+malibu43 142 Posted February 27, 2011 Hey guys, It looks like I'll be able to get a new laptop for gaming once our tax return shows up. Here is my "criteria": ~ $1000 Run SF2 with all the bells and whistles Run DCS A-10 at reasonably high settings Nice to have: be able to run IL-2:CoD, Jet Thunder, and Combat Helo when they come out. Right now I'm looking at an Alienware M11X. I know Dave has one and he's said some positive stuff about it. Here is the specific configuration I've selected: https://ecomm2.dell.com/dellstore/basket.aspx?cart_id=1009523302412&toEmail=ecomm@dell.com (for those to lazy to click on the link: i5 processor, 4GB RAM, 1GB GT330M, 320 GB HD, Win7, external optical drive) Any thoughts or suggestions? Will this meet the needs I listed above? Can I get more bang for my buck with something else? The only things I'm questioning are the HD size (but i already have external drives I can use if I need to) and RAM. Upgrading to 8GB RAM is about $170... Thanks! Gregg Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted February 28, 2011 I think that would suit you well. 4GB is enough RAM for any sim right now. I don't know how good the GT330M performs, myself, but my guess is SF2 will run just fine. As for the others, no idea! Don't know if Dave has tried A-10 on his yet or not. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+malibu43 142 Posted February 28, 2011 Looks like I mis-typed above. It comes with a 335M, not a 330M. Looks pretty good to me. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.notebookcheck.net%2FNVIDIA-GeForce-GT-335M.24060.0.html&ei=qNFrTcGWO4OC8gb4wuiJCw&usg=AFQjCNH3lKZ2fBHHzwUHkxDfdfR8RpvbIg But then again, I coming from a laptop with an intel integrated chip. So everything looks good!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+malibu43 142 Posted February 28, 2011 This is probably pushing my budget, but it looks quite a bit more powerful than the M11X: http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/pdet.to?poid=488794 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+malibu43 142 Posted February 28, 2011 OK. Wow. This is totally in my price range and looks to be more powerful than the M11X. It's from HP. http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Category&v1=High+performance&series_name=dv7tqe_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks/High_performance/dv7tqe_series It's ATI instead of NVIDIA. Any thoughts there? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted February 28, 2011 I frankly have zero idea of the relative power of a Mobility 6570 vs a GT335M. However, I WILL say that a phrase I've never heard is "my HP laptop is great for gaming." The ones I've used at work, both Dell and HP, are business models and inappropriate for gaming anyway. The only thing I can say for certain is at least 2 if not more people here have the M11x and say it's good for gaming. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+malibu43 142 Posted February 28, 2011 (edited) I would agree that I've never heard that either. But, just looking at the specs (and being someone who isn't an expert on the subject matter), the HP looks to be pretty powerul: i7 processor (vs i5 for the M11X) 1GB DDR5 ATI 6570 (according to notebookcheck.net, it performs better than the GT 335M) 6 GB DDR3 RAM (vs 4GB on the M11X) 17.3" display (vs 11" on the M11X) Again, as sort of a noob when it comes to this hardware stuff, the HP looks to be more powerful than the M11x. If I'm wrong, then by all means let me know (and if you can tell me why, that would be great too!). If i had to pick one at this point, I'd probably go with the M11x (based on the fact that folks here are very happy with it). It seems to be a very safe choice. However, I'd hate to realize after the fact that I could have gotten more bang for my $. Edited February 28, 2011 by malibu43 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted March 1, 2011 Well, the display size is a different issue altogether. Generally speaking the FIRST thing you should pick in a laptop is what size screen you want, then go on from there. A point to consider is due to thermal considerations the most powerful chips (CPU and GPU) are restricted to 17" laptops because only they can house heatsinks and fans large enough to cool them! When I got my 15" Dell XPS I had to compromise a bit on that because the best GPUs they offered were only in the 17" models. The 11" model can't have as good a GPU because of that. I think they managed to get one as good as many 15" models carry with some creative cooling, but a 17" will always be able to beat it. However, a 17" model is barely portable and usually has poor battery life, something the M11X is the opposite of. So again it's what you're looking for. While my XPS mostly stays at home I have taken it on vacations and trips and a 17" wouldn't have cut it. As it is I barely managed with the 15"! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+malibu43 142 Posted March 1, 2011 (edited) Well, the display size is a different issue altogether. Generally speaking the FIRST thing you should pick in a laptop is what size screen you want, then go on from there. A point to consider is due to thermal considerations the most powerful chips (CPU and GPU) are restricted to 17" laptops because only they can house heatsinks and fans large enough to cool them! When I got my 15" Dell XPS I had to compromise a bit on that because the best GPUs they offered were only in the 17" models. The 11" model can't have as good a GPU because of that. I think they managed to get one as good as many 15" models carry with some creative cooling, but a 17" will always be able to beat it. However, a 17" model is barely portable and usually has poor battery life, something the M11X is the opposite of. So again it's what you're looking for. While my XPS mostly stays at home I have taken it on vacations and trips and a 17" wouldn't have cut it. As it is I barely managed with the 15"! Well, that is a good point. I've been using my 11" macbook for the last few years, and I WANT SOMETHING BIGGER! I'm not super concerned about portability or travel. I have my work laptop for work, and my wife will get my 11" MacBook which we could take somewhere if we needed to. The only reason I was looking at the 11" alienware initially was that I thought that was all that was in my price range. Now I'm seeing that that isn't the case. That being said, I can get the exact same configuration of that HP laptop in a 15" or 17". So, I will probably just head to Best Buy or something to look at sizes and see what I really want. The 15" sounds nice, since it claims to have up to 5 hours of battery life vs up to 3 with the 17". "Up to 3 hours" probably doesn't amount to a whole lot under normal usage. Also, since I haven't gotten a lot of feedback actually comparing the technical aspects of the Alienware and HP, I'm going to post an email response I got from a friend when I asked him about the two: Alienware seems very over priced and you are only getting a 11.6 inch screen a 1.3 gh duel core and a 335m graphics card. It may have trouble playing some of the newest games out there. On the other hand the 2nd one you showed me is rocking intel's newest line of chips called the "Sandy Bridge" these cpu's are capable of doing their own video processing and (in my opinion) the best chip on the market right now hands down. So the HP has a 2.0 quad core (capable of hitting 2.8 with turbo boost) 2 more gigs of 1066 ram over alienware (6 in total) and a 17.3 inch screen + a 6570 gpu which is capable of playing all of the new games out (not great but good) Now with the help processing video from the CPU this HP will give you decent frame rates in most of the newer games and with that CPU in there you wont need an upgrade for a while. Now with that being said you have a 750gig hard drive selected running at 5400rpm. This is a "green" hard drive requiring less power but is much slower. For the same price you can select a 640 gig at 7200 rpm which will help your system speed big time. So I would change that before buying and if your worried about hard drive space externals are really cheap and a 2 gig can be found for 80 bucks with some searching online. Sorry to ramble but the HP seems like a good computer at a decent price, and looks to be much better than the Alienware. I'm not claiming that the above is "the truth" and I'm not trying to start a flame war and piss off Alienware users. I just thought it seemed like good, data based feedback on my original question. Edited March 1, 2011 by malibu43 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted March 2, 2011 I don't know what the supply situation is for those Sandy Bridge laptops right now with the chipset bug in mid-fix. If you can wait a month or two, then it would be your best bet (for the sake of long-term viability) to wait for a SNB laptop. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+malibu43 142 Posted April 2, 2011 Laptop has been ordered!!! dv6t Quad Ed • Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit • 2nd generation Intel® Quad Core i7-2630QM (2.0 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) w/Turbo Boost up to 2.9 GHz • 1GB GDDR5 Radeon HD 6770M Graphics [HDMI, VGA] • FREE Upgrade to 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm) • 640GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection • No Additional Office Software • FREE Upgrade to Norton Internet Security 2011 - 15 Month Subscription (activation required) • 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (standard) - Up to 5.5 hours of battery life +++ • 15.6" diagonal High Definition HP BrightView LED Display (1366x768) • SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support • HP TrueVision HD Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone and HP SimplePass Fingerprint Reader • Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN • Standard Keyboard It's should be here in 2-3 weeks. First step will be to copy over my SF2, IL2, and FS9 installs and then crank the graphics up in SF2! Then I'll give FreeFalcon a try, since I've wanted to try it for a while and I finally will be able to now. Then later down the line I hope to add DCS A-10C... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted April 4, 2011 That should handle everything great with the exception of A-10C. I hear it's a real bear, so you may not be able to crank those graphics up like you will in the other sims. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+malibu43 142 Posted April 4, 2011 I'm hoping it will handle DCS A-10, since Dave says DCS A-10 runs alright his M11X. Not sure at what settings, though... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted April 4, 2011 Well, that's the trick. Lower the settings on most any game and you can get it to run well. Your screen is relatively low res (13x7) so that should help minimize the stress on the system vs a higher-res screen. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+malibu43 142 Posted April 4, 2011 (edited) Hey Dave, what settings can you play DCS A-10C with on your M11X? Another question regarding the new laptop - this will be my first experience with Win7 (using XP right now). I know there are supposed to be some tricks about where to install games (supposedly not the "program files" folder...?) Can anyone give me the low-down? I want to simply "copy and paste" over as many games as I can. IL-2, hopefully SF2, EECH, not sure about FS9... Edited April 4, 2011 by malibu43 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted April 5, 2011 The deal is the program files folder is read-only now, so a lot of stuff is done in your profile instead. So you may want to create a folder named "games" for something like EECH that wants to write back to the main folder. As for Il-2 and SF2, you don't need to worry about those, they work fine. No clue on FS9, haven't touched the series since FS4! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+malibu43 142 Posted April 5, 2011 OK. I think that's what I had heard. I will probably just put all my games in a "games" folder just to be safe. What about things like TrackIR and my Saitek software? Are those OK in program files? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted April 5, 2011 Yeah, they don't bother with writing there after installation. Well, at least TIR does. I don't know a thing about Saitek! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+malibu43 142 Posted April 22, 2011 Well, it shipped 4 days late, but it's finally on its way! Ship date: Apr 22, 2011 Estimated delivery: Apr 27, 2011 by 10:30 AM I have all of my stuff backed up on 2 portable hard drives and ready to copy over. Can't wait! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted April 24, 2011 Believe me, it will take you some time to get everything comfortable again. At least you'll be in a better position once that's done! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+malibu43 142 Posted April 28, 2011 Well, it finally came yesterday!!! I went home at lunch and fired it up for the first time - everything worked fine. By the time I went to bed last night, I had all my personal stuff (music, pictures, etc...) copied over, all my music and playlists up and running in itunes, and ALL of my backed up games copied onto the HD. I also had the mod folders for my four SF2 installations set up. I fired up a CAS mission in an A-10 over NF4+ GermanyCE this morning before work with all graphics set to Unlimited... ...and... the moment of truth... FPS pegged at 50!!! SWEET!!! (my old laptop gave me ~20-25 fps at low-med settings...). Next up is get TrackIR and my Saitek software installed. Then make sure FS9 (and all the addons) are working. Then make sure IL-2 is working and get UP3.0 installed. Then EECH... Then I'll probably download FF5.5 and give that a try. Oh yeah... So far, I think I like Win7. Still getting used to some stuff, but so far so good... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted April 28, 2011 Win7 is a big improvement over Vista, and frankly XP has become obsolete. Were you running XP before? If so, SF2 uses DX10 which helps speed things up compared to DX9 for an equivalent appearance, so that's likely helping you as well. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+malibu43 142 Posted April 29, 2011 (edited) Win7 is a big improvement over Vista, and frankly XP has become obsolete. Were you running XP before? If so, SF2 uses DX10 which helps speed things up compared to DX9 for an equivalent appearance, so that's likely helping you as well. Yep. DX10 now. I was using XP before. I've already noticed some "glowing" tracers. (That's a DX10 shader thing, right?) Edited April 29, 2011 by malibu43 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted May 1, 2011 There are only a few things that DX10 can do that 9 can't. The deal is usually that do them in 9 would cripple the performance, so it wasn't even something you could toggle on or off. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FrankTB 14 Posted May 8, 2011 Malibu43 if you havent had win7 before you might like to get hold of a copy of the tweakguides tweaking companion for win7 at www.tweakguides.com its real handy also I would be interested how your setup rates in the win7 Performance Information and Tools Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
