mods crash my comp??

[TravelinHero]

Hello, I'm new to the forums but an avid kerbal space explorer, and like the mods that have come out for this game. but my issue is when i add the mods i enjoy i get alot of crashes i.e freeze at loading screen on particular part or crash from launch pad. My question is whats the best way to incorporate the mods i enjoy with out any crashes? i have just rebuilt a new pc this year so i doubt it has to do with my comp. system it is as follow:

-asrock extreme 990fx

-fx8350-8-core 4.0

-g-skill ripjaws 16gb

-xfx R9 280x 3gig 384bit ddr5

-2tb HD

the mods i enjoy are not too crazy (in my opinion) there are as follows:

-Mechjeb

-b9-aerospace

-kw rocketry

-impossible innovations

-H.O.M.E.

-robotics arm

-laser cam

-kspx

-kas

-kosmos

-deep space mission pack

-fustek

-orda

-hydro tech rcs

And thats about it minus a few in the list above and it works ok, sometimes, but after awhile of playing it will crash. and there a few more i would love to add but if it crashes with these it wont take any more. any help to use the mods all together without crashes would be awesome does any one have any tips or ideas on how to make these mods work for me? any help would be greatly appreciated T.Y.

[jfull]

I'm a bit confused, does it really crash your computer or is it just KSP thats crashing?

[blizzy78]

Try the Active Texture Management plugin.

[jfull]

also, the simplest thing he could do is just set textures to half-rez in the game menu

[BananaDealer]

You're probably running out of RAM... Lower the texture settings or get Active Texture Management.

[MisterFister]

This is a common problem. KSP, for now, is supported by Squad primarily in Unity-32bit. 32-bit programs in general (not just Unity or Unity-based programs like KSP) have a hard ceiling of not being able to use more than 4GB of RAM, in total, at any given time. This is even if your system has many times that amount of RAM available for the entire system. Unity does have a 64-bit version that does not have this particular issue (more to the point, its hard ceiling is way way higher, I think 2TB but don't quote me) but up until very recently, Unity-64bit was extremely buggy in Windows due mostly to "politics" and shenanigans behind the scenes at the company that designs and maintains the Unity engine.

A few months ago in early 2014, Unity's developer unveiled a new 64-bit version that shows a lot of promise for improving upon the poor track record it has had to this point, but we'll see. At any rate, Squad had back-burnered 64-bit development for KSP a while ago pending improvement in the Unity-64bit engine, which may or may not be upon us. Even if Unity-64bit's limitations are indeed completely addressed by the recent improvements, given what's publicly known of Squad's priorities list for KSP, even then we'd prolly have to wait a good year or so (my personal guess is final sales version of the game) before large-scale 64-bit implementation is seen.

It should be noted that Unity-64bit has been MUCH less buggy in non-Windows environments, particularly Linux. I don't use Linux or Apple, however, so I cannot report on this. (Also, to run any 64-bit program, whether a game or an internet browser, one's operating system has to also support 64-bit processing. Many "starter" versions of Windows and other economy-class laptops and desktops eschew 64-bit operating systems in order to justify a lower price point, so if you're running a 32-bit system, the improvements to Unity-64bit would pass you by anyway.)

As for wrapping the above computer-history lesson back to your question: I, too, run into the same problem you describe of not being able to run all of the mods I want to run at the same time. The sterile-KSP base-footprint is already sizeable on its own, and each new mod a user installs expands that footprint size upward bit by bit until, eventually, you hit the 4GB ceiling and Unity-32bit collapses, causing fatal runtime errors. Frankly, it's a testament to Windows at all that such crashes don't tend to cause bluescreen hanging instances except for rarely.

At any rate, comparatively speaking, small plugin-type mods tend to sip memory, as most memory usage is in loading meshes and texture models for individual game parts (tanks, engines, SAS modules, etc.) Therefore, during startup, the part-heavy modpaks such as B9 / KW / NovaPunch tend to eat through memory like it's going out of style -- hence, modmakers have made available "texture reduction packs" (a mod-of-a-mod, if you will) which reduce the resolution at which the meshes and textures are loaded (making them appear blurrier in the game) thereby compressing the memory space that those mods would otherwise consume.

Try those reduction packs first. For the record, I dislike the fact that they would even be necessary, since much of my own enjoyment of the game comes from the attention-to-detail items such as greebles and "Warning: Don't Touch This"-type markings on the parts that really lend to the fun satire-but-serious-rocket-science atmosphere of the game. I cannot believe that I would speak for no one else on this point. Anyway, if those reduction paks don't solve your problem by themselves, the only thing I can suggest at that point is to go through your mods, one by one, and delete / uninstall / disable them one by one in the reverse-order of how important you think they are to your mission ideas. After uninstalling each least-important mod, re-attempt to run KSP, and until that solves the problem, repeat the process on up the chain until you get KSP to work. (Sucks, I know.)

If it helps, I just posted a thread asking my own question in the same field of concern, any answer to which may be helpful to you here.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/76549-Any-way-to-track-how-mch-memory-each-mod-consumes?p=1091151#post1091151

*Disclaimer* -- All of the above advice presumes the likelihood that there are no other latent "conflict" errors preventing your KSP install from running. If there is a conflict preventing your KSP install from starting up that has nothing to do with the 4GB ceiling issue, that would require separate troubleshooting.

Edited April 14, 2014 by MisterFister
Grammar, clarity

[MisterFister]

New info: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/59005-0-23-Release-3-0-Active-Texture-Management-Save-RAM-without-reduction-packs%21

This mod has two settings, and I just finished some experiments with the "aggressive" setting. As far as I can tell, it actively (on the fly, during startup) compresses part textures as they get loaded into memory. The texture reduction packs that I described above are pre-compressed texture models that are already saved to your GameData folders, ready to be loaded. This mod takes the actual "as intended" textures and compresses them all during startup, thereby allowing you to receive the benefit of texture reduction across all parts in all mod folders, and not just those for which texture reduction packs have been made available for separate download. I am apparently able to use this to support running a truly astonishing array of mods without hitting the same 4GB ceiling you are running into. I highly recommend it.

Edited to add: Note that this mod loads first before all other mods if installed correctly, and it does "appear" to hang while loading, perhaps even for a minute or two. In fact, during one trial run, the KSP loader even showed under Windows Task Manager as unresponsive, though doing nothing still allowed it to finish loading with nary an error. As far as I can tell, this is normal. I recommend exercising some extra patience when attempting to start KSP after installing this mod, and it should be fine.

Edited April 19, 2014 by MisterFister
Noting load delays that seem normal

[Javster]

B9 KILLS my computer. Try removing it.

[Raptor831]

To add to MisterFister (very nice post!), in your modlist you have KOSMOS, KW Rocketry, and B9 Aerospace. Those three, without any other mods installed, might crash your game. KOSMOS especially takes up a ton of RAM. Great mod, but extremely RAM hungry. For my setup, I need to set KSP to use half-size textures, AND use the Active Texture Management mod with the aggressive configs. I have around 40 mods installed, some part mods only partially. Every part you load that you don't use a lot is wasted RAM.

Hope this helps!