So, finally getting around to buying a laptop for travel and some gaming. Considering that my i5-2500k and radeon 6950 was able to play MWO on max, and considering that PS4/Xone specs aren't much over that, is there really going to be any point to getting an i7/Nvidia860? There are some really nice laptops with that spec at around £800 but I'm thinking I might be getting distracted by the shinies and I could save £200 and get i5-4xxx and Nvidia760 ... Any advice welcome. I may find somewhere to live with net, so MWO would be good. I will be wanting to play age of wonders 3. Is there any reason to worry about better spec than that? Also, 15.6" is my max due to travel so... Any advice on battery saving also welcome, like if there's ability to swap between using dedicated and onboard graphics to save battery or something.
Anti-glare / matte screen, no matter what other cutbacks it brings. It's a must have if you ever plan on playing anything, unless you're happy with replacing the game's scenery with your own face. Nothing against your looks but I personally want to see a game when looking at the screen since I already own a mirror. Configuring your laptop is very important after having bought it, just to ensure that it doesn't use unwanted throttling/capping of resources or so. While comparing different laptops, look at CPU and GPU mainly. Create a spreadsheet if you like, add in a link to the store, price and GPU and CPU scores from: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php Simply search for the CPU and GPU featured on your laptop, check out the G3D Mark score (and possibly the rank of the component). Then divide the Score for each laptop's GPU and CPU with the cost of the laptop to get Performance/Cost = Cost efficiency per component. Then you could get an overall score by weighing the GPU Cost Efficiency and CPU Cost Efficiency, like 0.6 * GPU CE + 0.4 * CPU CE = Laptop Cost Efficiency where 60% weight is on GPU. Additional pro-tip: Buy some sort of gadget that can move air. USB-fan or some such, also buy a cooling platform for the laptop. Now the trick is to use the USB fan to increase airflow through the cooling platform and possible blow air into the laptop's intake. I've experienced great reduction in temperature, up to 40C degrees reduction while playing when using an air filtration unit's 40cm fan - the laptop would warm up 10-15 degrees under maximum stress as opposed to CPU being throttled down when temp would rise over 80C Also, you could replace cooling platform fans with Noctua's industrial grade fans that move 4x the amount of air as a conventional 'retail' fans. Noctua has 25-30€ fans that can move 160CFM or 270m3/h per fan! http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=produkte&lng=en#industrialPPC
but if you can see your reflection you can pretend you are the person in an FPS killing aliens. It's IMMERSION. I think.
Apply a thin layer of silver on the screen for max effect. I always thought that you can't get proper immersion for a flight sim unless you had to spend 4 days going through physical and psychological tests and finally being given a rejection based on both. "Sorry Son but you are never going to fly one of our planes. But don't worry, there are still many positions in the Air Force that are very important where you can make yourself useful, positions like radar operator or maintenance crew." So, playing a flight sim might actually take you to changing brake fluids for F-18's on a carrier and taking the whole cockpit apart because the pilot wasn't sure if he had dropped a pencil in there somewhere so you have to take it apart just in case.
ultimate flight sim ever. in world war 2 you shouldn't be flying planes but they are so short on pilots they say "fuck it we'll put him in a plane|
Actually, despite failing all the tests you're given a position as a 'tail gunner'. Your is made up of 2 weeks of shooting at a 'wind sock' pulled by a biplane. Then you're put on a bomber and guess what, the enemy fighters have armor, you don't, they also have more machineguns and cannons than your whole bomber and they don't fly in a straight line. Despite heroism, due to failing to meet up any part of peace time standards for your position you are unable to properly see the enemy, you struggle with the thin air and you're terrified to your heart because it's iron man mode, you die for real if even a single bullet manages to hit your aquarium death box. Even during wartime you have no hope of flying an actual fighter. At most you may get some suicide post in some bomber unit where life expectancy is 5 flights.
So, if I get this right - failure to ensure my chosen laptop has anti-glare will result in my death in the skies above Berlin? Sounds pretty important, duly noted.
Struggling to find somewhere that stocks anything less than i7 and 860m, think I want i5 4200 and 760m. Also not certain how to check if the screen is anti-glare. You have any recommendations? Thanks for all the advice thus far. First thoughts (for £758) - IPS seems to be important? Not sure if it's anti glare. Cosmos Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080) Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-4210M (2.60GHz) 3MB Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB) Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 850M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11 Memory - Hard Disk 1TB SEAGATE HYBRID GEN3 SSHD Drive, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (5400 rpm) DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW) Memory Card Reader Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo) Thermal Paste STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING Sound Card Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack Bluetooth & Wireless GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0 USB Options 3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD Battery Cosmos Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (48.84WH) Power Lead & Adaptor 1 x European Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor Keyboard Language COSMOS SERIES UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD Operating System Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79) Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE Notebook Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE Webcam INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5) Insurance 1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI) Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 7 to 9 working days 1
I highlighted the keyword in green. Keyword 'matte' or 'anti-glare' is usually listed with the screen's specifications. Usually if there is no mention of 'matte' or 'anti-glare' it means that if there is any light in the room you have a good chance of seeing only those lights and your face and some ceiling from the screen rather than the game or movie. I once bought a glare screen for gaming and it was a serious mistake. While matte or anti-glare is not perfect for every situation, it is still way better than the fucking mirror screen that most laptops come equipped with. The only reason for use of glare screens is because it looks 'shiny' at the store, based on the theory that people will rather buy shiny/'specular' over diffuse/matte. Which is bullshit. People buy what they're sold. i5-4210M ranks at 330th position among all CPUs with a score of 4384 points. GTX 850M ranks at 86th position among all GPUs with a score of 2300 points. I didn't see a price but say, if the laptop cost 800, you'd get Cost Efficiencies for both components CPU = 4384 / 800 = 5.480 CE GPU = 2300 / 800 = 2.875 CE Thus, if we use 60% weight for GPU: CPU = 0.4 * 5.480 = 2192 GPU = 0.6 * 2.875 = 1725 Thus the laptop's overall score would be: 3917 If you now build a similar list of all your options you can easily compare them. And of course if the result just feels plain wrong, like you'd want one with a better GPU then you should just use your reason.
Thanks Been making all the charts. There doesn't seem to be an option to NOT buy matte from the custom suppliers. Do you have any advice re: custom built laptop vs dell/asus/acer/msi laptop? I am making sure to be careful that warranty gives free repair/replace for at least a year. Are there any particular advantages or disadvantages to look out for? Are 30day dead pixel guarantees needed any more or is it 99.99% going to be fine?
It's difficult to find good Samsung laptops, even harder if you want any sensible price. But Samsung make all of their components themselves and I've had 3 Samsungs and only one has so far broken down and that was because my 1-year old threw it on floor and smashed a chair through the screen. Before that my 3-year old had been using it freely for a better part of a year, almost all keys pulled off, all sorts of goo everywhere and so but it still ran perfectly. I had set it up so that when it booted up it would directly play children's cartoons (shuffling from a big playlist) and all keys were disabled. I now have two Asus laptops. My obsolete gaming&work Asus had aluminium casing and pretty good cooling characteristics and it has run MWO and SC2 just fine and taken a punch from heat without issues. I had a HP once but it's motherboard couldn't take the heat from gaming. Whatever you pick, for a laptop I seriously recommend using something like 2 wooden blocks to elevate it 1.5 inches above the desk and then have a USB fan to turn the space under laptop into a wind tunnel of sorts. The main flaw with all of these laptops is that they're cramped inside and don't have sufficient cooling on their own. I have not tried a laptop that didn't overheat excessively when playing a modern game. So, things like aluminium casings are nice because aluminium transfers heat a lot better than plastic. Most laptops have more or less insulating casings which is really bad for gaming, aluminium or plastic - extra fans and wind tunnel are really worth considering. Most of any given laptop's ventilation holes are located at the bottom of the laptop. This means that when placed on a desk the air does not have room to flow.
I never had to support the head/neck of either one, not even as they were just born. Son, who lifted the chair when he was 1 year old was born weighing 5.4kg. He's going to become a great space viking. Seriously, he's going to overgrow me and then he's gonna be bossing and pushing me around like nothing.
Pretty much so. But yea, gaming is possible on a laptop - just, the costs increase by at least 100% or more and there are many caps and bottlenecks for performance. Often gaming is impossible without having some sort of pad or support for laptop to create an air corridor beneath it and have the whole rig equipped with additional fans. So, in order to make a laptop more suited for gaming it starts quickly resembling a desktop setup.
One of the things laptops are fantastic for is running retro style indie games. Those don't usually burn your processor up, so they run pretty easy.
I'm just surprised the 'portable desktop' never really became a thing, I mean, it would hardly be difficult to build a tower with a bracket to carry a monitor and speakers etc...
Those exist btw., but it's more likely that you'll have to modify a case with handles than to actually find one being sold. No one seems to buy them. Myself? I just put some strings around the monitor and so, I've carried the whole desktop setup to Assembly (Helsinki) from train station and back. The downside was that I had so much to carry that I had to leave my cool box home and make another trip to get it. I'm actually thinking of building the next computer so that the case has handles and then I can just use some rigging to attach monitor and keyboard to it. The thing is that I rarely ever need to move my shit. I suppose most people who move a lot appreciate that you can simply plug the laptop's chord in and you're ready to go. There's actually a lot of people who buy those 2-3k€ 'professional workstation' laptops (that have roughly same performance or less than a 800€ desktop)
I know they exist, I'm just surprised they never became a thing. Especially back when LAN parties were a 'big deal' My current rig has handles. I hardly built it to be mobile though, it's just beastly enough that if I do have to move it, I'd rather have handles XD
I thing it mostly never became a thing because, like you put it, just to move a typical gaming rig without the monitor is a hassle. Trying to move the whole package to a LAN arena or so is like Iron Man Challenge. Stereotypically a lot of the people who'd be interested just aren't cut out for it. Not all nerds can be vikings like us.
