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a PC laptop that runs SL with incredible graphics?


Kobuk Farshore
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i was thinking about a laptop myself..i love that i can take it anywhere..

but i also was looking into desktops because i just love a big monitor hehehe

anyways

have a look at the MSI laptops MSI has always been about extreme gamers.. this one looks hot hehehe..the MSI GT783-625US

i was glad to see their brand on a laptop...

i messed around to see what it would cost with everything on that addon list ..it ended up being $9708.73

and thats including the sweatshirt LOL

there are lots of addons if you wanted..but the one in the link is  starting at $2424.03

they also have a really nice promotion going on..

Current Promotion: FREE Copy of Battlefield 3 + Steelseries Siberia V2 Headset and Kinzu Gaming Mouse Bundle

http://www.xoticpc.com/msi-gt783625us-preorder-p-3512.html

 

GT783-625US

Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM Processor
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit
17.3" Full HD Anti-reflective Display (16:9; 1920 x 1080)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 580M discrete graphics (DDR5 2.0GB VRAM)
Accelerated performance with MSI TDE Technology
Full-color programmable backlit keyboard by SteelSeries
MSI Cooler Boost Technology
Dynaudio Premium Speakers w/ Subwoofer
128GB SSD + 750GB HDD(7200 RPM)
16GB DDR3 system memory
Blu-ray Disc burner
USB 3.0 for high speed data transfer
HDMI 1.4 (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) output
Built-in 720p HD webcam
Built-in 802.11b/g/n WLAN Card
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Okay, I'm glad I'm not the only one who looks up laptop reviews on YouTube. :P

That MSI does look really sweet-- I think the only thing that impressed me more about this Sager NP7282 is that for the same base-model price it has an i7 3.2GHz -3.46GHz processor. (nevermind, I realized why!) I don't think the Sager can take triple external monitors like the MSI though, and I'm completely curious to see you post a photo of your laptop set up like that!

ETA: The MSI is looking like the better computer. :}

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

Good post! These details are quite helpful to me, in my opinion before buying a laptop or desktop we must make sure about few things. They are brand, budget, processor, memory and video card, hard drive, optical drive, screen size, weight, battery, networking and do a final checkup for bluetooth, usb etc.., considering all these factors helpful to buy the best laptop that completes our needs.

 

PC review

notebook reviews

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  • 3 weeks later...

TL;DR: http://rog.asus.com/notebook/17-inch/g74sx/

Reviews that show gaming benchmarks on any laptop won't tell you anything about how SL will run on it. SL's graphics rendering and hardware compatability code are about ten years old and probably won't be updated any time soon because Linden Labs spends all their coding money on whoring up the GUI and finding new ways to sell prim hair.

SL's rendering code is old and it's crap.

SL's graphics code is infuriating. I have seen engineers look at how SL works and literally scream in frustration, blurting obscenities and such choice phrases as "what the hell is this, have we gone back in time to 2005?"

Anything developed in the last ten or fifteen years to make games run better on newer hardware (DirectX 11, SLI,Crossfire, nVidia Optimus) won't work at all.

Here's a short list of problems:

1. DirectX 11

SL doesn't even support DirectX. Most gamer-oriented GPU's focus primarily on DirectX and only have OpenGL support (which Second Life uses instead of DirectX) as a secondary feature.

2. SLI/Crossfire

SL doesn't support it at all and tends to be crashy when you have it enabled.

3. SL can't address more than 512MB of video RAM,

Getting a GPU paired with more video memory in hopes that it will make SL faster is an exercise in futility.

4. Any laptop that has a discreet GPU will have problems.

nVidia uses a technology called Optimus that switches between the slow, built in GPU and the nVidia discreet graphics depending on how you're using the laptop. When a game starts up it's supposed to signal the graphics driver that it's time to boogy so it can hand over the work to the nVidia GPU. Most game companies quickly released patches to support this shortly after the technology was introduced, but not LInden Labs, that would have taken time and money away from developing that new purcha$e delivery platform they've been working on.

> I just want something SL actually runs adequately on, which my $3,500 Macbook Pro currently fails to do.

Yes, you paid over three thousand dollars for a $400 PC laptop in a pretty aluminum case.

If you want to actually use your computer for things instead of having a pretty slab of aesthetic joy, just get a PC laptop and sell your Macbook. That is, unless you enjoy spending even more money every time you want to do something productive to fill in the gaps in Apple hardware and software support. If you want a really pretty laptop that is also very functional get one from one of these manufacturers:
 

  • Dell Alienware

If you want a laptop that is really pretty this is the way to go. You'll pay through the nose for mediocre hardware, but at least you'll have a nice shiny logo. If you enjoy paying $900 for a $250 SDD, go with Alienware.

 

  • Origin

Origin is well known for making intense gaming laptops. They are VERY expensive but they are also very high quality and their support is superb.

 

  • Malibal

Malibal uses the same hardware components as Origin but they don't charge as much. The cost difference shows in their lack of support.

Asus

Asus, while not recognized as a gaming laptop builder per se, has some challenging offerings that do not use nVidia's Optimus technology, which is clearly not compatible with SecondLife.

To make it easy for you, in terms of compatability and performance, the best laptop for your SL experience is probably going to be the Asus Asus G74SX.

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"I have seen engineers look at how SL works and literally scream in frustration" = so how come they, or you, don't write a better viewer then?  None of the things you complain about are dependent on the data that is transmitted from SL to the viewer nor on the fundamental way SL works.

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Hiro Fluffy wrote:

Here's a short list of problems:

1. DirectX 11

SL doesn't even support DirectX. Most gamer-oriented GPU's focus primarily on DirectX and only have OpenGL support (which Second Life uses instead of DirectX) as a secondary feature.

DirectX is crap.  What you're improperly attributing to the hardware in terms of DirectX support is properly attributed to the drivers.  Given the hardware natively speaks OpenGL, anything DirectX has to get translated to OpenGL before it goes to the GPU to start with.  Bonus points:  Because Microsoft loves vendor lock-in, they intentionally cripple direct OpenGL support by making it indirect for software: A layer on top of DirectX.  You will never get excellent OpenGL performance on Windows as a result, and this is intentional, to make DirectX look better on that platform.  Because DirectX is Windows-specific, you get to choose between supporting multiple platforms, or good Windows performance.  Linden Research correctly chose the more inclusive route.


Hiro Fluffy wrote:

4. Any laptop that has a discreet GPU will have problems.

News to me.  I've been using a ThinkPad T400 as my primary Second Life machine for about 3 years now.


Hiro Fluffy wrote:

> I just want something SL actually runs adequately on, which my $3,500 Macbook Pro currently fails to do.

Yes, you paid over three thousand dollars for a $400 PC laptop in a pretty aluminum case.

Further crippled by lacking a proper pointing device.  No, a freaking huge touchpad right in the spot the heel of your hand is naturally attracted to land in a typing break, with only one hardware button, is not a proper pointing device.  Try a pointing stick with three buttons, preferably a high quality one like the ones IBM and Lenovo provide instead.


Hiro Fluffy wrote:

If you want a really pretty laptop that is also very functional get one from one of these manufacturers:

 
  • Dell Alienware

If you want a laptop that is really pretty this is the way to go. You'll pay through the nose for mediocre hardware, but at least you'll have a nice shiny logo. If you enjoy paying $900 for a $250 SDD, go with Alienware.

 
  • Origin

Origin is well known for making intense gaming laptops. They are VERY expensive but they are also very high quality and their support is superb.

 
  • Malibal

Malibal uses the same hardware components as Origin but they don't charge as much. The cost difference shows in their lack of support.

Asus

Asus, while not recognized as a gaming laptop builder per se, has some challenging offerings that do not use nVidia's Optimus technology, which is clearly not compatible with SecondLife.

To make it easy for you, in terms of compatability and performance, the best laptop for your SL experience is probably going to be the Asus Asus G74SX.

I'd add Lenovo to the list and remove Dell/Alienware and most of Asus's line while we're at it, if the goal is for high performing OpenGL support.  For that, you're going to have to drop Windows, ultimately, so might as well go with someone that actually supports that.

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  • 2 months later...

hmmm.. i wonder if you've bought one yet.

The mainstream laptop scene ( machines with designated *mobile* hardware ) are about to go through a big change with - Intel's Ivy Bridge processor (good performance w/ less power consumption & a 30% boost in integrated graphics) - more PC's with ssd's & OLED displays. There's going to be a drop in price of the current line up of laptops and a whole new slew of next generation ones.

but if you want a good constant 30+ frames per second in SL.. none of the slim and efficient models are going to provide it. It's going to be big and bulky, hot, and always plugged in to it's power supply.

Number one. Forget Microsoft Windows.. i have both Windows and Linux installed on my PC and no matter which viewer i'm using at the time, my performance in Linux is always three times faster.

But if you're skeptical about Linux.. That's what dual booting is for. After you get your Windows PC, download and boot from the latest Linux Mint iso, it'll detect that you have windows and ask what preparations you'd like to make as far as space. 

Also, SL runs better on a 32bit install of linux. You can easily install a PAE kernel later to take advantage of 4GB of ram or more. It is easy, honest.. just one command in the terminal.

Anywho, back to laptops.. SL with deferred rendering (lights & shadows) needs lots of processing power within both the main processor and the graphics processor. 

Something like this would be nice.

MSI MS-1762 (GT70 0NC) Core™ i7 Gaming Notebook, 17.3" Full HD LED Matte LCD, NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 670M 1.5GB Graphics

http://www.avadirect.com/gaming-laptop-configurator.asp?PRID=24428

  and go ahead and get the 2.7 - 3.7 GHz i7 3820QM processor.. It's worth it !

All of the other default options are fine.. but.. if you want to go an additional step choose one of the 

Mushkin Chronos Deluxe SSD's as it's first drive and then select a larger regular HDD for the second.

That way your operating system (windows) and your applications can run faster, then you can use the regular hard disk drive for data storage (music & videos).

Where'd you go Ko ?

 

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Here's an in depth review of an MSI GT70 with slight variances of hardware but the proprietary features of the laptop itself are the same.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-MSI-GT70-Notebook.74077.0.html

I'd also like to clear up some misconceptions concerning Nvidia's solution to conserving battery life.

Nvidia Optimus is part of Nvidia's driver and when it's working in automatic mode it switches the display's output between the processor's integrated graphics and the laptop's discreet Graphics processor depending on the type of applications that are being used.

Updates within both the software and the newer components have alleviated past problems, such as an Opengl application (SL) not being recognized as a 3D application. The automatic feature of the Optimus video switching can also be bypassed for certain applications using profiles within Nvidia's control interface or even bypassed completely using a global option. 

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hummmm..  OR.. wait till the end of this month

 

NVIDIA Announces GeForce GTX 680M Notebook GPU

Category: Video Cards
Posted: June 5, 2012 12:56AM
Author: bp9801

NVIDIA has taken the wraps off its new notebook GPU, which will be the new flagship model. The GeForce GTX 680M is the fastest, most advanced notebook GPU ever thanks to its Kepler architecture. The GPU has 2GB of GDDR5 RAM clocked at 1800MHz on a 256-bit bus, 1344 CUDA cores, and a core frequency of 720MHz. The GTX 680M will help deliver the best performance possible for all the latest games, including 3D titles thanks to 3D Vision 2 and 3DTV Play. There will also be Adaptive V-sync, advanced AA modes, PhysX support, and even CUDA support to bring the 680M in line with its desktop brothers. NVIDIA Optimus technology allows you to switch to the integrated GPU so you can save on battery life outside of gaming, ensuring you will not have to worry about straying from the outlet. Alienware's M17x and M18x will make use of the GTX 680M, with the M18x including single and SLI configurations. The GPU will also appear in the MSI GT70 gaming notebooks and machines from Ava Direct, Maingear, and Origin. The notebooks should be available by the end of June.

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