I was playing around in the system designer, making massive planets (2000r+), paying close attention to the RAM used by system. My OS, Win7 x64, uses 2.48GB (rounded up to 2.5GB) while running only Steam (background), HWMonitor, Task Manager and FRAPS. PA brings that total up to 3.05GB or RAM, meaning that it uses 3.07GB (rounded down to 3GB) on the main menu screen immediately after launching. When I made a 2000r planet, I noticed that it retained an additional 1.56GB of RAM (rounded to 1.6GB), even after removing the planet and creating another one, different seed, all other parameters left the same. Even when I have exited to the main menu screen again, this amount does not change until I exit PA. I have confirmed the RAM increase with a 2500r planet and will be testing with other planets. OK, I tested with 200r, 500r and 1000r planets and confirmed that it retains the allocation, just not nearly to the extent of a 2000r planet, which is why it doesn't really affect anything on my 16GB system. Edit: All planets were seed: 0 Earth, all other parameters default. (Size changed, obviously.) I rendered each planet, then zoomed in, looked around and closed out. Edit #2: Upon the creation of a 3000r Earth, it appears that the retained allocation is only 0.5GB, however, my system cached about 1GB of files from the RAM, (I was running way less RAM than when I started up my PC) so I believe that the results are still the same, though misleading. P.S.: Why is it that in Beta I was able to make a 4500r Earth planet on <16GB of RAM, but now a 3000r uses up a total (including the aforementioned processes) 15.6GB?
I finally made a surface area mod for the system designer. If the relationship to RAM proves consistent across users, it might be fun to put in there as well. https://forums.uberent.com/threads/rel-surface-area.62643/
