PC hardware advice master thread for KSP2. (Ask if your specs are good enough or what to buy here.)

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

On 10/20/2023 at 4:39 PM, Vanamonde said:

Could have sworn we already had a master thread for this sort of thing but since we apparently did not, this has been made into one. 

We have the actual thread in the Lounge... This is a weird one to start off the Master Thread and pin. 

 

Unless you want more jokes about buying a car or a computer. 

TBH - I was just pricing a 4080 ($1200) and reading someone talking about buying a gaming system with income installments of $50?

Yeek.

[Vanamonde]

The one in the Lounge is for KSP1. 

[magnemoe]

7 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

The one in the Lounge is for KSP1. 

And more general PC questions I feel. now the leaks about for science shows performance gains who will be interesting. 

[cocoscacao]

On 10/31/2023 at 3:25 AM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Unless you want more jokes about buying a car or a computer. 

That wasn't a joke. I bought the car eventually... 

[LoSBoL]

Only one thing people tend to forget when building a new PC for gaming and KSP² in particular. Ditch your decade old 1080p 16:9 monitor, forget about 4k 16:9 and go 21:9 or even better 32:9. You want to be indulged by immersion? go wide!

[The Aziz]

Lol no. I'd rather have 2 16:9 than one ultrawide.

[Periple]

7 hours ago, The Aziz said:

Lol no. I'd rather have 2 16:9 than one ultrawide.

I don’t think KSP2 supports multi-monitor setups properly. I hope it will, it would make all kinds of sim pit setups possible!

[LoSBoL]

11 hours ago, The Aziz said:

Lol no. I'd rather have 2 16:9 than one ultrawide.

As Periple mentioned, I'd love having KSP2 being multi-monitor. 2x 16:9 however is the same as 32:9 (or 21/9 and 11:9) :), it just doesn't have the bezel between them.

[The Aziz]

Total resolution-wise, yeah, maybe. But lacks the default flexibility of putting other stuff like a browser or streaming tools or discord or whatever, on the second screen, and the game on main one without resorting to keeping everything in windowed mode. And it gives me twice as many pinning edges/corners so I can fit even more windows seamlessly wherever I like.

[LoSBoL]

7 hours ago, The Aziz said:

Total resolution-wise, yeah, maybe. But lacks the default flexibility of putting other stuff like a browser or streaming tools or discord or whatever, on the second screen, and the game on main one without resorting to keeping everything in windowed mode. And it gives me twice as many pinning edges/corners so I can fit even more windows seamlessly wherever I like.

Well, unknown makes somewhat unloved I guess. you actually get more flexibility. A 32:9 monitor has multiple inputs, and with a press of a button it becomes a dual 16:9 setup (or 21:9+11:9 or the other way around) And that's all hardware wise, no software needed. Their is just two cables going into one monitor instead of two, and you loose a physical bezel between the dual monitor setup.

[The Aziz]

What about connecting two different devices?

Regardless, my two screens are unlikely to die at the same time so it's not like I'm going to throw away a working one just to get rid of the bezel (which honestly doesn't bother me at all).

[Periple]

5 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

What about connecting two different devices?

Plug one device into one input and the other device into the other input, see them side by side. 

6 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Regardless, my two screens are unlikely to die at the same time so it's not like I'm going to throw away a working one just to get rid of the bezel (which honestly doesn't bother me at all).

That would be wasteful!

But if you are shopping for a new setup, I do think a 32:9 monitor is worth considering -- if you have the space and the budget for it!

[LoSBoL]

18 hours ago, Periple said:

Plug one device into one input and the other device into the other input, see them side by side. 

It basically comes down to that indeed. I've had a laptop, set top box and now a Chromecast with Google TV on my third input, haven't had a console for years so not tested but bound to work.
More business oriented monitors have KVM switches so you share inputdevices over more systems and I also see complete USB-C dockings for laptops are becoming more common as well.

18 hours ago, The Aziz said:

Regardless, my two screens are unlikely to die at the same time so it's not like I'm going to throw away a working one just to get rid of the bezel (which honestly doesn't bother me at all).

Both Nvidia and AMD can merge screens to be seen as one,  start up a game that spans accross both monitors and the bezel will probably be somewhat bothersome.
But you are right, monitors outlive computer upgrades. Whenever there is the opportunity, I sell my old stuff and buy my new stuff secondhand as well.  

[Emanuel01]

Need advice in buying CPU

So, I'm planning on getting an upgrade for my old setup to play the For Science! update and needed some advice.

Currently the most sensible option based on benchmarks and price here in Brazil seems to be a Ryzen 5 5600. However, there is also the possibility to get a Ryzen 5700x (for a huge increase in price considering I'd also have to buy a CPU cooler) or even to try an Intel alternative (Intel is overpriced here in Brazil for some reason).

I'm thinking about longevity in this upgrade, so here are my doubts:

1. Is a 6/12 processor enough for KSP 2 and would it make a huge difference to migrate to a 8/16 with the 5700x considering a heavy modded install in the future? (I know more threads are advised for CPU intensive games with tons of mods and parts, but how much of a difference is expected?)

2. Is this game more Intel or AMD optimized currently? How much of a difference?

Paying the extra cash to get an Intel alternative or a Ryzen 5700x is a possibility considering my budget, but I don't like unnecessary spending for minuscule performance gains. 

So what are your thoughts on this? Any advice would be much appreciated!

 

Obs: For context, currently the Ryzen 5600 cost about R$ 800,00 and the Ryzen 5700x costs R$ 1200,00 + CPU cooler price (about R$ 200,00). The minimum wage here is R$ 1.320.

[tstein]

On 11/18/2023 at 10:28 PM, Emanuel01 said:

Need advice in buying CPU

So, I'm planning on getting an upgrade for my old setup to play the For Science! update and needed some advice.

Currently the most sensible option based on benchmarks and price here in Brazil seems to be a Ryzen 5 5600. However, there is also the possibility to get a Ryzen 5700x (for a huge increase in price considering I'd also have to buy a CPU cooler) or even to try an Intel alternative (Intel is overpriced here in Brazil for some reason).

I'm thinking about longevity in this upgrade, so here are my doubts:

1. Is a 6/12 processor enough for KSP 2 and would it make a huge difference to migrate to a 8/16 with the 5700x considering a heavy modded install in the future? (I know more threads are advised for CPU intensive games with tons of mods and parts, but how much of a difference is expected?)

2. Is this game more Intel or AMD optimized currently? How much of a difference?

Paying the extra cash to get an Intel alternative or a Ryzen 5700x is a possibility considering my budget, but I don't like unnecessary spending for minuscule performance gains. 

So what are your thoughts on this? Any advice would be much appreciated!

 

Obs: For context, currently the Ryzen 5600 cost about R$ 800,00 and the Ryzen 5700x costs R$ 1200,00 + CPU cooler price (about R$ 200,00). The minimum wage here is R$ 1.320.

I am using a 6/12 CPU and it  seems to  be going smoothly CPU wise. Cannot run on high graphics because my GPU is not on par with it (game improved but it is still not  a  gold standard of performance optimization).

[shdwlrd]

AMD Ryzen5 5600G, Radeon 7800XT 12GB, 32GB ram is very playable at 1080 or 1440. Can't say much with 2k or 4k since I don't have a monitor with those resolutions.

[StrandedonEarth]

Well, with For Science out in time for Xmas, I’m left dithering between KSP2 and Starfield, although I really can’t imagine myself not going for KSP2. The downside is my ASUS ROG laptop with i5 9300H, a respectable 24GB of RAM, but a meager GTX 1650 for graphics. I expect I’m in for a bit of a slideshow, but at worst I can use my son’s much more powerful desktop PC, but then I’d have to sit in his room…

[Chilkoot]

2 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

a meager GTX 1650 for graphics

That's unfortunately going to hurt on either title at least for now.  Both have seen significant FPS bumps over the past few months, and much more planned.

2 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I can use my son’s much more powerful desktop PC, but then I’d have to sit in his room

If you've got a solid network setup, check out streaming over your LAN - you might be surprised.  If you can get both machines on wired GbL, the latency when using Parsec or Sunshine/Moonlight for in-home streaming is really, really good now.  I used to game competitively, and I'm an absolute framerate and latency junky, but I'm in-home streaming now probably 50% of my gaming time without issue.  If you want to try this out, I can point you to some resources.

[LoSBoL]

8 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

but then I’d have to sit in his room…

I play a lot behind my desktop, but I play a lot on the couch in the living room as well on my thin and light laptop, by streaming it from my desktop through Steam Inhouse streaming. Works flawlessly, I just need to power up and power down the desktop (which you can even automate if you really wanted to) and Steam does the rest.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

9 hours ago, LoSBoL said:

I play a lot behind my desktop, but I play a lot on the couch in the living room as well on my thin and light laptop, by streaming it from my desktop through Steam Inhouse streaming. Works flawlessly, I just need to power up and power down the desktop (which you can even automate if you really wanted to) and Steam does the rest.

 

That sounded intriguing, so after looking into it I found it's currently called Steam Remote Play, at least in this region. It sounds like just the perfect solution, thanks! And yes, I have a couple points where my laptop can wire into the ethernet, and it certainly makes the hassle of running a cable to his room last year  worthwhile (so much whining about the wifi quality no matter where in the house he is lol).

Now If only someone would give me  KSP2 or a Steam Card for Christmas already! (pretty sure it's coming, but the wait feels like for-ev-er)

Edited December 24, 2023 by StrandedonEarth

[Chilkoot]

40 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I found it's currently called Steam Remote Play

So... I don't want to start a holy war here, but Steam Remote Play is a little more laggy than a couple of other free solutions.  It also has some benefits over other solutions, such as Steam integration and ease of setup which are important as well.

If you decide to try any twitch-type games like Doom or even Halo, you may want to have a look at Parsec or Moonlight - that's another holy war as to which is better and why, but they can both deliver 100FPS reliably on wired gigabit with ballpark 10ms lag including the encode->network->decode  phases (depending on your video card).  If you want to get more info on either of those, pop over to https://old.reddit.com/r/cloudygamer

[StrandedonEarth]

35 minutes ago, Chilkoot said:

So... I don't want to start a holy war here, but Steam Remote Play is a little more laggy than a couple of other free solutions.  It also has some benefits over other solutions, such as Steam integration and ease of setup which are important as well.

If you decide to try any twitch-type games like Doom or even Halo, you may want to have a look at Parsec or Moonlight - that's another holy war as to which is better and why, but they can both deliver 100FPS reliably on wired gigabit with ballpark 10ms lag including the encode->network->decode  phases (depending on your video card).  If you want to get more info on either of those, pop over to https://old.reddit.com/r/cloudygamer

Thanks, but my days of twitch-style gaming are long behind me, and I've never been one to fret over a little latency. The simplicity of the SRP solution should suit me just fine for KSP2.

As an aside about latency, I used to play Motor City Online (classic mismanagement example; if they ran it like they did while winding down it would have fared much better) back when that was a thing. It was interesting how I could be racing against my roomie on the other side of the room, going around Dead Man's Curve, myself passing his car on the inside of the curve. I swear I never touched his car, but I could see his car swerve and crash as if nudged, as he starts cursing me out for hitting him. Yeah, trying to race online with collisions on is a very difficult proposition to iron out, which leaves me leery of ever finding a decent solution for KSP multiplayer.

Edited December 24, 2023 by StrandedonEarth

[LoSBoL]

22 hours ago, Chilkoot said:

So... I don't want to start a holy war here, but Steam Remote Play is a little more laggy than a couple of other free solutions.  It also has some benefits over other solutions, such as Steam integration and ease of setup which are important as well.

If you decide to try any twitch-type games like Doom or even Halo, you may want to have a look at Parsec or Moonlight - that's another holy war as to which is better and why, but they can both deliver 100FPS reliably on wired gigabit with ballpark 10ms lag including the encode->network->decode  phases (depending on your video card).  If you want to get more info on either of those, pop over to https://old.reddit.com/r/cloudygamer

My FPS days are long over, but can absolutely concur, can't put a fast lap in on F1 21 due to the (input)lag on 'Steam Remote Play’. But for games like KSP or single player GTA V it's fine, provided that you have a good (wifi)connection. 

[StrandedonEarth]

20 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

My FPS days are long over, but can absolutely concur, can't put a fast lap in on F1 21 due to the (input)lag on 'Steam Remote Play’. But for games like KSP or single player GTA V it's fine, provided that you have a good (wifi)connection. 

With KSP you should expect some input lag really; after all, this is deep-space communications we're talking about here, lol!

[StrandedonEarth]

Well, I mucked around with Steam Remote Play and it did work, but maintaining the connection when I'm not always focused on my laptop seemed problematic. So I installed it on my laptop (i5-9300H, 24GB RAM, GTX 1650) and ran the graphics settings to low, and the performance has been quite acceptable. I may have seen some stuttering during one liftoff, but my Mun landing mission didn't seem to have any stutter. Given that I'd launch 700-part behemoths back in the KSP 0.20's on a GT630M, I'm used to slideshow launches. So far, I'm happy.

It's tempting to still try to stream from my son's PC for the extra performance/eye candy, but from what I can tell, KSP2 doesn't seem to have a "save to the Steam Cloud" option, which complicates things if I want to play when my kid wants his PC. But it seems I can make do with my laptop, at least for now. I might change my tune when I try to launch Jool tours...