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KSP2 is spamming the Windows Registry until the game stops working

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

#251

Post by dreamcompiler »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #157
rapind wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's always annoyed me with many operating systems is this need to organize based on function instead of domain. If I install an application named "Bob" then I want ALL of Bob's configuration to live within Bob. I don't want it split between different registry keys or /usr/local, /etc/, /var, /lib, etc. I'm fine with there being conventions and categorizations, but I'd like to root node to be the application itself…

This exists for a while now, but didn't catch on: https://gobolinux.org/at_a_glance.html

That's largely what MacOS does.

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

#252

Post by gorgoiler »

Joker_vD wrote: post #68
kortex wrote: 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…

> "half assed KV dumping ground for every process and their dog to litter with whatever while acting as a singular bottleneck" Doesn't that describe disk filesystems too? And Unix file namespace in particular (a single hierarchy unifying several block devices, just like registry is composed of several on-disk files)? What about all that junk in one's $HOME?

In particular, taking a leisurely stroll through /etc is quite a treat if you enjoy a well planted and diverse bed of configuration cultures.

Over on one end you have papersize, a file containing a single word with seemingly no relation to any installed software. In httpd.conf we have a sort of SGML that’s mostly line oriented CDATA. aliases and many other mail files are all members of the Berkeley DB lineage of key value stores. default/ feels like it’s also a key value store but one suspects that one could probably put a command in there and something would execute it. rc.d is 99% code but with semantics in the symlinks too (see also Debian’s alternatives.) A very large number of files look like braced C code; named.conf even requires terminal semicolons!

There’s no value in either consistency or diversity of the underlying implementation be it a registry — the registry, or a gconf thing — or a filesystem smorgasbord of config languages. Without the discipline (authoritarianism?) of a social structure — for example a “company” with a hierarchical leadership that can promote/fire you — you will get diversity in any system.

I just reminded myself of the time I used ansible YAML Jinja templates to control EdgeRouter config files that programmatically built config in /etc. Time for a leisurely stroll in a real garden I think, far away from a computer.

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

#253

Post by jtriangle »

ilyt wrote: post #122
dotnet00 wrote: post #9

KSP2 had all the warning signs of being a disaster ever since the initial delays and controversies with the original studio. Unfortunately, as usual, the community put on hype blinders until it became impossible to ignore.

The pitch showed they know what players want What they did so far showed they have nowhere near skill to pull it off

To be fair, the users didn't ask for much by and large. They wanted better graphics and good physics with more game world to explore.

That's not really a huge leap. The issue really is, as it is with many things, scope creep. In KSP2's case, it's scope creep to such an extent where, they have long forgotten what people loved about the original whimsy rocket building game.

Like, better graphics really just needed to be better textures, and to make round things actually round. Good physics just needed to be "stuff doesn't randomly explode or become unstable while at rest". They absolutely could have done this... they just... didn't.

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

#255

Post by llm_nerd »

dataflow wrote: post #81
echelon wrote: 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…

The registry is far from high performance. And given the registry is basically a massive hierarchical structure, how is it different from files re: "random places"? The same dev that dumps files in "Random places" would dump values in random places in the registry.

The registry is almost never a good choice for storing...anything outside of the operating system itself, unless the data is somehow tightly coupled with a specific Windows install (e.g. an activation key). The idea of storing instance data in the registry is madness.

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

#256

Post by m463 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #3

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.

KSP is on GOG, but the enshittification made all reviews one-star:

https://www.gog.com/en/game/kerbal_space_program

I don't know what other companies have screwed up GOG titles, maybe paradox (like stellaris?)

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

#257

Post by a-dub »

dataflow wrote: post #81
echelon wrote: 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…

> There's no automatic file merge in general (hence .pacnew and such) so you gotta do it by hand (and not everything is available with the foo.d/ hack). The registry already operates at the value granularity so it bypasses this kind of issue.

it gets around this issue by creating a gigantic systemwide or per user bucket of crap that inevitably ends up inconsistent.

since it is custom there is no good tooling for doing diffs and many developers treat it as quasi private so the config values are often not human readable.

there are management utilities that work ok, until they don't. then you have to start over because who knows, it's all just crap.

it's literally like a jerry seinfeld joke. you think configuration should be sensible, then everybody just sees this bucket and goes wooopty woopty woo and then it's just filled with crap.

bill gates probably sent emails about it. "i tried to look at the registry, but then it was just trashed."

that is the registry. a little shadow filesystem with a bizarre layout with weird and incomplete tools that is filled with crap.

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

#258

Post by LoganDark »

londons_explore wrote: post #35

Adding 322 mb of data to the registry isn't going to be healthy for windows either. Registry hives expand but don't contract again. The registry is effectively held entirely in RAM. You are therefore effectively wasting 322 mb of RAM even when KSP isn't running.

Is there a tool like WinDirStat/WizTree but for the registry?

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

#259

Post by vardump »

dataflow wrote: post #242
vardump wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example SQLite is superior. That said, on Windows you kinda have to use registry, especially on the kernel driver level.

> For example SQLite is superior. First... where are you getting this from? I just spent half an hour writing a an incredibly simple benchmark and all I see is SQLite being something like 20x slower than a registry query, seemingly caused by repeated locking & I/O system calls. This is on a trivial database with just 1 table with just 1 row, vs. a registry that's on a machine that's been running for years. If you hav…

"Is it common for drivers to use SQLite to store configuration information in any OS? I dare say I've never seen this."

It's not. You're going to use your assigned registry hive for it.

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

#260

Post by LoganDark »

baal80spam wrote: post #217
ivanjermakov wrote: post #144

I'm so grateful Unix did not implement its own registry. Files all the way down.

Really? I see it as a mess in the whole house instead of a mess in one room only.

windows is a collection of thousands of rooms each with their own mess
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