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Marknate24

By Marknate24
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Whackjob

Whackjob

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HP ProBook 4540s Notebook PC - 3rd generation Intel Core i5-3320M 2.6GHz, 8GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, DVDRW, 1GB AMD Radeon HD 7650M, 15.6" Display, Windows 7 Pro 64-bit / Windows 8 Pro 64-bit (C9K41UT)

$700. Much better deal.

#EDIT: HP ProBook 4545s Notebook PC - AMD Dual-Core A6-4400M 2.7GHz, 8GB DDR3, 750GB HDD, DVDRW, AMD Radeon HD 7520G, 15.6" Display, Windows 7 Pro 64-bit / Windows 8 Pro 64-bit (C9K42UT)

$500. Much better better deal.

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Beeman

Beeman

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Even the best of our PCs have troubles getting sixty frames a second in KSP consistently. There's just too much to compute.

Also, I wouldn't recommend buying a laptop for gaming. If you absolutely need a laptop for school or work or something...then you can get a really modest setup for cheap and it'll do just about anything you need in the way of productivity. But if you're going to be shelling out extra money for something that can play games, it'd be a better idea just to take the leftovers from your laptop fund, invest a little extra into it and build yourself a desktop.

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Marknate24

Marknate24

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Thanks for looking cheaper instead of higher priced. I'm on a tight tight budget. I'll look into them two.

Also what about the acer aspire v3-551g-x419? Only $500 at bhphotovieo

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DMagic

DMagic

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Even the best of our PCs have troubles getting sixty frames a second in KSP consistently. There's just too much to compute.

This. Regardless of how fast your processor is you will always be able to push performance below 60FPS. Enough parts will bring any CPU to its knees.

For laptops there are a few things to keep in mind. One, is that you'll probably have a pretty crappy GPU, at these prices you'll never get anything really powerful. So you should take advantage of the terrain settings tweak described over in this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/43253-Default-Terrain-Quality-Without-most-of-The-Lag%21. That seems to be the only aspect of KSP that really hits the GPU hard; it's not noticeable on relatively powerful desktop GPUs, but it's pretty obvious on weaker GPUs.

And the other thing, is that no mobile CPU will get really good performance with high part-counts. That i5-3320M for instance, is somewhere in the same neighborhood as my i7-4650U (similar turboboost speed, and relatively close performance/clockspeed). And my CPU does alright, but it'll never get 60FPS with anything more than 75 or so parts.

I agree with the suggestion to go with dual core over quad core. It won't make a difference in performance, and those high end mobile parts are really expensive, as in $400-$600 just for the CPU.

My CPU performance thread doesn't have many results for mobile CPUs (feel free to download my rocket and add your own), but it should give you an idea of what I mean. None of the CPUs that I have data for get much above 20-30FPS, even when down to fewer than 150 parts. Go there for info about this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/42877-CPU-Performance-Database

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alaskafish

alaskafish

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Well if your willing to shell out that type of money, just get the best one out there. You may as well get the best now, because chances are, you wont be getting the better one later on.

I got an G75-VW Quad Core 64 bit - Nvidia 880 - 6 GB

:P 1200 USD.

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alaskafish

alaskafish

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Whoa whoa whoa!!! Those specks are not the best for a good game play. Problems:

2.7GHz = Meh.

750GB HDD = Not a lot for a solid gaming computer, especially a laptop

AMD Radeon HD 7520G = It's okay. It could run any 2012 game on the lowest settings.

Windows 8 = Sucks.

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Captain Sierra

Captain Sierra

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Consistent 60 FPS is not possible in KSP. I spent ~$1500 setting up my laptop for rediculous performance. It's a year old as of 3 weeks ago.

Specs:

2.2GHz i7 (which I believe is an 8 core processor, KSP's worst nightmare)

NVidia GeForce Graphics card (with integrated GPU, can't remember the model ATM)

6Gb RAM

Windows 7 64 bit premium

Can run at 191*F without burning up, often does run over 175*F while running KSP on medium-high graphics or 500+ part physics taxing ships.

EDIT: I've thought about doing something with KSP on youtube but I'd wanna update hardware first. A year ago, my processor was top of the line. Now, it's over a gigahert lower than the best ones out there. my RAM is also low by KSP standards, even though I can handle two dozen parts mods on the same KSP install.

I'd probably upgrade to a faster i7 and add a few more sticks of RAM. I might also buff the cooling system some more so that I don't run so hot (even though my hardware can handle it). Then again, I'll do that down the road some when I have money.

Edited by Captain Sierra
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Captain Sierra

Captain Sierra

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That's slightly less powerful than mine, which is a different Accer Aspire laptop. And with grahpics to minumun, it can run crazy things like this:

<snip>

Admittedly, at about 4-6 FPS.

I prefer to limit myself to stuff that keeps FPS in the 2 digit range.

Also, I think I understand why that one works. Struts aren't a normal part, they're a kludge between. They create a bond between two objects and add mass but otherwise are not calculated by the physics. That is probly a contributing factor to the fact that your computer is not melting.

EDIT: I see no engines, infiniglide FTW!

EDIT II: I'm running a Dell XPS and the way it was set up on purchase, it was more powerful (and cheaper) than some lower model Alienware laptops (yes, total FTWness)

Edited by Captain Sierra
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Captain Sierra

Captain Sierra

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My laptop runs KSP at 50 frames a second, and on a good day 75. I always had problems imagining how KSP would be like if it ran slowly...

#firstworldproblems.

Then you either have a single core more powerful than a supercomputer or you just haven't tried building downright insane stuff. Biggest launcher I have ever made was for a 122 ton shuttle with fuel can. Ran at something like 8 FPS and had ~500 parts, maybe more. I cluster staged it so the engine transforms were FPS destroying.

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Whackjob

Whackjob

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Windows 8 = Sucks.

That right there is enough to tell me that you don't know what you're talking about.

Lemmie break it down for you. I do tech support work. Back towards the end of January, I decided to pick up 8. Just to familiarize myself with Metro and anything else required, so I can run the usual bluehairs that call in through any sort of fixes that might be necessary. I was not expecting to keep it. And what did I find?

For one thing, it boots like Ubuntu does. Meaning, if I were to hit the power button, and get struck by lightning at the exact same moment, I'd be at the desktop slightly before my corpse bounced off the ground. For another, I got a solid FPS increase in everything. Everything! Across the board. I bought into Blockscape back then. Think Minecraft with better graphics and tinier blocks and triangles. With Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate edition, I was running that at about 66fps on the highest settings. Under 8? I get about 110fps with highest settings.

Oh, and I can fly things here in KSP with part counts that require a comma.

HMtamG4l.jpgYJ9VzHul.png97HK0del.jpg2wjL94Ml.png

And here's my processor: "Intel® Core2 Extreme CPU Q9300 @ 2.53GHz (4 CPUs)", as reported by Dxdiag. Have I made my point yet?

Don't buy into the antihype, man. 8 uses less system resources. It's not as bad as people make it out to be. By and large, most people I've run into who bash 8 are people who either haven't used it, or used it for 5 minutes. The rare few others I've run in to who do have 8 and bash it are non-computer-savvy folks who are unwilling or unable to learn a different interface.

I put windows 8 on here, fully expecting to drop it when I was done figuring it out, and it's been on my machine ever since.

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pxi

pxi

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That right there is enough to tell me that you don't know what you're talking about.

Lemmie break it down for you. I do tech support work. Back towards the end of January, I decided to pick up 8. Just to familiarize myself with Metro and anything else required, so I can run the usual bluehairs that call in through any sort of fixes that might be necessary. I was not expecting to keep it. And what did I find?

For one thing, it boots like Ubuntu does. Meaning, if I were to hit the power button, and get struck by lightning at the exact same moment, I'd be at the desktop slightly before my corpse bounced off the ground. For another, I got a solid FPS increase in everything. Everything! Across the board. I bought into Blockscape back then. Think Minecraft with better graphics and tinier blocks and triangles. With Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate edition, I was running that at about 66fps on the highest settings. Under 8? I get about 110fps with highest settings.

...

The main issues I have with 8 is the 'fixing' of things that were not broken, like full-screen notifications, dumbed-down 'something went wrong' error messages, and the new event log. (Admittedly the event log changes came in somewhere along Vista to 7, but the old version worked perfectly well, now I get to use 1/3 of my screen to see the events.) Oh and the gesture support. Someone really needs to have a talk with whoever came up with that one - lead pipe style.

Metro is another great example of change for changes sake, but as it apes the Unity/Gnome 3 interface I'll give MS a pass on following the herd for that one.

Frankly I care that my PC runs sanely more than an extra bit of performance or quicker boot time.

But yeah I've held onto it, that's the curse of having to support it, much like yourself.

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minerman30

minerman30

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I' looking at an Alienware 14 2013 model from Dell. Would this be a good laptop for KSP?

Probably, but the main limitation of FPS is clock speed. That can get "up to" 3.1Gh, so it's probably a safe bet to assume that it only gets around 2.6 or 2.7 gigahertz standard.

If portability is a factor, get that laptop. If you want the best speed/price ratio, build a desktop with a good Intel processor. I put an Intel Core i5 3.4Gh 4670K processor in my new desktop.

Find it here: http://www.microcenter.com/product/413251/Core_i5_4670K_34GHz_Socket_LGA_1150_Boxed_Processor

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rpayne88

rpayne88

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If you only play KSP on it, do not get more than 4GB of RAM. KSP is 32 bit, so anything more will be wasted. I've got 8GB on my system (64-bit windows 7 with a i7-3630QM processor) and KSP still crashes frequently (with mods.) If you want to play other games however, get as much RAM as you want.

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