ED on a Laptop - I've Got Questions!

Old Duck

Old Duck
I may be getting a new laptop to replace my old one, and if I do, I would probably invest in a low or mid-range (under $1000 US) gaming laptop. I haven't been a PC gamer since Unreal Tournament and Quake Arena days, so I have some questions, particular in regards to Elite Dangerous. Most of these questions are for laptop owners, but some are general PC questions.

1) Is anyone playing ED with high / ultra settings at 1920x1080 60 fps on a sub-$1000 laptop? If not, what about a solid 30 fps?

2) Does ED prefer ATI or Nvidia graphics, or does it not matter?

3) Related to #2, is there anything else ED "prefers" - a certain amount of RAM, a certain number of cores, etc?

4) What are the most "expensive" quality settings in ED? For example, I'd like really good shadows, high-quality textures, and minimal LOD-popping. I can happily live without certain special effects like heat shimmer.

5) How long can you play ED on an unplugged laptop before the battery is drained - say, 20 percent?

6) How hot does your laptop get while playing ED? Is it fairly quiet, or does it get noisy from the fans?

7) Can you drive an external display (in my case, 1080p monitor via HDMI) and maintain the quality and framerate of using your laptop screen?

I'll probably have more questions as these ones are answered and you tell me what you think. Please understand that I need a laptop, not a desktop.

Thank you!!!
 

777Driver

777Driver
I'll answer Q4 since VR pushes things to the limit and lets you know what settings are a performance hog -

Ambient occlusion is a killer, even on my 1080TI/ I7 7700K, Shadows will always be an FPS killer. Depending on what is the weakest link on your system (CPU/GPU) You'll want to adjust terrain and object draw distances.
 

Drelthar

Drelthar
Just get a laptop with an actual graphics card and you'll be able to play. Doubtful on max settings, but still.
 

Turd Ferguson

Turd Ferguson
I got a gen 7 i7 laptop with a GTX 1050 card for $750. it's not a "gaming laptop" brick (still very thin and portable - I travel with it).
it'll do 1080p in Ultra although it gets hot. not sure it will do VR (I have a desktop for that) but GPUs suck so much power you'd have to have it plugged in anyway if you wanted to play for more than 10 minutes.

even with ultta settings I always turn AA, AO, and blur off. they use a lot of gpu and don't really add much.

1) Is anyone playing ED with high / ultra settings at 1920x1080 60 fps on a sub-$1000 laptop? If not, what about a solid 30 fps? With my GTX 1050 on, yes. Using Intel Graphics, about 20 FPS

2) Does ED prefer ATI or Nvidia graphics, or does it not matter? no, but nVidia runs cooler and uses less power which is something to consider for a laptop.

3) Related to #2, is there anything else ED "prefers" - a certain amount of RAM, a certain number of cores, etc? I run with no virtual memory and crashed out all the time with 8 gigs. Upgraded to 24 and haven't had a crash since.

4) What are the most "expensive" quality settings in ED? For example, I'd like really good shadows, high-quality textures, and minimal LOD-popping. I can happily live without certain special effects like heat shimmer. Ambient Occlusion, Anti-Aliasing, Shadows. The first 2 can be switched off without noticing anything.

5) How long can you play ED on an unplugged laptop before the battery is drained - say, 20 percent? Not long, especially with a discrete graphics card. MAYBE 10-20 minutes?

6) How hot does your laptop get while playing ED? Is it fairly quiet, or does it get noisy from the fans? Remember that discrete video cards crank out about the same amount of heat as desktop cards under the same load. So yeah, it gets hot and loud.

7) Can you drive an external display (in my case, 1080p monitor via HDMI) and maintain the quality and framerate of using your laptop screen? Yes...with and without the GTX 1050 running I can get the same performance on the external monitor as I do on the laptop.
 
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StefanOS

Volunteer Moderator
StefanOS
Old Duck said:
I may be getting a new laptop to replace my old one, and if I do, I would probably invest in a low or mid-range (under $1000 US) gaming laptop. I haven't been a PC gamer since Unreal Tournament and Quake Arena days, so I have some questions, particular in regards to Elite Dangerous. Most of these questions are for laptop owners, but some are general PC questions.

1) Is anyone playing ED with high / ultra settings at 1920x1080 60 fps on a sub-$1000 laptop? If not, what about a solid 30 fps?

2) Does ED prefer ATI or Nvidia graphics, or does it not matter?

3) Related to #2, is there anything else ED "prefers" - a certain amount of RAM, a certain number of cores, etc?

4) What are the most "expensive" quality settings in ED? For example, I'd like really good shadows, high-quality textures, and minimal LOD-popping. I can happily live without certain special effects like heat shimmer.

5) How long can you play ED on an unplugged laptop before the battery is drained - say, 20 percent?

6) How hot does your laptop get while playing ED? Is it fairly quiet, or does it get noisy from the fans?

7) Can you drive an external display (in my case, 1080p monitor via HDMI) and maintain the quality and framerate of using your laptop screen?

I'll probably have more questions as these ones are answered and you tell me what you think. Please understand that I need a laptop, not a desktop.

Thank you!!!
Click to expand...

1) My ASUS has a NVIDIA GTX1070 8GB... so its more in the 1500+$ liga, My Clevo has a ATI HD7970M with 2GB...... on planets the HD7970M is not enough to get 60fps with high settings ist more 30-40fps

2) no, but Nvidia GTX10xx series is working with less power and is more advanced as the ATI HD79xxM, so right now NVIDIA is better for most games in LAPTOPS, especially because they are only 10% slower then the desktop GTX10xx

3) to be future proof I would say not less 4GB, prefer 6GB, 8GB is more then enough right now. it really matters

4)Shadows on ULTRA hit hard on FPS, but it is IMHO the effect who add more depth

5) no idea , I have them a desktop replacements and dont move them much, but I guess 1-1,5 hours max

6) expect it to get REALLY HOT, because GPU will work 100% and produce heat, mine cpu/gpu are mostly around 70°C. It depends how good the cooling of the laptop is! I have it on a cooling PAD also

7) I do play on my external 21:9 2560x1080 monitor and use the laptop FHD for all the other stuff..... NVIDIA manages this better then the ATI HD7970M


I would suggest to look to a laptop with 16GB ram in 2x8GB config. and a GTX1060 with 6GB and a i7,
Better would be a GTX1070, but you would need to speend more $$ or look for a used laptop
 

the100thmonkey

the100thmonkey
This will kick E:D's butt. 1080p ultra solid 60, no drops.
It may well do 120Hz at high settings.

Playing on battery power will cause the power management software to kick in and drop the client to 30fps. It won't last very long either.
 

gooddoc

gooddoc
Arry said:
I use a H.P. pavilion. AMD A8 CPU and an R5 GPU. This just about handles the game.
Click to expand...

That was my last laptop. I replaced it in January this year & got a HP Pavillion 7th Gen i5 intel with Nvidia GTX 1050 graphics cards.

I now play ED at high settings 1920x1080 getting minimum 40 FPS, it's better than previous laptops when I could only manage 20 FPS in space & 6-10 on planets.
Iv never dabbled with the individual graghic setting in the game options, I just left it at high.

My Laptops plugged in all the time I'm playing ED, so couldn't tell how long the battery would last.

I use a Tecknet cooling pad to help keep the temp lower, I soon feel the heat if I'm playing with it off & it seems to help the internal fan from keep coming on. It runs somewhere like 65-70 degrees with the cooling tray on - & I'm playing for hours at a time.

Overall the game plays well on the laptop & I'm no longer concerned now about an update not running....not yet anyway!
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
New question, and this one is very niche - where do you think a console's graphics settings (which are hidden) line up in comparison with a PC? I mention ultra settings in OP, but I may very well be happy with "high" settings. Heck, I'd be happy with my humble PS4 Slim had they not nerfed the shadows to oblivion.... :(
 

EISENHORN01

EISENHORN01
I’ve been playing ED via laptop for the past 2 and half years never had any real issues running the game though it’s a high end Alienware and not really pertinent to your question so il just get my coat.
 

Dommarraa

Dommarraa
Got a business dell. One of the big ones that you could beat an elephant to death with.
Runs a good 40fps on medium, but the fan is maxed out all the time so is running hot. Would never run on battery, I doubt it would run for long, and the battery saving throttles the performance back a lot.
A half decent gaming laptop should run at least high, or I would send it back.
Welcome to the 'I can play while having a dump' club. By far the coolest and exclusive Ed group
 

Kumicho Oyabun

K
I bought a laptop last year, I got the following laptop: GE72MVR Apache Pro (I7 7700HQ, Nivida GTX1070, 8GB DDR5 video memory, 16GB DDR4 2400MHz system memory)

I run elite and many other games on MAX settings around 60-200FPS depending on the game.

The reason for this specific laptop was for its cooling, and when looking at laptops cooling was a paramount issue for me. Laptops are known for being extremely hot while gaming and I was searching for one that would not run hot enough to get into melting temps while gaming for more than 2-3 hours. On average I spend anywhere from one hour up to ten hours on the laptop streaming my game play. I would recommend you spend the time and research the cooling a laptop offers while making a choice.

I would also say wait until the 'Black Friday / Cyber Monday' sales are here....... you might be able to get a 1500.00 laptop for around your target budget.

Hope this helps commander. o7
 

Aashenfox

Aashenfox
Kumicho Oyabun said:
I bought a laptop last year, I got the following laptop: GE72MVR Apache Pro (I7 7700HQ, Nivida GTX1070, 8GB DDR5 video memory, 16GB DDR4 2400MHz system memory)

I run elite and many other games on MAX settings around 60-200FPS depending on the game.

The reason for this specific laptop was for its cooling, and when looking at laptops cooling was a paramount issue for me. Laptops are known for being extremely hot while gaming and I was searching for one that would not run hot enough to get into melting temps while gaming for more than 2-3 hours. On average I spend anywhere from one hour up to ten hours on the laptop streaming my game play. I would recommend you spend the time and research the cooling a laptop offers while making a choice.

I would also say wait until the 'Black Friday / Cyber Monday' sales are here....... you might be able to get a 1500.00 laptop for around your target budget.

Hope this helps commander. o7
Click to expand...

This is what you want. Bang for buck it can't be beat, and the same for the 1060gtx version which I use. I'm a pro tech and gamer 28 years and I play Elite on an Apache GL62MVR, which I would also recommend if it weren't discontinued...They are fully VR ready ad work great (I compete in Project Cars 2 in VR using the laptop occasionally). HEre's a pic of mine in action.

asXdE50.jpg

The desktop I use for M+K games and I'm typing on now, is obviously far more powerful, however, I ran the sim rig off the laptop in the start as a temporary measure and it turned to be more than up to the task so it has stayed.
 

Turd Ferguson

Turd Ferguson
Old Duck said:
New question, and this one is very niche - where do you think a console's graphics settings (which are hidden) line up in comparison with a PC? I mention ultra settings in OP, but I may very well be happy with "high" settings. Heck, I'd be happy with my humble PS4 Slim had they not nerfed the shadows to oblivion.... :(
Click to expand...

according to the 1st Ch 4 livestream, the Adams said that PC graphics are far better than any console and some of the fog and weather effects they're testing can't be done on the consoles (not sure if because PC's have the power to run unoptimized code when they were testing or if they don't have the power to do it at all).
 

AlSki

AlSki
Edited: Just saw your
Please understand that I need a laptop, not a desktop. ​
Sorry missed that at first...

Hmmm...

When I first started playing Elite back in 2015, I had only a Lenovo Yoga 700 with a GTX 940M, and Elite was very playable. The frame rate would slow whenever I would come in to a station, but since that isn't where the intense reactions were required it wasn't a problem. I can't remember exactly but my settings might have been on Mid, but it was perfectly fine.

But I wanted more, so I looked at getting an Xbox to play on, and then took the crazy decision to instead spend the money from the Xbox on building a PC. This one to be exact. That purchase took me into the world of 3840x1080 on Ultra without any problems, and was half of the cost of what you are looking at.

Now obviously things have changed from then but there are equivalent budget builds (e.g. https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/guide/#T=2&X=0,63530) and it does get you into a position where you can upgrade, which you cannot do with a laptop (and you probably will do as you want more and more).

So before committing to a laptop, I would suggest that you might want to consider if the laptop is the best way forwards. In my experience it wasn't.


 
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Chorda

Chorda
I play on a 2016 Acer Aspire 960gt gaming laptop. If you can still find them or a similar model they'll be under a grand by now.
 
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