Integrated vs External Graphic Processors

[something]

I am currently running KSP on a linux machine (Ubuntu derivate) and I am not planning to change that.

At the moment I am using the integrated graphics of my i5-4690 4x3.5GHz cores with a 16GB RAM. Now, there are situations in which KSP runs quite nicely and there are situations in which I really have to decrease the graphic settings in order to maintain a playable framerate.

Now as I am planning to purchase a PCIe graphics card anyways, I am wondering whether anybody here has measured some noteable increase of graphic performance when upgrading from integrated graphics to external stuff? Seriously 3.5GHz shouldn't be that bad - and decreasing the graphic setttings of a 5 year old game feels a bit weird - so I am seriously wondering whether the integrated graphics are the bottleneck, or if the bottleneck of the system is to be found elsewhere... Multithreading should at leas allow for a playable performance of the game on high settings (rendering and textures).

[sal_vager]

Measured? Not really, and I think your cpu's speed is separate to the built in gpu.

But I do see a difference in performance between the 7880 built into my AMD APU (using RadeonSI) and the Nvidia GTX 650 that I currently use, with increased performance from the Nvidia, though that is with the proprietary driver as Nouveau is rather poor.

A better graphics card will help if KSP is lagging due to graphics, which is likely if lowering the graphics quality is helping, it'll also have its own memory which can free some for KSP if the built in gpu is sharing system RAM.

Edit:

I assume you mean a graphics card here, not an actual external gpu, I have no idea if those are any good.

[Harry Rhodan]

You already asked this three months ago: 

And the answer is still the same: the integrated gpu of your processor is extremely slow and was never intended for gaming. 

[radonek]

If you want good gaming performance in linux, nvidia with proprietary driver is the only option IMO. Integrated intel GPU's have good linux drivers, but they are not very powerfull. Also, I have a bad experience with overheating cpu when GPU on die is working hard.

[Ser]

@something Speaking of integrated graphics performance, 16GB RAM that you have on board are by far not perfect for graphics processing because integrated cards don't have their own video memory and utilize a part of regular RAM where your OS and all of loaded KSP data are and all of them use the same bus to transfer data. More of, your regular RAM is DDR3 I guess, whilst external card's own memory is GDDR5 with its own bus. Thus having 2Gb of RAM my laptop's integrated graphics perform similar to the ancient GeForce MX440 and are able to run software demanding not more than 128Mb of video memory.

So integrated cards were always positioned optimal for office use. Don't know if some were advertised as suitable for gaming, but I wouldn't believe that.

Edited January 19, 2017 by Ser

[Polnoch]

My husband bought new skylake-based PC, and give me his old PC - i7 920/12Gb RAM, asus premium motherboard. We've just upgraded it:

Intel Xeon X5680 3.33GHz Hex Core / 12MB / 6.40GT/s SLBV5 Processor LGA1366 - $99.95
6 x 4GB(totally 24Gb) PC3-10600 desktop memory RAM DDR3 - US $89.94

I bought this upgrade in ebay, and now I am planing to sell i7-920 and old RAM. 

We made pci passthrough for new husband's PC - he use it for work, and for playing games. Now always he useLinux host system for work, watching video and other fun using skylake integrated video. But when he wants to play in video game, he runs guest PC with PCI passthrough videocard (GTX 970). Some times we fly together in the Elite Dangerous. And we want to do pci passthrough for my new computer (old upgraded husband's PC) too.  I'll also use it for work and for fun - I'm devops, and I want to run/test localy cluster solutions (openstack, kubernetes, ceph, hadoop, etc). It's reason why 24Gb ram and 6 core processor in the desktop.  But this PC hasn't integrated video in the CPU. The PCI pathrough systems must have 2 video cards.

I want to buy some video card without coolers, to get silient solution when guest VM without pci passthrough card does not run. For example, Nvidia GT 710, or Radeon R5 230, or may beNvidia GT 730. Nvidia has better performance, but by technical reasons, I want to have different chips/drivers for the default silient host system's card, and for performance pci pathrough card. The second card has nvidia chip. Is it possible to use Kerbal Space program with this silient videocard? Is it possible to have comfort playing with R5 230 and free radeon driver in the high performance six core system with 24Gb RAM?

Edited January 21, 2017 by Polnoch