The only thing I have running are planets and stars, every other option I have turned off. Running in a window at 1024X768. Antialiasing off. I have the newest nVidia driver and have it optimized properly. This isn't the newest or fastest system out there, but it runs everythin else I've thrown at it like a champ and I shudder to think of what running this program would be like with the so called "minimum requirements".
I believe that before any new features are added to this great program (1.4.0pre+) that an effort needs to be made to make the current version more stable and system friendly. Who cares if you can zoom in so close to the Earth that you can count the bricks in your house if the program crashes all the time.
I am not a programmer and understand the, "if you can't do it yourself then don't cry me a river" attitude. But I would think the developers would want to put out the best program possible, and I think the only way to accomplish that is to take a step back from advancing the program and take some time to fix the memory issues that currently exist. There aren't any programs that I know of that require thousands of dollars in upgrades, and would still run slow and/or unstable. There has to be a way to manage memory better by preloading textures, dumping and freeing memory blocks that aren't in use, etc.
I do want to thank the developers for this program. I only wish that it were as enjoyable as it could be. Its fun to fly around and experience the universe in a 3D, photorealistic environment. With the memory issues this just isn't possible even on higher end systems.
