How people are dealing with memory heavy mods in 32-bit version?

[boberro]

Hi, few months ago I gave up on ksp. I'm playing with lots of ram-heavy mods (kw, atmospheres, resized planets, all with active texture compression) and got fed up with constant "may I delete this?" every time I was changing something in my modpack. 64-bit version was supposed to be the cure, but it looks that some must-have mods are even blocked from being used in 64-bit version.

My question is: how are people dealing with game crashing because it went out of ram with lots of mods installed (or just b9 and kw at the same time) ?

[biohazard15]

ATM and -force-opengl. Reducing texture size in settings also helps, but this is a last resort.

Currently (0.24.2), I can run KW+NP+Near Future packs+RLA+Tantares+many small mods without any memory-related problems, and I even have some capacity left.

[el_coyoto]

You can find Active Texture Management in this forum thread, it will help solve your memory issues.

You have the choice between a basic and aggressive version : you can do some tests to see wether you need the aggressive one, but I usually stick to the basic one (mostly because I like having reasonably crispy looking textures) and it lets me play with B9, Karbonite and a few other mods.

Just be careful if you play KSP 0.25, the last forum posts seem to mention problems getting ATM to work with 0.25...

Good luck and fly safe!

[Alewx]

Well my solution is just not to play, as It is not really fun to have it crashing because of that.

ATM and LoD are not updated so there is currently not really any way to improve the situation.

I hope for some modders to create their own assetloaders and give us some boosts, but we will see.

0.24 I was switching between x86 and x64 to build and fly my stuff.

If the game crashes because of bugs, I would be happy to report them as that is the purpose of EA.

But it won't take long until some Linux guys catch up and tell 64bit would not be a problem, just use Linux....

[S1gmoid]

Exactly. The Linux x64 version is said to be stable.

If one gets to the point of not wanting to play at all, I'd consider installing a Linux partition.

EDIT:

Oh. My. God...

Do you guys know what this means?!

...YOU HAVE TO DUAL BOOT FROM WINDOWS INTO LINUX.

...TO PLAY A GAME!

Linux, you've come a long way.

Edited October 9, 2014 by S1gmoid

[Alewx]

The Linux x64 version is said to be stable.

If one gets to the point of not wanting to play at all, I'd consider installing a Linux partition.

[sarcasm]

Hey my VW is not driving what is going on with the engine?

Solution: Just take this Mercedes here it will run....

[/sarcasm]

That is not really a help for the ppl that just have and use windows to install a new partition, for most of the players they wouldn't even know what a partition is.

For the normal windows user there is not much more than to be patience till there are mods that provide stable workarounds, like texture compression, thumbnail loading assetloader or something else, or unity5 and updated KSP.

It is about the average player not the mod creating pros.

[Hattivat]

[sarcasm]

Hey my VW is not driving what is going on with the engine?

Solution: Just take this Mercedes here it will run....

[/sarcasm]

[sarcasm]Hey, my Prius doesn't seem to be able to climb that mountain road. What, you say I should try using Pajero? No way! I'm gonna wait until they dig a tunnel through that mountain.[/sarcasm]

Also, this was back in 23.5, but my 32-bit windows instal of KSP used to look like this:

It wasn't exactly smooth, but it was reasonably stable. So it's definitely not impossible.

[Alshain]

Some people have found success in converting all the TARGA(TGA) files to Portable Network Graphics (PNG). It's time consuming to do but the Unity PNG compression module works better than the TGA compression module (there are batch converter applications you can get). However, even with that, if you overload it too much your still going to have a problem.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Alshain

[capi3101]

I've been using a mod called LoadOnDemand - it basically loads texture files only as they're needed. I've noticed a marked improvement in the game's performance since I've been using it. I can't recommend it at the moment because the mod designer has yet to update it for 0.25 and it is currentlt broken; if (when) it's fixed I'll post the link.

Might have to try the PNG conversion too...

[Alshain]

Everything has a tradeoff though.

Active Texture Management - Takes longer to load KSP initially and textures will look bad on large high-res monitors.

PNG Conversion - Tedious procedure, textures may look worse on larger monitors (depends on the quality of the conversion you choose).

Load On Demand - The load lag associated with approaching a craft within the 2.2km range will significantly increase (depends on the number of parts used).

Linux - It's a whole new OS to deal with (duh)

Mod Limiting - None of the other problems, but you don't get as many cool parts from mods.

Edited October 9, 2014 by Alshain