4cores, 4gRAM, 2gGFX, 30+ Mods, Will this work?

[Sid Brandt]

List of Mods I've installed so far:

Spaceplane Plus v1.3

Astronomer's Pack

Distant Object 1.3.1

EVE 7.3

Js Suit Pack

Texture Replacer 1.7.0

Aviation Lights

Chatterer

Final Frontier 0.5.6

NovaPunch 2.06

KW Rocketry 2.6

RCS Sounds 4.1a

Research Them All

SCANsat

SH-Mk2 Cockpit 1.0.24

Toolbar 1.7.6

MechJeb

Action Groups Extended 1.13f

Hot Rockets 7.24

KAS 0.4.7

Kerbal Joint Reinforcement 2.4.3

KSP Alternate Resource Panel 2.5.1.0

NearFutureElectrical

NearFuturePropulsion

NearFutureSolarPanels

NEAR 1.1.1.1a

Oblivion Aerospace Pack 0.1.1

Original Ion Engine Sound Pack

Part catalog 3.0

Procedural fairings 3.09

RasterPropMonitor 18.2

TacFuelBalancer

TacLifeSupport

TweakableEverything 1.4

TweakScale 1.43

Surface Lights

WheelSounds 1.0

Universal Storage

All of them are 0.24.2 compatible, still never tried to run KSP yet.

I just want to know the compatibility of each other mods, plus if my hardware is enough to run it all and if do I need to upgrade my hardware. Thank you!

[bigyihsuan]

As long you have the texture replacer mod that I forget the name of, you should be fine with 4 gigs of ram.

With mods, the amount of RAM limits your mod list, especially with large packs like B9, KW Rocketry, NovaPunch, etc., and visual packs like Texture Replacer, Cloud mod, etc.

Same thing with mods that add in new planets.

[Alshain]

FYI, your 4 cores are meaningless. Unity only uses 1. That's Unity 4 which is what KSP uses now. Unity 5 supposedly is going to be out sometime this year and Maxmaps said when it hits, it will be priority 1 to upgrade. Which is good because prior to that, we didn't even know if they were planning to upgrade. Anyway Unity 5 supports the multicore architecture, or so we've been told.

Active Texture Management is the mod to reduce RAM usage, for those you need more than 4 GB and even if you had it, you would need x64 bit version which isn't very stable.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Alshain

[somnambulist]

Upgrade to 8 GB of RAM. 32-bit KSP won't be able to use more than 3 GB (or so) but your OS and anything else running in the background will likely take over 1 GB.

[Tarrow]

Novapunch and KW rocketry plus a handfull of other small addons used to be enough to cause me to hit the 32-bit memory limit, at least without texture reduction packs (and later the active texture management plugin). ATW is deffo worth the download.

Also you're a version behind on Kerbal Attachment System. Kospy (the original developer) released 0.4.8 a few days back, specifically for 0.24.2. I personally couldn't get 0.4.7 working on KSP 0.24.2, even with the various workarounds mentioned in Majiir's 0.4.7 thread. Thread link is below if it's of any use

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/92514-0-24-2-Kerbal-Attachment-System-%28KAS%29-0-4-8-Fixed-for-0-24-2-x86-x64-%29

Edited September 5, 2014 by Tarrow

[biohazard15]

NP, KW, two of the heaviest Near Future packs and Spaceplane Plus basically scream that your game will be unstable even with Active Texture Management plugin. It will launch, but you will eventually get OutOfMemory crash.

I recommend running KSP in OpenGL mode - it drastically cuts its hunger for memory, allowing more mods and\or more stable gameplay.

[WololoW]

FYI, your 4 cores are meaningless. Unity only uses 1. That's Unity 4 which is what KSP uses now. Unity 5 supposedly is going to be out sometime this year and Maxmaps said when it hits, it will be priority 1 to upgrade. Which is good because prior to that, we didn't even know if they were planning to upgrade. Anyway Unity 5 supports the multicore architecture, or so we've been told.

Unity 4 and KSP both utilize more than one core, but the physics for KSP is all processed on one core. You can test this yourself by monitoring your core usage while playing KSP and watch all your cores usage vary by a large amount(this is due to KSP utilizing more than one core.)

Its best to not spread opinion/unconfirmed thoughts as fact.

---

I recommend running KSP in OpenGL mode - it drastically cuts its hunger for memory, allowing more mods and\or more stable gameplay.

I am a big advocate of OpenGL, but I am also an advocate of full disclosure, and in that spirit, know this: -force-opengl is useful to lower the RAM usage of the KSP.exe process, but it does not lower your overall RAM usage by much.

I did some tests and found that while it lowered the KSP.exe process from ~3.0gb used down to ~1.6gb used, it only lowered my overall computers ram usage from ~4.3gb to ~3.7gb.

What does this mean for the OP? Even though opengl will help you use less ram in the KSP.exe process, it will not help you as much with your overall RAM usage, which is a problem for you as you have only 4gb RAM total.

[Sid Brandt]

Thank you, I have plans to upgrade now, Im going for a new gfx too, since mine is a four year old one.

Here:

Athlon II X4 640 3.0GHz

4gb RAM (Kingston generic)

2gb GeForce GT430

1TB Hitachi HDD

[Sid Brandt]

Thank you for noticing my KAS version. downloaded it now.

[Sid Brandt]

Whats an OpenGL mode? Do I need to install it first before using it?

[biohazard15]

Whats an OpenGL mode? Do I need to install it first before using it?

You just need to create a shortcut to your KSP.exe and add -force-opengl to its properties string. As WololoW said, this will drastically decrease memory usage for KSP, allowing more mods, although you might still run into problems with 4 Gb RAM. I recommend upgrading to at least 8 Gb.

[WololoW]

I recommend upgrading to at least 8 Gb.

This can not be stressed enough. 4gb RAM is not really acceptable for any computer that has a 64bit processor & OS.

My reasons for saying that are twofold:

1. Win7 (not sure about 8, OSX, or linux) will use roughly ~1.4GB RAM while it is in its "resting" state(no additional processes open/services open.)

2. One of the major benefits of 64bit processors and OS's is the fact that it can address(use) more than 4GB of RAM.

As for OpenGL, it is a rendering system (like Direct X 3D) that is already "installed" when you have up to date drivers - Note, I only know this to be true for NVIDIA graphics cards.

If you want to learn about it like I did, go to this thread. It seems to give good results in the RAM usage department, but some have noted large framerate drop, as well as other small bugs (such as no dynamic shadows, no Anti-Aliasing) but they also seem to be on a case by case basis. Overall, it seems like NVIDIA graphics card users get the most benefit out of using it and the least pitfalls, but that is my opinion from searching around.