Computer Upgrade Suggestions for NASSP?

[Wedge313]

Hello. This may belong in a different area, but I'd appreciate some input.

A few years ago I installed Orbiter 2016 on my Dell Inspiron 5555 laptop with an AMD A4-7210 and built-in Radeon 3 graphics. I've had a lot of fun in LEO, going to the moon, and traveling to Mars in my XR-2. For these flights my laptop's performance was satisfactory, no issues except some video "stutter" when I had MAP MFD open.

Last year I started to get involved with NASSP. Anyone reading this already knows how brilliant this simulation is. I'm enjoying it immensely. Unfortunately my laptop struggles while running most of the Apollo scenarios. I was able to work through a full Apollo 8 flight, but now that I'm trying Apollo 9 I can see my laptop is just not up to the task. So instead of constantly lamenting about my computer's poor performance I'm thinking of upgrading, and would appreciate some suggestions.

I'm not a gamer. All I'm looking for is a computer that will be able to handle NASSP. Any advice on processors, graphics etc. would be appreciated. I'm not looking for a dream setup, just something that will allow me to fully enjoy NASSP without draining my retirement savings. I'm curious what type of systems work for others enjoying NASSP. Thanks!

 

[n72.75]

I'm not sure we could give a really accurate picture of minimum system requirements, but I'll make an attempt:

CPU: 4+ physical cores, but more than 6 won't do much other than allow you to do other things while you have Orbiter open.
3GHz or faster is probably best.

GPU: I have a GTX 1050 Ti (might want to wait until the bitcoin craze dies down a bit to buy a graphics card), and it works great.
RAM: 16GB on Windows 10.

I would tend to stay away from laptops, as I think you'll end up paying more for the same thing.

Something you can try: if your laptop has any kind of power saver mode that might be reducing CPU speed you can try disabling it.

NASSP can be very CPU intensive, but there's definitely a point where more money and and faster components are only going to get you diminishing returns. So if you find something and want to bounce the idea off us, we'd be happy to take a look and offer advice.