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best laptop for secondlife

Bron Violet

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Monti Messmer

Monti Messmer

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Really, there is no best laptop for SL. Most average Desktop PCs do a better job for half the money.

If you really need a laptop, get a decent one with separate graphics, no build in gfx card!

Enough RAM and a fast processor, good keyboard - SL is alot about typing.

Doesn´t need a wide-screen but a big screen is a nice thing.

Monti

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Rolig Loon

Rolig Loon

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Look for a laptop designed for gaming.  As Monti says, a machine like that will have a separate dedicated graphics card, not simply an Intel graphics chip on the motherboard.  You won't be able to find a decent one at Wal-Mart or Best Buy, where most machines are designed for office or school use and for casual viewing of YouTube videos.  Second Life puts an unusually heavy demand on graphics, so a lightweight machine is easily overwhelmed.  Expect to pay around $1,000 or more.  As Monti says, you can get better quality for much less cost in a desktop machine.

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Rhonda Huntress

Rhonda Huntress

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Computers are like race cars.  Speed costs money.  just how fast do you want to go?  I mean you can get 5TB of Ram (not disk space, Random Access Memory so your whole hard drive could be loaded into RAM at one time) for around 50,000USD.

If you can get by on less RAM you can get an Alienware 17 with a graphics amp for 3500 - 4000 dollars or so.

If you want something more off the shelf, MSI has a nice one.  It will set you back $4,800.

 

I have also played SL on an older Toshiba Satalite with Intel HD gpu that would run around 800 bucks now.  It was OK and al but not the best.  Everything above will blow it out of the water.

 

 

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Nalates Urriah

Nalates Urriah

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24 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Hi, I wonder if you could revisit this issue and just give one answer: one is the CURRENT cheapest yet functioning laptop. That could be bought off the shelf at Best Buy, without having to buy a separate graphics card and have it installed, etc. etc. Just off the shelf cheapest best option for a laptop that plays SL enough at least to do some basic group and land functions while traveling.

Best Buy has a $500 unit that should actually be pretty decent. Lenovo - 330S-15IKB 15.6" Laptop. 

The i5-8250U is an 8th gen CPU with the current best HD Graphics available.

You could drop back to an older CPU and cut a bunch off the price. Dell Latitude 3450 i5-5200u - 5th gen CPU. A 7th gen CPU is here: Dell 15.6" Inspiron 15 5000 (i5-7100u)

You have to watch the number after the i3, i5, and i7. Sales peeps try to dazzle people with the i5 and skip the generation info. The 6th and 7th gen CPU's fall in between. The 5th gen is about as far back as I think you can safely go for SL.

Coffee is right the amount of memory is important. HD Graphics has no dedicated video memory. It uses the computers general memory. I think 16GB of RAM is a minimum. But, SL will run on these machines with 8GB and if you have a loose interpretation of "run" then even 4GB. But, 4 is really going to suck.

 

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Lillith Hapmouche

Lillith Hapmouche

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What's so hard about naming an exact hard limit on one's budget? Would be much more handy information to add to a question, instead of full-quoting a post from 2016.

The cheapest of the cheap option for very casual tasks while on tour would probably be the Lumiya viewer for an Android phone or tablet. Or that streaming service thingy that is sometimes mentioned.

Those "not wine, not water" laptops below the $500 mark are simply not meant for tasks like SL. Even if their components might be remotely up to the task, chances are high that the cooling system or the battery won't last long. The named ones are quite honest as they aren't even advertised as remotely gaming capable.  
The Inspiron might do for that money, while the Latitude sounds like still too expensive for what it has to offer. The Lenovo sounds too expensive and too oversized for the very basic tasks.

PS: You might have an external GPU for a laptop, but that kinda beats the portable aspect. But replacing a built in GPU with a better one is certainly not worth the hassle and all the extra money, if it is possible at all. You might as well forget about that
RAM and SSD can usually easily be replaced. But that's it.

PPS: Personally, I find those plain "xth gen" term the most pointless choice. Those CPUs have specific names and an i5-xxxxU can quite make a difference in judgement.

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cykarushb

cykarushb

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On 6/22/2018 at 6:28 PM, CoffeeDujour said:

If you're going to play SL on a lappy then I have one word. RAM

16GB or move on

Laptops with reasonable amounts of memory as shipped new also tend to have decent processors and graphics, 

Can yall stop necrobumping multiple year old posts.

Also, 16gb of ram for SL? What? This game uses like 3gb tops, maybe 4 if youre using firestorm or something. Ive played SL on hardware that had 2gb of ram and it still ran, currently on 8gb without any issues whatsoever. Basing your tech purchases off of one metric are why manufacturers still make 5400rpm hard drives, a buyer sees "OOH, 1 TERABYTE OF STORAGE" and buys it even though its a crap laptop with a slow hard drive. RAM quantity isnt everything.

On 6/22/2018 at 6:13 PM, Prokofy Neva said:

Hi, I wonder if you could revisit this issue and just give one answer: one is the CURRENT cheapest yet functioning laptop. That could be bought off the shelf at Best Buy, without having to buy a separate graphics card and have it installed, etc. etc. Just off the shelf cheapest best option for a laptop that plays SL enough at least to do some basic group and land functions while traveling.

 

Literally anything with a 7th gen i series processor will have HD620 and it will play SL. Even if its a chromebook, flash it with seabios and install Linux, it will run the linux viewer.

Theoretically the cheapest new laptop on Best Buy could play SL, just really terribly.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-inspiron-11-6-laptop-amd-a6-4gb-memory-32gb-emmc-flash-memory-gray/6188326.p?skuId=6188326

That APU is garbage but it would run, https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/AMD-A6-9220e-vs-Intel-Core2-Duo-E6700/3198vs1668

 

Though honestly, thats just throwing away money. If all youre doing is chatting while traveling then buy quite literally any laptop you can find and run Radegast

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Lindal Kidd

Lindal Kidd

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58 minutes ago, cykarushb said:

Though honestly, thats just throwing away money. If all youre doing is chatting while traveling then buy quite literally any laptop you can find and run Radegast

That's technically correct.  But as you know, Radegast is a text-only application.  While you can chat or IM your friends, it's a far cry from "being in" SL.

As for resurrecting old threads, there's a school of thought that says searching for previous answers is the good and responsible thing to do, rather than create ten thousand posts all asking "Why is it so laggy" or "Help!  I didn't get the $L I bought!"  Anyway, either way, the question gets asked.

Prok, as you can see, there's a wide variety of opinions on this one.  As there should be, given the wide variety of people's needs and budgets and expectations.  I got very acceptable results with a five year old ASUS 15" laptop.  I think pretty much any full featured laptop in about the $500 range will handle SL just fine for basic tasks while traveling.

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Coffee Pancake

Coffee Pancake

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15 hours ago, cykarushb said:

Also, 16gb of ram for SL? What? This game uses like 3gb tops, maybe 4

I quoted 16Gb for several reasons. 

  • Any laptop shipping with that amount of ram will come with a decent CPU and GPU, immediately cuts the number of options down.
  • Windows 10 .. kinda needs 4GB to get out of bed .. and will happily eat another 2 with buffers and cache (and prioritize that over running applications!). 8Gb is tight and bottle necks fast.
  • Typical use-case is running SL and a tabbed web browser at the same time. People complain about SL performance all day, but they wont even think about closing chrome.
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Rolig Loon

Rolig Loon

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1 hour ago, Kaili Moonbeam said:

Does my laptop have enough resources to be in Second Life? 

The best way to find out is to log in and find out for yourself.  Since you already have the computer and a SL account, that experiment should be quick and easy.  I suspect that the answer is going to be NO, or Yes but very frustrating.  It's possible to run with only 4 Gb of memory, but you may find yourself with memory limitations if you are running any other programs in the background at the same time.  You will do much better with at least 8 Gb.  More importantly, the Intel graphics chip is poorly suited for SL.  You will find that image quality is unsatisfying and you may be prone to a lot of rendering issues.  I suspect that you will only be able to run with a short draw distance, with your Quality slider set to Low.and with no advanced lighting or shadows. 

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Kaili Moonbeam

Kaili Moonbeam

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2 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

The best way to find out is to log in and find out for yourself.  Since you already have the computer and a SL account, that experiment should be quick and easy. 

2 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

The best way to find out is to log in and find out for yourself.  Since you already have the computer and a SL account, that experiment should be quick and easy.  I suspect that the answer is going to be NO, or Yes but very frustrating.  It's possible to run with only 4 Gb of memory, but you may find yourself with memory limitations if you are running any other programs in the background at the same time.  You will do much better with at least 8 Gb.  More importantly, the Intel graphics chip is poorly suited for SL.  You will find that image quality is unsatisfying and you may be prone to a lot of rendering issues.  I suspect that you will only be able to run with a short draw distance, with your Quality slider set to Low.and with no advanced lighting or shadows. 

Thank you   I was hoping  it would work but my laptop is not capable enough from what you described.  I’m going to install it on my Mac Mini and move my entire desktop to a more user-friendly room than where it is now.  I hope the Mac-mini is capable of running it. Thanks again  

 

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Mariska Lysette

Mariska Lysette

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I've been looking at new laptops for using in SL and this thread came up during my searches - so I'm going to resurrect it :)

 

I'm currently looking at the following spec and wondered if anyone has any input? I suppose I'm most interested in whether this should last me SL wise for at least 3 years. 

 

 

 

SPECIFICATION DETAIL
Screen Size 17.3"
Screen Type 17.3" FHD (1920*1080), Anti-Glare, 100%sRGB
Screen Resolution 1920*1080
Backlight LED
Processor Intel Core™ i7-9750H Hex Core Processor (2.6GHZ - 4.5GHz)
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti ,GDDR6 6GB
Storage 256GB NVMe PCIe SSD
1TB HDD
Memory 16GB DDR IV (2666MHz)
Operating System Windows®,10 Home
Lan Ethernet: Killer Gb LAN
Wireless: Intel Wireless-AC 9560 (2*2 a/c)
Bluetooth Bluetooth v5
USB Ports 1x Type-C USB3.2 Gen2
2x Type-A USB3.2 Gen1
1x Type-A USB3.2 Gen2
Display Ports 1 x HDMI 2.0 Port(s) (4K @ 60Hz)
1 x Mini-DisplayPort
Dimensions 547mm,108mm,384mm
Weight 2.9 kgs
Warranty 2 Year
Extra Features Integrated 720p HD Webcam with Microphone, Single Colour Backlit Keyboard (Red), SD Card Reader
 

Thanks :)

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Mariska Lysette

Mariska Lysette

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2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Opening old threads is fine, we call it "necroposting" - bringing a thread back from the dead!

I know what necroposting is. I'm unclear who you're unhappy with but I can live with that. 

Thanks again to Lindal for answering my question - I've been in SL long enough to know she knows what she's talking about. :)

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Love Zhaoying

Love Zhaoying

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16 minutes ago, Mariska Lysette said:

I know what necroposting is. I'm unclear who you're unhappy with but I can live with that. 

Thanks again to Lindal for answering my question - I've been in SL long enough to know she knows what she's talking about. :)

I'm not unhappy at all. I was serious when I asked Lindal if "in 3 years (after your notebook is no longer enough for SL), we can open the thread again." She didn't get my humor 😻😹

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Lindal Kidd

Lindal Kidd

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2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I'm not unhappy at all. I was serious when I asked Lindal if "in 3 years (after your notebook is no longer enough for SL), we can open the thread again." She didn't get my humor 😻😹

Oh...no, sorry, I totally missed that.

Sure, why not?  One of us will be able to say, "I told you so!"

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