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KSP2 is spamming the Windows Registry until the game stops working

forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com

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Re: KSP2 is spamming the Windows Registry until the game stops working

#111
People in both threads shit on devs as if they manually modified registry with a crappy script at that, but this is the official Unity API and this is the idiomatic way to store preferences.

Ofcourse, it is unfortunate to have bug here of all places, but it looks like people don't like KSP2 devs in general (maybe even for good reasons, I don't know) and try to exaggerate this issue as some kind of proof, when in reality there is none

Re: KSP2 is spamming the Windows Registry until the game stops working

#112
post #39
post #8

It feels like the Windows Registry is one of those well-intentioned ideas that ended up being a tremendous mess in actual implementation. "Let's use a central database to store things that the OS, drivers, and UI need to access" somehow became "half assed KV dumping ground for every process and their dog to litter with whatever while acting as a singular bottleneck". See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=322…

A central key-value store that can be programmatically accessed to persist state across users, processes, and boots, that is also strictly typed and hierarchical is quite useful. I think it would actually be quite useful to have an /etc/conf virtual file system that could be programmatically accessed by user space processes and used as a "dumping ground" just like /etc already is.

I think the "central" part is where you lose me with this argument. What advantages does the registry have over application-specific KV stores... besides the potential to interfere with other applications and the OS itself?

Re: KSP2 is spamming the Windows Registry until the game stops working

#113
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming from a Linux background, what is the windows registry and why do things need to write to it? All I ever read about it seem to be horror stories. Can't you store stuff alongside the install? Or in some user data location?

> what is the windows registry and why do things need to write to it? It's a centralized, high-performance small key value store that's the alternative to writing a million config files in random places. It's arguably much better in my experience. E.g. one of the never-ending headaches I always have on Linux is updating config files when a package updates. There's no automatic file merge in general (hence .pacnew and…

"high-performance"

We might have differing opinions about that. (I've got experience for example in Windows kernel mode drivers and service development.)

Re: KSP2 is spamming the Windows Registry until the game stops working

#114

KSP2 is really becoming the premier example of "Nearly perfect labour of love's legacy ruined after being bought by a larger company." More on topic: I have no idea why one would want to use the registry to store this information.

It's far worse than that. Take-Two bought Squad and KSP along with it. Soon after they took Squad's original IP from them and gave it to Private Division to develop KSP 2. Then they poached staff from Squad. It's not like KSP 2 is developed in some innovative way, I was expecting that game like KSP 2 should have been developed in it's own engine since it's so unique among other games. But nooo. KSP 2 still uses Unity…

Incorrect on nearly all counts:

* The GAME (KSP) and the IP was purchased by Take-Two, not the company itself.

* The IP was then given to Star theory (MNC/SMNC/Planetary Annihilation guys) to develop KSP2

* Star theory failed once to deliver on the budget they promised, they got extra money

* ST failed second time,T2 didn't wanted to give them more money, so ST wanted to sell out to T2

* T2 went "fuck it", took IP from them

* Take-Two was one to poach developers from Star Theory (not Squad!) to make new studio to make KSP2. IIRC they basically made blanked statement "if you want to work on KSP we will hire you" to their devs, a lot of them came over.

I assume the last part happened because T2 went "hold on, you failed to deliver then want us to buy you ? Why would we buy company with incompetent management in the first place ? Poaching devs is cheaper".

> You are better off installing better graphics mods on KSP.

Well, at least you got that right.

Re: KSP2 is spamming the Windows Registry until the game stops working

#115
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> KSP1, for example, or No Man's Sky Those are two very different examples, though. NMS was improved heavily but in many ways never approached the features and qualities that people were expecting. KSP2 feels more like NMS than KSP1 in that regard - people have expectations. They've been sold a specific vision which doesn't look like the game. Further, unless it's great ... why not just keep playing KSP1 with extensi…

> NMS was improved heavily but in many ways never approached the features and qualities that people were expecting. Asking who? From what I've seen, the typical sentiment is that they've gone far past the expectations they set. For KSP2 I think the main expectations were eventual new content (starting with a good chunk less than KSP1 and adding more later) and better performance. And they sure haven't delivered perfo…

> Asking who? From what I've seen, the typical sentiment is that they've gone far past the expectations they set.

I enjoy the game a lot more now, but the original E3 "gameplay" trailer still feels like it overpromises. Comparing the current state to that trailer there are quite a few things that have fallen short:

I've never encountered a planet which was as lush as the one shown initially. You don't find animals packed that closely together. I don't think semi-aquatic animals like the sauropod-looking things in the trailer are supported in the game either. You don't see animals running around in packs like they showed either. The closest thing you see is about five identical animals spawned into the same small area.

The video also shows you being able to fly swiftly above the surface of a planet. I may be misremembering, but I don't think I've ever been able to fly quite that quickly, but the biggest difference is that the game suffers from very noticeable object pop-in (it can even be noticed when moving at low speed).

I think you can fly with wingmen now, but I've not tried it.

This might not sound like much, but the existing game just looks far less interesting than the original trailer even if many rough boxes have been checked since then. Also, I'm not even looking at any other pre-release announcements or videos for reference.

Re: KSP2 is spamming the Windows Registry until the game stops working

#116

I haven't done Windows native development for over 20 years, but at my time during the 90's we already used the registry rather sparingly. And at this time, cross-platform development was not even in our radars. I wonder how in the Year of Our Lord of 2023 someone feels confortable using the Windows Registry like some kind of blackboard.

Well it's not like they randomly decided to use it. It's official and recommended API in Unity. You can use it and not even know it ises registry under the hood (although, at this caliber, you definetly should know such things)

Re: KSP2 is spamming the Windows Registry until the game stops working

#117

“Be warned though, deleting the wrong thing can stop applications from working, or even break the entire operating system .“ You gotta love Windows.

Yes, because if I go to /etc or /var and delete some random thing, linux is just magical and nothing will possible break.

Cut the crap

Re: KSP2 is spamming the Windows Registry until the game stops working

#118

KSP2 is really becoming the premier example of "Nearly perfect labour of love's legacy ruined after being bought by a larger company." More on topic: I have no idea why one would want to use the registry to store this information.

Why do "evil overlord" always seem to fail at understanding what they bought, especially the fact that the brand isn't worth much, and what are required investments/plans to capitalize it?

Like, buying Palm and reselling cheap Android phones, buying KSP and releasing KSP2 as it is don't seem to make a lot of financial sense. Or does it? It's always assumed "they" make a lot of money by ruining a brand. How and how much?

Re: KSP2 is spamming the Windows Registry until the game stops working

#120
post #111

People in both threads shit on devs as if they manually modified registry with a crappy script at that, but this is the official Unity API and this is the idiomatic way to store preferences. Ofcourse, it is unfortunate to have bug here of all places, but it looks like people don't like KSP2 devs in general (maybe even for good reasons, I don't know) and try to exaggerate this issue as some kind of proof, when in real…

yeah, I thought it was a bit silly too, and obviously a case of "hindsight is 20/20". "They should have been more careful." They assumed an ID that was static and it turned out not to be. I'm not saying the bug would have been impossible to prevent, but things like that will slip through the cracks on occasion.
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