Platform dependence questions (questions of curiosity)

[ThreeWholePunch]

Just curious about two things:

Recommended System Specs:

* 2.0Ghz Dual Core CPU or higher (preferably higher)

* 4GB RAM

* 512MB Video Card, Shader Model 3.0

* 1GB Free HD space

* Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8

* An Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.6 or higher

* A Debian based Linux distro

-It's been said that KSP is single-threaded. If that's so why is dual core recommended?

-What, if any, limitations exist that prevent a game like this to exist on a mobile device like a tablet, iOS or otherwise? I would first assume CPU or graphics constraints but thinking about it more i'm not so sure if that's a valid issue. Unity seems to support them, I know, not that this really means all that much in practice.

[Borogove]

While the most processor-intensive parts of the game are single threaded, multiple threads are actually used for e.g. audio processing; Activity Monitor on my mac shows KSP running 26 threads. There's obviously one thread that's the bottleneck, but having multiple cores allows other processing to be done in parallel with that bottleneck.

While CPU power is probably the biggest thing keeping KSP from running well on an iPad, Squad's staffing is also relevant. Even with a cross-platform engine like Unity, there are a ton of platform-specific details to work out, UI changes, and usability decisions to make.

[Sof]

There was a thread the other day about somebody getting KSP to work on their Asus pad or some such.

It was with a usb mouse, and I guess the tablet was running a windows 8 OS.

[irongut]

-It's been said that KSP is single-threaded. If that's so why is dual core recommended?

Because it is impossible to buy a computer with a single core x86 processor unless you buy second hand.