Will new computer run KSP smooth?

[Plump]

Just scored new computer last night.

Specs...

4th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-4770 processor

8MB L3 cache and 3.4GHz processor speed with Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz.

RAM..16GB DDR3 memory

NVIDIA GT625

Windows 8 64 bit

Really loking forward to less lag

[Diazo]

Ohh, that will be a nice setup.

When you do, can you do the CPU Performance thread comparison? I have a similar clock speed, but I'm on Windows 7. I'm interested to see what Windows 8 does for KSP.

D.

[Moar Boosters]

Depends how big you build your rockets!

[MrPopcup]

you have a Monster PC, but not a good card at all ( GPU )

Dude, i7 is nothing with 625GT, ever heard of BOTTLENECK? your GPU will bottleneck your CPU, meaning it won't give you the performance you expect it to, get a 650GTX+ card and enjoy every game on highest graphics! ( my recommendation it 670GTX, really suitable, or 760GTX ).

[Lysergic]

Nice CPU, but your graphics card is severely lacking. KSP is CPU limited for most people, but you'll have a big GPU bottleneck - you'll have trouble turning the graphics up beyond the lowest settings. You'd be better off getting 4 gigs of ram and spending every last $ you save on a better GPU.

[arq]

My 560GT runs KSP on max just fine. You'll get better results with that computer, but any computer will chug with enough parts.

[Seanoog]

Hello an welcome to the forums.

That's one nice system. But I strongly recommend overclocking your Haswell. Should do 4.4 - 4.8GHz nicely, an KSP should support 500-600 parts in doing so.

Happy Launching.

[boxman]

My 560GT runs KSP on max just fine. You'll get better results with that computer, but any computer will chug with enough parts.

The 560GT is alot faster than the 620 though.

It might be fine for kerbal space, but will clearly be a bottleneck with nearly any other game at least.

[DMagic]

That system really is very unbalanced. I would love to see your results on my CPU test thread with that CPU, but your GPU will almost certainly cause problems, even at the lowest settings I wouldn't expect much out of that thing. I think your integrated GPU may even be better than that thing, it would probably at least provide similar performance.

And about, Windows 8, I don't think that will really affect performance either way. There's not a huge difference between 8 and 7; I'm on 8 and I don't think my performance is better or worse than that of people running 7.

[bwoneill]

I've got almost the same setup (i7-4770K, GTX 550Ti, 8GB RAM, Win7 x64) and it is nice. I typically get 45-50 fps with 300 part ships, 10 fps at 600 parts, and 5 fps at 1000 parts with the default settings. And I haven't even tried to overclock it yet since I'm currently living where the temperature is 90-100F and no AC, so you should get comparable rates.

If you can, I highly recommend getting a better graphics card. The only advantage the GT 625 has over integrated graphics is the dedicated RAM (actually, at least one benchmark puts the Intel HD 4600 above the GT 625). You can get a GT 640 or an Radeon HD 7750 for about $80 and you'll see a huge improvement in graphics intensive games.

@Seanoog

Unfortunately, you can't easily overclock the standard Haswell processors. You have to get one of the unlocked processors if you're going to overclock.

http://techreport.com/news/24950/intel-removes-modest-free-overclocking-from-standard-haswell-cpus

[Plump]

Planning on upgrading GPU for Christmas. As soon as comcast hooks up my internet tomorrow, I would be more than happy to send you results. But so far, I have been lag free on high settings and have built a decent size station.

[MaGicBush]

Hah my GTX 260 that is over 5 years old runs Kerbal just fine, so don't worry about it OP and you can safely ignore people saying it will effect performance noticeably. I run the game at full graphics settings and experience no lag(generally around 30-60fps), though I have yet to build some monstrosity. I mean yes it is technically a bottleneck for that CPU but you wont run into issues with KSP, or most games for that matter(except a few newer games maybe, but I can even run newer games on medium/low at 50fps). I am hoping to upgrade soon though, had this PC for ever and ready to upgrade after 6 years as I would love to run the newest games on full again. Most people on the internet though tend to be PC part crazy and have to have the newest parts to play their games for that precious extra 2 fps lol.

Edited September 9, 2013 by MaGicBush

[Dortmunder]

You'll probably be disappointed if you're upgrading just to handle large crafts. You'll still get choppy FPS.

But if you're just playing with single ships that aren't huge or average size ships, that will do nicely.

[jaredkzr]

Having built numerous gaming PC's, here is my advice:

I would drop back to a 2nd or 3rd generation processor to save a little extra money and put that towards a better graphics card. Right now, your configuration is going to be bottlenecked at the GPU. This means that your graphics card is so much slower that it drags the CPU down with it. I'd go for at least a 650, maybe even a 760. If you don't have any experience with overclocking then you might want to look into it. For comparison, I have a Intel Core-i5 2500k running at 4Ghz instead of the normal 3.3Ghz. This processor combined with my GTX 460 allows me to get decent frame rates up until about 600 parts. Then the FPS drops off to around 15 which is still flyable.

Ask me any questions if you need help!

[DMagic]

Hah my GTX 260 that is over 5 years old runs Kerbal just fine, so don't worry about it OP and you can safely ignore people saying it will effect performance noticeably. I run the game at full graphics settings and experience no lag(generally around 30-60fps), though I have yet to build some monstrosity. I mean yes it is technically a bottleneck for that CPU but you wont run into issues with KSP, or most games for that matter(except a few newer games maybe, but I can even run newer games on medium/low at 50fps). I am hoping to upgrade soon though, had this PC for ever and ready to upgrade after 6 years as I would love to run the newest games on full again. Most people on the internet though tend to be PC part crazy and have to have the newest parts to play their games for that precious extra 2 fps lol.

Your GTX 260 may be over 5 years old, but it's around 5 to 10X more powerful than the GT 625. There's really no comparison between the two cards.

I've switched from an AMD HD7850 to an HD 7750 (which is still far more powerful than the 625) and I definitely noticed a difference in performance at 1680X1050. With the 7850 I can run with just about everything maxed and not really be GPU limited, but with the 7750 I have to turn down the terrain settings (really just the ocean settings), AA, and maybe a few other settings.

[boxman]

Hah my GTX 260 that is over 5 years old runs Kerbal just fine, so don't worry about it OP and you can safely ignore people saying it will effect performance noticeably. I run the game at full graphics settings and experience no lag(generally around 30-60fps), though I have yet to build some monstrosity. I mean yes it is technically a bottleneck for that CPU but you wont run into issues with KSP, or most games for that matter(except a few newer games maybe, but I can even run newer games on medium/low at 50fps). I am hoping to upgrade soon though, had this PC for ever and ready to upgrade after 6 years as I would love to run the newest games on full again. Most people on the internet though tend to be PC part crazy and have to have the newest parts to play their games for that precious extra 2 fps lol.

You cant compare your gpu like that as what you have is a higher end model and might be faster even though it is older. You have to look at the second two numbers to judge the performance.

The 620 is pretty much as low end as you can get besides integrated gpus with shared ram.

I have an old 9800gtx+"later released as gts250", which is even older than yours and even that one would be alot faster and would be more comparable to 650 series in terms of performance.

There have even been some cases where the previous generation was slightly faster than the newer generation.

Edited September 9, 2013 by boxman

[Guest]

The max-physics delta time slider in the game settings menu has a huge impact on whether the game runs smooth or choppy. I play with my slider set all the way to the right. While the game does run in slo-mo sometimes, it remains smooth and responsive, even with large part counts. My quick specs : Intel core duo 2.2ghz with integrated graphics.

[SRV Ron]

KSP runs just fine on a lot of system configurations including my laptop. Preferred are graphic cards with dedicated ram, not the shared ram of the budget big box packaged system and many low end laptops.

Best off are systems built to your specs by an independent shop. That way, you get what you want with none of the installed crapware running in the background wasting ram and cpu time.

[Zedrophobia]

Scan built 4.4ghz 4670 8gb and a 770gtx ksp still runs pooie, fan on my water loop goes nuts. My old unlocked i5 and even my q6600 does about the same. Engine is needing more cores me thinks.

[SpaceHole]

Hello an welcome to the forums.

That's one nice system. But I strongly recommend overclocking your Haswell. Should do 4.4 - 4.8GHz nicely, an KSP should support 500-600 parts in doing so.

Happy Launching.

Great idea - overclocking for someone who has noe clue of it but not only that but just a small step of 1.4 GHZ - without any changes - what could possible go wrong ....

BTW. KSP probably wont run that great with huge-part counts on any PC. Maybe im wrong but i think it would probably run best with single-or-dualcore with high Mhz.

The main problem of KSP is not bad computers but its lacking support of 64bit, multicore etc.

Im playing on my notebook which has no problems at all with KSP (best cheap gaming-notebook i found).

Edited September 9, 2013 by SpaceHole

[Zedrophobia]

Agree with SpaceHole even deep thought would struggle with ksp until they support multicore etc. but yes it's unity restricted so well have to be wise and clever. I'm sure NASA's calculator sized pc struggled with the 1000 parts.

Shame it will be some time until they show us what they can do in the 21st century.

[boxman]

Great idea - overclocking for someone who has noe clue of it but not only that but just a small step of 1.4 GHZ - without any changes - what could possible go wrong ....

BTW. KSP probably wont run that great with huge-part counts on any PC. Maybe im wrong but i think it would probably run best with single-or-dualcore with high Mhz.

The main problem of KSP is not bad computers but its lacking support of 64bit, multicore etc.

Im playing on my notebook which has no problems at all with KSP (best cheap gaming-notebook i found).

I agree completely about the overclocking. Suggesting this to someone who might not be experienced is something that might lead to a fried pc.

And suggesting such large steps is really unwise since only way to safely do it is to do it in small steps, while monitoring stability and temperatures before trying to push it higher.

But about mhz that does not really matter as much since another brand of cpu with identical freq might actually be slower per core.

Like take for example the pentium 4.. that one was significantly slower per mhz than both the amd athlon series, intel p3 and even the p2.

My 1400mhz thunderbird athlon i had back then beat the hell out of a 2ghz p4 if i recall correctly.

[Bekiekutmoar]

My new system won't run KSP just yet:

Pentium i3 Quadcore 3,4 Ghz

Integrated GPU: HD2500

8 GB RAM

OS: Windows 7 - 64-bit

Dedicated GPU will follow in a few months probably.

[CosmicFlux]

So would the GTX650 be a good card?