71 replies to this topic

[MrPenguin]

ArmageddonKnight, on 09 April 2013 - 11:09 AM, said:

Laptops ..well ..they are NOT gaming machines, most of them are smaller than a Xbox or PS3 for crying out loud, how can u expect them to play games as good or better ?

I wish people would stop generalizing like this.
What people think of when they think laptop power, they're thinking of integrated laptop GPU's.

For the love of god, never buy a laptop with integrated. I don't care how much you save.

Dedicated laptop GPU's have gotten much stronger and better over the years. Of course, a full sized desktop version of a GPU will outperform the laptop version, but that doesn't mean that the laptop version is bad in comparison.

And before you say you need to spend over 2000$ for a decent Dedicated GPU, you don't. Pay attention to what card a laptop has before buying. Do your research on how good that card is. You can find a decent laptop that can play anything on the market at excetable levels for like... 800$? Probably less by now.

Of course, you're going to have to spend waaaaayyyy more then that if you want to run every game at max setting at 120 fps. But at that point, you're better off buying a decent laptop thats capable of mid-range gaming and an actual gaming PC then a 3000$ oversized brick that needs way more maintenance then any desktop.

Chavette, on 09 April 2013 - 11:14 AM, said:

My friend who has laptop with GTX540m tried the game and said its bad, I asked him why? He said he tried on high, then med, then lowest settings, every time it was unplayable. This was around Jan., before a bigger performace buff.

They need to understand the game can be perfect, but I people can't play it, it won't matter.

I'm sporting a 525m in this laptop, and I was able to run the game on low at around 35-40 fps at 720 res before the patch hit and cut my FPS in half.(like most other people)

Your friends GPU isn't the issue, unless the laptop is running off the integrated instead of the dedicated.

If not, then its probably his CPU. Cryengine 3 seems to hit the CPU harder more then anything else. And if you have anything less then a high end duel or a quad core above. You're going to have a bad time.

Edited by MrPenguin, 09 April 2013 - 11:19 AM.

[MrPenguin]

Rizzelbizzeg, on 09 April 2013 - 11:14 AM, said:

Dear God, please don't make MWO look like WOW like the OP wants.

You can easily do this already by playing around with the configs. Its not difficult.

[Dan Nashe]

I should add that I wouldn't expec a 4 year old non-gaming laptop to run MWO or any new game :-) But there's something to be saidfor focus on lower end machines. (By lower end I'm talking $800 off the shelf desktop towers, no monitor included, that are less than a year old. Personally I think more games should be playable on those. MWO is not after the last patch for some reason, but that feels like a bug, not a design decision. I'm convinced there's a bug preventing some settings from actuallyowering and/ or interacting with low resolution settings oddly).

And for me playable means 20 fps.
The other problem is that there is no obvious benchmark for video cards. 1gb of video ram? Might be a good card, might not be able to run mwo. Unfortunately you have to do a lot of research to even guess how good a graphics card is. :-) (This is obv. Not pgis fault).


Caveat two: my views are directed at the industry, not pgi specifically.

Edited by DanNashe, 09 April 2013 - 11:23 AM.

[Barghest Whelp]

Wow, a lot of discussion going on here.

I'm just gonna say this: I bought this laptop in late 2012 and it cost me just over 1000$. It has four cores running at 2.3 GHZ (up to 3.2 with turbo CORE), and has a dual video card setup. I'm getting about 30 - 40 fps on minimum settings. That's terrible. Other games run way smoother.

That being said, I think half the problem is cryengine. It's really badly optimized. Ever since the very first build of cryengine it's been terrible, and I don't understand why on earth any developer studio would choose such a crappy engine.

Hawken run unreal engine, and that runs way more smoothly, on much higher settings. It even looks better to boot.

[ArmageddonKnight]

Sorry, in the rest of my post i didnt mention that alptops can play games. Just not cheap ones.

Any laptop with a X60m+ GPU AND a good CPU like a 3630QM or higher will cost a tidey sum of money. But most of the people who complain about performance are running X40m or lower dedicated GPU's or integrated, and/or have a slow CPU which bottlenecks in games like this.

So just to make my point clear.

"Cheap laptops are NOT for gaming"

[MrPenguin]

ArmageddonKnight, on 09 April 2013 - 11:20 AM, said:

Sorry, in the rest of my post i didnt mention that alptops can play games. Just not cheap ones.

Any laptop with a X60m+ GPU AND a good CPU like a 3630QM or higher will cost a tidey sum of money. But most of the people who complain about performance are running X40m or lower dedicated GPU's or integrated, and/or have a slow CPU which bottlenecks in games like this.

So just to make my point clear.

"Cheap laptops are NOT for gaming"

My current laptop is only sporting a high end i5 duel core, a geforce 252m and 6 gigs of ram. Like I said, I was running the game between 35-40 fps on low before the patch hit. Then it got cut by half with out any visual improvements on the settings I was playing on.

I'm also capable of playing most games on the market right now on medium at native resolution at 30 fps+. Anything else is on low. (I'm talking about games of recent years. Not in general obviously )

Like I said, laptop dedicated GPU's are a lot better now then they used to be. And its no surprise as to why.
But, thats not to say you shouldn't check what GPU to look for. If you had a choice between an 800$ laptop with a 630m, or a 900$ laptop with a 650m. Its kinda a no brainier unless the 650m has issues.

It also helps that I tend to aim for desktop replacement class laptops, which are usually low/mid-range gaming capable machines if they're built right.

Edited by MrPenguin, 09 April 2013 - 11:28 AM.

[Garth Erlam]

I have a 555m and a quad core i7, laptop cost me 1000 about 3 years ago, and I get about 30-45 FPS in game, on mostly medium settings (my card hates, HATES shadows. I play all games with min because of it, haha.)

But yeah.. I am not sure an integrated GPU from 4-5 years ago could ever play this. Like I said, I have one, and I can't play Source engine games, and can BARELY play LoL on it. Like really, really barely.

[Appogee]

There's a reason it's called 'Cry' Engine...

[MrPenguin]

Garth Erlam, on 09 April 2013 - 11:24 AM, said:

I have a 555m and a quad core i7, laptop cost me 1000 about 3 years ago, and I get about 30-45 FPS in game, on mostly medium settings (my card hates, HATES shadows. I play all games with min because of it, haha.)

But yeah.. I am not sure an integrated GPU from 4-5 years ago could ever play this. Like I said, I have one, and I can't play Source engine games, and can BARELY play LoL on it. Like really, really barely.

I can play source engine games on my old desktop that sports a 125mb integrated GPU, a 1.6ghz single core CPU and a gig of ram. What in the hell is wrong with the laptop(or what ever you're talking about) you own if it can't even handle source. 0-0

Edited by MrPenguin, 09 April 2013 - 11:33 AM.

[Chavette]

MrPenguin, on 09 April 2013 - 11:14 AM, said:

I'm sporting a 525m in this laptop, and I was able to run the game on low at around 35-40 fps at 720 res before the patch hit and cut my FPS in half.(like most other people)

Your friends GPU isn't the issue, unless the laptop is running off the integrated instead of the dedicated.

Hmph, maybe you're right and it didnt switch to dedicated card? I know he had problems with assasins creed and I had to change it in the driver.

[MrPenguin]

Chavette, on 09 April 2013 - 11:32 AM, said:

Hmph, maybe you're right and it didnt switch to dedicated card? I know he had problems with assasins creed and I had to change it in the driver.

Yeah, it happens sometimes. You can force it to run through the dedicated by using the nvidia control panel.

[WarHippy]

ArmageddonKnight, on 09 April 2013 - 11:20 AM, said:

Sorry, in the rest of my post i didnt mention that alptops can play games. Just not cheap ones.

Any laptop with a X60m+ GPU AND a good CPU like a 3630QM or higher will cost a tidey sum of money. But most of the people who complain about performance are running X40m or lower dedicated GPU's or integrated, and/or have a slow CPU which bottlenecks in games like this.

So just to make my point clear.

"Cheap laptops are NOT for gaming"

Define cheap. The OP was insisting it takes $2-3k for a laptop to play MWO. I linked on the first page a laptop with an i7, 12GB ram, and a NVIDIA GTX 670M for $1399. As gaming laptops go I would say that is middle of the road price wise and more than capable of playing MWO or anything else on the market right now. For the price the OP was talking you could get that laptop and a nice gaming desktop for $2400. Now if you are talking about those $300 laptops then yeah that isn't going to play most games, but I would hope anyone looking to play some games on a laptop are at least looking in the $800-$1000 range.

[Jetfire]

Until DX 11 and SLI support even my rig is going to be just passable on a custom mix of high-low setting without AA.

Thuban at 3.7 GHz
2x HD6870
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

I can't imagine even my old alienware doing much with this game. "Cry" Engine indeed.

[ArmageddonKnight]

I would say price wise ofr a laptop anythign below $/£1000 is cheap.

like i said in a previose post. You want to try get a 660m and a 3630Qm at the very least. That generaly costs in the region of $/£1200 iirc.

A websitei tend ot use to help Americans out with laptop choices has this one on their site:
http://www.xoticpc.c...7us-p-4982.html
Stock specs put it at the minimum i said and it costs $1114

Edited by ArmageddonKnight, 09 April 2013 - 11:47 AM.

[Dukarriope]

Why're people buying computers with integrated graphics and expecting them to be capable of handling complex game engines in the first place?
It's almost like buying a PlayStation 2 and expecting it to play PlayStation 3 games.

[Chavette]

ArmageddonKnight, on 09 April 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

I would say price wise ofr a laptop anythign below $/£1000 is cheap.

like i said in a previose post. You want to try get a 660m and a 3630Qm at the very least. That generaly costs in the region of $/£1200 iirc.

A websitei tend ot use to help Americans out with laptop choices has this one on their site:
http://www.xoticpc.c...7us-p-4982.html
Stock specs put it at the minimum i said and it costs $1114

Yeah theres a few great models like this, 2xxx series cpus are even cheaper with the same gpu and should do fine. Dont understand why anyone would get something else.

[Ph30nix]

your the one choosing to play on a laptop how is that the game makers fault? i can build a PC or buy a lower end PC with a good processor and have it able to play any game on the market today at high to ultra settings for around $600-$800.

My usual MO for my machines is to buy one premade as cheap as possible with best processor i can find and throw in a great video card. It saddly end sup being cheaper then building from scratch.

There ARE laptops you can get that are upgradeable they are just rare, its YOUR own fault for not doing the research. Also you can get a good gaming laptop for well under $2000 the fact you mention alienware and gaming in the same sentence really shows your limited understanding.

but in the end companies LOVE people using laptops because they are so much harder to just plug and play upgrade you basicly HAVE To buy a new one sooner then you would a Desktop.

[Sacrosanct]

spent 1000 bucks on this rig and it runs mwo at like 80 frames.

[ArmageddonKnight]

Problem with laptop CPU's is they dont run at their stated turbo speed on all cores. hence why that CPU is the minimum i sugest (even though the 2xxx series is only marganily slower, every little counts), it only runs at like 3.2ghz when on 4 active cores iirc not the advertised 3.4ghz.

The best laptops r those with desktop CPU's as they run at the max turbo on all cores ..but u are then talking 2k+ costs.

i.e http://www.xoticpc.c...0wm-p-3595.html

Edited by ArmageddonKnight, 09 April 2013 - 12:08 PM.

[Apnu]

One thing I've notice with laptops is they're filled with crapware out of the box. I usually spend an hour stripping that stuff out and fixing registry errors after unboxing. This is true of HP, Dell, and Lenovo. I haven't used Toshiba or Sony for a long time but I remember Sony, especially, filling their notebooks up with crapware running at boot time.

I have no idea why vendors insist on putting that stuff on those machines, most users don't have the knowledge or the conviction to scrub clean something they just bought. But its like cars, after buying a new one there's a small shakedown period. Or a new bicycle, after you leave the shop, in about a month you have to go back because all your cables are stretched out.