KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[Vanamonde]

@404 username not found, your question has been merged into the master thread for this sort of thing. 

[Geonovast]

2 hours ago, 404 username not found said:

The title explains it all, just wondering if this PC can run ksp

Most certainly.  And quite well. 

[qzgy]

2 hours ago, 404 username not found said:

The title explains it all, just wondering if this PC can run ksp
https://www.amazon.com/Desktop-Gaming-Computer-Quad-Core-Graphic/dp/B07285RSTB/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1517526616&sr=1-3&keywords=gaming+pc&refinements=p_n_feature_five_browse-bin%3A7817224011%2Cp_n_feature_two_browse-bin%3A562241011|5446812011|5446813011|7817230011%2Cp_n_operating_system_browse-bin%3A12035945011|17004927011|2232492011|2232493011|12566246011|5945862011%2Cp_36%3A-60000%2Cp_computer_cpu_speed-bin%3A3+GHz+%26+Up%2Cp_n_feature_four_browse-bin%3A2289793011|3081486011%2Cp_n_feature_seven_browse-bin%3A3012495011|3012497011

 

21 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

Most certainly.  And quite well. 

Hmm I'm skeptical. That's a pretty good GPU, but I'm worried about the X4 (Athlon, apparently) processor. Judging by the price, not so sure it would hold up to KSP. Could be wrong about my gut feeling, but if I am, good for you!

[Albert_E_A]

 

4 hours ago, qzgy said:

Hmm I'm skeptical. That's a pretty good GPU, but I'm worried about the X4 (Athlon, apparently) processor. Judging by the price, not so sure it would hold up to KSP. Could be wrong about my gut feeling, but if I am, good for you!

I agree, I dont think  the cpu would play KSP with ease, I played on an old mobile i5 and it has (apparently) slightly better per core performance and it still had issues. 

[Elthy]

That PC is cheap, but extremly outdated. You would be better off buying a used, better PC.

[invision]

9 hours ago, 404 username not found said:

The title explains it all, just wondering if this PC can run ksp
https://www.amazon.com/Desktop-Gaming-Computer-Quad-Core-Graphic/dp/B07285RSTB/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1517526616&sr=1-3&keywords=gaming+pc&refinements=p_n_feature_five_browse-bin%3A7817224011%2Cp_n_feature_two_browse-bin%3A562241011|5446812011|5446813011|7817230011%2Cp_n_operating_system_browse-bin%3A12035945011|17004927011|2232492011|2232493011|12566246011|5945862011%2Cp_36%3A-60000%2Cp_computer_cpu_speed-bin%3A3+GHz+%26+Up%2Cp_n_feature_four_browse-bin%3A2289793011|3081486011%2Cp_n_feature_seven_browse-bin%3A3012495011|3012497011

that thing is best left right on e-bay

 

the seller claims it can run all those games but what they arent telling you is its all set to low quailty. 

save your money and look into how to build a pc.

 

heres my can you build a pc requirement check list.....

can you read and understand instructions or follow a video?

do you know how to plug stuff in?

can you operate a screw driver?

can you insert cartridges?

if you said yes to all you are capable of building your own pc and save money.

 

its easy

the cpu just drops into the slot and locks into place with an arm clip.

the heat sink attaches to the top of the CPU with a clip

the ram and video card pop in like game cartridges 

plug the wires(which are labeled) into the motherboard

plug the power cables (which are labeled) into whatever needs power

power it on, boot to bios, install windows.

high five yourself

[Albert_E_A]

13 minutes ago, invision said:

the heat sink attaches to the top of the CPU with a clip

Just dont forget to apply thermal compound between the cpu and heatsink, unless it comes pre applied.

[Harry Rhodan]

9 hours ago, qzgy said:

I'm worried about the X4 (Athlon, apparently) processor.

Even worse. It's a Phenom II from 2009.

[Star-Eagle]

Hi everyone

About a year ago I asked for some help on this thread in selecting a "new" refurbished laptop. Based of the info and recomendations you (collective you that is) gave along with price and availability I ended up getting a Lenovo L430 with a i5 CPU.

In the time I've had it has lived up to my expectations but in the last month several things have broken/gone wrong with it and the price of the replacement parts would be close to the original price I paid for it. This isn't intended to be an accusation towards anyone, just a statement about why I'm looking for a new laptop.

It would probably last quite a while longer for my needs if it was repaired but one of the things that have gone is the plastic case itself, as soon as it had one crack it seemed to get the rest very quickly. This, plus the price of the other parts has made me look at other laptops instead.

The main one I've been considering getting is a HP Elitebook 8470p as I've found several on ebay.co.uk in my price range with similar spec to my L430 and the parts are more reasonably priced (it also seems to be easier to repair from the youtube videos I've seen). 

The questions I've got for you all are as follows.

1 Is this laptop capable of running KSP?

2 Is it a decent laptop in general?

3 Are there any limitations on upgrading the RAM? 16 GB is the max stated but some people have said this is only on the i7 models.

4 The seller on ebay with the best deal that I've found so far has a few models avalable, including one with an i5 3320m and dedicated graphics. Would it be worth getting the dedicated graphics model as the prices aren't that different or isn't worth bothering with?

Many thanks guys.

   

[Harry Rhodan]

10 hours ago, Star-Eagle said:

1 Is this laptop capable of running KSP?

2 Is it a decent laptop in general?

3 Are there any limitations on upgrading the RAM? 16 GB is the max stated but some people have said this is only on the i7 models.

4 The seller on ebay with the best deal that I've found so far has a few models avalable, including one with an i5 3320m and dedicated graphics. Would it be worth getting the dedicated graphics model as the prices aren't that different or isn't worth bothering with  

1. It's the same generation s the L430, so it will generally have the same performance. Just be sure it has two RAM sticks of the same size.

2. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-HP-EliteBook-8470p-Notebook.83640.0.html

3. The product site from HP does not make any difference between the i7 models and the rest.

4. The test above says it is only marginally faster. I would guess the main reason to get a dedicated card that slow is to keep some of the heat away from the cpu so it can clock a bit higher.

[p1t1o]

Tip-Top-Tip:

If you have computer parts to get rid of, only use "Computer Exchange" ("CeX" or www.webuy.com) as a last resort.

You will get more money from eBay (in almost any case) and if you think "But taking my stuff to a shop sounds like far less hassle."

It really isnt.

Firstly I had to travel to 2 shops because "they dont do computers at this branch" (You cannot call ahead to check and Yes I reminded them of their own name).

then, its not that they rip you off, the prices you get are ok-ish especially if what you have is essentially junk. But the customer service and business model gives the very strong impression that they make a lot of money from exasperated people just giving up and leaving their junk there. And dont think you can take your old motherboard and other spare parts there, they only accept CPUs, RAM and complete computer systems.

And the kicker

You have 14 days to collect your money or your stuff, not from the date the testing was completed, from the date you dropped it off.

So imagine you asked the guy to ring you when testing was complete.

And you didnt get a call for 6 days so you email central customer services (did I mention its not possible to contact branches?) and they take 2 days to respond saying my stuff did NOT pass testing.

You might be quite tempted to leave it behind and let them dispose of it, right?

Good thing I thought I still might get a few quid from eBay because when I went back, I got £80 for 3 out of 4 items.

 

Not a bad price but dodgy as all heck.

 

 

Edited February 12, 2018 by p1t1o

[MaxwellsDemon]

It's coming up on time to replace my old laptop-- it's going on 5 years now, and it's been a good one but it's starting to show its age in a number of ways.  I discovered that I really didn't use it as a laptop all that often-- it sat on my desk most of the time.  So I think I'll be looking at a tower or minitower for the next one.

Which all leads me to the important question:  what things should I be looking for as far as KSP is concerned?      I know already that I want to get something with better graphics capability than the creaky integrated Intel stuff I had on my laptop, and know that NVidia/Gforce is a good way to go, but I'm not up on what all the models are.  I won't be getting a high-end ultra-gaming machine, just a general-purpose computer, but I don't want to accidentally limit myself... 

What are some hints for me to look for that stand a good chance of being good in a KSP way?

[Geonovast]

Huge thread here for just that kind of stuff:

But the basics of it is research the processor the most.  What you're wanting is good single thread performance.  External GPU is nice, but if you're on a limited budget, not the main concern.

Also don't worry too much about an SSD if it's got a decent amount of RAM.  The game plays entirely from memory, and SSD will help with load times, but that's about it unless you're paging a lot.

Also keep in mind that right now component prices are high because of that digital currency mining crap, especially the GPUs.  This is the card I have: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125914&cm_re=gtx_1050_ti-_-14-125-914-_-Product

I paid $160 for it about 6 months ago, not on sale.  The memory I have increased in price by about 50% as well.

[MaxwellsDemon]

hm...   basically, what I'm getting from that (although that thread's a lot more than I want to read at one sitting, and it started a couple of years ago) is that, at the current time, I should be looking for something with an i5-7xxx or i7-7xxx and either Nvidia or Raedon.

(I confess I don't see the connection between bitcoin mining and GPUs, though there obviously is one.)   (No, don't bother explaining-- it doesn't interest me...)

[radonek]

If you tune down details a bit, KSP runs fine on intel GPUs. And this is not a good time to buy new hardware anyway. Price of current Intel CPUs will fall hard once Spectre-proof revision hits the market. 

[RizzoTheRat]

I'm actually quite impressed how well KSP runs on my i5 laptop with the integrated Intel 620 graphics.  It struggles a bit with large part counts. and I wouldn't want to install any graphics mods on it, but manages my week day evening KSP fix

I've been looking at upgrading my desktop to something a bit quicker but not top of the line, and a reasonable sweet spot in terms of cost per performance seems to be a Ryzen 5 and NVidia GTX1050.  I've seen quite a few comments about GPU prices going up because of Bitcoin miners, but it's not really hit the lower/mid range cards as much as the top end stuff.

[HeyThisIsntFallout]

So, I would proposition that while gaming in itself is a hobby, there are some individual games that are expansive enough in their communities and scope that they can be their own hobbies; enter KSP (and SKyrim, Fallout 4 and some MOBA's). This is why I am feeling out the idea of building a KSP only rig. My PC is an FX-8370 BE/MSI 480 8gb that can run almost any other game on high settings, however if I get 350 parts into orbit, i'm stuck with 10fps and that's AFTER optimizing some physics settings. A pain I would only wish on my worst enemies.

The question at hand: what specs are you all running and how does your (modded) installation play? My goal: the best value build that can let me get 1,000 parts in orbit running at 30fps, minimum. My rough idea is obviously an Intel chip because single core performance duh, probably a micro-ATX mobo and a single 120gb SSD (it is for a single game after all). I know it doesn't have to be a power house because I just read a guys post about how he's got 500+ parts smoothly into orbit with a laptop's Haswell CPU at 2.4gHz (come ooonnnnnnnn, seriously?). This thing just has to run KSP really well and be cheap and nothing else

Edited February 20, 2018 by ItsSeanBroleson

[qzgy]

My personal rig for KSP use is an i5-4690k at 4.3 GHz, 16 Gb of RAM, a 120gb boot SSD and 1 tb storage drive along with a 1060 6gb video card.  That runs KSP quite well although it will stutter and start to slow down at 500+ parts.

30 minutes ago, ItsSeanBroleson said:

he's got 500+ parts smoothly into orbit with a laptop's Haswell CPU at 2.4gHz (come ooonnnnnnnn, seriously?).

Mind linking this post?

[Freshmeat]

I doubt that you will get 1000 parts at 30 fps on any rig. I recall @Whackjob literally melted his pc, and most of the monstrosity builders talk of seconds per frame. When I had to buy a new rig this year, I went for a i7-8700K and 16 GB RAM, but reuse my daughters second hand GPU because it really does not matter. Cheap is not an option for great KSP performance, and you need every Hz you can get. Water cooling OC might eventually be on the table, but not this year. An SSD will decrease loading time, but has no effect on the actual game, and I use 6 GB with a ton of mods, so 16 GB will do unless I go off the bat.

I have not launched above 380 parts, and that one went a bit yellow on Eve reentry (red on phys warp, though). Some mods are really performance intensive, and be careful of those adding additional mechanisms to the game.

[HeyThisIsntFallout]

20 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Mind linking this post?

I was looking for anyone who had benchmarked parts using KSP. Didn't get many results.

[JeeF]

I'm rocking a 8700k @5ghz, 32gb ram (a must if you want to play with lots of mods, I run nearly 20gb of mods), a 1080ti and 2 ssds in raid 0 reserved for gaming only (OS in another ssd). 

But I'll tell you one thing: Upgrading my computer didn't help solve the low fps for high part count ships. What did solve my fps issue was a particular mod, SSTU.

With this mod, I was able to launch a Saturn V to the moon (in RSS+RO), land there, collect science, and come back with a total part count of 47. Yes, you read it right, 47 freaking parts.

Here, watch:

 

 

Edited February 20, 2018 by JeeF

[HeyThisIsntFallout]

4 minutes ago, Freshmeat said:

I doubt that you will get 1000 parts at 30 fps on any rig. I recall @Whackjob literally melted his pc, and most of the monstrosity builders talk of seconds per frame. When I had to buy a new rig this year, I went for a i7-8700K and 16 GB RAM, but reuse my daughters second hand GPU because it really does not matter. Cheap is not an option for great KSP performance, and you need every Hz you can get. Water cooling OC might eventually be on the table, but not this year. An SSD will decrease loading time, but has no effect on the actual game, and I use 6 GB with a ton of mods, so 16 GB will do unless I go off the bat.

I have not launched above 380 parts, and that one went a bit yellow on Eve reentry (red on phys warp, though). Some mods are really performance intensive, and be careful of those adding additional mechanisms to the game.

While I may be reaching for the heavens with the 1k part count dream, I was watching a guy Twitch stream the other day in which, after docking a ship to a space station, he was at something like 1,085 parts and it looked good while it was happening. Was he at 20 fps, was he overclocked, was it heavily modded? I don't know, but he did tell him he was running an Intel chip. I'm just here to put a mental map together so i can weigh part count to PC build price.

Speaking of, I think my main rig uses about 6 to 6.5gb of memory with KSP, as well. The I7-8700 is probably more than I want to spend on a rig dedicated to one game. What specs did you upgrade from?

 

[Freshmeat]

An i5-4670K, but my wife needed an upgrade from an i5-650 so she got that one. I am one grateful husband for the way it worked out. I think I could have overclocked the Haswell if I had sufficient cooling, but the limiting factor of the rig was 8 GB ram, causing HD swap for massive slowdowns and stutter. A high speed i3 could in theory perform some 90% of my rig on single ships, but it would hamper docking approaches with heavy ships, where you need the fps most.

[Zosma Procyon]

A brand new MacBook pro with a 3.1 GHz processor and 16 GB of ram. It isn't a dedicated gaming machine and large rockets still run slowly, but it's better than my last MacBook Pro which had a failed cooling system. Couldn't play the game for more than 10 minutes before it overheated and crashed.

[eddiew]

@ItsSeanBroleson your CPU is the weakpoint. It has about the worst single-thread performance on the market. KSP loves 1-2 strong threads.

I run a Ryzen 1600X with 32gb and an nvidia 1060, and my heavily modded install performs "ok" for things below 200 parts. Atmospheric flight is always iffy, ideally under 120 parts for a smooth spaceplane journey to orbit.

The correct PC for KSP is probably an overclocked Intel i5, which would give you the highest 1-2 thread performance on the market. You could look towards the previous (Kabylake) generation if you don't want to stump up for the current Coffeelakes. The newest ones have 2 more cores which KSP will never use.

That said, you will NEVER get good performance on 300+ parts in atmospheric flight. The game simply can't deliver it with the current engine. Too many complicated things happening. People who claim smoothness have a very different tolerance to fps, tbqh. I'd like to see them post a youtube vid proving they have over 30 fps during launch cos I don't believe them.

What you can do is look towards the welding mod for help:

Reducing part count is the number 1 way to improve fps, so I use this for things like torus-tanks that would otherwise have dozens of parts and condense them into just one. Helps hugely  

Edited February 20, 2018 by eddiew