Memory Leak?

[Dermeister]

Even as a new player, I can report the same thing here.

With ATM aggressive + DDSloader + forced d3d11, KSP starts out with ~2.78Gb ram on main menu and ~2.85Gb on Space Center.

While building/loading a craft in VAB, my ram usage shoots up to around the ~2.9Gb mark. When launching it increases again to ~3.0Gb +/- 0.7 depending on the craft complexity.

Now the worrisome part: reverting back to VAB/Space Center/quickload, does not unload the previous scene from ram and relaunching does not load this previously cached scene still in ram. There are more instances in KSP where this happens.

To me this seems, what I heard and understood from friends who do programming: is that this Unity4.x implementation has very poor and non intelligent garbage collection.

That, or parts/textures/data etc are not correctly flagged in the code garbage collection, thus the garbage collector does not recognize them and that results in a steady climb of memory usage. Albeit: a memory leak.

As a newly player to KSP, I was shocked they wanted to go to a 1.0 release.

Without the above being fixed (good working garbage collection), even without good x64, 1.0 will be devastating for the game.

I hope that the devs know what the problem is and that they are fixing it...

[NoZerone]

As a newly player to KSP, I was shocked they wanted to go to a 1.0 release.

Without the above being fixed (good working garbage collection), even without good x64, 1.0 will be devastating for the game.

Unless 1.0 is this fix. Other than the memory leak, the game runs somewhat smooth most of the time. It starts getting choppy if you have a craft that has a lot of pieces, but over all this is a fairly good game. This is a pretty big problem with the game, I wouldn't be surprised that when they fix it, it gets released as 1.0 along with a few other changes.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Yes, memory leaks are very well known and will be addressed as part of the optimizations done for 1.0, according to SQUAD.

The biggest offender here is changing scenes, as going from one building to another or from your ship to KSC. If after starting the game and going to your ship, you get to 3.1 GB, then you probably can play for hours. BUT, the moment you switch to another scene or vessel, you're doomed.

This is somewhat expected in Alpha stage. Somewhat. They're supposed to iron the bugs out in beta, which we didn't have, so I guess they'll iron them out in production.

I don't know about the rest, but 0.90 seems particularity bad in this regard. My previous installs never eat RAM so fast. It's got to a point where I play with the task manager open and constantly checking RM usage. If I have to revert to VAB, then I probably just restart the game and go tracking stating > ship again. And this is with very few mods installed (5).

[Rune]

Yes, memory leaks are very well known and will be addressed as part of the optimizations done for 1.0, according to SQUAD.

The biggest offender here is changing scenes, as going from one building to another or from your ship to KSC. If after starting the game and going to your ship, you get to 3.1 GB, then you probably can play for hours. BUT, the moment you switch to another scene or vessel, you're doomed.

This is somewhat expected in Alpha stage. Somewhat. They're supposed to iron the bugs out in beta, which we didn't have, so I guess they'll iron them out in production.

I don't know about the rest, but 0.90 seems particularity bad in this regard. My previous installs never eat RAM so fast. It's got to a point where I play with the task manager open and constantly checking RM usage. If I have to revert to VAB, then I probably just restart the game and go tracking stating > ship again. And this is with very few mods installed (5).

Yup, I switched to OpenGL to have more legroom in the RAM department. It rarely loads more than 1.5-1.7Gb, so I get by for some time. But I am also seeing some really weird lag spikes (with or without OpenGL). Well, I don't really see them, it's just that at times the game suddenly runs much smoother, like it used to do in other versions. It's just that now I have a mostly constant lag. A lag that wasn't there before (my personal part count limit used to be 500, now I get horrendous lag with 200) in other versions, and that sometimes goes away after some time without switching vessels. I more and more under a nagging feeling that I should be playing KSP at something like 1.2-1.5 times my actual speed right now. I mean, 200 parts on screen shouldn't make a gaming i5-3450 with 3.11Ghz on its cores sweat at all, and they make mine turn the clock yellow.

Rune. Might be one of my mods, I'm still tracking it down. Might not be, and just be another example of why KSP, as it is, is not ready for 1.0.

[ScytheElement]

Yeah I'm on a Mac and I will get random textures showing and then the game would freeze up and crash, took all my mods off and played stock and still the same problem.

[Engineer of Stuff]

When I saw the thread title, I thought this:

--

Memory leak!! Run for cover!

[Bilfr3d]

Could people please keep this thread on topic to the original OP, and not deviate away from it - particularly regarding discussions about KSP and the future updates. This place is for support on the current game - not support for the future game.

And, as many people on this thread have already figured out, KSP does seem to have a memory leak. Although it isn't quite distinctive for myself (I assume that's because I run fully stock most of the time), I do see fluctuations and occasionally get crashes from said "memory leak".

Cheers,

[crparris]

Bump to keep this topic fresh. i switched to Linux 64bit hoping to remedy the mem leak issue i have...

it has gotten worse...

it is a fact that KSP does NOT unload textures and depending on the number of mods, is always a ticking time bomb.

now that i use the memory usage mod, i can restart the game once i get close to dangerous levels, but i should not (nor should anyone) have to do this to enjoy the game.

Please devs, if you know of this issue, hot-fix it asap - do NOT wait for 1.0.

thank you.

[basic.syntax]

Though it would be nice to see a stabilization fix before 1.0, it is unlikely, because the restart work around does exist, and the problem manifests itself for different players at different times, depending on craft complexity and other factors.

In software development, a "hotfix" is usually reserved for easily reproduced, widely seen crashing bugs, for example: "attach this part to this other part, BOOM, app crash every time."

I'm keeping fingers crossed, for stability improvements in 1.0.

[crparris]

Though it would be nice to see a stabilization fix before 1.0, it is unlikely, because the restart work around does exist, and the problem manifests itself for different players at different times, depending on craft complexity and other factors.

In software development, a "hotfix" is usually reserved for easily reproduced, widely seen crashing bugs, for example: "attach this part to this other part, BOOM, app crash every time."

I'm keeping fingers crossed, for stability improvements in 1.0.

Not releasing textures and memory with screen changes should be pretty easy to nail down., for example: "take note of ram usage, launch large ship, revert back to space center, rinse, repeat until = BOOM, app crash every time"

it is reproduceable to thousands of alpha/beta testers.

My message was more a "if you know what's wrong, get it out as 0.90.01. Just please don't wait for 1.0"

[Insanitic]

Even as a new player, I can report the same thing here.

With ATM aggressive + DDSloader + forced d3d11, KSP starts out with ~2.78Gb ram on main menu and ~2.85Gb on Space Center.

While building/loading a craft in VAB, my ram usage shoots up to around the ~2.9Gb mark. When launching it increases again to ~3.0Gb +/- 0.7 depending on the craft complexity.

Now the worrisome part: reverting back to VAB/Space Center/quickload, does not seem to unload the previous scene from ram and relaunching does not seem load this previously cached scene still in ram. There are more instances in KSP where this happens.

To me this seems, what I heard and understood from friends who do programming: is that this Unity4.x implementation has very poor and non intelligent garbage collection.

That, or parts/textures/data etc are not correctly flagged in the code garbage collection, thus the garbage collector does not recognize them and that results in a steady climb of memory usage. Albeit: a memory leak.

As a newly player to KSP, I was shocked they wanted to go to a 1.0 release.

Without the above being fixed (good working garbage collection), even without good x64, 1.0 will be devastating for the game.

THIS. THIS EXACTLY. I was trying to find ANY insight in the massive jumps in memory I was having and it's somewhat good to know that others have it also. My game starts happy at a low 2.1 gb with a CRAP ton of part mods and running in Open gl + ATM basic. But as soon as I change to VAB, revert flight, go to SPH etc. it instantly shoots up to 3.0 gb.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Insanitic

[Jovzin]

bump this thread

[Superfluous J]

bump this thread

Thread doesn't need bumped. This bug has been reported as fixed for 1.0.

[Jovzin]

Really ? Sorry I did not know this. Can you point me where it is written ? Thx a lot

[Superfluous J]

Sadly Squad does not itemize these facts for us and I can't find anything better than Mike(Mu)'s mention of tidying up garbage collection in This Devnotes. But I know I've seen it at least once elsewhere. Maybe even buried in the comments of that or another devnotes.

I distinctly recall someone mentioning that they had fixed several instances of memory leak/garbage collection issues. Don't remember who or where, though.

[crparris]

i do remember mention of garbage collection in several dev comments as well. i just hope that it was intended as the remedy for the terribad memory leak and not just something they noticed.

i have shelved the game until 1.0 because of the memory leak.

[Kermon]

Same here KSP starts with 2.2GB and fills up to 3.7GB and crashes to desktop.

Stopped playing since february, after 0.90 cames out and x64 won't work. Then they announced "the end of x64" .

Last weekend i reinstalled, searched for mods and testet last two days with "too many heaps" and now this memory-thing...

I have just enough time to orbit around Kerbin and hopefully get a land before it crashes.

And best of all: no ETA for 1.0! So it's up to us to inform ourself on any news.? ehrm. yeah. female kerbals...that's exactly what i was in need for. Thanks, Squad !

[sarbian]

Indeed, the world is clearly ending. Repent !

[Kermon]

nope. world's beta than ever with new clouds

Rogelio (Roger): I’ve been rendering and doing some post production tasks, last week I started to play with particle systems to do some clouds.

[Cocox]

We need this fixed. It's the only fix that can temporarily make up for the scrapping of the 64 bit version.

[sarbian]

You know Rogelio works on the cinematic, right ?

[Kermon]

You know Rogelio works on the cinematic, right ?

That's the point! They only talk about cosmetical things like an "ugly-looking bug", balancing and some new parts or UI tranparency, i couldn't find any bugfixinglist or any to-does...

I can not imagine no one at Squad has noticed this problem?

I only read about their work on these optical stuff - but maybe your involveld in more interna?

[vixr]

I'm just living with the crashes...modified the way I play to account for the hourly (set your watch by it) crash, and wont try anything demanding past the 45 minute mark. The modded support threads assume I'm a software engineer and are beyond my comfort zone. I'm not so comfortable digging around in those files... I sure would like to see it fixed though! Imagine what it would be like to play two whole hours without crashing...sigh

[sarbian]

That's the point! They only talk about cosmetical things like an "ugly-looking bug", balancing and some new parts or UI tranparency, i couldn't find any bugfixinglist or any to-does...

I can not imagine no one at Squad has noticed this problem?

I only read about their work on these optical stuff - but maybe your involveld in more interna?

Previous dev note (in march) mentioned that the leak have been fixed. If you want to know the extend of the 1.0 fix and change you will have to wait for the release note. Those involved in QA or Exp are undoubtedly bound by a NDA (and/or honor) and will not leak infos.

As for me I love the cinematic and I m happy to get news on them.

[Kermon]

Maybe this will be off-topic... but it's poor communication from Squad! They inform inside the launcher about "deviant arts" ??? or movies, but the "real" infos went over twitter and others or deeply inside the forums at page 25 of thread X (for example). That looks like all that other publishers: take it or leave it. Just PR.

That memory error is game-breaking and not just a bad looking texture!

Perhaps this could be fixed for a lot of player meanwhile, but i think i am not the only one with that... Is it fixed for you, sarbain?

I also like the animation, the look and feel of KSP - but this isn't 1.0 wothy...