Laptop for SL?

[MelodyMoonflower]

Hi, I am looking for an inexpensive laptop that will run SL fairly well. Right now I have one that's old and lags like mad. Suggestions would be appreciated. TIA

[AmeliaJ08]

How inexpensive?

The best advice is to look at gaming laptops since this is the segment where you usually find a dedicated GPU which is the key to running SL fairly well. These are usually not inexpensive however.

Dedicated GPU's are not restricted to gaming laptops but are becoming quite uncommon in laptops outside of this segment. When a laptop is inexpensive it will most likely have an integrated GPU and if you're restricted to buying one of these then I say make sure it is an AMD Ryzen powered laptop and as new as you can afford since these chips have the best integrated GPU solution but it still pales in comparison to a 'real' dedicated GPU.

 

 

 

Edited May 26 by AmeliaJ08

[MarissaOrloff]

"Gaming" laptops will start around $600 for an older model but for something decent you're looking right around $1000 as an entry price point. To get the best help you have to define what "fairly well" means to you. An example is if you want to be completely lag free when playing you're looking at the $4,000 range for a laptop with a RTX-4090. Everything else down from there is a compromise in performance for price.

[Ardy Lay]

"Laptop" is not the most cost-effective form factor for running a program like Second Life Viewer "fairly well".

[Nalates Urriah]

 @MelodyMoonflower Some of the specs to consider:

CPU: i5 10th gen and up. The i5 is usually the best performance for the money. The i7 and i9 are more than you need, pushing the cost up. You also want the fastest CPU you can get. Laptops tend to run at 1.5MHz, which will give you lag, as in low frame rates, no matter what else you do. 3+MHz is better but not common in laptops.

Video: There is CPU-based video and dedicated chip video for laptops. Most laptops now use CPU-based video. This type of graphics processing is not optimized for 3D games. It works well for 2D games and streamed videos. However, SL will run decently on such machines. SL will run much better on a computer with a dedicated graphics chip.

Memory: I find SL runs way better with 32GB of ram. It will run with as little as 8GB. A big problem comes up when you decide to use CPU-based graphics processing. The CPU then confiscates and reserves a chunk of RAM for graphics processing. This reduces the amount of RAM the viewer has for its use. In such a scenario 8GB is not enough. Step up to at least 16GB. - Cheap memory is slow. With the typical laptop with a slow CPU slow memory is not a problem. However, if you get a faster CPU you need to make sure the memory matches.

Data Storage: we have SSD (Solid State) and HD (spinning disk) for storage. SSD can be fast but not necessarily. So give up the idea that SSD is going to be fast on a laptop with a slow CPU. I suggest you consider price and size and disregard factoring in speed.

Performance: No matter how much power a computer has, your viewer settings can overload the hardware and drag performance down to single-digit frame rates. There are numerous videos and tutorials online that show how to tweak the SL Viewer for the best performance one can get from their hardware. Those I've written are here. I suggest you look for older articles. Seems like over the last few years we have had fewer people writing about how to get better SL performance. How to tweak 3D rendering has not changed significantly in the last 10 years.

Screen Size: Whether a 14" or 17" laptop or a 24" monitor it does not affect performance unless the pixel dimensions change. Most screens now use 1920x1080px. Larger sizes, like 2560×1080 and 3440×1440, will decrease performance... said another way... require more graphics horsepower.

[gwynchisholm]

How much of a concern is the portability factor? Do you need a laptop for being outright portable, where battery life and weight are a concern? Or do you want a laptop because it’s a tidy all in one and will be using it plugged in at a desk?

That can really change what you’d need in a laptop on a budget. As well what a budget would be defined by.

On the cheap your best value choices are older used mobile workstations. Thinkpad P series, Dell Precision, HP Zbooks. They can be had pretty cheap much like any used piece of business equipment due to how that market cycles, and depending on the hardware chosen will do fine for SecondLife for very little money.

The problem there is you’re buying years old mobile workstations, their battery life isn’t great at all and they tend to be heavy. I have a thinkpad P50 I use to use for SecondLife and it did quite well in 1080p at higher but not crazy graphical settings. It cost me under $300 as a base machine and was around $400 in total with minor upgrades. The downside is it weighs about 7lbs and gets 3 hours of battery life. Though the batteries are swappable.

Kinda the drawback of older tech, you can save a lot of money and get adequate performance but you lose some comfort qualities of new machines.

If portability is a concern and you’re willing to sacrifice graphical quality, you can get pretty good results from modern integrated graphics, at which point I’d recommend any current Lenovo ideapad, as they’re inexpensive consumer tier machines that will get you good performance for their price. That’s a personal recommendation but that entire class of modern consumer laptop will be fine for SecondLife, and get you good battery life and low weight. Drawback being they’ll be more expensive than an older used machine that would outperform them, but nothing too drastic. Usually in the 500-600$ range is where you’d find something of decent quality like that.

12 hours ago, Nalates Urriah said:

1.5MHz

Man that’s slightly faster than my commodore Vic 20 from 1981, modern laptops are getting pretty fast these days