KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[legoclone09]

@Elthy He asked what the person above him was talking about with those numbers for GPUs meant and I explaines them a bit, for KSP I'd grab a RX 470 so you also have the choice of playing other games.

[Elthy]

1 hour ago, legoclone09 said:

@Elthy He asked what the person above him was talking about with those numbers for GPUs meant and I explaines them a bit, for KSP I'd grab a RX 470 so you also have the choice of playing other games.

Sadly AMD still got no GPUs for laptops other than the macbook. ATM there is simply no way around Intel/Nvidia for portable devices, which kinda sucks. I realy cant wait for AMDs Ryzen/Vega APUs, those will be perfect for weaker gaming machines.

[legoclone09]

47 minutes ago, Elthy said:

Sadly AMD still got no GPUs for laptops other than the macbook. ATM there is simply no way around Intel/Nvidia for portable devices, which kinda sucks. I realy cant wait for AMDs Ryzen/Vega APUs, those will be perfect for weaker gaming machines.

Yep they will. I might throw  together a HTPC with a Ryzen-based APU and use that for CSGO and indie games.

[Stewcumber]

11 hours ago, Star-Eagle said:

I've been getting a bit confused with which Nvidia cards you where referring to, any chance you could elaborate on the full model name please?

The graphics cards are called names such as "Nvidia GeForce 940m" (http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware bottom left of the page). The older ones tend to have "GT" in front of the number, such as "Nvidia GeForce GT650M" the more powerful ones will have "GTX" in front of the number. The first number is the "generation" of the card, i.e. a 5xx is newer than a 4xx. The second number reflects the performance of a card, i.e. the 640m is slower than a 650m. Performance generally increases slightly with each generation, so a 650m is probably equivalent to a 740m. A 680m will be much more powerful than a 740m, however.

I would go for a GT640m (or higher 6 series), 730m (or higher), 920m or higher. As another poster says, these are basic, low power graphics cards and probably not suited to AAA games likes Witcher 3 etc. But are fine for kerbal.

The game does run on "intel hd graphics" so a graphics card is not strictly necessary.

[Star-Eagle]

Hi guys

Thanks for all the replies and info.

I'm sorry if my question stirred up the proverbial hornets nest but I really need to get a new computer.  My current one had a large heavy box dropped on it from the the top of a bookcase thanks to my cat and is working intermittently at best.

Since I'm not a big games player these days and I have a limited budget I don't see a problem with getting an older or basic model laptop.   

[linuxgurugamer]

On 4/4/2017 at 3:14 PM, Elthy said:

Carefull with your recommendation. Anything below a 9XX card of Nvidia isnt worth buying, they are totaly outdated. Also the current generation Pascal (10XX) doesnt have a low-end GPU at all, they start with the GTX 1050. The 1050 is allready quite fast, it will play most games decently with lowered settings, KSP should run even with Mods (as long as they dont fill the tiny VRAM) perfectly. Also its worth noting that in the current generation the differences between mobile and desktop GPUs of the same name got very small.

So, buy a laptop with a 1050 maybe the ti version. Anything better is overkill and there is nothing cheaper thats still viable...

Careful with your comments.  Lots of people are still playing with 7xx, and 8xx cards, and they are still available.  

Not everyone has an unlimited budget, the older cards are still good, and are a LOT less expensive than a newer card.

Just because something is old, doesn't mean it's obsolete.

[legoclone09]

@Star-Eagle What would your budet for a PC be, and are you going to need a laptop (sorry if you've already said if you need one). It'll be cheaper to get a desktop with better specs.

[Star-Eagle]

legoclone09

To answer your questions in reverse order;

1 Yes it does need to be a laptop. I don't mean for that to come across snaky I just have limited space for a computer desk so a desktop machine is out of the question.

2 Given how urgently I need to replace my current laptop due to the damage I mentioned earlier I can stretch to about £200-£250 at most at the moment. I would prefer to get any cheap laptop for now  and save up for a better machine but I can't really justify getting to machines like that.   

 

[legoclone09]

29 minutes ago, Star-Eagle said:

legoclone09

To answer your questions in reverse order;

1 Yes it does need to be a laptop. I don't mean for that to come across snaky I just have limited space for a computer desk so a desktop machine is out of the question.

2 Given how urgently I need to replace my current laptop due to the damage I mentioned earlier I can stretch to about £200-£250 at most at the moment. I would prefer to get any cheap laptop for now  and save up for a better machine but I can't really justify getting to machines like that.   

 

You didn't come off as snarky, it's ok. The best laptop I could find under $315 (which is £250) was this on Amazon, if you're just playing KSP you'll want to find one with good single-core performance. This is refurbished, 2.67GHz i7 (not sure if dual-core or quad core, but it's likely dual-core). Should play KSP decently, and has 8GB of RAM, so it can run a lot of mods as well. Should be usable for a while. I'd get the i7 one due to Intel having higher IPC than the AMD processor in the Amazon one.

Edited April 5, 2017 by legoclone09

[Star-Eagle]

legoclone09

Thanks for taking the time to look at those laptops for me, the second one is a model I was looking at myself.

I do have three other questions for either you or anyone else on the forum.

1) Would it be better for someone to go with a more recent (say 3rd or 4th gen) i5 processor over an older (say 1st or 2nd) i7 processor or would it depend on the specific models?

2) Is it practical to upgrade a dedicated graphics card on a laptop? I've seen some things online that say it is possible but I haven't seen much on the practical, nuts and bolts side of things.

3) Would it be better to go with a APU as with the first laptop you linked to or a machine with a separate graphics card even if its an older model?

I really appreciate all the help in getting all this straightened out, I'm starting to feel like not as likely to make a bad choice.  

[legoclone09]

@Star-Eagle AMD's APUs (not the Ryzen/Vega based ones coming later this year) will have awful performance in KSP. Older i7s are still good, a i5 2500k on desktop is still a good processor for gaming. Separate graphics will definitely be better as well, but a laptop with a dedicated GPU will be upwards of $600 in most cases. And AFAIK you can't upgrade laptop GPUs, unless you have a laptop with a Thunderbolt port, a new GPU, and the GPU docking station, which is about $500 for a RX 480 and all the other stuff, as well as it not working on older systems.

Edited April 6, 2017 by legoclone09

[Elthy]

3 hours ago, Star-Eagle said:

Would it be better for someone to go with a more recent (say 3rd or 4th gen) i5 processor over an older (say 1st or 2nd) i7 processor or would it depend on the specific models?

The second generation was a big improvement over the first, but after that the steps got way smaller. Of course a 2. gen high end model would be better than a 4. gen modell, so better ask about the specifics.

[Harry Rhodan]

Don't go for a used mobile i7. It is usually too expensive for marginally more power. 2nd and 3rd generation seem to be the current staples of refurbished office PCs. The graphics of the 3rd gen is much stronger than the 2nd gen one, at least in raw floating point operations. But both are pitiful compared to a dedicated card.

4th gen is bad because most manufacturers went for the ultra low voltage variants to make ultrabooks. That means they have a much tighter thermal budget and therefore a lower clock rate. And they are too new and expensive.

I'd say you should look for a refurbished thinkpad T430 or L430 or Dell Latitude e6430 or e5430 (all 3rd gen). Or for the previous generation if you happen to find one with a dedicated graphics card.

[Camacha]

Microsoft finally released a full list and an abbreviated version listing the data Windows 10 collects and ships back to Microsoft. Obviously, the list being as long as it is, having no option to opt out and the fact that we had to wait quite some time before ever getting a list are all fairly unfavourable, but at least we now have a list.

Edited April 7, 2017 by Camacha

[steve_v]

36 minutes ago, Camacha said:

Microsoft finally released a full list and an abbreviated version listing the data Windows 10 collects and ships back to Microsoft.

That's a long list, with some pretty concerning items.
I have considered Microsoft Windows malware/spyware for some time... Now I'm completely sure.

More detailed reading suggests you're probably ok on "Basic"... If you trust Microsoft.
Then again, IMO "trust Microsoft" is an oxymoron.

BTW, those two links point at the same URL.

Edited April 7, 2017 by steve_v

[Camacha]

20 minutes ago, steve_v said:

That's a long list, with some pretty concerning items.
I have considered Microsoft Windows malware/spyware for some time... Now I'm completely sure.

More detailed reading suggests you're probably ok on "Basic"... If you trust Microsoft.
Then again, IMO "trust Microsoft" is an oxymoron.

BTW, those two links point at the same URL.

The latter should be fixed, thanks. Even though there are good reasons to monitor OS usage more closely, since the development cycle can be a lot tighter, Microsoft does it in a way that leaves a lot to be desired. Especially in corporate environments this could be a serious worry.

[Star-Eagle]

@Harry Rhodan

Thanks for the info and recommendations, those are the two main models I've been looking at so its nice to know I'm not picking lemons!

Is there any real difference between the thinkpad 430 and the 420 or the 410? Their just a little bit easier to find over here than the 430.

 

PS is your choice of forum name in anyway related to Perry Rhodan of the sci-fi book series?

 

 

 

 

[Teilnehmer]

What would be the lowest price for a video card allowing running KSP with, say, Scatterer and EVE at 20..30 fps?

Other hardware is Asus P8H77-M LE motherboard, Intel Core i5-3470 3.2 GHz processor, 8 GB RAM, 1920×1080 display.

(Now, with my integrated video adapter, Scatterer works at about 1 fps.)

Edited April 8, 2017 by Teilnehmer

[Camacha]

28 minutes ago, Teilnehmer said:

What would be the lowest price for a video card allowing running KSP with, say, Scatterer and EVE at 20..30 fps?

I would not recommend going for the absolute minimum. Video cards have a somewhat peculiar distribution when it comes to price. The bottom end is very close together, with cards with huge performance differences costing almost the same. Then comes the sweet spot, which contains cards that offer a lot of bang for the buck. Then there is the high end, where you will find absolute performance, but at a fairly substantial price.

It seems best to go for the sweet spot, which I gather ranges from the RX 460 up to the RX 480, or the 1050 up to the 1060. Those cards also allow you to play other games well. For a bit over a hundred dollars and up, it is not going to break the bank either.

[legoclone09]

58 minutes ago, Teilnehmer said:

What would be the lowest price for a video card allowing running KSP with, say, Scatterer and EVE at 20..30 fps?

Other hardware is Asus P8H77-M LE motherboard, Intel Core i5-3470 3.2 GHz processor, 8 GB RAM, 1920×1080 display.

(Now, with my integrated video adapter, Scatterer works at about 1 fps.)

I'd just grab a RX 470 when there's a mail-in-rebate on one for about $20 and get it for $140.

[cantab]

Indeed. There's usually a good value budget gaming card or two, and spending a bit less gets you something a *lot* weaker, whereas spending a bit more gets you something only a bit stronger.

[Harry Rhodan]

15 hours ago, Star-Eagle said:

@Harry Rhodan

Thanks for the info and recommendations, those are the two main models I've been looking at so its nice to know I'm not picking lemons!

Is there any real difference between the thinkpad 430 and the 420 or the 410? Their just a little bit easier to find over here than the 430.

The T410 has the slower first generation core i processors and the only available discrete graphics option only has 256MB of RAM, so practically the worst option. The T420 has the good second generation CPUs and in some models a discrete card (Nvidia NVS 4200M) with 1GB of RAM that is roughly about as fast as the HD 4000 of the third gen core i in the T430. All of them had at least two options for the display  - the one with the higher resolution is usually brighter and better but at the same time more expensive and more taxing on the already pretty slow graphics if you try to run a game on native screen resolution.

15 hours ago, Star-Eagle said:

PS is your choice of forum name in anyway related to Perry Rhodan of the sci-fi book serie

Yes. Have been reading it selectively for decades.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Hi all (hopefully) simple question here (yeah, right.)

I've got a decent system that generally runs KSP well, but lately with GPP and some purdyfying mods, my RAM use is spiking up over 12gb. Since I've only got 16gb total, I get nonstop crashes. 

Now I could just dial back the ram hogs a bit... ok, you can stop laughing now. 

Anyways, my mini-ITX mobo only supports that 16gb, so it's already maxed out and I'd need a new one at the very least. 

Any suggestions on a good mini ITX mobo  with at least 4 DIMM slots (only got 2 now) that won't break the bank? I'd really like to transfer over my existing 16 and add another 32. 

[Elthy]

You didnt even mention your socket, noone will be able to help you then. But i doubt you will find any, at least for modern sockets...

[CatastrophicFailure]

3 hours ago, Elthy said:

You didnt even mention your socket, noone will be able to help you then. But i doubt y

D'oh, will have to double check when I get home, pretty sure it's a core i7. 

3 hours ago, Elthy said:

But i doubt you will find any, at least for modern sockets...

What makes you say that? This rig is only from 2013.