Aliens??

[Rival Destiny]

I was wondering if there is such a thing as overkill when it comes to what computer mfgs call 'gaming laptops'. Am very interested in anyone who has an opinion of running sl on the following: http://www.dell.com/ca/p/alienware-m18x-r2/pd?oc=nam18x2_f_3e&model_id=alienware-m18x-r2 Alieneware Dell M18x Laptop tia

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

Good specs.  Quite over-priced, though.  But, it's a lappie, so that's to be expected.  I'd worry about that AMD graphics card, though.  They still screw up on OpenGL standards and you may not be able to run SL at its best settings due to odd glitches and such. (>_<)

 

 

[Rival Destiny]

Thanks

I think if I did purchase, the graphics card would be one thing I'd change out to nvidea.  I have a Dell XPS that I am using & it has the nvidea.

 

[Sephy McCaw]

Alienware arnt as good as they used to be i would try another option, there is Cyberpower and OriginPC that both do custom laptop aswell, shop around and see if you can get some disccounts from sales they may be having.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

The second video card is overkill. SL doesn't understand SLI or crossfire as far as I know, so one of the two cards will be totally useless. Not that a single one can't handle SL just fine, if the drivers work that is.

24GB of RAM is overkill. Unless you run something like 3 3D applications and 5 games in the background. SL can't use more than 2GB. I have 16GB and can run a 3D and 2D application, a graphical one, two viewers, a webbrowser and have a 1GB RAMdisk without any issues. Most people won't use that much memory at once for another good couple of years.

That i7 is overkill, an i5 (or even i3) will run SL just fine.

That said, overkill is not a bad thing if money is no issue, this laptop should last quite a while. Only thing that looks a bit out of tune is the HD at 5400 rpm, or is that normal for a laptop?

[Sephy McCaw]

5400rpm is standard for laptops... but you would expect for such a gaming laptop like that it would  have an SSD included... hench why dell have no idea what they are doing with computer hardware. and you must remember that laptop version are lower voltage then there desktop counterparts so they can run of the battery, so nothing is overkill when it comes to them.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Sephy McCaw wrote:

5400rpm is standard for laptops... but you would expect for such a gaming laptop like that it would  have an SSD included...

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Exactly, that's what I thought, especially at that price.

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and you must remember that laptop version are lower voltage then there desktop counterparts so they can run of the battery, so nothing is overkill when it comes to them.

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I'd say the opposite. Since you need to run of a battery, two high end cards (even if not as powerful as their desktop counterparts) will drain the battery quite fast, without much benefit in SL performance.

 

 

 

[Nalates Urriah]

There are people taking advange of dual video cards in SL. While the render pipeline is still a single thread and OpenGL is awkward to push into multiple threads, several graphics processes have been placed in separate threads. A second video card can provide image decompression and reduce the work load on the card running the render process. So, there is some gain. BUT, don't expect to double FPS.

Unless your willing to geek up and learn how to change the video options on the computer, SL is NOT going to take advantage of a second video card. You must force it to use a second card by changing the card settings.

On memory... 64 bit systems do open up more memeory to SL. Several people were reporting use of the additional memory as the memory leak was being chased during Sept-Nov 2012. While SL may not use more than 2gb, which is unclear whether true or not, the Windows system had more memory to use while the viewer leak consumed it, thus allowing the viewer to run longer before crashing.

Much more important than quantity of memory is speed. Faster memory chips are better, provided the motherboard and CPU can take advantage of the speed.

 

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Nalates Urriah wrote:

There are people taking advange of dual video cards in SL. While the render pipeline is still a single thread and OpenGL is awkward to push into multiple threads, several graphics processes have been placed in separate threads. A second video card can provide image decompression and reduce the work load on the card running the render process. So, there is some gain. BUT, don't expect to double FPS.

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Ah I didn't know that. Still a single high end card will have no trouble with everything SL throws at it. In an empty sim I don't see mine at 100% usage, about 75% is as high as it gets. In a full sim it doesn't even come close. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that makes me believe, even if the second card can be put to use, it would be overkill and would not give you a single fps extra.