Laptop recommendation

[Panichio]

I've been wanting to ask the same sort of thing, but I would probably want to run some newer games on medium settings as well for a price around $600 US (preferably not higher than $600, actually). Currently, I'm leaning towards the Acer Aspire V3-551G-X419 from NewEgg. How do you think my current choice is, everyone? If you don't mind answering another person's question. It's pushing my price restrictions though, so I'm looking for alternate options.

Also, I could wait a little bit longer if Haswell is worth it. I can't find any laptops coming out within a month or two with it, though.

EDIT: I do really like battery life, which apparently Haswell will help out with. It's my favourite aspect of Apple products, but they are way out of my $600-ish price range.

Edited July 12, 2013 by Panichio

[AfailingHORSE]

I recently got this. I was able to run KSP at max (still very clunky with just basic ships) with it, the input/output ports are just in a weird place and it can get pretty hot if you dont lift it in some way to get air to the vents on the bottom of it.

EDIT:

did a quick conversion after seeing your price and WITHOUT taxes its £462.86

Edited July 12, 2013 by AfailingHORSE

[Eleven]

$299 USD Lenovo G580, $60 upgrade to 8gigs of ram, Linux Mint 64 bit. I run KSP just fine.

[Coneshot]

I'm running an Alienware M17x R4 with all the top options and it plays anything I throw at it at top settings..

Expensive? YES

Worth it? ABSOLUTELY

Drawbacks? Battery life is less than ideal, but if you run any laptop on full performance (instead of energy saver settings) while on battery then this is expected. I stay plugged in anyway most of the time.

I play it like a desktop, but enjoy being able to quickly toss it and the charger in a bag and head to a friends house ETC.

[PwnedDuck]

Want to get a new laptop that is capable of running KSP with decent graphic settings. Can anyone recommend one or least give an idea as to what hardware and systems I should be looking for? I have no idea in such matters - my desktop was bought for photo processing so I guess that has a pretty decent graphics card and it runs KSP fine. Looking for similar performance, if possible, in a laptop.

Dell XPS with cheapest available graphics card and intel i5 plays KSP like a dream, but inst very mobile due to low battery..

[lazarus1024]

What is your desktop, then we can tell you if it is possible in a laptop. Odds are no, unless you have a medium to low end desktop, in which case, yes, you probably can get the same performance in a laptop, so long as you don't mind spending $1,500-3,000.

Much more limited thermal disipation in a laptop chasis than you can get in a desktop, so for the same performance you must run at much lower voltages for less heat dissipation, which means specially manufaturered/binned processor and GPU, which costs a heck of a lot more money.

For a reference my desktop is an i5-3570 running at 4Ghz all 4 cores and 4.2Ghz single core turbo with a AMD 5570 in it. I can run ships as large as around 400-500 parts okay and 1600x900, 2x AA, full textures and modest light sourcing at greater than 30FPS pretty much all the time. My graphics card is very much the limiting factor (I really need to get a 650ti or a 7790 or something one of these days soon, sadly flat broke for the next few months. House projects sucking up any spare cash).

My laptop is an i5-3217u, which runs at 1.7Ghz and turbos up to 2.6Ghz on a single core. It is running the HD4000 iGPU on there. I can run it at 1366x768 (max screen resolution), no AA, medium settings otherwise and run ships up around 200-250 part count at >30FPS a lot of the time. I'll get some lag at launch, sometimes some rendezvous or if I am attempting to land a really huge ship (generally by the time I get to a planet, my 200-300 part count ship is now a lot smaller, so I generally don't have issues on landing), but it is ususally manageable. It might knock it down to 8-12FPS on launch and a few other occasions.

Something with the same processor, but a discrete GPU could certainly run at higher graphical settings, but you are still going to be very part limited, as that is more of a CPU physics calculation issue and not a GPU limitation. I'd imagine something like a GT650 or so could probably run it at 900p or 1080p with fairly good settings graphically. CPU wise, well, if you go ultrabook, either Ivy Bridge or Haswell, you probably are not going to be able to run larger ships that what I can manage on mine, even if you go a lot higher end. The single core speed just isn't that much higher and that is what really matters. I haven't done much benchmarking, but I am pretty certain on my laptop I am hitting TDP limits in KSP and it is knocking speeds down to closer to the 1.7Ghz base clock rather than doing much turbo'ing up. Likely any other ultrabook is going to be the same story, though with a discrete GPU the CPU could likely hit turbocore speeds more of the time and higher clocks to boot while it is doing it as the chip isn't running the iGPU, which uses most of the power of an ultrabook anyway (as an example, at max turbos, a 3217u uses around 8w for both CPU cores and around 10w for the iGPU...which yes, means 18w, more than the 17w TDP of the chip, but the latest generation of Intel chips can turbo up above TDP limits for short periods of time until the chip gets too warm and it has to throttle things back).

If you have a standard voltage laptop, especially one with good heat disipation it would be less of an issue on part count, as even a lowly dual core Ivy Bridge standard voltage laptop chip can generally turbo up to around 3Ghz+ on a single core (which is generally what you'll be doing in KSP, a single core) and it has the heat dissipation and TDP cap such that it'll be running close to max turbo speeds most of the time.

So, just some food for thought on what you want.

Haswell laptops, at least the ultrabooks don't seem to be any better than Ivy Bridge is in terms of CPU ability. They are 15w chips instead of 17w chips, so with the lower TDP, more was moved on to the chip as well (voltage controller and PCH) limiting things further in that 15w TDP, and it is the same process node (22nm) with the same process technology (though possibly refined over the last year+ of Ivy Bridge production), well, you have to reduce clock speeds. Upside is that Haswell is generally 8-12% faster than Ivy Bridge at the same clock speeds and the design decision on the GPU, despite having more EUs than the Ivy one, means that each EU can be run at much lower clock speeds, which can actually save power AND cruch through graphics a little better, means that Haswell Ultrabooks are no faster than their Ivy Bridge predecessors.

It looks like the ones with HD4600 graphics are roughly 10-20% better on the GPU side of things than Ivy Bridge and around 3-5% faster in single threaded applications and 3-5% slower in multithreaded applications. Oh, upside, roughly twice the battery life at idle and light tasks. Probably only slightly better (maybe 10-25%) battery life if slamming the processor/GPU (IE heavy gaming or doing things like video encoding) though. The HD5000 equipped Haswell ultrabooks look like they are around 10-30% better on the GPU side of things and around 1-3% faster in single threaded and 5-10% slower in multithreaded applications than Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks (beefier GPU, but lower base clock speeds than the HD4600 equipped Haswell ultrabooks).

It'll be interesting to see what Intel does with Broadwell next year. The move to 14nm should hopefully free up a fair amount of thermal headroom. Haswell seems to have been a knock out star with battery life. I can't imagine too many people screaming for another 30-60% increase in battery life so that they can go 16-20hrs on a charge instead of 10-12hrs, so I imagine Intel is going to focus more on increasing performance with Broadwell...which is normally a tick for Intel (process size change without significant architecture change). Intel has said they are completely changing up the GPU architecture with Broadwell which is supposed to bring signficant GPU improvements.

I just hope that Intel is not going to AGAIN focus on the GPU to the near exclusion of the CPU. Haswell was a lot about reducing power use as well as increasing GPU performance and the CPU was nearly neglected. I doubt we'll see much on the CPU side of things, I just hope it isn't another Haswell, especially in the ultrabook/lower power segment. It would be nice to see at least SOME improvement in CPU performance in ultrabooks with Broadwell, even if it is only a modest 6-10% or so.

I almost hope that Intel is going to focus on GPU changes, but also use the additional power savings to increase clock speeds, even if they don't have CPU architectual changes to increase IPC of the processor. A slight bump in base clock and turbo speeds would be real nice (even just 100-200Mhz) as well as the ability, due to lower heat production from the smaller process size, to allow the chip to run at turbo core speeds more of the time would also go a long way toward improving CPU ability.

Some quad core 25w CPUs wouldn't go amiss either. Just saying.

[AfailingHORSE]

Dell XPS with cheapest available graphics card and intel i5 plays KSP like a dream, but inst very mobile due to low battery..

If i learned anything from my last few computers, it is to avoid Dells like a plague.

[lazarus1024]

Agreed on a Dell. At this point the only laptops I'd mildly consider are an HP (okay design, okay price, pretty good build quality, very good customer service in my experience), Samsung (very good design and build quality, kind of expensive though, I've heard okay customer service, however I have seen/heard of some pretty astounding flaws, like UEFI/BIOS flaw that could basically destroy the laptop in some cases), maybe Lenovo depending on the laptop (generally good design, okay price, pretty good build quality and decent customer service...downside is they tend to LOCK THEM DOWN. IE don't bother getting one thinking you'll ever upgrade the laptop. Generally if the Wifi isn't integrated on the motherboard these days, the BIOS is locked so it will ONLY recognize the Wifi card that came in the laptop, same thing with cellular modems if it has an integrated one and I've even seen some that did with with the RAM. Not sure how much Lenovo does that these days, this was as of 2-3 years ago) and MAYBE Asus. Asus is very much a tossup, they tend to have really nice designs, really great build quality with not too terrible prices, but their customer service is HORRIBLE.

We are talking (I am being serious) that Asus has a total of about 6-8 customer service employees for the entire US. So you can imagine how long it takes to get ahold of one, let alone get your problem taking care of (and they also like to do things like, "oh, you didn't send the laptop back in the original packaging, with all the manuals. We are sorry, we can't fix the problem).

My HP Envy 4t died mid-KSP docking this past November and refused to boot (after a little digging, apparently a handful of HP laptops have/had a motherboard power flaw that killed them). HP overnighted me a new power brick, "just in case". It didn't work, so they overnighted me a box to put the laptop in. The return mailing, which THEY paid for (most companies I have warranty problems with, I have to supply packaging and/or shipping, at least too them), was 2-day shipped to their warranty shop (I think in Texas if I remember correctly). They replaced the motherboard in the laptop and had it shipped back to me 2-day shipping 2 days after they got it. No charge on anything at any time to me, and I even have a spare power brick now (no sir, just keep it), though "sadly" no spare power cord for the power brick. Total time was about a week and a half between repairs and shipping. I think the longest I had to wait on call was about 5 minutes to speak to someone, and they didn't even make me go through an hour of "troubleshooting". I think they asked me 3 different questions before they shipped out the power brick (other than my address and the serial and model number on the laptop). It was basically "okay, describe the problem". "Oh. I see. Okay, well, humor me on this one, but try pressing the power button. Nothing. Okay, does the charging LED illuminate when the AC adapter is plugged in? No. Hmm, okay, try holding the power button down for 20 seconds while plugged in. Still nothing? Okay, well just in case it is the power supply, we'll next day a new one too you. What is your shipping address? Call back if that doesn't work, here is your ticket number and if you'd like this is my name and employee ID if you want to try to get ahold of me. We'll get you a box and mailing materials out next day if the new power supply doesn't work."

Seriously, other than Apple, the best customer service I have dealt with. Now, it could have been a unique experience, but certainly enough to give me some HP loyalty (at least until they break the circle of trust). That is one of the things I just can't figure out about companies these days, is the customer service thing. Trust me, I am more than willing to pay more for a product if I know there is good customer service to lean on if I have a problem or need to make a warranty claim. Give me terrible customer service and I'll probably never buy one of your products again. EVER.

I'd much rather spend $800 on a laptop knowing there is good customer service if I have problem than $750 or maybe even $700 knowing that I do have a problem, I'll probably waste most of a day on the phone getting the problem "resolved", possibly have an extra week or two of downtime waiting for shipping and a warranty repair (supposing they don't deny the warranty repair for some made up reason) and possibly also having to pay shipping in there too.

[AfailingHORSE]

HP customer service I find is sort of hit or miss, sometimes its like what you described, other times it borderlines Dell (ya, it can get that bad). I find Toshiba's tend to be relatively well built. I cant really talk about Lenovo without going into tin hat mode though.

Edited July 12, 2013 by AfailingHORSE

[Sean Mirrsen]

I'm using an Acer Aspire 5745G. A pretty old model. I could buy a much more powerful one now, from the same Acer series, for less than I bought this one back then. It's got a Core i5 @2.5(max)GHz, 4GB RAM, and a GF GT330M w/1GB VRAM. I've been playing pretty much everything on it, and besides the need for a harddrive change and some nascent problems with the keyboard (the 'W' key is seriously worn out... darn FPS games...), it's been my perfect work and gaming machine for the last few years.

So even if "gaming laptops" don't exist, laptops are still perfectly suitable for gaming. Battery life be damned.

[Xaiier]

768TB flash storage

Wut?

@OP: Coming online to a forum like this for computer decision help isn't the best of ideas, everyone has different opinions and it just ends up with a lot of arguing and fanboying. I would suggest you pick a computer based on your other needs, or start to learn about computer technology (the fact that you don't know the graphics card of your computer doesn't bode well) and choose something wise. You don't seem to have much understanding in this field and are probably overwhelmed by people spouting stats. I'll try to simplify it.

Overall, most laptops are going to perform basically the same with KSP - In general laptops don't have particularly powerful processors and as physics is constricted to one core, you are going to get part related lag no matter how fancy your laptop is. You'll just have to accept the fact that you can't build monster ships. Graphics cards on laptops are also fairly lackluster, so unless you spend the extra money to get a special gaming designed laptop, you aren't going to be able to max your graphics settings. This shouldn't be a huge issue though, as KSP isn't particularly graphics intensive.

I currently run KSP on a 15'' MBP, quad i7 2.3ghz 4gb ram thats a couple years old, and it performs acceptably for ships up to about 200 parts. Beyond that the lag gets unbearable.

Edited July 12, 2013 by Xaiier

[rpayne88]

I'm using a Dell 17R SE. Currently, it has a 3rd gen Intel i7-3630QM quad core, 8GB RAM, 64-bit Windows 7, NVIDIA GT650 video card, and HD4000 GPU for less graphically intense programs. The down side of it are its weight (7.29Lbs,) short battery life (2 hours max while playing KSP while unplugged,) and the fact KSP will NOT utilize the resources in it to their fullest. KSP is a 32-bit game, meaning the quad core processor and 8GB RAM are underutilized. I learned this fact after I bought it. If and when the devs fix the under utilization bug, this extra power will come in handy. Until then, I can run 500+ part ships at 60fps with the highest graphic settings available while also running Word, Firefox, and Macafee (sp.?) at the same time.

[air805ronin]

I have a laptop that is way overkill for KSP.

XOTICPC custom laptop with an I7, 16 Gb RAM, decent video card, and currently the pain in my rear is running off a sata drive. I plan on upgrading to an SSD soon, with dual sata drives raided for storage.

Was it more expensive than a desktop? Yes. Is it worth it to be able to game while the fiancee watches TV? Totally. I also travel a bit, enjoy being able to move my gaming set up quickly.

Plus I can run 3 virtual machines and still run KSP on my main desktop all at the same time.

Edit: Also, its upgradeable, though the special form factor parts are the harder thing to get. Judging from my particular use scenario, however, I doubt many people would want one like this. I'm a datacenter guy as my dayjob and often need to try out new server builds, and like the comfort of my home to going in to work or working remotely.

Edited July 12, 2013 by air805ronin

[RogueMason]

I currently have an Alienware M11xR3 laptop with the following specs:

Intel Core i5-2467m @1.6GHz

NVIDIA GT540m 1GB graphics card

8GB DDR3 RAM

Windows 7 64-bit

Now, it is worth noting that Alienware don't sell these laptops anymore. It is also worth noting that I got mine for a bargain, at £530. The basic model, which was £600 or £700 (can't remember which, but I think it was the latter), was running an i3 processor plus 2GB of RAM as well as the same GPU. If I'd gone for the full price for my specs, I'd have spent around £900. Therefore, I did pretty well on that, in my opinion

Now, I'm sure you want to know how it handles KSP. Well, I'm glad to say that KSP is glorious on my laptop.

On maximum settings, the game runs smoothly most of the time. Naturally, the large craft cause frame drop, just the same as everyone else, but when you're above that certain altitude that Kerbin stops being a frame-eater, the game is a pleasure to play with standard-sized vehicles. Heck, the smaller standard vehicles don't result in too much frame drop in the Kerbin-frame-eating altitude range. Launching rockets is generally a cause for some minor frame drop, not unplayable, but again that is most likely down to Kerbin.

It also handles every other game I've thrown at it thus far very well, with only Far Cry 3 having been reduced to just below medium (no complaints there anyway, that game looks fantastic on low, but I would like to have seen better optimisation, really), and Skyrim running around medium-high. So, if you can get a laptop which has the same specs of mine, you'll be doing alright, and KSP will be fine as long as you don't go completely overboard with your ship designs.

I've also noticed complaints about battery life in this thread. When playing games, I can get around 2 and a half hours of battery life, but I typically sit at my desk with the charger, so it's been a while since I've actually had to do that.

Also, the cooling is pretty decent. I've never noticed a tremendous amount of heat, and typically it's just warm, not too hot.

TL,DR; My M11xR3 handles KSP nicely for the most part, as well as every other game I've tried on it.

Edited July 12, 2013 by RogueMason

[Scarecrow88]

Thanks for the ideas, suggestions and comparisons guys. Had a look around and managed to get a reasonable deal on a laptop sporting the following:

3rd Generation Intel Core i7-3537U

1TB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

AMD Radeon HD 8730M 2G DDR3

8GB2 DDR3 SDRAM

Hopefully that should be enough to run KSP without too many problems and without having to turn all the graphic settings to minimum.