What kind of computer does it take to run KSP on high settings?

[Pipcard]

For the lowest cost? Especially with the "one processor core" limitation in the Unity engine.

also, I may want to record video.

Edited January 13, 2014 by Pipcard

[lajoswinkler]

I'm not sure, but I had the privilege to play KSP at absolutely highest settings on a large LCD screen and it's magnificent. There were no framerate problems at all. It was smooth and so beautiful. Just getting Jeb into orbit and then going on EVA is a superb sight. If you have somebody with a monstrous gaming computer, be sure to try KSP out.

After I came home, it took at least a week to finally accept my low-end (for today's standards) PC.

[DMagic]

Well the only settings that you can really change affect the graphics. So to run everything at high (with AA on and not fiddling with the ocean terrain settings) you probably need something around an HD 7850 / GTX 660. I thing those go for around $150. Obviously super high resolutions might need more, but that should be good enough for most resolutions.

The CPU is another matter. The more powerful the CPU the better KSP will perform. You run into limits with very expensive CPUs that are optimized for multithreaded applications, but that isn't an issue if you are talking about affordable options.

My recommendation, if you want a good, cheap, CPU for KSP would be a recent generation Intel i3. The desktop versions of these CPUs run around $100-150 and they are dual core with hyperthreading. Going up to an i5 would be better, but those go for around $200, so that's a different level.

Of course, this all depends on your specific situation, whether you have the right kind of motherboard, how much you to spend etc..., but an i3 ivybridge or haswell is a pretty safe option.

[_Aramchek_]

As far as graphics go, an overclocked 560 ti was far more than enough for the game at max settings, best cost/performance ratio would be a lower end dual/quad intel i3/i5 cpu ib/sb/hw just like DMagic said.

[spacehelicopters]

AMD has an 8 core cpu that is just about as much as the Intel i3 DMagic suggested. More cpu cores always outperforms less at a similar price point. Here's the link to the cheapest one: http://shop.amd.com/us/All/Detail/Processor/FD8150FRGUBOX

[DMagic]

AMD has an 8 core cpu that is just about as much as the Intel i3 DMagic suggested. More cpu cores always outperforms less at a similar price point. Here's the link to the cheapest one: http://shop.amd.com/us/All/Detail/Processor/FD8150FRGUBOX

Not in KSP. The physics calculations are limited to a single core, so good single core performance at a high clockrate is much more important than core count as far as KSP performance is concerned.

[_Aramchek_]

AMD has an 8 core cpu that is just about as much as the Intel i3 DMagic suggested. More cpu cores always outperforms less at a similar price point. Here's the link to the cheapest one: http://shop.amd.com/us/All/Detail/Processor/FD8150FRGUBOX

Do not listen to this, it is absolutely NOT true.

I can also tell you from firsthand expereince AMD's top of the line cpu's will still run an average of 10 fps SLOWER OR MORE, and even worse it's in the more demanding parts of the game.

Meaning with an i3 if you were getting 30 fps with a particular ship in a given scene, same ship, same scenario all other variables equal, your AMD chip would be giving you 15-20 fps.

Also "moar cores equals moar speed" is just an outright fallacy, especially in a game that does not make tremendous amount of usage of multithreading.

[CalculusWarrior]

I believe Harv has stated (I think it was during KerbalKon) that KSP does in fact use more than one core, and performed even worse when limited to just one CPU processor.

[dkubina]

unity is supposed to have multi-core support i think their working on integrating it into the game not sure but id swear id read that somewhere

[NeMeSiS]

I believe Harv has stated (I think it was during KerbalKon) that KSP does in fact use more than one core, and performed even worse when limited to just one CPU processor.

This is true. However, physics are calculated on only 1 core, and are always the limiting factor in large ships (because of all the parts), hence making single core performance very important if you want to make proper space stations or even just larger ships. This means that you want at least a high end i5 if you want to run KSP at 'high'(=with large ships) settings. AMD CPU's are sadly not able to compete on single core performance. GPU's dont matter all that much, a 4870 from 3 years ago will do, but if you are going to spend so much cash on a good processor you might as well get a current gen GPU.

EDIT: By large: I mean >250 before FPS gets seriously starts to drop, though already noticable with >100 parts. I have played KSP for a while now on an i5, i3 and a Phenom 2 x4 955 and really took notice of this.

Edited January 13, 2014 by NeMeSiS

[FITorion]

an i5 or equivalent AMD with the highest clock speed you can get. 8gigs of RAM so you can use all of the 3.something or other that the game can access and have the OS running in the rest. And any run of the mill graphics card will do.

[Seret]

You don't actually need a very impressive machine for KSP. I play on a Core 2 Duo E8400 with a GTX650 and it's fine at 1280x1024 and full ground scatter.

[Sargent890]

I have an Alienware 14 with an Intel i7 @ ~2.4ghz, an Nvidia GeForce GT 765M and 16gb of RAM. This allows me to play KSP with the highest texture settings, 2x anti-aliasing, and 80% surface scatters with relatively low lag. I only have problems with really big (500-600+ part) ships.

[Tank Buddy]

I use Open Broadcaser Software. Free, Open Source (if that is attractive), and very effective. Unless you are Uber intuitive you will need to message me as some of the settings need to be tweaked in order to record to hard drive and recording high-quality/high-framerates.

To give you an idea, my computer cost between $1450 and $1550 and runs KSP LIKE A DREAM. You can check my specs in the signature, but the important components (in order of importance) are: 1.CPU 2. Storage Device 3. GPU

Also, Running KSP on max everything. I am truly fortunate.

1. KSP is especially CPU intensive, this is where you will dump your money. Microcenter (if you have one near you) offers great, as in amazing, deals when you buy your motherboard and CPU together, along with other key hardware. I bought a i7-4770k. My logic was:

• the 4770k is a great CPU
  
• CAN overclock it
  
• Intel is continuing the 1150 socket size in the future, so I can upgrade without a motherboard switch.
  
• got a great deal on the CPU (around 230 USD, don't remember exactly)
  

2. Playing on a SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series SSD. Lets just say, Vroom Vroom. Along with a 20 second boot speed, nothing takes long to load that is saved on the drive, including KSP.

3. GTX 660 Ti 3GB- Overkill for KSP for sure, runs BF4 on high @ +60FPS for a comparison. You will want at least a decent GPU, and if you are playing other games, you might as well buy at the level that you are comfortable (Price and Performance wise)

I would love to help you build a PC if you are interested, and feel free to consult me with any questions.

[leax256]

I can also tell you from firsthand expereince AMD's top of the line cpu's will still run an average of 10 fps SLOWER OR MORE, and even worse it's in the more demanding parts of the game.

Meaning with an i3 if you were getting 30 fps with a particular ship in a given scene, same ship, same scenario all other variables equal, your AMD chip would be giving you 15-20 fps.

You sound like you have something to gain by talking trash about AMD. That or you have been given faulty information.

Yes the i3 could out do alot of AMD stuff but once you start recording the extra cores will come in handy.

to the OP, If you want to record I would go for either a i5 or Phenom II, both have 4 cores and will run the game about the same(especially if you OC the AMD one even just .4ghz). The i5 will be slightly better since intel keeps updating the i series(as I call them) alot and the phenom is showing its age. However intel cpus are quite a bit more expensive than AMD so you will have to make the choice. as far as the gpu goes, I would suggest something around the 77XX for amd or 650(ti) for Nvidia.

[jfx]

1) Visit DMagics blerg: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/entries/1170-CPU-Performance-Database

2) read

3) apologize to _Aramchek

4) /thread

If you really want to record gameplay footage and are scraping at the poverty line: Quicksync in any core-i with iGPU will handle 1080p encoding with almost no CPU overhead (use OBS).

[_Aramchek_]

You sound like you have something to gain by talking trash about AMD. That or you have been given faulty information.

Yes the i3 could out do alot of AMD stuff but once you start recording the extra cores will come in handy.

I am running my first intel build in over ten years, traditionally I have used AMD for cost/perf reasons, recently AMD has severely dropped the ball on that.

I have ran KSP on the following cpu's.

AMD Athlon 2 x2 235 E @ 3.7ghz

AMD Phenom 2 X2 555 BE 4.2ghz <-Good bump in performance from the 235e

AMD Bulldozer 8120 @ only 4ghz but with monstered nb/fsb and uber bandwidth for what it was. <- an incremental upgrade, in KSP over the 555 dualy.

The Bulldozer failed to impress in KSP, and was literally 10-20-or more fps slower than my 3570.

The Bulldozer was great for multitasking and general day to day work, even better than the 3570k in some things definitely...but gaming, and KSP in particular is one of those places where AMD just cannot really compete.

So no, I'm talking from first hand personal experience, as an AMD fan for over ten years, "moar cores" does not equate to better performance and especially not in this game.

Edited January 13, 2014 by _Aramchek_

[Barklight]

For KSP, Intel Chips have the advantage due to how the game in its current state utilizes Unity. If / When full x64 multi-threading support is integrated into KSP and the Unity Engine, things will change a bit. Right now, though, any Intel chip is going to outperform an equivalent AMD chip. I'm not a fanboy or advocate of either - I use CPU's from both manufacturers and they both have strengths. My animation rig and servers run Intel, while my personal gaming desktop runs an AMD 8350.

For comparison, my FX-8350 (current top shelf AMD CPU, OC'd at 4.6Ghz) will often outperform most of the low-end and mid-range i7's in other games, while my roommate's i5 3470 beats the crap out of my framerates in KSP with the same set of mods (20-23 FPS vs 35-38 FPS averages during a high part count rocket launch). But if I fire up Battlefield 4, Diablo 3, War Thunder, or most other games, I average about 20 FPS more than his PC can manage. Then again, my 2x 660Ti SLI + GTX470 PhysX help make a difference there... But not to KSP, which won't utilize it properly.

AMD chips can and do outperform Intel processors in a variety of settings and uses. KSP is not one of them at this time.

[leax256]

I am running my first intel build in over ten years, traditionally I have used AMD for cost/perf reasons, recently AMD has severely dropped the ball on that.

I have ran KSP on the following cpu's.

AMD Athlon 2 x2 235 E @ 3.7ghz

AMD Phenom 2 X2 555 BE 4.2ghz <-Good bump in performance from the 235e

AMD Bulldozer 8120 @ only 4ghz but with monstered nb/fsb and uber bandwidth for what it was. <- an incremental upgrade, in KSP over the 555 dualy.

The Bulldozer failed to impress in KSP, and was literally 10-20-or more fps slower than my 3570.

The Bulldozer was great for multitasking and general day to day work, even better than the 3570k in some things definitely...but gaming, and KSP in particular is one of those places where AMD just cannot really compete.

So no, I'm talking from first hand personal experience, as an AMD fan for over ten years, "moar cores" does not equate to better performance and especially not in this game.

duely noted, would like to say from what I know, the 81XX chips are pathetic peices of junk. more cores though are better if the program can use all of them so perhaps at some point AMD 8 core CPUs will have the edge vs simular priced intel parts.

lets end this discussion here before it heats someone up.

[spikeyhat09]

You know, just because at this moment ksp physics is not optimized for multicore setups, doesn't mean it will always be. unity will have to optimize their physics engine for multicore processors at some point, or it will die. I find it highly unlikely that ksp will never have multicore physics, so getting a bunch of cores is still valid. having a lot of cores will become invaluable for ksp when (not if, when) unity physics has multicore support

[Weegee]

I don't claim to be an expert, but with what I have I can run KSP on high with no real issues.

• AMD Phenom II X2 565 (Stock 3.0 GHz, clocked to 4.0)
  
• AMD Radeon HD 6670
  
• Dell 2208WFP (Monitor)
  
• GA-MA-785GM-US2H(Motherboard)
  
• 290GB Hard-drive(mirrored)
  
• 8GB RAM
  
• Lots of fans ()
  

I'm pretty happy with it, though I wish I had Windows 7 instead of 8.

[briansun1]

Well the only settings that you can really change affect the graphics. So to run everything at high (with AA on and not fiddling with the ocean terrain settings) you probably need something around an HD 7850 / GTX 660. I thing those go for around $150. Obviously super high resolutions might need more, but that should be good enough for most resolutions.

The CPU is another matter. The more powerful the CPU the better KSP will perform. You run into limits with very expensive CPUs that are optimized for multithreaded applications, but that isn't an issue if you are talking about affordable options.

My recommendation, if you want a good, cheap, CPU for KSP would be a recent generation Intel i3. The desktop versions of these CPUs run around $100-150 and they are dual core with hyperthreading. Going up to an i5 would be better, but those go for around $200, so that's a different level.

Of course, this all depends on your specific situation, whether you have the right kind of motherboard, how much you to spend etc..., but an i3 ivybridge or haswell is a pretty safe option.

there is no hd 7850. do you mean the R9 780x?

[leax256]

You know, just because at this moment ksp physics is not optimized for multicore setups, doesn't mean it will always be. unity will have to optimize their physics engine for multicore processors at some point, or it will die. I find it highly unlikely that ksp will never have multicore physics, so getting a bunch of cores is still valid. having a lot of cores will become invaluable for ksp when (not if, when) unity physics has multicore support

Unity does have multicore support but not multithreading support namely for physics.

I do remember hearing about a version of unity that was mad after the one the devs are using that can do multithreaded physics.

but I don't know for sure.

[DMagic]

Well, there was an HD 7850, I guess AMD might have rebranded it, but anything in that general range ($150-200, around 150W power usage) is probably good enough.

[briansun1]

Well, there was an HD 7850, I guess AMD might have rebranded it, but anything in that general range ($150-200, around 150W power usage) is probably good enough.

...I'm an idiot I thought you said 8850 or something similar...

any way amd came out with a new gen. (R9 270)