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Considering this laptop - how will it compare?


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Ok, so to cover something i see come up a lot when searching the topic: 

I have a desktop, it's fine. I need a new laptop. It's not specifically for SL., I just really want to be able to use it for that as well. 😛

 

I have been trying to look up posts and gather info on my own, but I have a sluggish brain that makes reading a lot of technical jargon ans specs listings exhausting, so I figured I'd hop in here and ask.

I want a laptop that can run SL fairly well. I don't need ultra graphics and shadows, and I don't spend much time in very high lag areas.  I figured trying to compare it with my current laptop would be helpful in deciding, but I don't have a firm enough grasp of these things to really know what difference to expect in performance.  My current laptop runs SL "fine...ish". I keep the graphics on low, or medium if I'm feeling daring. It lags quite a bit.

My current, soon to be demoted laptop is an Asus Notebook F550J, and these are the specs I could dig up: 

  • i5-4200H
  • 8GB RAM
  • Nvidia Ge Force GTX 850M
  • 500GB HDD

I found a laptop I can afford (refurbished), it's an Acer Aspire 5 with the following specs: 

  • i7-8565U, 8th gen.
  • 16 GB RAM
  • Intel UHD Graphics 620
  • 512GB SSD 

 

I know dedicated graphics is preferred, but can the RAM and i7-core kinda.. make up for it? Can I expect a big difference in performance between these two? 

 

Edited by Weary Ghost
Small edit for clarification on first specs listed.
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3 hours ago, Weary Ghost said:

I found a laptop I can afford (refurbished), it's an Acer Aspire 5 with the following specs: 

  • i7-8565U, 8th gen.
  • 16 GB RAM
  • Intel UHD Graphics 620
  • 512GB SSD 

That graphics card has issues with SL right now (note that the ticket refers to Intel HD 620/630 - the UHD is just a rename of the HD):

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-225655

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2 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

That graphics card has issues with SL right now (note that the ticket refers to Intel HD 620/630 - the UHD is just a rename of the HD):

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-225655

Thanks for the heads up! 

2 hours ago, CoffeeDujour said:

Of those two I would pick the nvidia, and look at adding more memory and swapping out the hdd for an ssd as a priority.

https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-850M-vs-Intel-HD-620-Mobile-Kaby-Lake/m9138vsm153579

Oh, that was my current laptop I was using as comparison, and I'm done digging around inside it. >.>

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16 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

That graphics card has issues with SL right now (note that the ticket refers to Intel HD 620/630 - the UHD is just a rename of the HD):

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-225655

Just ran it on my aspire with an i5 7200u and HD 620, runs fine. It may be an issue more with specific driver versions for it though.

edit: and before someone throws a fit, yes I tested it in the criteria of the jira mentioned, on a 64 bit viewer, with a system avatar and others loaded

The i7 would definitely outperform your current haswell i5 by a pretty significant margin, but the 850m outclasses Intel HD 620 entirely. 

Since the 4200H is soldered your only real upgrades for that laptop would be an SSD if you don't have one and more ram if you ever max your 8gb.

Look into something with a modern dedicated graphics option, something with a current mobile i5 and even a GTX 1050 mobile gpu would be pretty capable and not too expensive.

HD 620 will play SL at decent frame rates, just don't expect it to perform well in crowded places. I used the above mentioned Acer Aspire as my main SL machine for a while and even that 7th gen i5 with HD 620 was playing SL in 1080p on general medium settings and getting smooth frame rates in less crowded spaces. But your current laptop would outperform that i7 option, so unless you want something potentially lighter or with other features that it has and your current one doesn't, with the sacrifice of performance in SL, don't bother.

Edited by cykarushb
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1 hour ago, cykarushb said:

Just ran it on my aspire with an i5 7200u and HD 620, runs fine. It may be an issue more with specific driver versions for it though.

edit: and before someone throws a fit, yes I tested it in the criteria of the jira mentioned, on a 64 bit viewer, with a system avatar and others loaded

The i7 would definitely outperform your current haswell i5 by a pretty significant margin, but the 850m outclasses Intel HD 620 entirely. 

Since the 4200H is soldered your only real upgrades for that laptop would be an SSD if you don't have one and more ram if you ever max your 8gb.

Look into something with a modern dedicated graphics option, something with a current mobile i5 and even a GTX 1050 mobile gpu would be pretty capable and not too expensive.

HD 620 will play SL at decent frame rates, just don't expect it to perform well in crowded places. I used the above mentioned Acer Aspire as my main SL machine for a while and even that 7th gen i5 with HD 620 was playing SL in 1080p on general medium settings and getting smooth frame rates in less crowded spaces. But your current laptop would outperform that i7 option, so unless you want something potentially lighter or with other features that it has and your current one doesn't, with the sacrifice of performance in SL, don't bother.

Thanks, that was really useful info. :)

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15 hours ago, cykarushb said:

Just ran it on my aspire with an i5 7200u and HD 620, runs fine. It may be an issue more with specific driver versions for it though.

It is totally specific to driver versions, but I don't recall which ones are the issue, but it is a more recent driver version. There are threads here in the forums about it, with Whirly usually providing the user with a link to an older driver version that works ok.

I had bookmarked the JIRA, but forgot to bookmark any of the threads with the specifics and Whirly's fixes. 

Edited by LittleMe Jewell
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