KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[Norcalplanner]

13 hours ago, strudo76 said:

What resolution do you play at?

Currently 1920 x 1080, but my goal is to upgrade to 2560 x 1440 sometime in the next 12 months and use the existing monitor as a second screen for Internet and whatnot while playing.

10 hours ago, Harry Rhodan said:

Neither the GPU nor the RAM will increase performance very much unless you plan on using graphic intensive mods or a whole lot of very large mods.

As I said in my post, I'm looking to increase performance in RP-1 with all the visual mods. This would include Scatterer, EVE, TU, KS3P, and many large part mods such as BDB, SSTU, and FASA, which combine to over 60K MM patches when loading. Currently I'm compromising on visuals to get decent frame rate, including lowest res ocean in Scatterer, no volumetric clouds in EVE, 4K textures for planets and clouds. I'd love to up some of these settings and upgrade to 8K or higher textures.

Edit: And just to be clear, RP-1 includes both RSS and Realism Overhaul by reference, along with other compute-intensive mods such as Remote Tech, TAC-LS (with processing of unloaded vessels), TestFlight, RealFuels, RealPlume, and KCT.

Edited February 13, 2019 by Norcalplanner
Typos and clarification

[Harry Rhodan]

On 2/13/2019 at 6:15 PM, Norcalplanner said:

Currently 1920 x 1080, but my goal is to upgrade to 2560 x 1440

I'd love to up some of these settings and upgrade to 8K or higher textures.

Well okay, then you probably need a more juicy GPU. My main gripe with the 2060 would be that it still only has 6GB and that might be a limiting factor in texture size.

[Norcalplanner]

On 2/17/2019 at 2:12 AM, Harry Rhodan said:

Well okay, then you probably need a more juicy GPU. My main gripe with the 2060 would be that it still only has 6GB and that might be a limiting factor in texture size.

I was originally thinking 1070 or 1070 Ti when I first started thinking about this after Christmas, but it looks like the 2060 is either equal to or ahead of the 1070 in most benchmarks, for over a hundred dollars less.  Honestly, I don't think I'll ever go to 4K on a desktop - my eyes are "maturing" and I already have to wear my near distance glasses when I'm on the computer.

[Harry Rhodan]

2 hours ago, Norcalplanner said:

 my eyes are "maturing" and I already have to wear my near distance glasses when I'm on the computer.

Even then 4k might be good because you have to rely less on antialiasing mechanisms that make the picture or fonts slightly more fuzzy.

Except in older games like KSP ... oh ...

Edited February 18, 2019 by Harry Rhodan

[johiah]

Hey all. I've had the game for awhile but never really gotten into it due to having computers that just aren't good enough. I recently upgraded my laptop and found it can actually run KSP and I've been obsessed since. I've got a problem, though. I want to get into modding and I find myself having crashes due to running out of memory. Looking at performance in task manager shows I don't have a good enough anything to run the game well, and I'm looking at getting a new desktop. Unfortunately I've never been one for shopping and I don't really know where to start. I figured other KSP players would have a good idea of what I'd probably be looking at that can run KSP well but isn't over 1.5k, can anyone help me?

[Geonovast]

4 hours ago, johiah said:

Hey all. I've had the game for awhile but never really gotten into it due to having computers that just aren't good enough. I recently upgraded my laptop and found it can actually run KSP and I've been obsessed since. I've got a problem, though. I want to get into modding and I find myself having crashes due to running out of memory. Looking at performance in task manager shows I don't have a good enough anything to run the game well, and I'm looking at getting a new desktop. Unfortunately I've never been one for shopping and I don't really know where to start. I figured other KSP players would have a good idea of what I'd probably be looking at that can run KSP well but isn't over 1.5k, can anyone help me?

Is 1.5K your budget?  Because you can get quite a bit for that price point.  Comfortable KSP can be pretty easily had for half that.

[Harry Rhodan]

14 hours ago, johiah said:

I recently upgraded my laptop and found it can actually run KSP and I've been obsessed since.

Looking at performance in task manager shows I don't have a good enough anything to run the game well,

Well if it is running well enough for you then the cheapest option would be to upgrade the RAM of your laptop.

KSP mostly needs a CPU with raw single core power so a high clocked Intel CPU would be a good choice. For the rest of the parts you might want to look at sites like this to get an idea on what to pick: https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/

[johiah]

Hey guys, thanks for the advice. While my RAM is *somewhat* stressed, the main issue is that this laptop has an iGPU. Looking at the resource manager while playing has shown that to most consistently be at 100%. I can and probably will still upgrade the RAM in my laptop for mobility, but yeah. GPU cannot be upgraded, I've checked.

 

On 2/27/2019 at 10:03 PM, Geonovast said:

Is 1.5K your budget?  Because you can get quite a bit for that price point.  Comfortable KSP can be pretty easily had for half that.

Since I'm going to need a desktop at some point anyways I figured I might as well get one this summer, and if I'm going to do that, might as well go big.

[KiltedKerbal]

Looking for some advice on KSP/Ryzen CPU? 

I've started running into a wall with my current set up with KSP eating RAM (maybe the ridiculous number of mods and can't figure out which in particular is causing it). 

M/b: Asus p8z77-i Deluxe (only supports 2 sticks of RAM)

CPU - I7-3770s clocked at 4.225ghz on AIO cooling

RAM - 16gb DDR3 (mis-matched sticks but both 8gb - and can't find reasonable sticks to go to 32gb in DDR3)

GFX - Palit GTX1050ti

 

So it's not bad - can run most games at 30fps, but KSP still bottlenecks at times and memory is constantly creeping. So my thought is to get a current gen CPU - Ryzen 5 2600x or Ryzen 7 2700 (both are close in price), 32gb ram, keep the gfx card and a decent M/board. But whats KSP like on AMD over Intel? Or does it make much difference. I'd love to stay Team Blue for CPU, but AMD combo price is about the same as just i7 CPU, and I can flip the outgoing gear for around the cost of the new build. 

 

[qzgy]

36 minutes ago, KiltedKerbal said:

But whats KSP like on AMD over Intel? Or does it make much difference. I'd love to stay Team Blue for CPU, but AMD combo price is about the same as just i7 CPU, and I can flip the outgoing gear for around the cost of the new build

From what I understand and the common advice given, if your main goal is to have ksp run more smoothly, then you should stick with team blue. Ksp cares mostly about single threaded performance, which Intel processors I believe are generally better at. I wouldn't be surprised if it does actually make a large difference, but I can't concretely say. 

If you do want to upgrade, the easiest/maybe cheapest way is to get a new motherboard which supports more ram and get a couple more sticks to have a 32 gb system, keeping everything else the same. Or get a current gen i5 or i7 and mobo plus the ram. 

[xXKSP_playerXx]

5 hours ago, KiltedKerbal said:

So it's not bad - can run most games at 30fps, but KSP still bottlenecks at times and memory is constantly creeping. So my thought is to get a current gen CPU - Ryzen 5 2600x or Ryzen 7 2700 (both are close in price), 32gb ram, keep the gfx card and a decent M/board. But whats KSP like on AMD over Intel? Or does it make much difference. I'd love to stay Team Blue for CPU, but AMD combo price is about the same as just i7 CPU, and I can flip the outgoing gear for around the cost of the new build. 

Kinda want to add, not to cheap out on RAM speeds, I've seen considerable improvements going from 2400Mhz to 3200Mhz

[MircoMars]

is the amd athlon x4 950 any good? My phenom II x6 1055t is heading towards retirement and I'm planning a new base to be upgraded step by step. am4,  around some existing hardware, highish quality, on a serious budget. so I thought I first focus on the motherboard with 4 ram-slots and a cheap no graphics 4-core to be replaced down the road. cpu benchmark tells me x4 950 and ryzen 1200 are both better than what I got, with the r3 being way better, buuuuut is it though? my gut tells me to rather spend the budget on the mb and wait for the next ryzen generation to settle in.

opinions, experiences, please!

[Harry Rhodan]

12 hours ago, MircoMars said:

opinions

While that Passmark website I'm always throwing around surprisingly says that both would be about equal I wouldn't trust the older AMD architecture. Depending on what kind of board you're looking at and what you're trying to do with it the 8 PCIe lanes of the old Athlon might be pretty limiting compared to the 20 (24?) lanes the Ryzen is providing. Another thing to consider is that the first Ryzen generation was a bit finicky concerning RAM and how it should be organized (single ranked vs. dual ranked). Much of the problems were fixed in later UEFI updates but yould be wary about filling all your RAM slots  and still expecting your RAM to run at full speed. I don't know if the older chips had the same problems.

[KiltedKerbal]

12 hours ago, MircoMars said:

is the amd athlon x4 950 any good? My phenom II x6 1055t is heading towards retirement and I'm planning a new base to be upgraded step by step. am4,  around some existing hardware, highish quality, on a serious budget. so I thought I first focus on the motherboard with 4 ram-slots and a cheap no graphics 4-core to be replaced down the road. cpu benchmark tells me x4 950 and ryzen 1200 are both better than what I got, with the r3 being way better, buuuuut is it though? my gut tells me to rather spend the budget on the mb and wait for the next ryzen generation to settle in.

opinions, experiences, please!

8

I've gone for a Ryzen 5 2600x, and Asroc Fatality Mini ITX. https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/yLLhHh - and reusing AIO cooler, case and graphics card. 

Largely because current Gen Ryzen pricing is amazing value right now, and rumors have the 3rd Gen as being compatible with current boards. It's a fair chunk to do, but I'd say worth it for long term. The rig it's replacing is a few posts about and built around a processor that is now 6 years old. Although my main reasons for upgrade are lack of RAM that can be used as I only have 2 DIMM slots, and DDR3 16GB sticks are an expensive bet when I can get DDR4 for the same price. Sounds like you have something with DDR4 anyway to carry over, so why not get moderate board, and get a G series Ryzen? Like this - https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/txghP3 - but maybe play with M/B a bit.

All mostly to continue to hurl Space Frogs into mortal peril......

Edited April 5, 2019 by KiltedKerbal
adding budget G series build

[Elthy]

That Athlon is about 50$ straight out the window. The Ryzen CPUs are way, way better so you should directly go with one, even if its just a 2200g.

What do you mean with rather spending on a mainboard? You need a new one anyway, so just buy the cheapest B450 board with all features you want and be done with it. Spending more wont help your performance if you dont want to do overclocking (which is almost completly pointless with a -X CPU from AMD anyway).

[god uses debian]

Hey, title says it all. Just give any way to make the game faster.

Computer stats:

 

OS Name    Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Version    10.0.17134 Build 17134
OS Manufacturer    Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer    Hewlett-Packard
System Model    HP 500B Microtower
System Type    x64-based PC
Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E7500  @ 2.93GHz, 2936 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date    American Megatrends Inc. 6.08, 7/7/2011
SMBIOS Version    2.6
Embedded Controller Version    255.255
BIOS Mode    Legacy
BaseBoard Manufacturer    FOXCONN
BaseBoard Model    Not Available
BaseBoard Name    Base Board
Platform Role    Desktop
Installed Physical Memory (RAM)    4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory    3.87 GB
Available Physical Memory    710 MB
Total Virtual Memory    8.75 GB
Available Virtual Memory    1.48 GB
 

[Harry Rhodan]

4 hours ago, god uses debian said:

Hey, title says it all. Just give any way to make the game faster.

To see some substantial improvements you'd need to buy a new PC. Honestly, your stuff is ten years old and completely outdated. The best investment is a stronger CPU, but for a modern CPU you'd need a new mainboard and with a new board you'd need new RAM. And considering that you're probably using some retail machine you most likely would need to replace your PSU as well. But depending on what kind of retail machine you're using, regular mainboards and PSUs might not even fit inside the non-standard case, so you'd need to replace that as well.

The cheaper option: If this is your machine, you could try to find a used CPU of the ones mentioned in the list. You could also try to add a dedicated graphics card. That would free some of the RAM, that is currently used for the onboard graphic solution. But the main problem here is that this machine is already topped out on RAM and 4GB is the absolute minimum for newer versions of KSP. So if you want to get more RAM for mods then we're back to the expensive option.

the cheapest option(s): If you didn't already do it: reduce all the deatails in the settings. Open your settings.cfg, find the entry for "UNSUPPORTED_LEGACY_SHADER_TERRAIN" and change the value from "False" to "True". You could also restrict yourself to play only older, slightly less taxing versions of the game.

[steuben]

Was digging around looking for parts for my next file box project when I saw this fellow, https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/B250-MINING-EXPERT which has a whopping eighteen PCIe x1 ports, retailing for around 50 $cad. With a low end processor and a smattering of ram for 200- 300 $cad.  My question to the local hive-mind is this: does anybody have any experience with this motherboard and sata controller cards, either directly or other wise. I know the manual says as long as the card is PCIe rated it should be no problem. But, my plan is to take it outside of designed use, and that is where the problems fun and excitement always begin.

I figure get one of the motherboards, fill it up with these SYBA 4 port sata controller cards, hard drives, and then oh say mirror the internet.

As for why so much storage, I grew up in the days of 170 kb floppy disks and 300 baud modems. Data transfer was dear, when you got a byte in, you copied it and hoarded it.

[Kernel Kraken]

Yo, my prebuilt Omen PC has a faulty drive (as I learned from a question last year) and it has had to be reset twice within 3 days, so I figured it is time to upgrade. Does anyone have any advice as to which hard drive I should buy? (Going for a gaming + audio/video editing focus if that helps) I'm also planning to dual boot Linux mint and windows 10.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Kernel Kraken
I have recovered from my stroke

[Harry Rhodan]

9 hours ago, Kernel Kraken said:

Does anyone have any advice as to which hard drive I should buy? (Going for a gaming + audio/video editing focus if that helps) I'm also planning to dual boot Linux mint and windows 10.

An HDD as a drive to boot from? You should rather look for a SATA SSD like a Samsung 860 EVO (not QVO) or Crucial MX500.

[steuben]

To expand on Harry Rhodan's answer above. You'll want to get at least two, a ssd for your primary/boot drive and a high volume-lower spin drive for your bulk storage. You drop your os(es) and apps on the ssd, then use the other drive for short-term and reference storage.

Unless you have a physical volume, connections, and/or cash limit then just get the biggest drive you can afford... though checking  one of my sources they have a 960Gb ssd for 150 $cad and 3Tb for 70$cad. Dang prices have come down.

That's all assuming you only have one drive in that box already.

[Kernel Kraken]

1 hour ago, steuben said:

To expand on Harry Rhodan's answer above. You'll want to get at least two, a ssd for your primary/boot drive and a high volume-lower spin drive for your bulk storage. You drop your os(es) and apps on the ssd, then use the other drive for short-term and reference storage.

Unless you have a physical volume, connections, and/or cash limit then just get the biggest drive you can afford... though checking  one of my sources they have a 960Gb ssd for 150 $cad and 3Tb for 70$cad. Dang prices have come down.

That's all assuming you only have one drive in that box already.

I think I remembered the box saying it came with a 256 gb ssd and a 3tb HDD, and I'm not sure which one windows is booting off of. Any ideas on how I could find out?

[steuben]

 

2 hours ago, Kernel Kraken said:

Any ideas on how I could find [which drive it is booting from]?

Usually it is the C: drive. For that just open File explorer and see which one is C: and note the size. And as described it sounds like the ssd is your boot drive.

Note that's usually. I've seen, and done accidentally, other configurations. The firm check is to open the case, after unplugging it of course, and disconnect one of the two hard drives. With that hard drive still unplugged  turn it back on again, and see if it boots up. If it does the drive that's connected is your boot drive.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40335/how-to-tell-which-disk-windows-used-to-boot will give you the answer as well without having to open the case.

There's a bunch of other ways, but you're digging deeper in to the mechanics.

[Harry Rhodan]

On 4/24/2019 at 3:18 PM, Kernel Kraken said:

Any ideas on how I could find out?

By using the disk manager: https://www.isunshare.com/windows-10/7-ways-to-open-disk-management-in-windows-10.html

[StrandedonEarth]

Well, I dropped my HP laptop *facepalm* and it seems to have killed the HDD. When I power it on ( from completely off, unplugged and battery removed) I just get a blank screen for awhile (after offering the ESC menu) and then it goes into repair mode, which fails. When I run the UEFI diagnostics, the HDD passes the SMART test but fails the short DST test about ten seconds in to the estimated 2 minute test. But at least the memory test passed  

I can go to command prompt and surf around the drive, digging through both partitions, but it won’t boot. While there is nothing critical on the drive, I would like to recover some of the data. I don’t have any other hardware that I could plug the drive into, but I have a USB external drive with plenty of space. Can I copy the directories I want onto the external HDD from the command prompt, and if so, what is the format/syntax of the copy command?

Thanks for any help! In the meantime, I’ll go buy a cheaper 1TB notebook drive at Staples...

Edited April 25, 2019 by StrandedonEarth