KSP2 System Requirements

[Toaster]

All of y’all concerned about the high specs do realize that calculating realistic physics can be hard right? And also have y’all not seen the volumetric clouds? 

[LoSBoL]

Just now, SSTO Crasher said:

And the worst part?

Those of us who bouht our pcs after the EA trailer just so we could play KSP2 on the first day now knowing we can’t

Any budget gaming computer bought after the release of the EA trailer would run KSP2 within the now released requirements. 

[Kerbart]

4 minutes ago, Ruedii said:

I think you need to remember the difference in performance between early access launch and 1.2 release in KSP.

The early access launch version would grind most computers to a halt.

I hope not. KSP1 was things upon things upon things. KSP2 was built from the ground up with an end-product in mind. The optimizations that are left should be in the 5-10% range, unless we've been lied to regarding where the product is in development (the story being it's feature complete, we just want to await feedback before adding that). I'm willing to give Intercept a lot of benefits of doubt, but when they're saying that there's room to improve to an extend where it's lowering system requirements, I feel that the product is not as finished as they told us it is; the game running better in the future on lesser hardware might be a positive aspect of Intercept misleading us but that's about it.

On the other hand — and again this seems self-inflicted damage by just dropping stuff without initial clarification — the specs seem to written towards "this is what you need with every detail maxed doing crazy shenanigans" and the difference between "minimum" and "recommended" is the resolution.

[Bej Kerman]

2 minutes ago, SSTO Crasher said:

And the worst part?

Those of us who bouht our pcs after the EA trailer just so we could play KSP2 on the first day now knowing we can’t

Okay, but then you did make the choice to buy hardware before knowing what KSP 2 would need. You can blame Intercept for being anxious to say "We use different builds, EA does not grant access to a complete and optimised product, etc" (or it's possible you could blame T2 for forcing them to avoid using words the two-year-olds they are marketing to couldn't understand, and I'm not sure which possibility is worse), but then again, it's never a smart idea to buy stuff solely for a product whose performance details are a complete mystery. You can take solace in the fact that the game's requirements will probably drop a significant amount when full-time optimisation commences.

[SSTO Crasher]

4 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

Any budget gaming computer bought after the release of the EA trailer would run KSP2 within the now released requirements. 

The problem is ram, I could probably meet the rest of the requirements, but I have 8 gb of RAM, which is half the recommended. 

[Bej Kerman]

2 minutes ago, SSTO Crasher said:

The problem is ram, I could probably meet the rest of the requirements, but I have 8 gb of RAM, which is half the recommended. 

Well I heard RAM prices are dropping so getting more RAM should be the least problematic part of an impulse-bought KSP 2 machine.

[pandaman]

13 minutes ago, SSTO Crasher said:

The problem is ram, I could probably meet the rest of the requirements, but I have 8 gb of RAM, which is half the recommended. 

Assuming your  motherboard can handle it RAM is an easier and cheaper fix compared to a Graphics card.   Budget permitting of course. 

I'm OK with RAM, think I'll be just OK with CPU, and clenching 'cheeks' hoping my GPU will suffice for now even though it's below minimum specs.

[theJesuit]

If the  game can't load, or is unplayable, then the Steam refund policy may be your friend (under two hours playtime).  

[regex]

Oddly, I am now more interested in picking up the game next week than I was yesterday. Quite interested to see why my current computer is below the recommended line.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, snkiz said:

I mean most developers who want to make money will target a system that a majority of potential customers have, or are willing to purchase. Traditionally that target becomes the recommended spec. Not the ultra spec, or the modded spec. Apologists can claim a 60 class card is low end and 80 only mid tier all day. Doesn't make it true. 60 is in fact mid tier, 70 is high, 80 is enthusiast. 90 is the gold plated halo replacement for titans. No hardware reviewer considers it a legitimate part of of the main stack. Recommend sepc. is supposed to be intended for the masses. This is just leaving a bunch of people and educators behind. This does not line up with the intercepts stated goals of making a more approachable game. It's easy to see how some feel like they were duped.

TLDR; This whole thread is some PCMR crap.

Who is true, but most games are made after console specification,  who up to now has been the PS 4 with an GPU most like GTX 1050 or GTX 1650 , PS 4 was released back in 2013 or 10 years ago. 
So most current games can run on weak or old GPU, my older 980ti is 2.5x stronger. 

For the PS 5 its comparable GPU is RTX 5700 XT or RTX 2070 

Usually then an new console generation drops the previous generation is dropped pretty fast.  This has been slower over to 9th generation. Multiple reasons: Supply problems with PS 5 is a part but probably more important that architecture is so similar that it don't cost much to support both versions and PS 4 games still looks good, its not an serious need to drop the PS 4 unlike the PS 3 and the 360 because they had so little memory. 
But more and more demanding games will drop 8 generation. 

Now the 2070 or the PS 5 gpu is very close to 2060 who we all know that. However consoles perform better than PC since hardware is known you can code directly to hardware if needed. Also KSP is mostly an PC game and they can turn down stuff a bit on console.  

[MechBFP]

15 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Now the 2070 or the PS 5 gpu is very close to 2060 who we all know that

That is really not accurate. A 2070 is about 25% more powerful.

Edited February 18, 2023 by MechBFP

[magnemoe]

26 minutes ago, pandaman said:

Assuming your  motherboard can handle it RAM is an easier and cheaper fix compared to a Graphics card.   Budget permitting of course. 

I'm OK with RAM, think I'll be just OK with CPU, and clenching 'cheeks' hoping my GPU will suffice for now even though it's below minimum specs.

This, now I could not imagine imagine running with less than 16 GB, now if you have an tower with 2x4 GB you probably just install two more, you might get that for less than $50. It might even be worth checking if you can get it used. 
More ram is nice as its also act as disk cache 

[kerbiloid]

1. Most of KSP players have two kidneys. The excessive one can be sold.

2.A lot of second-hand high-end videocards after the crypto-mining collapse.

?????

3. Profit! Launch!!!

***

It's funny to read the "it's Early Access, so isn't optimized enough yet" about the game whose release was declared three years ago, which is a remake of the game which keeps being tested hard for a decade, and has Parallax and other such mods which definitely let it look as good as it's enough for the game about flying cylinders in the middle of nowhere, sometimes landing.

***

This gam doesn't need an anti-piracy protection. Even if beggars get it from torrents, they will have no PC to run it.

[isamu]

disk means how much room i need to download and install it right?

[TLTay]

The big issue with the system requirements isn't even how high they are, it's that they were completely unexpectedly high.

People who have been closely following the promotional material would not have guessed this high at all for the GPU by the looks of the game.

Judging by the terrain and the visible flat planes on a rounded object, I would have personally guessed a 1050 or so to be the "minimum" target for a good experience.

Nothing shown so far seems to warrant a 3080. Nothing. At. All. Not to mention the 3080 is the target... not for 4K, but for 1440p? Yowch.

I've got a system that almost makes recommended specs, but man. I thought I'd be running ultra at buttery smooth framerates based on the promo stuff.

For requiring hardware like this, you should be getting cyberpunk-grade visuals, not whatever they've been showing us. 

TLDR: People are mad because specs don't correlate with the visual quality at all.

[SSTO Crasher]

I have a newer intel processor and yet it is nowhere near the necessary GHz

Edited February 18, 2023 by SSTO Crasher

[Grenartia]

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

I've played KSP 1 enough to see how hopeless the devs would need to be to make a game with worse optimisation, and I know enough about development to know that the requirements will be a lot lower when KSP 2 is closer to being a product the devs would have been comfortable sharing.

This does line up with their goals of making a more approachable game. They're still making it and the time you spend making it is a bad time to be optimising it.

I'm not a developer, but that last sentence does make sense. What doesn't make sense is how the team has handled this. They coulld (and should) have told us "for X, Y, and Z reasons, on launch the minimum system requirements are [minimum requirements], and the recommended specs are [recommended specs]. We understand not many people currently have hardware that meets the minimum, but rest assured, we will endeavor to optimize the game before full release so that even people with [reasonably low-tier hardware that a significant portion of the current playerbase currently owns] can play the game."

As it stands now, the current disclaimer only fuzzily implies that, but does not explicitly say that people with lower-performing hardware than the presently-listed minimums can expect to be able to play.  Intercept has to correct that shortcoming. 

 

2 hours ago, darthgently said:

Still, it's been on the market for what, 5+ years?  Bottom line is we don't know if the recommendations are conservative or not.  But do know they are for early access, which may have optimization still to triage, and by the time general release comes around the specs would be less alarming as the norm will have changed more

That may be, but you're missing the forest for the trees, because for the last half of that timeframe, almost nobody could get a 2060 even if they wanted it, and for most of the time before the GPU Crisis, a lot of people (myself included) didn't need anything other than integrated graphics, or at most, a 10 series, so we didn't go out of our way to get them. As a result of those factors, most people don't have a 2060 or better. 

 

[modus]

9 hours ago, GoldForest said:

Most people, imo, don't look at the specs and go, "Oh, I'm below the minimum specs... I should try it out just to see if I can run it decently."
Most people go, imo, "Let's see the min specs... oh... oh no... I can't run it. " and then go to another game that they can run.

Most people, imo, don't understand that min specs are a guideline, not a rule. 

Oh yeah I've played many games on my potato where I was (well) below the minimum reqs. It allways worked, you just can't expect to have graphic settings on high.

I'm seeing lots of imo unnecessary panic here.

Spoiler

I just bought a new, very good, laptop so for the first time in years I'll be able to actually have recommended requirements

 

[darthgently]

1 minute ago, Grenartia said:

I'm not a developer, but that last sentence does make sense. What doesn't make sense is how the team has handled this. They coulld (and should) have told us "for X, Y, and Z reasons, on launch the minimum system requirements are [minimum requirements], and the recommended specs are [recommended specs]. We understand not many people currently have hardware that meets the minimum, but rest assured, we will endeavor to optimize the game before full release so that even people with [reasonably low-tier hardware that a significant portion of the current playerbase currently owns] can play the game."

As it stands now, the current disclaimer only fuzzily implies that, but does not explicitly say that people with lower-performing hardware than the presently-listed minimums can expect to be able to play.  Intercept has to correct that shortcoming. 

 

That may be, but you're missing the forest for the trees, because for the last half of that timeframe, almost nobody could get a 2060 even if they wanted it, and for most of the time before the GPU Crisis, a lot of people (myself included) didn't need anything other than integrated graphics, or at most, a 10 series, so we didn't go out of our way to get them. As a result of those factors, most people don't have a 2060 or better. 

 

Still, consoles coming out have about the same GPU power. 

I think the specs above are conservative and geared to EA  unoptimized code.

And, I'm guessing here of course, but I really think that KSP2 EA will likely be perfectly playable with 1060 level GPUs, but some settings will need to be dropped down. 

[Grenartia]

1 hour ago, Toaster said:

All of y’all concerned about the high specs do realize that calculating realistic physics can be hard right? And also have y’all not seen the volumetric clouds? 

1. It can be, but as has been pointed out, GPU-based physics in a game isn't to that point yet (and if it were, that would probably be some sort of selling point for the game). Besides, the actual CPU requirements aren't that onerous (the Athlon being quite low-tier). 

2. Quite frankly, I don't give two excrements if there's clouds or not. I appreciate that implementing clouds well was likely an achievement for the devs, but they should be a purely optional experience, especially if they add that much burden to the game. 
 

13 minutes ago, modus said:

Oh yeah I've played many games on my potato where I was (well) below the minimum reqs. It allways worked, you just can't expect to have graphic settings on high.

I'm seeing lots of imo unnecessary panic here.

  Hide contents

I just bought a new, very good, laptop so for the first time in years I'll be able to actually have recommended requirements

 

IME, it is necessary panic, because at no time have I ever bought a game I didn't meet minimum requirements for that I was actually able to play until I got better hardware. Two games specifically: Kingdoms of Amalur Re-reckoning, and Elite: Dangerous. KoA would crash after only an hour at best, and E:D wouldn't load up at all, until I upgraded from integrated intel graphics to my current GPU (a 1050 Ti). 

I've had this card for less than a year, and don't have the money to "buy a new one". Furthermore, I've got a prebuilt Dell that doesn't support the extra power cable a more powerful (or recent) card would require, to say nothing of the power supply itself. 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Grenartia

[panzer1b]

Well my CPU is fine for this (despite being on a 4yr old laptop), what i'm worried about is the GPU (i dont mind reducing some of the less "essential" glamorous flashy effects).  Ofc for me 1080 is all i need (never cared about 4K cause even 1080 is overkill on a 15" screen), i'll prolly give it a try and see if it works or not.  I'll just have a friend with a better PC thats defenetely getting it on day1 install his copy on my rig and we can try it out, if it works i'll get my own copy of KSP2, if not then well i'll wait till i get a better laptop.  Besides, by the time all the mods i care about are made for KSP2, and multiplayer, the 1 thing that i'm really looking forwards to (PvP real time ship-ship combat) it will likely be at leats a year anyway...

[jacksawild]

45 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

This gam doesn't need an anti-piracy protection. Even if beggars get it from torrents, they will have no PC to run it.

It could be the most genius anti piracy measure ever devised. Is nayone qith a 2k rig going to worry about 50 quid for a game?

[Kerbin Launch Coalition]

1 hour ago, MechBFP said:

That is really not accurate. A 2070 is about 25% more powerful.

Yeah in terms of theoretical computational prowess even an RTX 3060 is 'slightly' more potent than the GPU in the Series X. Problem is when it comes to console to PC comparisons, such numbers are largely irrelevant. The main advantage the Series X has in that respect is it has more VRAM.

 

The RTX 3080 *monsters* the Series X in principle (it's more 'powerful' than a Series X and a PS5 combined, then some) but that'll never in a million years translate into actual, real-world performance.

[LoSBoL]

38 minutes ago, SSTO Crasher said:

I have a newer intel processor and yet it is nowhere near the necessary GHz

An I5 6400 is a 4 core, 4 thread CPU, I'm guessing you at least have a 4 core CPU, no need to look at the Ghz, you'll be fine.

[Hanuman]

17 minutes ago, Grenartia said:

IME, it is necessary panic, because at no time have I ever bought a game I didn't meet minimum requirements for that I was actually able to play until I got better hardware. Two games specifically: Kingdoms of Amalur Re-reckoning, and Elite: Dangerous. KoA would crash after only an hour at best, and E:D wouldn't load up at all, until I upgraded from integrated intel graphics to my current GPU (a 1050 Ti). 

I've had this card for less than a year, and don't have the money to "buy a new one". Furthermore, I've got a prebuilt Dell that doesn't support the extra power cable a more powerful (or recent) card would require, to say nothing of the power supply itself. 

You and I have the same GPU, though I've had it for almost 3 years now.  I was going to upgrade, and was waiting for GPU prices to return to sanity.... still waiting... maybe if crypto gets regulated.

I'm going to at least try it at release to see what happens, as I have to know.

The first good news I have for you, is that if a new card ends up requiring the extra power it's really only your power supply you're changing in addition.
The bad news is... except maybe in some cases where Dell especially, but others use a proprietary case with their own power supplies so it may not be a simple swap.  Don't know what you have.

If I get it, and it won't even start up because of my 1050Ti, then that makes this a $400 game.  That's what the real worry is, I think.

If I get it, and it runs like crap, I'll live with it.