When comparing Active Texture Management vs Deadly Reentry, the Slant community recommends Active Texture Management for most people. In the question“What are the best Kerbal Space Program mods?” Active Texture Management is ranked 9th while Deadly Reentry is ranked 34th. The most important reason people chose Active Texture Management is:
All textures can be compressed & resized to save RAM. There are two modes of compression - basic and aggressive. Both compress to DXT and generate minimaps for all non-normal map textures, with aggressive mode having a max of 256x256 and basic mode having a max of 512x512 size for normal maps that it resizes to half the size.
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Pros
Pro Reduces texture memory use, including mod textures
All textures can be compressed & resized to save RAM. There are two modes of compression - basic and aggressive. Both compress to DXT and generate minimaps for all non-normal map textures, with aggressive mode having a max of 256x256 and basic mode having a max of 512x512 size for normal maps that it resizes to half the size.
Pro Can save vast amounts of space
In some cases up to 50% of space is saved.
Pro Aggressive mode eliminates the need for texture reduction packs for mods
Active Texture Management will optimize all textures to use less memory so there's no need to use separate texture reduction packs for each mod. It you choose to use texture reduction packs regardless, you might need to edit the config file at:
BoulderCo/textureCompressorConfigs/textureCompressor.tcfg
Pro Add reentry heating
As the craft comes in from outer space and into and through gases in the atmosphere it will get damaged by the heat. Mod includes heat shield for reentry.
Pro Adds g-force overloads
Crew can die from inability to cope with weight produced by acceleration.
Cons
Con Extremely outdated and unsupported as of 2021
Most mods use .dds texture format which ATM doesn't work for, and the plugin hasn't been updated to recent versions of Unity.