A laptop for ED in 2019

[Old Duck]

There's a chance that I might come into some extra money later this year. Technically I have money now, but I am VERY frugal. Still, I may be in the market for a new 'power user' laptop, and if I could get something that can play ED for hours at 1920x1080x60fps Ultra quality, well I might finally defect over to the PC side (I hear you have good shadows). I know this question has been asked before, but those threads are likely out-of-date by now.

I'd like to spend no more than $1000 USD ($1200 top), and I want good HARDWARE. I'm typing this on a 2012 MacBook Pro, and there's not a thing wrong with it - a quick wipe of rubbing alcohol and it looks like it did the day I bought it. Before this laptop, I was lucky to get two years out of those plastic Dells and HPs before something broke.

Please understand that I'm not buying a PC for the sole purpose of playing ED. That's why I'm focusing on a laptop rather than a giant box on the floor ATM. Portability is important. Now technically if it were a 'box' PC the size of an XB1X (ie - something portable that I can throw in my laptop case like I do my PS4 Slim), then I could probably work with that as well.

Thanks!

 

[Morbad]

I consider recommending anything before a purchase is imminent, especially with new generations of laptop components just released or soon to be release, rather premature.

Anyway, are you expecting to play on battery power for hours? Cause that's not likely to happen on any laptop without battery swapping or some external power source. Even if it can do light work all day, playing most demanding 3D games will drain a laptop in very short order.

You will certainly be able to get a laptop that will run the game well, while still being portable and useful for other tasks, for that sort of budget. However, you'll almost certainly want to be connected to AC power to actually play ED on it for any extended session.

I hear you have good shadows

Not sure I'd call them 'good' shadows, but you are not wholly at the whims of Frontier's presets on PC, and even if you use their presets, there are more of them.

 

[Robert Maynard]

I'd wait to see what both AMD and Intel have in store with new generation APU offerings.

 

[Old Duck]

Anyway, are you expecting to play on battery power for hours?

Oh no, I'm almost always near AC, just not the same AC, if you get my meaning. When I said, "Play ED for hours", I meant in regards to heat. I know some laptops have a meltdown if run at 100% CPU/GPU for too long.

I'd wait to see what both AMD and Intel have in store with new generation APU offerings.

This won't be happening before November (I'll likely try to catch a Black Friday sale). I'm not necessarily looking for a specific model, but perhaps rather a brand / lineup. I've read things in the past about some brands of laptops being rubbish with others being great. I'm particularly interested in durability and heat management.

I used to be on top of all this years ago, before I switched to Mac and console gaming. These days, not so much. The other 'wait and see' issue is that new consoles are coming out in a year, as well as "Elite: New Era", so the old man of wisdom in me says to wait one more year. However, there's still a kid in me who may have some money burning a hole in his pocket that says, "Shiney, precious, MINE!" when thinking about a new laptop, LOL.

 

[Morbad]

When I said, "Play ED for hours", I meant in regards to heat. I know some laptops have a meltdown if run at 100% CPU/GPU for too long.

Best way to avoid this is to read reviews of similar models and see how they are cooled. Selecting a model that uses the same chassis as a higher-end model can also help considerably...a chassis/cooling solution will be designed around the hottest parts than can be placed inside, go down a few steps and you'll likely have a relatively cool running system, even if the highest end models of the line are known for issues.

 

[Rustnsawdust]

System requirements for ED are relatively low, I think. My three-year-old laptop does a pretty good job with it. An i7 CPU running at a slow 2.5gHz, 8GB of RAM, and an nVidia 840m GPU. I'd expect any laptop with a CPU in the 3gHz range and something around a 1050 or 1060 gpu (or equivalent) to do well.

 

[GeoJase]

Most gaming laptops will get you there without much trouble. Biggest issue will be fan noise. I use a Dell Inspiron 15 7000 Gaming laptop. It does the job, despite the sub-par display.

 

[Wraith Mortis]

Personal experience - Some of the best hardware I've had was an ASUS ROG-GSXsomething.or.other - at least 5 years old now, probably a bit more, and still running well enough. Having said that, I am currently running on an MSI... couple months in and happy so far. She does run hot though - evidently the slim ones all do. I have been assured it is nothing to be concerned over. Eventually, I may stop being concerned. In the meantime, I have it on an external fan set up and,worse case scenario, my ASUS isn't too far away -- I upgraded for newer bits and to keep up with other heavier graphics games as well (and because who doesn't like a fancy new toy?). I believe both brands have decent offerings in that price range. ymmv.

Edit - Guess I should note on the MSI, ED barely gets her warm - Asassin's Creed Odyssey and similar made the external fan a thing.

 

[MickyG1982]

System requirements for ED are relatively low, I think. My three-year-old laptop does a pretty good job with it. An i7 CPU running at a slow 2.5gHz, 8GB of RAM, and an nVidia 840m GPU. I'd expect any laptop with a CPU in the 3gHz range and something around a 1050 or 1060 gpu (or equivalent) to do well.

The GTX 1050 will not do Ultra at 60fps, at least mine won't (2 gb model) at least not unless you drop the resolution to 720p, but then that was the same for my old GTX 960 / AMD 860K based desktop too. As a half decent compromise I tend to play at 900p to allow for some of the bells & whistles and a decent framerate, on a small screen that is just fine however.

 

[Old Duck]

Edit - Guess I should note on the MSI, ED barely gets her warm - Asassin's Creed Odyssey and similar made the external fan a thing.

There's only a couple of games I would play on the laptop, as I'm still a console gamer by heart. ED is the big one that comes to mind, and I own a copy of FSX from years ago that I'd install, along with my PC copy of Skyrim (with mods, yah!) and perhaps a few PC-only games like the old C&C style games.

The GTX 1050 will not do Ultra at 60fps, at least mine won't (2 gb model) at least not unless you drop the resolution to 720p, but then that was the same for my old GTX 960 / AMD 860K based desktop too. As a half decent compromise I tend to play at 900p to allow for some of the bells & whistles and a decent framerate, on a small screen that is just fine however.

My dream of 1080px60fps Ultra is "negotiable". If the framerate drops to 30 around a crowded station or planetary base, I'm okay with that. I'm also okay if I have to dial back some of the more niche graphics settings. I primarily care about texture detail, LOD, and of course, shadow / lighting quality. I don't need shimmering exhaust or excessive bloom or 'god rays' in hazres while I'm doing combat. One of the things that draws me to PC when it comes to ED is that I get to determine what has priority, not Frontier.

 

[Morbad]

For 1000 USD a GTX 1660, 1070, or even RTX 2060 is in reach. You don't need to settle for a 1050 or even 1060.

1080p60 with ultra or beyond settings will be quite viable for your budget when you're ready to buy, especially if your purchase date is flexible enough to take advantage of sales that occur all the time.

 

[Rat Catcher]

@Old Duck - I hope you do come to the dark side and join the PC players - I'm sure meeting up with you online could be as much fun as your 'take' adds to the forum.
FYI: Gaming laptops tend to be noisy... My Aorus (I7@4GHz + GTX1070) needs headphones (or my surround system!) as the fans are noisier than the in-built speakers, almost... but it will just keep on playing, even when the fans are flat out!

 

[Red_Beard_98]

I game on an Alienware laptop and so far have no regrets with the purchase after having it for over a year now. While playing Elite I have it on ultra graphics with no issues and it rarely ever kicks in the noisy internal fans. I've never have an issue with framerates either. While Alienware is owned by Dell (which made me hesitant to buy one at first) they seem to have retained their quality from before they were bought out. It is a very sturdy machine. At full price they are expensive (overly so) so If you can find a good sale it might be worth it but it may still be a bit on the pricey side. I do some long gaming sessions sometimes and it handles everything like a champ.

No matter which laptop you decide on though I would recommend getting one of those under chassis cooling pads as well. It's essentially just a few computer fans in a case that blow extra air from underneath but I find it helps a lot with keeping things cool and it is more quiet than the internal fans on the laptop.

 

[Old Duck]

For 1000 USD a GTX 1660, 1070, or even RTX 2060 is in reach. You don't need to settle for a 1050 or even 1060.

1080p60 with ultra or beyond settings will be quite viable for your budget when you're ready to buy, especially if your purchase date is flexible enough to take advantage of sales that occur all the time.

Speaking of, is there something particular I should be looking for? I think I read somewhere that ED prefers more dedicated video RAM, for example. Also, I'm assuming 4 core will do fine. Paying extra for 8 core when many programs don't scale well with their multithreading feels like a waste of $$ unless ED really takes advantage of these extra cores.

 

[Rat Catcher]

@Old Duck The more video ram you can give the better (not just for ED) but if you are playing in 1080p... I'd still suggest 6-8 Gigs, just for a nice big buffer for textures. 4 cores with HT should do fine, my I7 runs ED in 3k or VR happily.

 

[Morbad]

Speaking of, is there something particular I should be looking for? I think I read somewhere that ED prefers more dedicated video RAM, for example. Also, I'm assuming 4 core will do fine. Paying extra for 8 core when many programs don't scale well with their multithreading feels like a waste of $$ unless ED really takes advantage of these extra cores.

Since 3.0, ED will make good use of a fair bit of VRAM. Before that it used to max out around 4-6GiB and there would be texture LOD issues at higher settings (well beyond ultra texture resolution) because the game appeared to be evicting assets too early. Now the main limiting factor in the texture resolutions that are viable to run are related to the GPU itself rather than the game's handling of video memory. Anyway, ultra or a bit beyond only really needs about 4GiB for 1080p, though 6-8 would be ideal.

As for CPU, this is not atypical CPU load for ED on my main system (which is a 4.2GHz i7-5820k, 6c/12t part), during a mostly GPU limited scenario (all of them really, with an overclocked 1080 Ti at 4k with beyond ultra settings):

Heavy load on one logical CPU (the main render thread), moderate load on four others, and some non-trivial load on three or four more.

Overall CPU utilization is low on a part with this many logical cores, but the game is still using eight or nine of them to a very noticeable degree and cramming all of that onto a quad core part that doesn't have SMT can be problematic.

Anyway, any modern mobile i7 or Ryzen 3000 part is going to have at least 4 fast cores with SMT, which should be sufficient.

Most of the GPUs that would hit your performance target are going to have 6-8GiB of dedicated video memory. Some will have four, which is borderline, but may be acceptable, if it's cheap enough. I would explicitly avoid anything less than that, no matter how fast the GPU itself is; you will not like what happens when you start playing with texture or shadow quality without enough VRAM.

To narrow things down, I'd just go to Newegg and search for all laptops with acceptably potent GPUs in your price range, then manually start ruling things out.

Example: https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100157995 601206490 601327201 601327202 601329747 4022 4023

One of the first options that came up under that search was this: https://www.newegg.com/gold-steel-a...u-eb74-gaming-entertainment/p/N82E16834235196

....which I'd consider a very solid option, were you buying one today.

Newegg is pretty good as far as prices, service and return policies go, but if you find a model that looks promising you can and should check other e-tailers for similar models, to make sure you're getting the best deal.

Anyway, there will likely be a few more options (possibly mobile Navi GPUs or a mobile RTX refresh, as well as Zen 2 and Ice Lake CPUs) to consider by November and prices will certainly change. You shouldn't commit to any particular parts until you're ready to buy them.

 

[SpaceTrash67]

I picked up a Dell G5 Gaming Laptop a month or two ago to play ED while I travel for business at night in the hotel - aside from the occasional "jet exhaust" cooling fans (not exactly sure what triggers them - haven't correlated to game spefically...Quieter than a mouse while I type this...- otherwise I wholeheartedly recommend it (at least for ED) - runs really smooth - here are the specs...I paid right @ $1200 - so by this November I'll be these ay be down in the $1000 range....I got it for following reasons:

• Latest i7 CPU (generation 9)
• Graphics to support 1080p (screenshots are crisp and sharp)
• Full size keyboard
• 16 GB Memory
• Separate SSD Boot and HDDs

Hope that helps... o7

 

[MickyG1982]

I picked up a Dell G5 Gaming Laptop a month or two ago to play ED while I travel for business at night in the hotel - aside from the occasional "jet exhaust" cooling fans (not exactly sure what triggers them - haven't correlated to game spefically...Quieter than a mouse while I type this...- otherwise I wholeheartedly recommend it (at least for ED) - runs really smooth - here are the specs...I paid right @ $1200 - so by this November I'll be these ay be down in the $1000 range....I got it for following reasons:

• Latest i7 CPU (generation 9)
• Graphics to support 1080p (screenshots are crisp and sharp)
• Full size keyboard
• 16 GB Memory
• Separate SSD Boot and HDDs

Hope that helps... o7

You'll probably want to delete the product ID from your picture...

In any case, you don't mention what GPU you have in it, very useful info.

 

[Old Duck]

Since I'm still in the "to buy or not to buy" phase, somebody sell me on the benefits of a laptop able to run in ultra-quality mode by posting some ultra-quality screenshots in this thread. I'm particularly interested in lighting, shadows, texture detail, asset LOD at a distance, and planetary surface LOD. Oh, and aliasing. They don't need to be 1080p native captures (I'm on a 720p laptop right now).

Also, do we know if Steam will handle Arx purchases and future DLC? I don't want to give my credit card to Frontier!

 

[MickyG1982]

Since I'm still in the "to buy or not to buy" phase, somebody sell me on the benefits of a laptop able to run in ultra-quality mode by posting some ultra-quality screenshots in this thread. I'm particularly interested in lighting, shadows, texture detail, asset LOD at a distance, and planetary surface LOD. Oh, and aliasing. They don't need to be 1080p native captures (I'm on a 720p laptop right now).

Also, do we know if Steam will handle Arx purchases and future DLC? I don't want to give my credit card to Frontier!

Future DLC will work as it always has on Steam, you can buy it from Steam. Nobody knows how Arx is going to work however.