64 bit

[J.Random]

Check out the Unity forums for a ton of threads on 64bit Windows and OSX stability problems, it's not just KSP that could use a 64bit version, but many other Unity games as well.

Maybe I'm bad at this, but I've actually looked for it the very first time I've heard about these supposedly Unity problems. Nope, couldn't find any. I've seen some 64-bit editor-related reports, and some for redistributable MS libraries (for which there was workaround, iirc), but nothing about engine itself.

[Arran]

Folks running the experimental Linux distro can offer some perspective, but Windows and OSX users should be cautious about accepting those cases as universally applicable facts, due to the fact that Linux is so much more intricately configurable and adjustable, compared to OSX or Windows, where drivers and memory management processes are concerned.

Linux folks can compensate and tweak core-level settings to get around glitches and leaks, but anybody not running Linux will simply have to wait for Unity to get things working from their end. We simply don't get that kind of configurability with our drivers, unless somebody is enough of a code wizard to write their own driver patch.

Now i cannot really say i'm a Linux expert, i can use Linux, and know how to do my stuff in Linux, but thats it, and mostly out of curiosity i installed Linux to see the difference between KSP under windows and in Linux with the x64 build.

But i see preformance differences but not as much currently as some might think it would bring it its current state, biggest thing i notice, is the slighty increased number of parts i can use before lag kicks in and the number of running flights i can have before the game bogs down.

My theory is (and i coudl be really off here ofcourse), like sal_vager mentioned earlier, is due the fact that physics is run on a single core on windows and linux alike, with the difference that in Windows other processes in KSP are done also on that core, but in Linux these processes are distributed over the other cores, making everything run a tat smoother overall, giving room for more parts and mods and one core that doing most physics calculations, but i could be utterly wrong here on the techical stuff here..

In general i cannot really say my Linux version of KSP runs much better as the Windows version, or even the 32Bits Linux version, there are some improvements, but i really cannot say its by all a huge improvement, and i have not enough mods running to pass the 4GB ram limit, so i cannot say if here is any improment to be seen.

So my limited expierence atm with Linux and KSP/PlanetExplorers on Linux i must say the difference between the game(s) on Windows or on Linux are currently minimal at best, this ofc can be due the simple fact, that unity is the limiting factor here and that even for the x64 client of both games, still alot of work need to be done on Unity to make up really an difference..

I also have to mention, as someone also mentioned, i notice some shadow and texture differences, and cannot tell with certain if this is driver related, unity related or KSP related, but shadows are flickering, and other minor graphical oddities, foremore some planets seem to have some texture errors. but these are minor glitches foremost and happen as well on the 32bit KSP on Linux.. So this isnt due the 64bit version itself nor it doesnt seem to have any impact further.. I speculate its the Nvidia driver i used might be causing this foremostly.

An other maybe better example for me, might be iRacing, this Racing Simulation made a year ago the switch between 32bits and 64Bits, and the game really got due to it use preformance boost, currently its makes use of DX11 graphics and it runs better with larger number of cars on the track rendered with alot more graphical upgrades and still i get better FPS as it had under DX9 with 32 Bits with smaller amount of cars rendered. The moment iRacing switched between 32 and 64 it was very noticable, unlike atm the switch for me between KSP 32 bits and KSP 64 bits.

This makes me think that the like mentioned the x64 Unity engine still like stated is highly experimental and still needs alot of tweaking and work alltough the x64 version seems to run very stable on Ubuntu, but preformance wise the difference is marginally, unlike iRacing had when they made the switch after a long development time of the 64 client. And also not forgetting, in case of iRacing we are talking about a "specialized dedicated to a single game engine" vs a general engine used for many games on several platforms as Unity is, with a whole different set of problems to count for.

Now i know someone with more knowledge of this prolly will correct me on most i write here in technical details, as i said i started to use Linux just resently as experiment, and only can share my observations and speculations. And i am certain others can explain things alot better in detail as i can,

[Nuke]

its probibly using a different graphics api. opengl instead of d3d (assuming it doesnt use opengl on windows).