As posted in the title it is probably a JRE issue with the provided JRE. Still, I think it might be worth looking into, in case I'm not the only one that encountered it.
OS: Windows 10 64-bit
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1060 with (reasonably) up-to-date drivers
Tried to launch the new version via shortcut and directly via starsector.exe. Game did not launch.
Looked into \Starsector\starsector-core\ directory for logfile, but no logfile was found.
Executed starsector.bat manually via command prompt and received the following error:
..\jre\bin\java.exe -Djava.library.path=native\windows -Xms1024m -Xmx1024m -Xss1024k -Dcom.fs.starfarer.settings.paths.logs=. -Dcom.fs.starfarer.settings.paths.saves=../saves -Dcom.fs.starfarer.settings.paths.screenshots=../screenshots -Dcom.fs.starfarer.settings.paths.mods=../mods -classpath janino.jar;commons-compiler.jar;commons-compiler-jdk.jar;starfarer.res.jar;starfarer.api.jar;starfarer_obf.jar;jogg-0.0.7.jar;jorbis-0.0.15.jar;json.jar;lwjgl.jar;lwjgl_util_applet.jar;jinput.jar;lwjgl_test.jar;log4j-1.2.9.jar;lwjgl_util.jar;fs.sound_obf.jar;fs.common_obf.jar;xstream-1.4.2.jar com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine.
Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit.
Verified version of provided JRE:
..\jre\bin\java.exe -version
java version "1.7.0_45"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_45-b18)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 24.45-b08, mixed mode)
Modified starsector.bat to execute game via the java version installed on my system (and changed settings.json to permit other java versions).
java.exe -version
java version "1.8.0_131"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_131-b11)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.131-b11, mixed mode)
java.exe -Djava.library.path=native\windows -Xms1024m -Xmx1024m -Xss1024k -Dcom.fs.starfarer.settings.paths.logs=. -Dcom.fs.starfarer.settings.paths.saves=../saves -Dcom.fs.starfarer.settings.paths.screenshots=../screenshots -Dcom.fs.starfarer.settings.paths.mods=../mods -classpath janino.jar;commons-compiler.jar;commons-compiler-jdk.jar;starfarer.res.jar;starfarer.api.jar;starfarer_obf.jar;jogg-0.0.7.jar;jorbis-0.0.15.jar;json.jar;lwjgl.jar;lwjgl_util_applet.jar;jinput.jar;lwjgl_test.jar;log4j-1.2.9.jar;lwjgl_util.jar;fs.sound_obf.jar;fs.common_obf.jar;xstream-1.4.2.jar com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher
0 [main] INFO com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher - Starting Starsector 0.8a-RC17 launcher
0 [main] INFO com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher - Running in D:\Games\Starsector\starsector-core
0 [main] INFO com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher - OS: Windows 10 10.0
0 [main] INFO com.fs.starfarer.StarfarerLauncher - Java version: 1.8.0_131 (64-bit)
Apr 21, 2017 1:35:24 AM java.util.prefs.WindowsPreferences <init>
WARNING: Could not open/create prefs root node Software\JavaSoft\Prefs at root 0x80000002. Windows RegCreateKeyEx(...) returned error code 5.
31 [main] INFO com.fs.starfarer.settings.StarfarerSettings - Loading settings
31 [main] INFO com.fs.starfarer.loading.LoadingUtils - Loading JSON from [ABSOLUTE_AND_CWD: null (data/config/settings.json)]
172 [main] INFO com.fs.starfarer.launcher.opengl.GLLauncher - Found display mode: 640x480, 60Hz, 32bpp
<snip>
This way starsector launched properly and Starsector.log was created.
However - as the application itself warns - there are many potential incompatibilities, so I'd prefer to launch the game via the intended version. Does anyone have an idea why the provided JRE doesn't work properly on my system or has encountered the same issue?