Hardware & Technical MS Surface Pro 2

Brodie

Brodie
Hi,

I work on tech-helpdesk line for my local telecommunication company and regularly work night shifts, often in the wee hours of the morning there can be a few hours in between calls which can be filled by reading, gaming or watching movies once all our admin and reports have been completed.
So owning a small, llight, portable yet powerful laptop capable of running PC games and playing movies is something i've sought after for some time.

After considerable research I decided to buy a Microsoft Surface Pro 2 (256gb 8gb RAM) as this fulfilled my office and entertainment needs more than the Razer Edge which was my second choice).
One thing I was concerned about, but couldn't find a definitive answer on was if it would run Elite Dangerous, which after all will consume the majority if not all of my game time for the foreseeable future.

Well I'm happy to report that after installing it and booting it up it runs like a charm with neither a stutter or hitch in sight, although it does crash for some unknown reason when all the settings are on high. The greatest difficulty I've had is getting used to controlling the game with a Xbox gamepad. Plus from what i've heard, the current performance of Elite Dangerous will only improve with development, so that if it runs this well now it will be phenomenal in the future!

Well done Frontier!
 
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ZeeWolf

ZeeWolf
great. I do feel that the Cobra engine is looking to be very well optimized. Kind of feels like an Elite tradition considering many of us ran Frontier on an Amiga 500 with 512k expansion packs or Elite loaded from a cassette in one go.

The crashing is currently happening to everyone on the Alpha, I'm sure Frontier will be spending the next few weeks working away at stabalising everything. I think it shows experience and professionalism of them to build an engine, get it out there on peoples machines, get it working on servers/network and then build the game assets/logic and universe into that stable code base.
 

GuruNot

GuruNot
Brodie said:
Hi,

I work on tech-helpdesk line for my local telecommunication company and regularly work night shifts, often in the wee hours of the morning there can be a few hours in between calls which can be filled by reading, gaming or watching movies once all our admin and reports have been completed.
So owning a small, llight, portable yet powerful laptop capable of running PC games and playing movies is something i've sought after for some time.

After considerable research I decided to buy a Microsoft Surface Pro 2 (256gb 8gb RAM) as this fulfilled my office and entertainment needs more than the Razer Edge which was my second choice).
One thing I was concerned about, but couldn't find a definitive answer on was if it would run Elite Dangerous, which after all will consume the majority if not all of my game time for the foreseeable future.

Well I'm happy to report that after installing it and booting it up it runs like a charm with neither a stutter or hitch in sight, although it does crash for some unknown reason when all the settings are on high. The greatest difficulty I've had is getting used to controlling the game with a Xbox gamepad. Plus from what i've heard, the current performance of Elite Dangerous will only improve with development, so that if it runs this well now it will be phenomenal in the future!

Well done Frontier!
Click to expand...

Nice to hear. IMHO At the end of the day the Surface 2 Pro is more of an Ultrabook (when you add the keyboard) as opposed to a tablet. It has an i5 CPU, either an 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 4200U CPU or a 1.9GHz Core i5 4300U, depending on whether or not you had an early one and runs full windows 8.1.

I looked at one (also the 8GB/256GB version) and settled for a Surface 2 as I could not justify the cost. I intend to do a major overhaul on my PC later this year so the money will go to that.

I keep hoping that frontier will find some time for a companion app for the tablets.
 

Dejay

Dejay
Nice, even though I dislike M$. I wonder if we'll get mobile computer "blocks" that have no screen and only work with the oculus rift? :p
A backpack computer. And with cameras on the rift you could even see / augment your normal surroundings and display them as a minimap overlay. Then nobody can sneak up on you when you're playing :)
 

Sutore

Sutore
New on these forums, but been playing Elite since somewhen in the 80's!!

Dangerous working on the Surface has caught my attention, I had given up hope of playing it after the long wait, but if there's a chance it'll run on my I5 3210m/HD4000 equipped laptop, I'm very interested!!
 

Squicker

S
Brodie said:
Well I'm happy to report that after installing it and booting it up it runs like a charm with neither a stutter or hitch in sight, although it does crash for some unknown reason when all the settings are on high. The greatest difficulty I've had is getting used to controlling the game with a Xbox gamepad. Plus from what i've heard, the current performance of Elite Dangerous will only improve with development, so that if it runs this well now it will be phenomenal in the future!

Well done Frontier!
Click to expand...

That's interesting to know. I have a Surface Pro with hard touch key-cover and it travels the world with me, I can't be without it, such a useful and powerful device.

Thanks for posting that up.
 

Void Sun

Void Sun
Taken from a PM chat I've been having with Associat0r.

Surface Pro 2 128GB, 4GB i5 1.6GHz (2.3 on boost), intel HD4400 embedded graphics.

Ethics and Credits - Full Screen

Low Graphics
1920x1080 - 19 FPS
1600x900 - 22 FPS
1366x720 - 30 FPS

High Graphics
1920x1080 - 15 FPS
1600-900 - 18 FPS
1366x720 - 23 FPS

Weird thing is there isn't as much difference as I thought there would be between the high and low settings. Also the game seems to be locked down to a maximum of 30 FPS even though the game is set for 60 FPS and the display is set to 60 FPS as well.

Another point to make is the screen did not stretch when the resolution in game was set to lower than 1080, it just shrank and stayed centered on the screen.

I will try changing the actual Surface Pro resolution tomorrow and also disable V-Sync.

@Brodie, After installing DirectX 9.0c, my Saitek joystick works fine in game on my Surface via the USB port. :)
 

Associat0r

A
Brodie said:
Forgive my stupidity here but how would i gauge the FPS and why at that resolution?

Cheers

Brodie
Click to expand...

Press CTRL+F for FPS display.

I suggested this resolution since it's at the correct 16:9 aspect ratio for the kind of display that's in the Surface and the resolution is high enough to game on for such a small screen, while being low enough to for good performance.
 

Void Sun

Void Sun
New figures from the factions mission The 1280x720 measurements were taken with the Surface resolution set the same so full panel area was used.

I put the ship into slow reverse on my throttle and then recorded figures from the most intense segment just as the two faction meet in the middle.

Factions
Low
1920x1080 8-15-20
1400x900 11-16-20
1366x768 18-21-28
1280x720 19-23-30+

High
Was unplayable constant crashes.
Lowering texture detail to medium appears to fix crashing on embedded Intel HD4400 (I have put a new thread in the Alpha forum to cover this fix)
1920x1080 7-12-14
1400x900 8-14-16
1366x768 8-15-18
1280x720 12-15-18

Even on the Low preset at the highest resolutions I was starting to experience some stuttering on the Big Score mission when I was up her exhausts unloading my missiles into her.
 
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Associat0r

A
Thanks for the tests, it does look very playable and I bet it's even better on a lower custom resolution.

Btw why is this thread moved to Hardware?
 
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