[1.0][Release-5-0][April 28, 2015] Active Texture Management - Save RAM!

[guto8797]

So is there any reason to use ATM? Perhaps with a lot of mods?

[eightiesboi]

What the hell is going on? I use CKAN and a stock 1.2 KSP uses about 1.8GB ram, with ATM on, it uses about 2.0GB. What?!

ATM helps with adding mods. If you are playing Stock, then you don't really need it (you aren't near the ceiling for OOM crashes). If you have a lot of mods (I do) that add a lot of textures, ATM is very helpful. That's the hell that's going on.

[maculator]

So i converted all textures, the ones from mods too, to DDS. And i tested this methode against the texturemanagement and must say i dont have a need for it anymore. It helped me a lot in the past, but now with the ability to load dds, i have no purpose for it anymore.

Makes me a little sad so i just wanted to say thanks for the good memories...

[smunisto]

Yeah, unfortunately, it is kind of useless. And Rbray seems to be skipping this thread, so we can only guess of any news.

[koksny]

In meanwhile you can play Kerbal with "-force-opengl", it still works (albeit without shadows). Stock with ATM runs at around 1,5GB ram.

[tofox]

ATM is int working i have to us opengl and the fps is low in GL

i get normal 60 to 30 fps and open gl i get 20 to 10.

Edited May 15, 2015 by tofox

[etheoma]

Humm should have copied KSP to my RAM disk before running this only getting 82 - 90% CPU utilization although.

Have a 3570k overclocked to 4.6Ghz so not surprisingly my SSD can't keep up. And I managed that overlclock with only 1.22v increased the minimum to 1v because when my computer was idling it would crash because the stock low was to low and when it kicked up the clock it wouldn't up the voltage quickly enough.

putting it upto 1v mimum and 1.04v usual idle seems to have stabilized it though... Ehhhhhh I'm only getting 35 - 45% CPU utilization now...

Edited May 15, 2015 by etheoma

[etheoma]

There seems to be a problem with compressing KAS/Parts/cPort1/part/KAS_CPort1 been on it for like 20 minutes... Oh dw seems like its not working without ATM.

Edited May 16, 2015 by etheoma

[BudgetHedgehog]

No, you just need to update KIS.

[Immashift]

How do you not crash? I start off at 2.8 gb but KSP seems to have a terrible memory leak when switching between ships and the VAB. I gain 100mb usage each time I change screens.

Apparently even if you switch the textures over yourself using the DDS tool the problems happen.

Yes... I get about 20 scene changes and then I crash. I can live with that. I use two monitors and generally have resource monitor open so I know when it's gonna crash. Thankfully KSP loads in ~20 seconds so I'm not too bothered by it. When I really start going nuts with the game again I may end up reinstalling linux just for KSP. I hate memory limits. Tbh I consider 64bit compatibility to be an absolute necessity for any game nowadays. Unfortunately it doesn't look to be coming any time soon. I was one of the few people who had absolutely zero issues with KSP64, but I digress....

Also your amount of available RAM I believe matters as well. Granted, if you're filling it, Windows should (unless you disabled it as I have) load stuff into your page file. If that's also full it could mean crashing before the RAM limit. 2.8 shouldn't crash. I hit about 3.8GB and then crash. I'm running on 8GB RAM, but the fact that I have a bunch of stuff open all the time as well as KSP does eat a sizable chunk of RAM before KSP even starts. That said I usually have at least 5-ish GB free.

EDIT:

So I was still having RAM issues, even with aggressive ATM, so I was looking into other options.

Last time I tried the -force-opengl option in my shortcut the results were less than impressive framerates (that was with my old 560GT mind you), so I was hesitant to try it again, even with the new 960.

So instead I tried for the -force-d3d11 option instead, and, well, I'm now sitting at 2.67GB instead of 3.8something, with a 1.2GB Gamedata folder. Aww yeah . Oh, and I'm still getting ~100 fps. So, if you have a decent GPU, try that option, and see what it gives you.

Edited May 17, 2015 by Immashift

[Coga19000]

Up to 0.90, this mod used to make my KSP many times faster. Like, MANY times. Now, all I get is blank textures on all of my other mods.

[ZodiusInfuser]

Related to the above, myself and the other modders for Infernal Robotics are getting tons of posts complaining about black textures (sometimes both on parts and icons). Members have posted various ideas to fix it but nothing seems to completely solve the problem. Can you look into this? If not I'm inclined to put a disclaimer on our mod saying we no longer support players who have ATM installed.

[damerell]

Related to the above, myself and the other modders for Infernal Robotics are getting tons of posts complaining about black textures (sometimes both on parts and icons). Members have posted various ideas to fix it but nothing seems to completely solve the problem. Can you look into this? If not I'm inclined to put a disclaimer on our mod saying we no longer support players who have ATM installed.

I've been pushing some ATM texture fixes recently. When I get a chance, I'll install Infernal Robotics and try and improve the related configuration files. I go to Leipzig on Wednesday, though, so it won't be in the immediate future.

[JJJacksonTyler]

I'm having a bit of trouble with ATM on 1.0.2

I downloaded a clean install of ATM Aggressive for KSP 32 bit (obviously) Windows 1.0.2.

It's not compressing any of my textures!

No actual parts are being compressed...just flags and spaces, it seems like.

I did not monkey around within the ATM.cfg, and I have tried many clean installs of it.

Anyone know why this might be? It's not doing anything for memory reduction.

[smunisto]

That's because all textures have been converted to .dds, and ATM does not touch .dds textures. Read the last 30-40 posts.

[NJC2]

So I was still having RAM issues, even with aggressive ATM, so I was looking into other options.

Last time I tried the -force-opengl option in my shortcut the results were less than impressive framerates (that was with my old 560GT mind you), so I was hesitant to try it again, even with the new 960.

So instead I tried for the -force-d3d11 option instead, and, well, I'm now sitting at 2.67GB instead of 3.8something, with a 1.2GB Gamedata folder. Aww yeah . Oh, and I'm still getting ~100 fps. So, if you have a decent GPU, try that option, and see what it gives you.

I was having memory crashes after installing some mods and starting a new career game. My KSP is sitting right at 3GB of mem usage, and if those damn temp gauges popped up I could expect a crash very soon. I'm not using nearly as many mods as you, my GameData is only 700MB (including Squad's stuff). I tried the -force-d3d11 option and it saves about 500MB, but I get messed up fonts in some places.

[Minwaabi]

I just thought I'd chime in. I have about 1GB in my GameData folder and I'm getting about 3 to 3.2 GB mem usage with ATM (aggressive). And, I'm getting about 3.1 to ?.?? GB mem usage without it. However, I was able to hop around to different scenes when using ATM and launch a sounding rocket or 2 (hovering around 3.1 RAM usage). Without ATM, when I went to the R&D center I got a CTD. So maybe it still does a little something besides ruin my IR model rework textures. I'm going to go try those -force -d3d11 and -force -opengl options. Is that the correct syntax?

Edited May 20, 2015 by Minwaabi

[KerbMav]

I'm getting about 3 to 3.2 GB mem usage with ATM (aggressive). And, I'm getting about 3.1 to ?.?? GB mem usage without it.

That's because all textures have been converted to .dds, and ATM does not touch .dds textures. Read the last 30-40 posts.

Try setting the Texture Quality in the Settings one step lower - I had it on max before 1.0.2 - it saved up to 1GB for me and I am never getting above 2.5GB with moderate part mods.

[smunisto]

Actually pre-1.0 I always ran on Half Res textures.

When 1.0 hit I noticed that Full res has a major visual increase in the sharpness of displayed textures, so I can't force myself to go back to half again. I don't know how i did it before.

[LividPumpkin]

Is there a difference with -force-opengl and -force-d3d11

[koksny]

Is there a difference with -force-opengl and -force-d3d11

OpenGL doesn't render any shadows and has much less memory footprint (around 1,5GB in full res)

DX11 is just better performing default renderer, but ATM will still not help due to DDS textures

Also in case of OpenGL, remember to set up your AntiAliasing forced from driver software (Build in setting doesnt work with OpenGL), and disable crew in VAB/SPH, for some reason (probably due to problem with shadows rendering) they tend to lag really much. Up to 20-30fps more without them.

Seriously speaking the game is now unplayable under DirectX without reducing texture quality, i'm astonished everyone is ignoring the memory issues. Memory leak when showing temperature indicators, memory leaks when changing scenes, basically any craft over 300 parts leads straight up to CTD.

Edited May 21, 2015 by koksny

[FunnyBunny14]

OpenGL doesn't render any shadows and has much less memory footprint (around 1,5GB in full res)

DX11 is just better performing default renderer, but ATM will still not help due to DDS textures

Also in case of OpenGL, remember to set up your AntiAliasing forced from driver software (Build in setting doesnt work with OpenGL), and disable crew in VAB/SPH, for some reason (probably due to problem with shadows rendering) they tend to lag really much. Up to 20-30fps more without them.

Seriously speaking the game is now unplayable under DirectX without reducing texture quality, i'm astonished everyone is ignoring the memory issues. Memory leak when showing temperature indicators, memory leaks when changing scenes, basically any craft over 300 parts leads straight up to CTD.

Don't forget memory leaks in the VAB. I gained 400 MB just by trying to place too many parts at once.

[Pesoen]

this may be a stupid question, but i have yet to see it anywhere, and im far too tired to start going through all 373 pages of the thread, so i will ask like this instead.

what is the easiest way to exclude a folder from being compressed? i have Infernal robotics rework, and all the textures seems to fail loading, and they are an odd black with a small yellow square on them, instead of the white and orange texture they otherwise have, but it works fine, if i clear out the cache for the magicsmokeindustries folder. though it takes some time to load it.

thanks in advance for the reply.

*EDIT*

nevermind, found a solution, went into the configs, found the one for MSI and simple put false at enabled. and removed the textures.

also did some tests, since some on here, seem to think the mod is dead(or at least thats how i read it)

here is some info.

loaded is on the runway, with a somewhat big craft, and a smaller one next to the runway, camera pointed towards the VAB and sligthly down.

unloaded is on the selection menu, where you select VAB or SPH, and so on.

settings: 1920X1080 fullscreen, all settings on as high as they go.

only thing i have changed from the config for ATM, is i set the filter mode to trilinear insted of bilinear.

WO ATM:

loaded:

RAM: 2.660,2 MB

CPU: 19%

unloaded:

RAM: 2.748,2 MB

CPU: 11%

W ATM:

loaded:

RAM: 2.227,7 MB

CPU: 20%

unloaded:

RAM: 2.315,3 MB

CPU: 11%

as far as i can see, i save about 400 MB ram, at the cost of slightly more CPU ussage. and it also seems to load slightly faster on start, than if i run it without ATM.

i know this will mean nothing without my actual system specs, so here they are:

CPU: I7-3770k @ 4.2 GHz

RAM: 16 GB Corsair Vengance (2X8 GB)

MB: MSI z77-gd55a

HDD: Seagate 7200RPM 2TB Drive(unsure of exact model)

rest is as far as i know not relevant.

also sorry about this, im tired, so sometimes it seems like a good idea to do this, but turns out to be a bad one, but eh, if you can use the info, please do, if not, then sorry.

Edited May 21, 2015 by Pesoen
found a solution. and decided to add some info.

[Ratzmutz]

So somehow this mod managed to increase the total size of my KSP folder, the file-count AND the number of subfolders.

Before: 1.64GB, 2563 files, 602 folders.

After: 1.76GB, 3704 files and 812 folders.

Not sure how this happened.

Kerbal Space program DID load faster however. Now that I think about it, it could be placebo effect as well.

Might as well be my own fault.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

The output_log can be found here.

Windows 8.1 64bit

Architecture AMD64

8Gig of RAM

KSP v.1.0.2.842

[smunisto]

ATM works by converting textures to DTX, so it creates its own TextureCache subfolder, populated with all the compressed textures and backups in their respective subfolders.