How well will SL run on this laptop?

[Hayden Rowley]

I was just wondering how well this laptop can run SL. With at least a good performance with mid/high graphics.

Spec:

Processor: Intel Core i5-3230M - 2.60 Ghz

RAM: 4GB

Disk: 500GB

OS: WIndows 8.1 64 bit

Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 820M

 

[Stefanosje Sellers]

Hard to tell. Also depends on the type of hard disk and many other factors all together. Although we can always cling to the minimum requirements of SL, it really depends. If you already bought it, try or use CanIRunIt.

[Freya Mokusei]

I'm inclined to say "not brilliantly" mostly on the graphics capability. Chips vs. cards lose every time and it shows pretty poor gaming performance at any screen resolution above 1024*768 - the standard display resolution of the year 2000.

The i5 doesn't look particularly terrible though, so you might get a few more FPS out of it than my experience suggests.

4Gb RAM isn't great these days, especially with the increased bloat of Win 8.1. The hard disk will be S-ATA mechanical, not SSD. Nothing very revolutionary there.

I dunno I'd be cautious of buying this myself as I use Second Life fairly intensively. If you're only popping in for a few hours a week and don't need shadows or reliability, and plan to use it for casual stuff - or as a secondary machine, you'll probably do okay.

Note that you don't mention cooling. These chips are sometimes put into fanless machines or without direct cooling to the chip. If this is the case with whatever you're buying, skip it entirely - Second Life'll burn one of those things down to the ground.

[Hayden Rowley]

Hehe the ideal would be able to run shadows/ultra, but at the moment I can't afford an expensive pc. My main one has died, so I'm looking to buy something that can run SL smoothly with at least atmospheric shaders enabled. I'll be happy with about 20-30 fps in most places.

[Perrie Juran]

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BarryLoyd wrote:

Hehe the ideal would be able to run shadows/ultra, but at the moment I can't afford an expensive pc. My main one has died, so I'm looking to buy something that can run SL smoothly with at least atmospheric shaders enabled. I'll be happy with about 20-30 fps in most places.

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I'm not a Linux Geek but check this thread out.

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Second-Life-Tech/SL-using-200-C720-Chromebook-update/m-p/2758846/highlight/true#M1059

[Hayden Rowley]

I was reading that earlier! Haha. But not a linux fan

[Perrie Juran]

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BarryLoyd wrote:

I was reading that earlier! Haha. But not a linux fan

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I'm not either but heck if it got you going it may really be something to look at.

I've got a nice lap top that five years ago I could run SL on high that now struggles on low I am planning on giving that a whirl once I finish up a bunch of other projects I have going on.

Stupid Sony has never updated the graphics drivers and when I try to download/install direct from NVidia it fails. 

[dd Temin]

Hi Barry...  the nvidia 820M gpu is entry level performance graphics meaning lowest performance.  It will  work  but you would probably be limited to Medium viewer graphics in many situations.  the second digit in the Nvidia number "2" in this case indicates graphic performance.  For Ultra mode viewer graphics that number needs to be 5 or greater. the M in 820M means that is a graphics chip soldered to the  laptop mother board ..so is not replaceable/up-gradeable   like a graphics card would be.

I would strongly recommend you Buy a full size/tower desktop PC to use for SL. Because Its cheaper  and  either comes with graphics card or has an open PCI-16 slot to put a hi performance  graphics card.

[Hayden Rowley]

Yep. But I think it will run SL with at least medium graphics( including atmospheric shaders ) I have a NVidia Geforce 8400 GS which is really old, and it runs medium with atmospheric shaders just fine. So the Nvidia Geforce 820m which is newer, should do a better job right?

[Hayden Rowley]

What's your opinion on Nvidia Geforce 740m? It's an older series, but does it perform better? or worse?

[dd Temin]

Well...its 2 Nvidia performance steps up...so yes its better than the 820m.  i would guess it would allow you to run SL viewer in High graphics mode. 700 series v/s 800 series...just means its 1 year older.

You should still consider a desktop tower  in place of laptop.......for many reasons...another important reason is using SL will use max power from both your CPU and GPU...this translates into battery running down very quickly and producing lots of HEAT  which  can shorten  the life of any laptop........usually when laptop CPU  sees low battery or Hi temperature  it will first increase fan speed  and or  lower CPU and GPU speed  depending on your power settings. Hence potentially lower performance if it heats up  or sees low battery.

If you can find a lap top with 4th generation intel haswell I3,i5,I7 cpu........they are much more efficient on battery consumption......but since they are the newest Intel cpu line......they will be priced higher.

[Madelaine McMasters]

Hi Barry,

Here's a table of benchmark results...

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

I just searched it and find that the 740M scores 902 and the 820M isn't yet listed. The integrated graphics of current Intel chips score in the 400-500 range. So that puts both NVIDIA cards on the low-end of the performance spectrum.

Here's a comparison of the 740m and 820m...

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GT-720M-vs-GeForce-820M

The biggest advantage of the 820M appears to be lower power consumption, which is a good thing in a laptop.

I hope this helps, but if it just adds to your confusionm I'm still happy!

;-).

[Hayden Rowley]

So you don't think it can run High/Medium with at least 15-20 fps?

[dd Temin]

I have explained in great detail.....I have nothing further to say except good luck with whatever you choose.

[Hayden Rowley]

Oh I did not see your other message! Well thank you. =) If it runs smoothly in high, then I'll be ok with it. Thank you all!

[Orca Flotta]

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BarryLoyd wrote:

What's your opinion on Nvidia Geforce 740m? It's an older series, but does it perform better? or worse?

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Sorry, was offline for a couple days, only reading up all the threads now.

You gotta see the second number as more important than the first one. 7xx and 8xx shows the generation of chips and there isn't much of a diff between 7 and 8. x4x and x2x shows the ranking of the cards in Nvidia's lineup. Both are pretty low on the lowest end and hardly better than Intel's onboard chips. Still the 740 is clearly favorable over the 820. I wouldn't buy any computer with such weak chips tho. Particularly the M versions, which are even weaker and slower than their desktop brethren, should be avoided.