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KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread

Leonov

By Leonov
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qzgy

qzgy

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, miamijuggler said:

I've heard that KSP relies on single thread performance more than most games do, so I was wondering if it would be better to upgrade my CPU or my GPU next? The motherboard I have is a fairly entry-level model when I purchased it in 2015, so I'm wondering how much benefit I can get while staying on the LGA1151 socket. Is it time to upgrade the motherboard as well? If so, is it worth considering the new AMD processors?

Depends. Are you playing solely KSP or other games too? Are you doing other tasks that would benefit from better multithreaded performance? If your main focus is pure KSP performance, I would say go with a newer Intel CPU. Your GPU I think should generally be good enough for 1080p unless games have recently gotten a lot more demanding.... but if you are going to do more intensive games other than KSP I would think maybe consider a GPU upgrade.

Mother board compatibility/need for upgade depends a bit. I'm not so sure on that, though I think you would be fine supporting the Intel 7xxx series chips, so if thats what you would upgrade to, you shouldn't have to. Anything else would need newer hardware.

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Harry Rhodan

Harry Rhodan

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Posted

http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-MSI/Z170A_PC_MATE.html

Your board seems to support Kaby Lakes. So you could go for a 7600K or 7700K and a good aftermarket cooler. But the high end CPU options for older boards tend to stay expensive or even become more expensive as stock runs low and users become more desperate to upgrade older platforms.

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tsaven

tsaven

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 12/5/2018 at 4:20 PM, miamijuggler said:

I've heard that KSP relies on single thread performance more than most games do, so I was wondering if it would be better to upgrade my CPU or my GPU next?

You're right that KSP performance is almost exclusively reliant upon single-thread CPU performance (Until you start running a ton of graphical mods).  Unfortunately, the single-thread CPU performance increase for Intel CPUs over the last few generations has been extremely minimal, almost to the point of not being worth it.  All that Intel has been doing is slapping more and more cores together, which doesn't help KSP much at all.  And AMD's CPUs are even worse (in terms of single-core performance).

If you are looking for better KSP performance, your only major option will be overclocking.  A de-lidded 8600K, Z370 motherboard and either a huge air cooler or an AIO water-cooling kit will pretty reliably get you past 5ghz. That will produce noticeable performance improvements for KSP, although it'll give almost no benefit to any other games (besides maybe Dwarf Fortress or Factorio).

But if you're just going to get the newest gen CPU and run it at stock clock, you're not going to see much gain.  Definitely not enough to justify the expense.

Edited by tsaven
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munlander1

munlander1

Posted
Posted

I have a laptop and I think the screen connector is bad. When ever something is moved around in screen or a window open,  the lines will change colors in the area. How difficult of a repair is it, how much will it cost? How much will it cost for it to be professionally repaired?3N4Yx54.jpg

Oh, and won’t a graphics card speed up processing astrophotos?

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Aquaticfantastic

Aquaticfantastic

Posted
Posted

Time to purchase a new gaming rig, been without since 2014, making do by playing KSP on PS4, which isn't too bad, I enjoy stock but I also want to try mods and want to be much less restricted by part count and have the latest version! Also 4K.

The specs of the rig I currently favour are as follows (will also be playing other games like CIV, two-point hospital and the likes):

AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Eight Core/Sixteen Thread Processor (4.3 GHZ)

16GB DDR4 3200MHz RGB Memory

 RX Vega 56 8GB Graphics

512 GB SSD

2tb HDD

How do you think this will work with KSP, could I go absolutely mad with mods and monster builds? Is there a more suitable processor (not sure if I'll benefit much from the 16 threads).

I get the basics of what I need but I don't know if I could do more with less, perhaps the GPU could be better? I am no expert with computers.

Any advice will be appreciated :)

 

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Harry Rhodan

Harry Rhodan

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Posted
30 minutes ago, Aquaticfantastic said:

Is there a more suitable processor (not sure if I'll benefit much from the 16 threads).

Well Intel has the better single core performance which is still the key value for KSP: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-Ryzen-7-PRO-2700X-vs-Intel-i5-8600K-vs-Intel-i7-8700/3292vs3100vs3099

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Harry Rhodan

Harry Rhodan

Posted
Posted (edited)
23 minutes ago, Aquaticfantastic said:

Thanks, that's a good site! So switching for an i7 would be my best bet but not a huge gain over an i5 (with regards to KSP) if I'm reading correctly?

But remember that the result on that site are all from a generic synthetical benchmark. Performance in real applications may vary. But so far the single core value has been pretty accurate for estimating the performance in KSP.

Yes, it all comes down to how much you need multicore performance for other stuff and how much you are willing to pay for it. The best bang for the buck is probably still the 2700x.

Edited by Harry Rhodan
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purpleivan

purpleivan

Posted
Posted (edited)

It should be ok.

You CPU is similar to mine (i5-3570k) in terms of performance and the graphics card is overkill in terms of KSP requirements, but useful for other games.

Personally I'd be happier with 16GB Ram than 8 though. That allows me to run KSP plus some bits and pieces (browser, Photoshop etc.) in the background, with some overhead left over.

Edited by purpleivan
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wumpus

wumpus

Posted
Posted
14 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

Definitely.  KSP's bottlenecks are CPU (physics simulation) and ram (memory leaks and/or mods).

That and until 1.1, KSP fit in 2G of RAM*.  8G shouldn't be a problem (unless you are browsing the forum with all the tabs open while running with all the mods).

* is it even possible to run in 32 bit mode now?  I'd expect it to work well (although mods might be an issue) in 4G systems if it can.

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Curveball Anders

Curveball Anders

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Tyko said:

Looks good but I'd with to 16GB of RAM if you're planning on running mods. The entire game - all textures and all mods - are loaded in RAM, so the more mods you have the more RAM you'll need.

There's another thing to remember when it's comes to RAM.

The game (or rather Unity) doesn't release allocated structures until it has to (that's why we have issues with GC).

That's why the memory footprint appears to increase to longer you play, or rather the more you jump around and create or un-pack more stuff.

This is normally  a smart move since it means that the unpacked stuff isn't repacked and reunpacked over and over again.

It becomes a bad move since Unity is quite bad at understanding and differentiating physical and virtual memory ...

I've actually added a little memory watchdog that I start with KSP (included in my Start_KSP script). It starts beeping when KSP has allocated more memory that a set value. At which times I restart :)

But in short, a KSP-box can't have too much RAM ...

Edited by Curveball Anders
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eddiew

eddiew

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Fearless Son said:

You are a newbie on the forum, so I don't have any other posts you made to extrapolate intent from, but if you were a forum regular, I would swear this was a humble-brag.  ;)

"New" PC appears to be about 6 years old so... not the best brag on the block x)

It will be fine, but like everyone else's PC it will hit a performance wall if you go for too many parts in a vessel. My guess is you'll feel the lag around 200 parts in vacuum, maybe 150 in atmosphere. Which is actually plenty to do pretty much anything, unless you get into aesthetic building and start slapping on things you don't need but which look fun.

Edited by eddiew
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Mjarf

Mjarf

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It'll run KSP just fine if you don't try to launch an interstellar cruiser or Star Destroyer replica or something else crazy. Your CPU is comparable to my AMD Ryzen 3 1200 which handles KSP very well with moderately sized vessels, so you should be fine.

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The Aziz

The Aziz

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Got almost same specs (but gtx 950 here and different mobo) and stock game works very well even with big ships, but it can lag when I install too many mods. And I'm talking like 60+, visuals and planet packs make it even worse, and here mean mostly scene loading times.

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