Choosing a Laptop for Second Life 2013

[Bone Ashbourne]

Firstly :cathappy:

I'm not going to get a desktop just for SL

I'm looking for a decent laptop that can run SL with shadows and advanced lighting.

1. What are the specs I should look for?

2. Core i5 or i7 ( heard i7 does not make a difference for gaming)

2. Is 4GB enough or is 8GB necessary? What's dfference does it make?

3. Which graphics card will support shadows and advanced lighting (How to know if which graphics card will support shadows and advance lighting?) Are these ok?

NVIDIA Geforce GT 730M 

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 

4. Suggestions on what laptops are good ( renders SL well and good price)

[Madelaine McMasters]

---

Bone Ashbourne wrote:

Firstly :cathappy:

I'm not going to get a 

desktop

 just for SL

I'm looking for a decent laptop that can run SL with shadows and advanced lighting.

1. What are the specs I should look for?

2. Core i5 or i7 ( heard i7 does not make a difference for gaming)

2. Is 4GB enough or is 8GB necessary? What's dfference does it make?

3. Which graphics card will support shadows and advanced lighting (How to know if which graphics card will support shadows and advance lighting?) Are these ok?

NVIDIA Geforce GT 730M 

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 

4. Suggestions on what laptops are good ( renders SL well and good price)

---

I'm not familiar with Windows laptops, so can't really recommend a make or model, but...

If all you are going to do is run SL, 4G is probably enough memory. If you want to run other applications at the same time, you may want more.

SL is graphics intensive, so your money is probably better spend on the GPU than the CPU. For that reason, i5 is probably good enough.

From this benchmark site... http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

At the top of that page, enter the model GPU you're interested in and you'll be taken to the line in the chart reflecting the performance specs. Or you can just scroll through the table.

You'll find that the GT 650M scores 1283 and the GT730M scores 1062. So, all else being equal, the 650M is faster. You'll want a minimum GPU memory of 512Mbytes. Unfortunately, I don't know how those scores translate into SL playability. My iMac does quite well in SL with everything turned on, but also has the GTX 680Mx, which scores 4394.

The nVIDIA website does sometimes list laptops that contain their GPU chips. Navigate there, select the GPU you are interested in, then see if that product's page lists any laptops using the chip.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware

Hopefully someone with recent laptop/SL experience will have more to say.

Good luck with your purchase, Bone!

[Bone Ashbourne]

That's a handy graphics card comparison chart. Thanks Madelaine.

[Bone Ashbourne]

Is Alienware just right or too much for SL?

[Orca Flotta]

Is Alienware just right or too much for SL?

 

That like asking if Bob is a good name or is Paul better. Alienware is a brand name owned by Dell, it's the case, maybe the keyboard. All the rest are parts Dell purchased for their Alienware dpt on the international market. Now Alienware once used to be a good name in the gaming scene so they hopefully still  have the skills to produce barebones with ample cooling and enough electricity supply to run all the stuff. Although I'm quite positive on that point I still think that you pay too much for the Alienware logo and styling, which doesn't necessarily show in the actual build quality and not at all in the performance. Performance-wise Alienware is regularly outdone by the Asus and MSI gaming laptops.

To your OP questions:

Yes, i5 is plenty good enough.

No, you won't necessarily need 8 GB RAM ... but it's always nice to have some more horsepower if needed. RAM is super cheap right now. I don't know if you'll ever need all the RAM ... but go for 8 GB and have a better nights sleep.

 According to nVidia's logic the GT650 is better than the GT730. Heck, the 730 might be a rebranded 650, like they sometimes do during a generational switch ... but both are rather bottom of the line. Aim for something that says GTX in front of the numbers to get something with serious oomph.

[Lewis Luminos]

I can get advanced lighting and shadows on an nVidea 530 (albeit very slowly).  Either of the graphics options you have mentioned should work fine.

4gb RAM is enough, if you're not using a lot of other stuff at the same time. If you also want to run Photoshop or Blender whilst on SL, I would reccommend the 8gb.

Alienware... meh. As with Apple, you pay a premium for the badge. You can probably save money by getting something more generic with the same specs.

What will make the biggest difference to your experience is a wired internet connection, not wireless. Get yourself a long network cable and sit plugged in to the router whilst playing SL.