You probably all need to check yer registry entries if you've played a fair amount of KSP2

[Profugo Barbatus]

Just thought I'd bring this over as a PSA from the KSP2 official forums, where folks just discovered that the games flooding the windows registry[forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com] with garbage data whenever you load saves or transition between bodies in the game. Aside from actually preventing the game from working at a point, Registry garbage impacts your machines performance as a whole, outside the game. And these entries aren't removed when you uninstall - If you played back at launch like I did, they're still there, and if you played a lot, they may be causing performance detriments.

Figured I'd pass the message along here, since the developer response isn't usually prompt. Also, if you take fixing it into your own hands, just know that you gotta be careful, take backups, or you might really brick things if you just start nuking entries left and right.

[HeyItsMe]

Originally posted by Buzz313TH:

So if the recommendation from an expert is to not use the software and the method that created this problem could be considered negligent, than is it reasonable to assume that consumers have the right to request a refund? If so, and if that request has been ignored and or denied, then is it reasonable for a large customer base to seek legal help to get compensated for not having the confidence in the product they purchased? I would say yes, by all means.

You would be wrong. You cant sue someone for not having confidence in a product. I guess you could, but the lawsuit would be thrown out. What contract with Steam or the game company was breached and how did it damage you?

I'll tell you the answer to those questions. 1 - there was no breach of contract. 2 - you were not damaged.

Imagine buying a McDonals burger, sitting on it for 7 months, and then suing McDonalds cause they wouldnt give you a refund 7 months later.

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by Buzz313TH:

So if the recommendation from an expert is to not use the software and the method that created this problem could be considered negligent, than is it reasonable to assume that consumers have the right to request a refund? If so, and if that request has been ignored and or denied, then is it reasonable for a large customer base to seek legal help to get compensated for not having the confidence in the product they purchased? I would say yes, by all means.

You had an opportunity to request a refund within 2 weeks or 2 hours of play time. So, no, as you haven't suffered damages from what you're arguing as negligence. You should really go back to your arm-chair law school and demand a refund for your tuition.

[Zyrohex]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Originally posted by Zyrohex:

...Since this is loaded under the SOFTWARE hive your biggest impact would be slower app load times and boot times. If they manage to somehow wreck havoc on the software hive, which highly unlikely, the most probable and worse scenario is affecting applications, their settings, along with some windows services that load during boot.

It wouldn't even do that. Again, the hive that would impact the broader system would be HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\. This bug is writing to the games registry entries under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\ hive. It won't "fill up your system drive", it won't slow down the system booting, etc.

The HKLM\ hive does have a different set of limitations than the other hives so if they were doing this in that hive it would actually have the potential to be problematic system-wide. This issue, however, is really only going to impact the loading of the game; and potentially the performance of loading a save and/or transitioning between SOIs. However, I don't think anyone is going to notice that specifically as a performance issue as it would be completely masked by the more egregious performance problems with the game.

The system will not load HKEY CU until a user logs into the system, which if you bypass login, then it goes straight to loading that hive data. This gets down to a fine point of how windows looks up registry keys and values however, which I do not have knowledge on and do not care to, I stopped handling windows devices many years ago for a reason.

However loading and processing that hive data very well could have an impact (see below), but as I mentioned before its likely not noticeable for SSD users unless you measured it. Platter drive users would be the ones to notice the biggest impact depending on how large that file gets.

This HIVE is responsible for many users settings including: Personalization Settings, User Specific App Settings, System Settings (settings in Explorer, network connections, device settings), the users environment, AppData (locations to an app's appdata is stored in HKCU), and more. In order for any of those things to be looked up, windows has to load that file and process it, which will be based upon the size of the file, number of entries and disk speed.

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by Zyrohex:

...The system will not load HKEY CU until a user logs into the system, which if you bypass login, then it goes straight to loading that hive data....

I do see the point you're making, however, it would be negligible even with auto-logon. The issue will hit the element limits and break the game (and thus its ability to do anything further) before it would be meaningfully impactful to the boot or user login.

Regardless, long story short this isn't as egregious an issue as people are portraying it to be, however, it is yet another example of incredibly amateurish development on Intercept Games part. I think the bigger issue for Intercept Games in regards to this is the potential implication of this being a rather cavalier use of the registry shocking quite a bit of the ardent fanboys back into reality.

[Anorax]

This definitely goes in the "epic screw up" category. I will check registry tonight and remove any offending entries. I think I will also uninstall KSP2 and come back to it at a later date when it is fit for purpose. Thankfully I have only put in 7 hours or so into the game so the impact on my system registry won't be too bad.

[Zyrohex]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Originally posted by Zyrohex:

...The system will not load HKEY CU until a user logs into the system, which if you bypass login, then it goes straight to loading that hive data....

I do see the point you're making, however, it would be negligible even with auto-logon. The issue will hit the element limits and break the game (and thus its ability to do anything further) before it would be meaningfully impactful to the boot or user login.

Regardless, long story short this isn't as egregious an issue as people are portraying it to be, however, it is yet another example of incredibly amateurish development on Intercept Games part. I think the bigger issue for Intercept Games in regards to this is the potential implication of this being a rather cavalier use of the registry shocking quite a bit of the ardent fanboys back into reality.

That would be correct, for SSD users they would have to use some tools to measure the impact on the load time. Platter drive users would be the only users who would really feel some sort of impact on time for the OS to load and process the reg file.

Just for fun I had chatGPT come up with some "theoretical" numbers for an idea of impact with a 7200 rpm spinning disk and a worse case scenario where the registry file grew to a size of 10GB. This is also in ideal conditions, not taking into consideration a number of other factors, but for the sake of simplicity we will ignore those things:

Disk Speed: The average sequential read speed for a 7200 RPM spinning disk is around 80-160 MB/s, but this can vary based on the specific drive and its age, among other factors. For the sake of this calculation, let's use a conservative average of 100 MB/s.

File Size: The registry hive for HKEY Current User is 10GB in size, or 10,000 MB.

Using the formula:

Time = File Size / Disk Speed

Time = 10,000 MB / 100 MB/s = 100 seconds

So, theoretically, it would take approximately 100 seconds or 1 minute and 40 seconds to read a 10GB file at a speed of 100 MB/s.

Compared to a M.2 NVME SSD:
Disk Speed: The read speed of M.2 NVME SSDs can vary based on the specific drive and its generation. As of my last update in 2022, typical consumer M.2 NVME SSDs can achieve sequential read speeds of 2,000 MB/s to 5,000 MB/s, with some high-end models even surpassing these numbers. For the sake of this calculation, let's use an average speed of 3,000 MB/s.

File Size: The registry hive for HKEY Current User is 10GB in size, or 10,000 MB.

Time =10,000 MB / 3,000 MB/s = 3.33 seconds

So, theoretically, it would take approximately 3.33 seconds to read a 10GB file at a speed of 3,000 MB/s on an M.2 NVME SSD.

Compared to a SSD on SATA interface:
Disk Speed: The average sequential read speed for a SATA SSD is typically in the range of 400-550 MB/s, depending on the specific model and other factors. For the sake of this calculation, let's use an average of 500 MB/s.

File Size: The registry hive for HKEY Current User is 10GB in size, or 10,000 MB.

Time = 10,000 MB / 500 MB/s = 20 seconds

So by comparison breakdown for a 10GB registry file:
7200 rpm platter disk = 100 seconds
SATA SSD = 20 seconds
NVME SSD = 3.3 seconds

[flying yoshi]

First refund request refused by Steam. I just placed another one asking them how they will correct selling a harmful product on their site. We will see. Prospect not good. It seems there is not much ethic in the computer game business. I am quite surprised.

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by flying yoshi:

First refund request refused by Steam. I just placed another one asking them how they will correct selling a harmful product on their site. We will see. Prospect not good. It seems there is not much ethic in the computer game business. I am quite surprised.

You don't need to spam this in every thread. Should have been pretty obvious that your request would have been denied before you even submitted it.

[Anorax]

I just deleted the offending registry keys. After 7 hours played KSP2 had injected over 1100 registry keys into my system registry. O.o

[Wahnbert]

Originally posted by smokercraftalaskan424:

Originally posted by Wahnbert:

Hello Mikey
I requested a refund after 1.8 hours of KSP2.
These 1.8 hours left 369 PQS Object State entries in my registry. I expect it to be resolved in a reasonable time.

mfg Wahnbert

There are instructions out there on how to resolve it. Why not just resolve it yourself right now? Right now is a reasonable time.

They seriously think I should do other people's work. Are these people doing my job?

[HeyItsMe]

Originally posted by Wahnbert:

Originally posted by smokercraftalaskan424:

There are instructions out there on how to resolve it. Why not just resolve it yourself right now? Right now is a reasonable time.

They seriously think I should do other people's work. Are these people doing my job?

Sure. Why not just ask them to play the game for you too?

[flying yoshi]

Originally posted by smokercraftalaskan424:

Originally posted by Wahnbert:

They seriously think I should do other people's work. Are these people doing my job?

Sure. Why not just ask them to play the game for you too?

You are being arrogant. He may not be comfortable fixing the problem by himself because he may not be a computer expert. Also, if he fixes the problem and continue to use the game, it will come back again and again. Not only computer experts play computer games you know. If you buy a new car but there is a problem with the product you purchased, do you fix it yourself or ask the seller to fix it?

[Wahnbert]

Originally posted by smokercraftalaskan424:

Originally posted by Wahnbert:

They seriously think I should do other people's work. Are these people doing my job?

Sure. Why not just ask them to play the game for you too?

Since Gargamel told me in the KSP forum that this problem was with Steam and that I should contact Steam, I did so. with screenshot of the entry. Since there are such great suggestions here that I should clean up my registry myself, I will contact Microsoft and inform them that KSP 2 uses the registry to store its garbage data. Let's see what they say then.
Best regards

[HeyItsMe]

Originally posted by Wahnbert:

Originally posted by smokercraftalaskan424:

Sure. Why not just ask them to play the game for you too?

Since Gargamel told me in the KSP forum that this problem was with Steam and that I should contact Steam, I did so. with screenshot of the entry. Since there are such great suggestions here that I should clean up my registry myself, I will contact Microsoft and inform them that KSP 2 uses the registry to store its garbage data. Let's see what they say then.
Best regards

All kinds of programs use the registry to store garbage data. Registry bloat isnt a new phenomenon created by KSP2. Its happened before, it'll happen again. Its a minor patch fix. Windows Update has probably done the same thing at one point or another and you had no idea. Just like you had no idea of this particular instance for 7 months, because its not really an issue.

Why are y'all hung up on this? It doesnt damage your computer, it could slow down performance but it would be akin to drinking so much water it kills you.

[HeyItsMe]

Originally posted by flying yoshi:

Originally posted by smokercraftalaskan424:

Sure. Why not just ask them to play the game for you too?

You are being arrogant. He may not be comfortable fixing the problem by himself because he may not be a computer expert. Also, if he fixes the problem and continue to use the game, it will come back again and again. Not only computer experts play computer games you know. If you buy a new car but there is a problem with the product you purchased, do you fix it yourself or ask the seller to fix it?

This is whats really going on, using your same analogy.

You heard theres something wrong with your car from someone. You ask other people about it, and they're like, "ya bruh, your front left tire is low on air. Its not that big of a deal, put some air in it, or dont, whatever." And then you're like, "its not my job to put air in the tire, I'm not a car expert!". More people tell you, "bruh chill, its not even a big deal". But you insist - "I want to sue Toyota and the car dealership for lack of tire pressure maybe doing harm to my car in the long term". I demand a refund!".