Graphics Card Requirements/Limits for KSP2

[TruffleSpy]

Hi Everyone,

I was just wondering the communities thoughts on how well the GTX 960 will handle KSP2. Obviously the game isn’t out yet but just based off your experience with mods and other games. I literally just built this PC with the help of my friends who are much more knowledgeable in building PC’s than I am. Also the reason I have a GPU from 2015 is because it was my friends old GPU and the graphics card market is atrocious right now as well as the foreseeable future. I plan on getting a better GPU later. I’ve tested the computer on a couple games and it seems fine, but all the games I have on it are from my steam library when I used my MacBook for a very limited amount of games (which includes Kerbal). That MacBook being said, I don’t have any demanding games in terms of graphics.

Do you think the GTX 960 would be able to handle KSP2 with my other parts? I have a AMD Ryzen 7 and 32 GB of RAM as well as a liquid CPU cooler and I don’t think the rest is too important. 

- the spy

Edited February 11, 2022 by TruffleSpy

[shdwlrd]

 

[TruffleSpy]

1 hour ago, shdwlrd said:

 

Read this a bit and this mostly answers my question. My concern wasn’t that I didn’t have the requirements to meet it, but the requirements to be at the limit/highest possible graphics in the base game. Thanks.

Edited February 11, 2022 by TruffleSpy

[jastrone]

you are lycky the gpu was the old part. ksp 2 like many games will probably have grapix settings. so if you run on lower grapix i think it will work fine

[TruffleSpy]

37 minutes ago, jastrone said:

you are lycky the gpu was the old part. ksp 2 like many games will probably have grapix settings. so if you run on lower grapix i think it will work fine

Yeah, I have no doubt in my mind that KSP will have graphic settings but I’m wondering if you think that my pc could handle the high graphics. Of course if it can’t I’d just turn them down, but I’d like to experience the game with it’s beautiful graphics. Either way thanks for the response!

[K^2]

4 hours ago, TruffleSpy said:

I was just wondering the communities thoughts on how well the GTX 960 will handle KSP2

Performance-wise, it should be fine. There will almost certainly be some "ultra" settings that this card will struggle with, but I would expect even "high" settings to be within reach. Rendering just isn't a likely bottleneck for KSP2, and I've seen the fancy vegetation and clouds similar to what we are seeing for KSP2 running on a PS4 Pro just fine. GTX 960 outperforms that by a good margin.

The only thing that might be a slight concern is VRAM. Some of the techniques Intercept are going for are very VRAM hungry. GTX 960 came in a range of variants equipped with 2GB to 4GB of VRAM. I find it extremely unlikely that more than 4GB will be needed on high settings, because that's kind of a lot even for gen 9 consoles, but there's a chance that you'll need more than 2GB running everything on high. Specifically, you might have to bring in render distance for vegetation, and/or shadow and cloud quality down a notch, as these will take up the most VRAM.

Still, I expect the game to look very good on GTX 960. I'll be surprised if you'll have to sacrifice a lot of quality with that card.

5 hours ago, TruffleSpy said:

I have a AMD Ryzen 7 and 32 GB of RAM as well as a liquid CPU cooler and I don’t think the rest is too important.

Depends on the generation of that Ryzen 7. If it's at least a Zen 2 (gen 3 of Ryzen), then you'll be fine, because that's pretty much what PS5 and XBSX are running, and you should be able to boost your clock more than either of these systems. If it's an older R7, then it's harder to say. We don't really know what the requirements will be for the CPU, only that it will probably be on the high side, and that Intercept has to get good performance out of PS5, so it can't be higher than that. Bellow that, it's hard to say.

Ryzen 3700X outperforms the 2700X by about 20-25%. It's a pretty significant gap going from Zen+ to Zen2. So if you have gen 3 or newer, you're fine. If it's older, we don't know yet.

[jastrone]

2 hours ago, TruffleSpy said:

my pc could handle the high graphics.

that depends on  what you think the acceptable amout of fps is. personally  i think almost 30 fps is wort it for high grapix in some games.

[intelliCom]

@TruffleSpy When it comes to game performance, I like to follow the unwritten rule of "comparison with consoles".

If your computer runs a game better than a console port, then your computer will do better than consoles will.
For example, KSP 2 is going to release on XB1 and PS4 alongside PC. If they need to optimise it to run well on XB1 and PS4, then it should run fine on a PC that is as good as either of those consoles.
If your computer runs Doom Eternal better than XB1 and PS4, don't worry about anything.

Also, I'd argue that KSP 2 would only require marginally more performance than KSP 1, since KSP 1 had some notable optimisation problems. KSP 2 is likely far more optimised, with more intensive graphics cancelling it out.

[K^2]

1 hour ago, jastrone said:

personally  i think almost 30 fps is wort it for high grapix in some games.

I'm having flashbacks to being tasked with bringing framerate in a certain RPG ported to XB1 to "playable" during an important raid. The demo file I was testing against would dip down to 3FPS. Following considerable amount of optimization, I had it running above 20 95% of the time. I was later told the studio would have been happy with 15. So "playable" FPS is definitely a stretchy subject.

[intelliCom]

On 2/12/2022 at 12:12 AM, K^2 said:

I'm having flashbacks to being tasked with bringing framerate in a certain RPG ported to XB1 to "playable" during an important raid. The demo file I was testing against would dip down to 3FPS. Following considerable amount of optimization, I had it running above 20 95% of the time. I was later told the studio would have been happy with 15. So "playable" FPS is definitely a stretchy subject.

Honestly curious about who they were. I know I shouldn't poke around into someone's portfolio, but in what world would 15 fps on XB1 be ok for anything that isn't a 3D 90s game with a capped framerate?

Edited February 13, 2022 by intelliCom

[Sesshaku]

On 2/11/2022 at 9:45 AM, jastrone said:

that depends on  what you think the acceptable amout of fps is. personally  i think almost 30 fps is wort it for high grapix in some games.

With the only exception of launch/landing, I'll say there's little to no need for high FPS in Kerbal during deep space maneuvres. Literally nothing moves on screen.

So yeah, Kerbal isn't one of those games in which 60 fps are a must. I'd be more than content with having 30 fps on KSP2. But I doubt it, I have a GTX 670 and the current market for GPUs is absolutely terrible, you can't get anything at a decent price, if you can get anything at all, with stock shortage.

Edited February 13, 2022 by Sesshaku

[K^2]

13 hours ago, intelliCom said:

Honestly curious about who they were. I know I shouldn't poke around into someone's portfolio, but in what world would 15 fps on XB1 be ok for anything that isn't a 3D 90s game with a capped framerate?

It was (and still is) a sort of RPG where all your powers are home-in-on-target and run on timers, so it's actually playable at 15FPS, just looks a bit crap. Obviously, everyone wanted a solid 30 or better, but this was landing on fire, we had a week before that version headed out to cert, which we were under contracts for, so 20 was good and 15 would have been acceptable. Also, XB1 was still new at the time, we were one of the very few F2P games on it, and in some regions the only one available, so the expectations and the bar were low. Of course, later, the XB1 version ended up doing really well and priorities shifted, but that's a different story.

I don't really want to mention the game or studio by name in an open thread, but if you're curious about any of my work, feel free to DM me.

[magnemoe]

On 2/13/2022 at 2:23 PM, Sesshaku said:

With the only exception of launch/landing, I'll say there's little to no need for high FPS in Kerbal during deep space maneuvres. Literally nothing moves on screen.

So yeah, Kerbal isn't one of those games in which 60 fps are a must. I'd be more than content with having 30 fps on KSP2. But I doubt it, I have a GTX 670 and the current market for GPUs is absolutely terrible, you can't get anything at a decent price, if you can get anything at all, with stock shortage.

Or then docking to massive space stations.  KAS works well if you just need to refuel or transfer not attach long time. 

[Nazalassa]

I don't want to know what KSP2 will look like with my 15-year-old computer.

KSP has like x2 lag, don't want to know anything for KSP2.

[Vl3d]

6 hours ago, Nazalassa said:

I don't want to know what KSP2 will look like with my 15-year-old computer.

Why don't you upgrade?

[Nazalassa]

Because it works pretty well, that would be wasting money.

[Laxez]

44 minutes ago, Nazalassa said:

Because it works pretty well, that would be wasting money.

Just don't buy it, but I find it absolutely useless to open a discussion about why to buy something or not

[whatsEJstandfor]

14 hours ago, Nazalassa said:

I don't want to know what KSP2 will look like with my 15-year-old computer.

KSP has like x2 lag, don't want to know anything for KSP2.

Are you suggesting game developers shouldn't make games that take advantage of modern hardware because some of its users might not have upgraded since the original iPhone was launched?

5 hours ago, Nazalassa said:

Because it works pretty well, that would be wasting money.

Does it work pretty well, or does it struggle with modern games? Both can't be true, right? If it struggles, then it's not a waste of money to upgrade, right?

[MARL_Mk1]

I'm really, really hoping to be able to play properly with i5-6500 // GTX 1060 6gb // 16gb DDR4 + SSD

KSP1 runs just "fine" (fine, taking into account it's inherent bad performance), including hyper-modded installs. Hope not having to upgrade anything

Edited May 6, 2022 by Lijazos

[Vl3d]

8 hours ago, Lijazos said:

really hoping to be able to play properly with i5-6500 // GTX 1060 6gb // 16gb DDR4 + SSD

My opinion: You're good.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Vl3d

[Gargamel]

40 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

You're good.

Are you sure? Have we seen officially posted specs?   Please don’t make factual assurances without citations.   This only leads to confusion.   

[Vl3d]

4 hours ago, Gargamel said:

5 hours ago, Vl3d said:

You're good.

Are you sure? Have we seen officially posted specs?   Please don’t make factual assurances without citations.   This only leads to confusion.   

You can just check benchmark websites. A GTX 1060 runs RDR2 and Cyberpunk 2077 at 70  60 FPS on High Medium settings at 1080 resolution. He is a little bottlenecked by his CPU.

 Besides Nate said the team is focused on allowing even potatoes to run KSP2.

Edited May 6, 2022 by Vl3d

[Gargamel]

3 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

You can just check benchmark websites. A GTX 1060 runs RDR2 and Cyberpunk 2077 at 70 FPS on High settings at 1080 resolution. He is a little bottlenecked by his CPU.

 

Do not tell people their system hardware is acceptable when there has been no official word. 
 

If you want to state your opinion, then do so.   But make it very clear that is your opinion, and has no basis in anything official.   
 

The last thing we want is to confuse and disappoint people due to others spreading misinformation.  

Edited May 6, 2022 by Gargamel

[Vl3d]

1 minute ago, Gargamel said:

Do not tell people their system hardware is acceptable when there has been no official word. 
 

If you want to state your opinion, then do so.   But make it very clear that is your opinion, and has no basis in anything official.   
 

The last thing we want is to confuse and disappoint people due to people spreading misinformation.  

Edited the comment to clarify it's my opinion. Also correction: RDR2 / 1060 gets ~50-60 FPS on Medium and ~ 35 on High.

[MARL_Mk1]

On 5/6/2022 at 11:02 AM, Vl3d said:

Edited the comment to clarify it's my opinion. Also correction: RDR2 / 1060 gets ~50-60 FPS on Medium and ~ 35 on High.

I did play RDR2. The graphics options optimization is kind of a mess. There's a  very good guide out there that allows you to see the impact of each and every single combination of options. Ended up playing with High-Ultra graphics (and some effects lower or turned off) at ~+55-60fps.  Very smooth experience.

But yeah, KSP2 might be a different kind of beast. Let's hope for a release date announcement "soon".

Would we get some sort of Minimum/Recommended Specs by then? I haven't really ever followed these kind of information towards the launch of a game.