Hardware & Technical What laptop/laptop graphics?

[disorganise]

Towards the end of this year, I'm gonna need to buy a laptop to move over to for a few months. I still want to play ED Horizons at 1920x1200 if possible (on my monitor).

So what graphics should I be looking at? Any suggested laptop models?
Would a mac of some kind cut it? (never had one but 'everybody' raves).
What about those Microsoft Surface thingies?
Probably err towards a smaller screen for portability since I can use the 27" monitor for gaming.

Starting the research now so there's plenty of time to take advantage of EOFY deals etc.

Thanks

Oh. And in case it makes a difference, I'm in Australia (probably limits the available choices quite a bit)

 

[Porina]

You ideally want some decent GPU behind it. I'm not sure what's considered "enough" GPU for high quality at (near enough) 1080. Budget will start to get hit hard if you want higher end GPUs though...

On nvidia's side, their current 10 series in laptops is pretty much same as the desktop versions, give or take some boost differences depending on the cooling quality. The older 900M series are slower than their nearest numbered desktop versions, so do keep that in mind if attempting a comparison. For example, my laptop has a 970M, which is closer to a desktop 960 in performance. The older ones are still around, and are worth consideration at the right price.

I'm not 100% but Surface I think runs off the built in Intel graphics which... would be lacking. Apple I believe are not much better and don't offer higher performing GPU options, but do double check here as I've not look at that closely.

 

[goemon]

I have an working/travel laptop, which can run horizons without any problems in lower quality settings. i5, 8GB ram. I'm always impressed how well ED is running on not so powefull machines, and even tethered via mobile phone.

so, I'd say for ED you don't need much...

but if you want to invest much, I'd probably go VR with a laptop ... easier then transporting a large screen ;-)

as for mobile controller, i'm using a pc-xbox-pad when travelling.

 

[cmdr_Sisko]

Towards the end of this year, I'm gonna need to buy a laptop to move over to for a few months. I still want to play ED Horizons at 1920x1200 if possible (on my monitor).

So what graphics should I be looking at? Any suggested laptop models?
Would a mac of some kind cut it? (never had one but 'everybody' raves).
What about those Microsoft Surface thingies?
Probably err towards a smaller screen for portability since I can use the 27" monitor for gaming.

Starting the research now so there's plenty of time to take advantage of EOFY deals etc.

Thanks

Oh. And in case it makes a difference, I'm in Australia (probably limits the available choices quite a bit)

most gamming laptops now come with a 1060m-- this is more than sufficient to run most current games at full settigns, and is "VR ready" certified by occulus-- I can also confirm that it runs a rift with ED with no problem (my son has a laptop with a 1060 and it runs Rift perfectly).

I highly recommend the MSI GS line. they are not that expensive, have every option you can imagine, come with the 1060, and are super light -- a 15 inch laptop is under 4 pounds; the 14" is even lighter.

if you have money to burn, razer is your best bet.

Also, you could always buy an cheaper model, and then get something like the razer core, which lets you put in any graphics card you want, and connect to your laptop using thunderbolt. It is a very expensive option though -- I believe it cost me $600, plus the price of a video card. but does give you more options on the laptop side.

- - - Updated - - -

as an addition-- don't bother with the surface. They are FANTASTIC machines, for general purpose use, for business use, but even the ones with the nvidia discrete board do not have the graphics chops to run any decent game. I haven't tried ED on it yet (my wife has one), but I have tried lower-impact games like MWO and World of warships, and it's painful at high settings. Better off with something like an msi gs63 or gs43. I LOVE those machines. very nice looking, and extremely light.

 

[disorganise]

Thanks for all the tips

I briefly looked at gaming laptops in our local Harvey Norman over the weekend. Man...they are huge!
I'll keep looking but may have to just get used to the idea of not gaming for a fee months. Or.....drop the 1080 idea and put up with playing on the laptop screen which would be lower res and thus presumably need less grunt.

 

[jmg]

anything with a 1060m is a decent gamming laptop-- as in, it will run just about any game on the market at high settings (assuming 1080p).
I'm partial to MSI-- I havea gs43, 14" laptop, super light (less than 3 pounds), crazy powerful-- VERY svelt. almost impossibly thin for a gamming laptop. I take this thing all over with me, travelling, overseas, it's great. I got the gs63 for my son -- he runs a rift from it, no problem, plays star citizen at full settings. the ms63 is 15", and is a hair over 4 pounds. It's lighter than most 14" laptops.

stay away from macs, they're useless for gamming.

if you want the best of the best, look at razer-- I think they're over priced though. and while they're svelt, I don't like the fact that they do not have a network port and have limited usb ports (msi has Ethernet port, hdmi, mini-hdmi, thunderbolt, usbc, and several usb3.0 ports). And the razer is heavier.

If you do get the msi, you will want to splurge on a different power supply.. the cone they give you is huge. Ironically, I bought the fpower supply for the razer -- which powers it with no problem,, it's super slim and light, but it's expensive (like everything from razer)