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KSP1 Computer Building/Buying Megathread


Leonov

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NVIDIA GPU's are supposed to be the best for gaming right?

No, they are not. Both AMD and Nvidia make excellent cards. Depending on your preferences, either one could be the best option. Currently, Nvidia is a little more economical with power, AMD has a slight edge when it comes to bang-for-buck.

We really need to move away from this fable that Nvidia somehow would be inherently better. It is not. It is also not worse either (business practices aside).

My current system is a 27" iMac late 2012. 3.4 GHz i7, 16 GB of 1600 MHz DDR3 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX. As far as budget goes, less than $1500, preferably around $1000.

What exactly do you hope to do that you cannot do now? Your current computer is, in all reality, rather quick when it comes to the tasks you describe. KSP is heavily single threaded, I am not sure about Dwarf Fortress. If you truly have trouble running either one, there is very little place to go but up and the benefits would be relatively slim.

I do not think either game is very demanding on the GPU, so throwing in some heavyweight card will probably do little good (other than cost money, use power and generate heat). If you have issues now, it really pays to find out in detail were those issues come from, and then build a system to mitigate those issues.

Nvidia cards are certainly better supported under GNU/Linux, and IME tend to be slightly faster (and slightly more expensive) than the comparable AMD offering. But in reality it's neck-and-neck, and which is better value depends on the month you ask.

Agreed.

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Sorry if this has been discussed before, but what are the requirements for a laptop to run the game nice and smooth, even with some mods installed??

What numbers should I look at??

Something that is not overkill (to keep the price low) but will not hit any limitations in a long while.

Thank you very much

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Dafni: Single thread CPU performance is by far the biggest factor in how well KSP plays on a computer. These days that means an Intel CPU with as fast a clockspeed as you can afford. Other than that, I would recommend 8GB of RAM and something with a discrete video card rather than graphics integrated into the CPU.

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Are we talking about just KSP? I agree with Crown Of Thorns there. Single thread processor speed is by far the most important factor. A discrete GPU paired with an Intel chip is ideal, but depending on your budget you might need or want to sacrifice that GPU for optimal thread speed. The newest generation of Intel chips have reasonable-ish inbuilt GPU's, though if at all possible you want that GPU instead.

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Are we talking about just KSP? I agree with Crown Of Thorns there. Single thread processor speed is by far the most important factor. A discrete GPU paired with an Intel chip is ideal, but depending on your budget you might need or want to sacrifice that GPU for optimal thread speed. The newest generation of Intel chips have reasonable-ish inbuilt GPU's, though if at all possible you want that GPU instead.

Yeah, we're talking about just KSP. What other games of interest are there anyway?? :sticktongue:

Thank you for the suggestions. It'll be a great help deciding what to get.

cheers

Daf

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Without knowing the system's purpose or your goals, it seems reasonable, though I do not see why you would limit yourself to Nvidia.

If you can tell us more about what you want, we might be able to provide better advice.

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It is supposed to play KSP well, as well as run elite dangerous at better than medium settings, and to play war thunder on max(not movie). No amd is for compatibility with any other games that I want to expand into, and power efficiency.

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It is supposed to play KSP well, as well as run elite dangerous at better than medium settings, and to play war thunder on max(not movie).

Okay, settings and games are a start. At what resolution do you want to play? What is running things well? 40 fps, 60 fps, 120 fps? Have you checked out the benchmarks run with those games? What hardware comes close to the performance you are looking for?

No amd is for compatibility with any other games that I want to expand into

Like which ones, and what is supposed to be (non-)compatible?

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60 fps is acceptable for me. Running KSP well is either on high or max. Elite dangerous at medium to high settings, 40 fps. War thunder 60 fps high or max settings.

AMD incompatible: It will likely dual boot Linux for KSP.

And, 1080p for everything.

Edited by Alphasus
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I can get buy with a few compromises such as hard drive space or ram because I can upgrade them later

- - - Updated - - -

Also graphics can be intergrated because I do not have a good graphics card at all. My curent system is

Intel pentium D 940

4GB DDR2 ram

ATI Radeon HD 6450

1TB SATA 2 Hard drive.

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Do you need a monitor or an OS?

Here:

CPU: Pentium G3258

Fast on its cores, can be over clocked well.

Cooler(for over clocking):Hyper 212 EVO

RAM:8 gb of ram

Enough for most things

Storage: 1 TB Caviar Blue HDD

Case: MicroATX Case

The computer won't make much heat,so it doesn't need that large of a case.And, a cooler is there as well.

PSU: Silverstone 300 Watt PSU

This psu had very few bad reviews, so it would seem to be reliable, while also leaving room for overclocking and adding a GPU

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/WM7YFT

Edited by Alphasus
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If you must upgrade now, I would suggest a Pentium G3258 CPU, a low end Z97 motherboard, and 8GB of RAM. Keep your HDD and other peripherals (not sure if the 6450 will outperform recent Intel integrated, if so keep using that). Continue saving for a better GPU and PSU.

Edit: Editing your post to ninja me, Alphasus? :P

Edited by Red Iron Crown
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