[Ask Me A Few More Things]

Will Kerbal Space Program 2 be in the Steam Summer Sale? 

[PC hardware advice master thread for KSP2. (Ask if your specs are good enough or what to buy here.)]

2 hours ago, Streetwind said:

Keep in mind that VRAM use is currently going up sharply, fuelled by new render engines like UE5, and new technologies like raytracing, and the general shift towards UWQHD and UHD gaming.

Hogwarts Legacy won't run well with max settings even on 1080p unless you have at least 12GB VRAM, no matter the power of your GPU. A 3060 non-Ti with its 12GB will run that game better than a more expensive 3060 Ti, or even a 3070, with their 8! And that's not an outlier, but merely one example among a growing series of recent and upcoming PC releases where currently available video cards will run out of VRAM long before they run out of raw rendering power. Nvidia has been sitting on essentially the same VRAM setup for the past five years, with only a few outliers like the aforementioned 3060 12GB, and minor increases here and there. The 4070 series finally got bumped up from 8 to 12 GB, but only because there was a excrementsstorm after Nvidia originally tried to release the card that now became the 4070 Ti under a 4080 name. With 12GB, if you can imagine that. And still, most gaming hardware review outlets agree that in their testing, they found cases where the 4070 Ti already can't use its GPU power because it runs out of VRAM. With today's games. Nevermind the future. And nevermind the 4060 series, where even the Ti variant looks to be getting only 8GB. Like the 3060 Ti before it. And the 2060 "Ti" (okay, "Super") before that. The third generation of xx60 cards in a row with the exact same VRAM setup.

What I'm trying to say is, don't expect upcoming games to fit into old VRAM corsets. AMD is somewhat better about it, but Nvidia especially completely dropped the ball while padding its corporate margins by a few more percent through omitting a few extra memory chips.

Games going forward are going to need a lot more VRAM than entry level cards will supply. Not just KSP2. Heck, if KSP2 can remain at the current 8GB for 1080p and 10GB for 1440p recommendations by the time it releases in two years or so, it'll be considered downright frugal compared to its contemporaries. And even then, slap another 4 to 6 GB on top for if you want to run any graphics mods.

And why should Nvidia care? They do have a 24 GB card for sale if you really want one! Step right up and buy, only two thousand bucks! How nice of all those games coming out to upsell the customer to the highest margin products without Nvidia having to put in any effort whatsoever...

Yeah, I'm salty, can you tell? But it's a excrementsty situation no matter how you look at it. The market leader is charging an arm and a leg for cards that won't run the games they promise to run at the fidelity their GPUs could technically run them, because there's no memory to work with. The market runner up is sitting on a single compelling new-generation product, which just so happens to also be the maximum price, maximum margin, luxury halo item in their lineup, plus another card that's intentionally positioned so poorly on the market that its whole purpose is upselling the customer to the aforementioned halo card, and just refuses to release anything else. And the new kid on the block is likely gonna be sitting in the corner sniffing graphics driver glue for another two years before their technically good hardware stops being let down by their garbage software.

So, no offense, but hoping your 6GB card is going to carry you much further with new and upcoming games is very, very unrealistic. I really wish it wasn't so (not least because I also still have a 6GB card!), but, nothing we can really do about it.

Personally, I'll likely show the GPU makers the middle finger this time around and get a used 3060 12GB for 250€ when I build a new PC in a few months, rather than spend 700+€ on something with the exact same VRAM setup and a GPU that won't be able to flex its muscle. It'll tide me over until, hopefully, both AMD and Nvidia will set their future RX 8xxx and RTX 5xxx series up with significantly more memory. Then I might be willing to buy new again.

</rant over, I promise>

 

EDIT: Oh my dog, the profanity filter is amazing XD I'm not even gonna try and fix it, I love it.

 

Thank you again, I don't really play much modern games or really plan to.  After all I bought Gta4 and Gmod in 2023 lol. But I'm definitely taking VRAM into consideration when I ever upgrade my video card. 

[PC hardware advice master thread for KSP2. (Ask if your specs are good enough or what to buy here.)]

7 hours ago, Streetwind said:

You will get >30 FPS in space, with only your craft in view of the camera, and no celestial bodies in sight. You will also get >30 FPS in the VAB. Maybe even >60, but I'm not sure. On the space center screen, and when launching and landing or looking at a celestial body from orbit for any other reason, you'll tank to between 20 and 30 FPS.

That's for 1080p. On 720p you might barely approach 30 FPS in some, but not all of those bad situations.

Reason is the 6GB VRAM on your video card, and KSP2 using an extremely performance intensive way to render planet surfaces at the moment. This chokes out any video card with 6 GB or lower, especially on 1080p and up, regardless of what graphics settings you choose. I've got a 1060 6GB, same VRAM but slower GPU, and that GPU isn't even being fully loaded because the card is desperately out of memory at all times. Your card has a fair amount more memory bandwidth, which will definitely help alleviate some symptoms, but it won't change the fact that the VRAM is too small for the game to run well.

So you can do what I'm doing - plan an upgrade in the next months - or hold off on buying the game until a few more patches have gone down the road. Performance already improved a bit going from initial release to the first patch. Intercept Games are also already trialing a replacement for the planetary surface renderer, but I would be surprised if it came out before summer. Such fundamental revamps take time.

Your CPU and memory are fine. Both are within the range of published system specs.

Thank you, I'll hold off on the game for now but l will follow up on the latest updates and patches to see if they optimize the game a little better for video cards with less VRAM as you mentioned. 

[PC hardware advice master thread for KSP2. (Ask if your specs are good enough or what to buy here.)]

My specs: 

GPU: GTX 1660 Super 6GB

CPU: I3 10100F

RAM: 16GB 3200Mhz

I haven't purchased the game yet but I am thinking about it, Do you think that I can achieve 30FPS on low settings 1080P or even 720P.  This game seems very fun by the looks of it but I'm very worried my system wont get a playable FPS and I was hoping one of you with similar specs or  a good understanding of the game and my specs could tell me if its adequate.