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Using KSP on a computer without an extra graphics card


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I have an Asus computer with the following specifications:

Onboard AMD® Radeon R7 240 2GB Graphics

Windows 8.1

8 GB RAM

I am currently running the KSP Demo on the system and have not had any problems with graphics glitching.  Has anyone had this type of configuration (onboard graphics, no extra graphics card) and run the full version of KSP without any problems?

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I read the thread title and the user name, and I had to race into here to see how in space someone had managed to get KSP running on a C-128. I am disappoint now! :D

 

2 hours ago, C128user said:

I am currently running the KSP Demo on the system and have not had any problems with graphics glitching.  Has anyone had this type of configuration (onboard graphics, no extra graphics card) and run the full version of KSP without any problems?

If you can already run the demo, you should be able to run the full version too. You don't mention your CPU, but otherwise you exceed the minimum specs for the full version. Technically there's not much difference: they only ask for more VRAM, RAM and storage space since there are more parts to store and load in the full version. KSP is CPU-bound, not GPU. Your 'onboard graphics' is basically a full-fledged graphics card with dedicated VRAM which just happens to come pre-soldered... AMD prerrogative to use their own GPUs for their motherboards.

To compare: I have a Win 8.1 laptop with an Intel i7-4800 CPU, Intel HD4600 'actual' integrated graphics using shared memory, and 8GB, that ran KSP fine (*)... the FPS slowed down at around 150-200 part ships or when aerodynamic effects were being rendered on high detail levels (Mach/reentry effects), and I never tried it with more than a handful of mods (which can gobble up RAM rapidly), but it was quite playable. I didn't notice much difference between the demo or the full version other than the initial loading time.

Your mileage may vary, as they say, but since your graphics specs far exceed the specs of that laptop, I expect it should work fine for you.

(*full disclosure: I haven't run KSP 1.2x on that yet - but performance-wise 1.2 was an improvement, and I think the demo is based on a pre-1.2 version, so I can only assume it works better)

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2 hours ago, Harry Rhodan said:

Well, that is a dedicated or "extra" card.

Actually it's built into the CPU, I have one like it, an AMD A8-7650K APU with built in R7 GPU.

8 hours ago, C128user said:

and run the full version of KSP without any problems?

I'm actually running Linux Mint, so I'm using the open source driver, but KSP 1.2.2 runs well, not fast with big vessels but it's certainly playable.

On Windows with the proprietary driver you should be fine.

 

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I only use dedicated GFX cards, so can't directly tell how good an integrated GPU works with KSP.

But, even with all the power of a fast GPU and lots of VRAM, that's where my PC shows the bottleneck with KSP (GPU load is often > 90%). Even changed to a faster GPU (the most powerful my PC could handle) and still that's what could be causing FPS drops most of time.

KSP isn't a graphically intensive game, unlike many others that really require a very powerful GPU to create awesome, realistic scenery (my GPU runs just fine with those). But, KSP is really intensive with physics calculations, in particular when flying large vessels (many hundred parts, physicsless parts excluded). Most of the basic calculations with physics are handled by modern GPU, to relieve the CPU of a large mass of parallel computing. E.g., Unity (the engine behind KSP) makes large use of PhysX library to offload the CPU from all those calcs.

To really evaluate how large a load KSP is taking from your GPU, I always use Process Explorer which can be set to show a column with the GPU load for any running application (I'm still wondering why MS Task Manager has no such useful info). Please download, install, setup and try PE with KSP running (while flying a large vessel, some hundred parts at least), the value shown for GPU will tell you, better than any of our estimates, if your internal GPU is up to the task or not.

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2 hours ago, sal_vager said:

Actually it's built into the CPU, I have one like it, an AMD A8-7650K APU with built in R7 GPU.

Yeah, but those don't have a model number (or at least a four digit number on the older models) and definitely not 2GB of dedicated RAM.

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Sorry I forgot the CPU...

AMD A10-7800 3.50 GHz (12 compute cores, 4C + 8G)

This is from my system information.

I wanted a good processor so I went to the PassMark Software CPU Benchmark charts.  This one is on the high end CPU list.

 

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