Laptop Support

[Stephasaurus]

Hi ! I Need Help, Me And My Boyfriend Are Trying To Look For A Laptop That Can Run SL Very Well, We Have An Eye On Asus, But What Type Of Asus Will Run SL That Is 800$ Or Lower? Will Appreciate Any Answers! :robotwink:

[Peggy Paperdoll]

You are not likely to find a laptop in the $800 or below range that will run SL "very well".  The primary reason is that, in order to run SL very well, any computer is going to have to have a top end video card........those are expensive even for desktops and down right scary for laptops.  Laptops being what they are require smaller, lighter, and more efficeint hardware (that's one of the main reasons laptops are so much more expensive than a comparable desktop.  High performance hardware, especially video cards, require more power to run and laptops are designed to run on batteries which have a definite limitation on how long they will operate at peak performance before needing to be recharged........and that requires a high end battery pack.  Then there's the heat that any electronics generate when under load.  The heavier the load the more heat.......SL is going to put any computer (laptop or desktop) under just about as heavy a load as any program you can run.  A "gaming laptop" is designed with all that in mind........and they are expensive (think $1500 at the bottom end and upwards from there).  To run SL very well you need, at least, a good gaming computer (you don't need the best of the best but you do need a computer that has the hardware to handle the graphics load that SL presents).

An $800 laptop should run SL fairly well.  It would probably have a slightly below mid-range graphics card, 8 GB or more of system RAM, and 2 GHz or greater CPU.  With a mid-range video card and 8 GB RAM and a modern CPU you can run SL at high settings without too much texture/object lag.  It will struggle greatly with shadows and depth of field enabled (it might not even run with that enabled).  "Very well, is subjective........what I call very well might be more than what you call very well.  Very well in my mind is the ability to run SL at Ultra and shadows and depth of field enabled without a noticible hit on lag..........smooth video with everything enabled.  Maintaining 25 (or more) frames per second gives most people smooth video.  There are not a lot of SL users who can run SL at ultra without sacraficing frames per second.  But that is my definition of "very well".

Asus, Acer, Sony, Hewlett Packard, Dell, or any other brand really doesn't make a lot of difference........it's the hardware inside that makes one better than the other.  And you do pay for the name....keep that in mind when shopping.

[Lindal Kidd]

I agree that a desktop computer would be a better choice...at equal performance levels, any desktop will cost less than a laptop.

But if you must have a laptop, here's one that meets your budget, and should run SL fairly well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230315

 

[Nyll Bergbahn]

Acer Aspire V3-571G-9435 at $849 is only slightly above your budget but way ahead of similar priced notebooks in terms of performance according to reviews. i7 processor and Nvidia 640M graphics card.

EDIT: Only $799 from Newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215404&Tpk=Acer%20Aspire%20V3-571G-9435

Specs:  Notebook Intel Core i7 3610QM(2.30GHz) 15.6" 6G Memory 500GB HDD 5400r DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M DVD Super Multi NVIDI GeForce GT 640M.

Couple of reviews here.

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/acer_aspire_V3-571G-9435.aspx

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6066/acer-aspire-v3571g9435-the-value-proposition