, since lowering the settings helped them to get better framerates, it's probable that the set of mods is not that different!

[Iapetus7342]

21 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Well, since lowering the settings helped them to get better framerates, it's probable that the set of mods is not that different!

FYI, Just because one had poor frames and one lowered their graphics and had better frames doesn't mean their mods are the same.

Edited October 5 by Iapetus7342
for the love of me i cannot type

[Lisias]

10 hours ago, Iapetus7342 said:

FYI, Just because one had poor frames and one lowered their graphics and had better frames doesn't mean their mods are the same.

But it means that they are not that different  neither!

Mods (usually) have some common characteristics, like making heavy use of meshes and textures. And, so, also have similar problems, like overflowing the VRAM, what leads the GPU driver to borrow CPU RAM, what leads to heavy contention as both Processors can't access the same RAM at the same time.

Granted, there could be further bottlenecks on the rig that would bite the user when using a set of mods and  not others. Without some digging, it's not possible to tackle these down.

BUT... As a rule of thumb, if you have nice FPS and then you install more add'ons and then your FPS plummeted, lowering the graphical settings it's cheap and works most of the time - and when it doesn't,  just revert the changes and try something else. You don't even need to reboot the game to check it, what renders this a really no-brainer first troubleshooting action!

Edited October 6 by Lisias
Entertaining grammars made less entertaining.

[Bej Kerman]

10 hours ago, Lisias said:

Well, since lowering the settings helped them to get better framerates, it's probable that the set of mods is not that different!

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

But it means that they are not that different  neither!

 Wouldn't it be easier to just concede there is no point in this argument if neither of you know what mods the other is running? FYI, "Modded KSP" isn't just one big modpack. It's a term that's borderline useless compared to just saying which mods you've installed and could be causing issues.

(It's also easy to blame low VRAM on the user for running max settings on a 13+ year old game, but to be fair, it could just as easily be some daft modder who made an 8k texture for a tiny RCS thruster)

[Lisias]

2 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

 Wouldn't it be easier to just concede there is no point in this argument if neither of you know what mods the other is running?

I don't see your point.

In more than 6 years of support, I dare to say that 80 to 90% of the suttering that happens immediatelly after installing new things are related to VRAM exhaustion - even when the installed thing isn't an add'on, as when the initial versions if the infamous PD Launcher caused users of GPUs with 6GB of VRAM to stutter KSP 1.12 when the game is launched from it.

GC is the next suspect, but it usually happens after some playing.

In the end, it's really simple like that: if you get stutter after installing something, lower the settings and see if the problem goes away.

If yes, decide what's more important: FPS or Visuals. If want to keep the Visuals and get back the FPS, then something will have to be uninstalled.

If nothing changes, revert the changes and then ask for help, because now you will be sure that it's something that you can't help yourself. And this is where the exact list of mods is important, because it may be some unholy interaction between some of them.

[Iapetus7342]

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

 Wouldn't it be easier to just concede there is no point in this argument if neither of you know what mods the other is running?

Going to agree with Bej here, we don't know if they're running Tweakscale and Restock or if they're running all 290 of my installed mods.

Edited October 6 by Iapetus7342
duped comment

[Lisias]

12 hours ago, Iapetus7342 said:

Going to agree with Bej here, we don't know if they're running Tweakscale and Restock or if they're running all 290 of my installed mods.

And I think both of you missed the point. I want to quote the OP on this:

On 9/29/2024 at 3:22 AM, Tris_The said:

First it means don't B!#@h about there being to many mods that isn't the problem never has been the game runs perfectly fine with several hundred mods. The problem is KSP is doing something most other games avoid which is loading the entire game repository into ram.... its why your latest COD game can be over 200Gb and not use well (ill do a quick guesstimate in comparison the the game content to cache ratio of KSP) 168Gb or so in RAM. So while people are trying to back up the statements of you have to many mods or its simulating an entire solar system understand that's not how it works. KSP is storing ALL of the game files in RAM to be swapped in and out of the game instance and simulation runs on CPU "~most likely" and the data is stored in a sub 100Mb file. KSP needing any more resources outside of the capacity of the game itself is unfounded.

Again, we DON'T NEED to know the OP's mod list to answer this guy. He's talking about an architectural decision made on KSP that, besides IMHO had server the base game well over the years, is starting to bite our collective arses nowadays with VRAM hungry add'ons being published by modders.

There's no difference between  installing 10 mods with 10MB each, or installing 5 with 20MB each, or installing a single one with 100MB - the net result is you consuming 100MB of VRAM.

In all cases, if you by some reason are exhausting your VRAM, no matter the add'ons you have installed, you will need to experiment with the Graphics Settings to recover your sweet FPS.

And I need to remind you that even Browsers eat VRAM nowadays, and I'm pretty sure it's the reason the OP listed the other processes running on the rig at the time of testing - note the OP said Chrome is unstable - this means that it's also starving while playing Youtube - something that I managed to mitigate on the stunt I mentioned before :

On 9/29/2024 at 3:22 AM, Tris_The said:

Programs tested with running

- Chrome (Unstable - especially YT)
- Discord (Stable - Can even Stream)
- SignalRGB (Unstable - Theme Engine crashes clogs rendering instruction sets even bugs out CKAN
- OBS (Stable maybe - didn't test much)
- Ableton (Stable - I use this for Mic and audio input)
- Focusrite Scarlett drivers (Unstable - un-syncs device audio clock I get BSODs in ARMA3 because of this guy)
- Task Manager - (started to skip update repaints)

May I ask you both to reread the OP's post?

[Bej Kerman]

11 hours ago, Lisias said:

On 10/6/2024 at 11:39 AM, Iapetus7342 said:

Going to agree with Bej here, we don't know if they're running Tweakscale and Restock or if they're running all 290 of my installed mods.

And I think both of you missed the point. I want to quote the OP on this:

On 9/29/2024 at 7:22 AM, Tris_The said:

First it means don't B!#@h about there being to many mods that isn't the problem never has been the game runs perfectly fine with several hundred mods. The problem is KSP is doing something most other games avoid which is loading the entire game repository into ram.... its why your latest COD game can be over 200Gb and not use well (ill do a quick guesstimate in comparison the the game content to cache ratio of KSP) 168Gb or so in RAM. So while people are trying to back up the statements of you have to many mods or its simulating an entire solar system understand that's not how it works. KSP is storing ALL of the game files in RAM to be swapped in and out of the game instance and simulation runs on CPU "~most likely" and the data is stored in a sub 100Mb file. KSP needing any more resources outside of the capacity of the game itself is unfounded.

Again, we DON'T NEED to know the OP's mod list to answer this guy. He's talking about an architectural decision made on KSP that, besides IMHO had server the base game well over the years, is starting to bite our collective arses nowadays with VRAM hungry add'ons being published by modders.

There's no difference between  installing 10 mods with 10MB each, or installing 5 with 20MB each, or installing a single one with 100MB - the net result is you consuming 100MB of VRAM.

In all cases, if you by some reason are exhausting your VRAM, no matter the add'ons you have installed, you will need to experiment with the Graphics Settings to recover your sweet FPS.

And I need to remind you that even Browsers eat VRAM nowadays, and I'm pretty sure it's the reason the OP listed the other processes running on the rig at the time of testing - note the OP said Chrome is unstable - this means that it's also starving while playing Youtube - something that I managed to mitigate on the stunt I mentioned before :

On 9/29/2024 at 7:22 AM, Tris_The said:

Programs tested with running

- Chrome (Unstable - especially YT)
- Discord (Stable - Can even Stream)
- SignalRGB (Unstable - Theme Engine crashes clogs rendering instruction sets even bugs out CKAN
- OBS (Stable maybe - didn't test much)
- Ableton (Stable - I use this for Mic and audio input)
- Focusrite Scarlett drivers (Unstable - un-syncs device audio clock I get BSODs in ARMA3 because of this guy)
- Task Manager - (started to skip update repaints)

May I ask you both to reread the OP's post?

Okay. But when I came in here, you were arguing at Iapetus: KSP 1 modded runs better than KSP 2, actually.  Is the point you were making to Iapetus, then, that KSP 1 is  better performance wise compared to suboptimal modern games like KSP 2, as long as you turn its 13-year-old graphics engine down as far as it'll go?

[Mr. Kerbin]

I think this is a problem  stemming from KSP being originally 32 bit. Since it was only meant to take (from what I heard) 4 GB of RAM. But by the time 1.1 & 64 bit was released, too much had been made to replace all that core data. KSP, then took lots and lots of RAM, as then there was no limit or hard boundaries to keep it down. Then we got here. The developers were never the problem, it was that KSP was meant to be 32 bit. Oh yeah, then you got mods that use even more RAM! 

Edited October 7 by Mr. Kerbin
P.S. not hating on mods

[Bej Kerman]

6 minutes ago, Mr. Kerbin said:

The developers were never the problem, it was that KSP was meant to be 32 bit. Oh yeah, then you got mods that use even more RAM! 

Is your point that modders are at fault, not the developers of the architecture the modders use?

[Mr. Kerbin]

20 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Is your point that modders are at fault, not the developers of the architecture the modders use?

No. Just saying that mods add to the fire a bit, but not much considering the problem still exists in stock.

Edited October 7 by Mr. Kerbin

[Iapetus7342]

20 minutes ago, Mr. Kerbin said:

The developers were never the problem, it was that KSP was meant to be 32 bit. Oh yeah, then you got mods that use even more RAM! 

Shift the blame to Unity's development team, not Harvester, Squad and Private Division.

[Mr. Kerbin]

4 minutes ago, Iapetus7342 said:

Shift the blame to Unity's development team

Are you saying I shifted it, or we need to shift it? 
 In any case, I was not blaming anyone, merely saying that KSP was meant and built on to be 32 bit. By the time it was 64 bit, it was too late.

[Iapetus7342]

1 minute ago, Mr. Kerbin said:

By the time it was 64 bit, it was too late.

Thanks for clearing it up, i'll be waiting here until something interesting happens

[Bej Kerman]

39 minutes ago, Iapetus7342 said:

Shift the blame to Unity's development team, not Harvester, Squad and Private Division.

KSP's bad architecture isn't Unity's fault.

31 minutes ago, Mr. Kerbin said:

Are you saying I shifted it, or we need to shift it? 
 In any case, I was not blaming anyone, merely saying that KSP was meant and built on to be 32 bit. By the time it was 64 bit, it was too late.

The game's RAM usage not being optimised when there's a ~4gb RAM ceiling imposed by the original 32 bit architecture is even worse.

[Tris_The]

On 10/5/2024 at 11:44 AM, Bej Kerman said:

For the record, are you two arguing about the exact same set of mods?

On 10/6/2024 at 1:49 AM, Bej Kerman said:

 Wouldn't it be easier to just concede there is no point in this argument if neither of you know what mods the other is running? FYI, "Modded KSP" isn't just one big modpack. It's a term that's borderline useless compared to just saying which mods you've installed and could be causing issues.

(It's also easy to blame low VRAM on the user for running max settings on a 13+ year old game, but to be fair, it could just as easily be some daft modder who made an 8k texture for a tiny RCS thruster)

12 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Okay. But when I came in here, you were arguing at Iapetus: KSP 1 modded runs better than KSP 2, actually.  Is the point you were making to Iapetus, then, that KSP 1 is  better performance wise compared to suboptimal modern games like KSP 2, as long as you turn its 13-year-old graphics engine down as far as it'll go?

7 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Is your point that modders are at fault, not the developers of the architecture the modders use?

6 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

KSP's bad architecture isn't Unity's fault.

The game's RAM usage not being optimised when there's a ~4gb RAM ceiling imposed by the original 32 bit architecture is even worse.

Is this seriously all your here for. Your not contributing to this post and making an argument out of peoples communication issues disguising it as development talk. Please stop your not cool because of it and it doesn't solve the thing you clearly have a problem with, people that talk differently. I made a upset earlier about semantics for a really bare minimum case but seriously this is now the extreme excrements so I'm gunna say it screw off with the semantics YOUR arguing about what you most likely see as idk "Basic negativity" but there's constructive arguments being made. All your doing is making negative statements about what you see wrong based on (from what I can see) a basic surface level computer sciences understanding which I am guilty of to but you should hold yourself accountable if your gunna distinctly rat on peoples ability to talk to one another, and on a post specifically telling you not to do this. Anyways back to the discussion distractions aside if you are confused about the fundamentals of how computers operate or the history of coding and the difficulties involved and what hasn't change in over 13 years and how it applies to the programming of this game and its indie roots just ask someone.

P.S. No Unity as a game engine does stem a portion of the issues its not a great engine.

Edited October 7 by Tris_The
clarification

[Kerbart]

On 9/29/2024 at 2:22 AM, Tris_The said:

What I've Noticed

The main thing I noticed, KSP is loading all stock assets, old assets, DLC assets essentially the entire game plus all the mods you install.

You make it sound like your findings are the result of intrepid research while in reality this has been common knowledge for many years. It's the main reason the community wanted a 64 bit version of the game.

[Lisias]

3 hours ago, Kerbart said:

You make it sound like your findings are the result of intrepid research while in reality this has been common knowledge for many years. It's the main reason the community wanted a 64 bit version of the game.

And you make it sound like it was fixed already.

You see, shifting to 64 bits was what allowed the problem to grow bigger, as it allowed more textures to be loaded exacerbating the symptom.

This is the expected behaviour of a long standing problems that are not solved (for a reason or another - some problems can't be solved at all): new people came, became experienced and then detect (again) a problem, talk about it, veterans explains the situation, new people gets acceptance and became eventually veterans. And then new new people came and the cycle continues with the new veterans taking the torch.

Yelling "old news" to new people will not help to solve the problem, neither help on keeping them around so they would eventually became veterans.

But you could had helped by linking the posts you had read about, so the "new veterans" like me could get new glimpses of the problem, instead of relying only on my own results as well the posts from other people that talked about on my time.

There're at least 168.673 visible threads on this Forum (as on Oct 1st early morning). No one (including you, I bet) had read them all - and the Forum's Search engine, besides useful, is not Google and it's lately imposing delays of many seconds between an search and another, bittering the process.

Relying on the experience of people like me and you (and yes, I'm pretty sure you have some knowledge to contribute to this discussion) is still our best way to feed a good and constructive discussion. As a matter of fact, it used to be this way since our times living in caves...

[GluttonyReaper]

8 hours ago, Kerbart said:

It's the main reason the community wanted a 64 bit version of the game.

Ah, that brings back memories. Pruning parts out of mods manually, avoiding scene changes, running the game in OpenGL... anything to avoid that dreaded 3.5 GB limit. I'm glad things aren't still that bad, at least.

[Bej Kerman]

10 hours ago, Tris_The said:

You['re] not contributing to this post

Lol ok.

10 hours ago, Tris_The said:

P.S. No Unity as a game engine does stem a portion of the issues its not a great engine.

Most people who hate Unity as a game engine fixate on bad examples of its use and don't notice when it's put to good use. I can say wildly exacerbated RAM issues is not a universal problem with games based on Unity.

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

Most people who hate Unity as a game engine fixate on bad examples of its use and don't notice when it's put to good use. I can say wildly exacerbated RAM issues is not a universal problem with games based on Unity.

On EVERY Unity Game I'm playing on Steam(Deck), using the MONO_THREADS_PER_CPU=1 stunt gave me the very same performance, but the thing ran cooler and the battery life was extended.

On my Computer, ditto (except by the battery, of course) - but on at least another one besides KSP, I managed to build bigger things than on the times I wasn't using the stunt because suddenly I had more memory to play with (hint: GC). [Oh, yes... It also allowed me to play Youtube while playing the game - something I couldn't do before]

By this time, it became a Unity problem because... Well, this trick is working on the ones I had tried consistently - from older games from 2017 to new ones published this year.

If people are "holding it wrong" unchecked for so many time, it's really past the time for Unity start to worry about this and do something about. At the very least, their documentation are lacking and their default settings are unsuited for the workload most games are using.

- - -

And, yeah, you are derailing the thread.

Edited October 8 by Lisias
Whoops...

[Gargamel]

Since we can’t play nice arguing about a bug that has been well known for most of a decade and won’t see any resolution in the near future or possibly ever, this is just equestrian necroviolence.  
 

Thread locked for further review.