KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

[legoclone09]

58 minutes ago, CliftonM said:

Acer G226HQL 21.5-Inch.  Not really anything to fall over for, but they're much better than what I had before.  Also, the reason I'm still going with the 1060 is because I already have all of the nvidia software on my computer, as I currently have the 750, and I got this one for less than I could get the RX 480.

Ah, OK. Makes sense now.

[ThaZeus]

Can we just take a minute to say a prayer of thanks for PCPartPicker?

 

Also, how much of a difference does a nice monitor make?

[legoclone09]

17 minutes ago, ThaZeus said:

Also, how much of a difference does a nice monitor make?

A lot of difference. Here's what pairs well together.

RX 460/470 - https://pcpartpicker.com/product/W3yxFT/viewsonic-monitor-vx2457mhd

RX 480 - https://pcpartpicker.com/product/ZBZ2FT/aoc-monitor-g2460pf

For a Nvidia card, the cheapest G-Sync 1080p 24" montior is $330, here: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/R998TW/aoc-monitor-g2460pg, which would compliment a GTX 1060 nicely. For a 1050 or a 1050Ti, just get a 1080p 60Hz monitor. For a 1070, a 1440p 60Hz (or a 1080p 144Hz no G-Sync) without G-Sync would work well, and with a GTX 1080 a 1440p 144Hz monitor without G-Sync would work well.

Edited January 1, 2017 by legoclone09

[Camacha]

12 hours ago, legoclone09 said:

For a Nvidia card, the cheapest G-Sync 1080p 24" montior is $330, here: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/R998TW/aoc-monitor-g2460pg, which would compliment a GTX 1060 nicely. For a 1050 or a 1050Ti, just get a 1080p 60Hz monitor. For a 1070, a 1440p 60Hz (or a 1080p 144Hz no G-Sync) without G-Sync would work well, and with a GTX 1080 a 1440p 144Hz monitor without G-Sync would work well.

Matching a monitor to a GPU does not seem to make a lot of sense. Video cards are arguably the fastest evolving PC card at the moment, though solid state drives are a contender too. The speed and capabilities of video cards increase rapidly, much more rapidly than is the case with processors or RAM. Most people will upgrade their monitor once every 5-10 years. This is far beyond the life span of the average computer and, in the case of gamers, many video cards. If you are an game enthusiast, you will probably upgrade your video card every 2-4 years, or once or twice after purchasing your computer with an already new card. Also remember that higher resolutions are more flexible. If you have a very high resolution, you can run fractions of the full resolution to increase performance.

Finally, having a higher resolution also helps when you are not gaming. Most people will spend much more time browsing and doing mundane things with that computers than they will gaming, even when you are an avid player. The conclusion seems to be that you need to view the purchase of a monitor somewhat separately from the rest of your system.

Edited January 1, 2017 by Camacha

[legoclone09]

7 minutes ago, Camacha said:

Matching a monitor to a GPU does not seem to make a lot of sense. Video cards are arguably the fastest evolving PC card at the moment, though solid state drives are a contender too. The speed and capabilities of video cards increase rapidly, much more rapidly than is the case with processors or RAM memory. Most people will upgrade their monitor once every 5-10 years. This is far beyond the life span of the average computer and, in the case of gamers, many video cards. If you are an game enthusiast, you will probably upgrade your video card every 2-4 years, or once or twice after purchasing your computer with an already new card. Also remember that higher resolutions are more flexible. If you have a very high resolution, you can run fractions of the full resolution to increase performance.

Finally, having a higher resolution also helps when you are not gaming. Most people will spend much more time browsing and doing mundane things with that computers than they will gaming, even when you are an avid player. The conclusion seems to be that you need to view the purchase of a monitor somewhat separately from the rest of your system.

Yeah, that does make sense. I was wrong in that I guess.

[Brownie352]

Hey guys can someone tell me which cpu is better for ksp and how big is the difference between the 2 ? :i5 6500. I3 6100 

[legoclone09]

4 minutes ago, Brownie352 said:

Hey guys can someone tell me which cpu is better for ksp and how big is the difference between the 2 ? :i5 6500. I3 6100 

i3 6100 has a higher clock speed than the i5 6500, but only two cores instead of the i5's four cores. I believe the i3 will do better, but I'm uncertain.

[Elthy]

The turbo of the i5 6500 goes to 3,6Ghz, while the i3 stays at 3,7Ghz, so the single thread performance is almost identical. Since the i5 comes with twice as many cores it will be way, way better in other games, for KSP this would require tests on how single threaded KSP still is in Unity 5...

BTW: I could do some benchmarks, but im still struggeling to understand the physics delta setting. The best setting would be one, where every calculated ingame tick would result in one redered frame, but im not sure how to achive that...

[legoclone09]

48 minutes ago, Elthy said:

The turbo of the i5 6500 goes to 3,6Ghz, while the i3 stays at 3,7Ghz, so the single thread performance is almost identical. Since the i5 comes with twice as many cores it will be way, way better in other games, for KSP this would require tests on how single threaded KSP still is in Unity 5...

BTW: I could do some benchmarks, but im still struggeling to understand the physics delta setting. The best setting would be one, where every calculated ingame tick would result in one redered frame, but im not sure how to achive that...

I don't think you can bring it to 0.01, only 0.03. It would be much more intensive om the processor.

[Elthy]

Just now, legoclone09 said:

I don't think you can bring it to 0.01, only 0.03. It would be much more intensive om the processor.

Oh, damn transaltion error of mine. I wasnt talking about the setting "one", but about finding the ideal setting. Would a deltatime of e.g. 0.01 make sure each physics tick results in a frame? Afaik the setting can be altered by editing the .cfg directly.

[legoclone09]

5 minutes ago, Elthy said:

Oh, damn transaltion error of mine. I wasnt talking about the setting "one", but about finding the ideal setting. Would a deltatime of e.g. 0.01 make sure each physics tick results in a frame? Afaik the setting can be altered by editing the .cfg directly.

I believe it would, but I'm not sure.

[Brownie352]

So do you think that with a i3 6100 a gtx 1050ti and 8 gigs ram i can play ksp with visual mods and good part counts at "good fps" ?

[legoclone09]

20 minutes ago, Brownie352 said:

So do you think that with a i3 6100 a gtx 1050ti and 8 gigs ram i can play ksp with visual mods and good part counts at "good fps" ?

If you could, a RX 470 4GB would outperform the GTX 1050ti, as well as support FreeSync and DirectX 12 better. That PC is pretty good, though, KSP is easily playable on that. You will lag at higher part counts, though (granted that happens to every PC with KSP).

[Robotengineer]

Could I expect much performance improvement in KSP (and other CPU intensive games, i.e. Dwarf Fortress) by overclocking? Specifically looking at i7 k vs non-k for Skylake and Kaby Lake. 

[Brownie352]

7 minutes ago, Robotengineer said:

Could I expect much performance improvement in KSP (and other CPU intensive games, i.e. Dwarf Fortress) by overclocking? Specifically looking at i7 k vs non-k for Skylake and Kaby Lake

12 minutes ago, legoclone09 said:

If you could, a RX 470 4GB would outperform the GTX 1050ti, as well as support FreeSync and DirectX 12 better. That PC is pretty good, though, KSP is easily playable on that. You will lag at higher part counts, though (granted that happens to every PC with KSP).

 

13 minutes ago, legoclone09 said:

If you could, a RX 470 4GB would outperform the GTX 1050ti, as well as support FreeSync and DirectX 12 better. That PC is pretty good, though, KSP is easily playable on that. You will lag at higher part counts, though (granted that happens to every PC with KSP).

Can you predict how much fps i would get with the pc i told  you on stock ksp on a 300 part craft? (Sorry for double post :  /

 

[legoclone09]

58 minutes ago, Brownie352 said:

Can you predict how much fps i would get with the pc i told  you on stock ksp on a 300 part craft? (Sorry for double post :  /

 

Hmm... I run an i5 4670k @ 4.2GHz, when looking at the ground in atmosphere I get around 30-40 FPS with the Bluedog Design Bureau Saturn V (50 or so parts), but when I'm in an orbit above 100km (when the ground models don't load and it's just a texture on a ball), I get around 100 FPS. I do run SVE clouds at 8k textures and SVT at 8k terrain textures. If you run 4k textures, I guess maybe 45 FPS on ascent when looking at ground and 90 in orbit or when looking away from the planet for around 50 parts, and halve that for 300 parts I guess. When I get home I'll clock my processor to 3.7GHz and do tests in 8k textures maybe.

@Robotengineer Yes, you would get framerate increases, but wait for AMD's Ryzen processors to come out. They very well may smash Intel's performance for a lower or similar price, they are coming out in Q2 of 2017 I believe for the cheaper ones and Q1 for high end I think, not certain.

Edited January 4, 2017 by legoclone09

[Robotengineer]

11 minutes ago, legoclone09 said:

Hmm... I run an i5 4670k @ 4.2GHz, when looking at the ground in atmosphere I get around 30-40 FPS with the Bluedog Design Bureau Saturn V (50 or so parts), but when I'm in an orbit above 100km (when the ground models don't load and it's just a texture on a ball), I get around 100 FPS. I do run SVE clouds at 8k textures and SVT at 8k terrain textures. If you run 4k textures, I guess maybe 45 FPS on ascent when looking at ground and 90 in orbit or when looking away from the planet for around 50 parts, and halve that for 300 parts I guess. When I get home I'll clock my processor to 3.7GHz and do tests in 8k textures maybe.

@Robotengineer Yes, you would get framerate increases, but wait for AMD's Ryzen processors to come out. They very well may smash Intel's performance for a lower or similar price, they are coming out in Q2 of 2017 I believe for the cheaper ones and Q1 for high end I think, not certain.

Thanks, I'm waiting for Ryzen, especially after the disappointment that is Kaby Lake. BTW, what resolution/GPU is that at? I currently have a 1440p, 27" monitor (all in one) and I'm not sure if I could go to 1080p without shrinking the screen a lot.

[legoclone09]

35 minutes ago, Robotengineer said:

Thanks, I'm waiting for Ryzen, especially after the disappointment that is Kaby Lake. BTW, what resolution/GPU is that at? I currently have a 1440p, 27" monitor (all in one) and I'm not sure if I could go to 1080p without shrinking the screen a lot.

I run 1080p 24" 144Hz and FreeSync (Acer XF240H). I use the MSi Gaming X RX 480 8GB at the stock clock (1303MHz and 2000MHz on VRAM).

[Elthy]

3 hours ago, Brownie352 said:

So do you think that with a i3 6100 a gtx 1050ti and 8 gigs ram i can play ksp with visual mods and good part counts at "good fps" ?

Seems you want to build a new PC. If its not only for KSP i would suggest an i5-6500, its way, way more future proof.

[Brownie352]

On 4/1/2017 at 9:53 PM, Elthy said:

Seems you want to build a new PC. If its not only for KSP i would suggest an i5-6500, its way, way 

On 4/1/2017 at 9:53 PM, Elthy said:

Yep i know.. Btw i have a question.. Does harddrive play role on games (i mean frames per sec not loading screens) or not?         (Crap messed up the post again!..)

 

[Elthy]

A harddrive doesnt change the FPS, just loading times (except for some games that load e.g. open world stuff in the background).

But if you are asking because you are evaluating a SSD vs a HDD, choose the SSD. Its the biggest hardware upgarde you can get and should always be the top priority on your list, espeicaly since they got so cheap. You dont need the fancy high end stuff, the difference between a Samsung 750 Evo or a 950 Pro is very small for most use cases...

[Brownie352]

27 minutes ago, Elthy said:

A harddrive doesnt change the FPS, just loading times (except for some games that load e.g. open world stuff in the background).

But if you are asking because you are evaluating a SSD vs a HDD, choose the SSD. Its the biggest hardware upgarde you can get and should always be the top priority on your list, espeicaly since they got so cheap. You dont need the fancy high end stuff, the difference between a Samsung 750 Evo or a 950 Pro is very small for most use cases..

28 minutes ago, Elthy said:

A harddrive doesnt change the FPS, just loading times (except for some games that load e.g. open world stuff in the background).

But if you are asking because you are evaluating a SSD vs a HDD, choose the SSD. Its the biggest hardware upgarde you can get and should always be the top priority on your list, espeicaly since they got so cheap. You dont need the fancy high end stuff, the difference between a Samsung 750 Evo or a 950 Pro is very small for most use cases...

Cant you put an ssd and an hdd on the same system? 

 

[GDJ]

4 minutes ago, Brownie352 said:

Cant you put an ssd and an hdd on the same system?

Yes. A good idea if you have items that require very long term storage (HDD) but still need to access common items quickly (SSD)

[Camacha]

On 06/01/2017 at 0:16 AM, Brownie352 said:

Cant you put an ssd and an hdd on the same system? 

Hybrid setups are the solution of choice until SSD storage becomes cheap enough to beat the HDD in quantity too. Most people that use SSD's have a Windows + applications drive and a bulk storage drive, though you see more and more people exclusively using an SSD, especially in laptops.

Games can mostly be played from HDD without much trouble, though times are changing there too. Some games that use streaming technology like Skyrim, Fallout 4 and GTA V can suffer from noticeable lag when played on a HDD, and in some multiplayer games slower loading and later spawning can be a disadvantage too. Game developers follow the general public and the general gamer public is rapidly adopting the SSD as the drive of choice. Since games generally require huge amounts of disk space, being selective about putting what game where seems the way to go.

[WellItExplodedAgain]

Using an SSD and a HDD is recommended. I personally use a 256gb m.2 SSD for my boot drive, KSP, and some other games. I have a 1tb WD caviar blue for my recording drive. It works wonders!