Laptop PC

[jimjones]

Before an annual 8 week vacation to Northern MI I had considered purchasing a laptop for flightsimming and had investigated several brands. A purchase was not made and doing without FSX was missed. On return from vacation a review was renewed and the specs below reflect the purchase.

The vacation PC need not have super frame rates with all controls on high. The laptop only needed to match my nonoverclocked 3GHz duocore PC, which gives frame rates over 20 for most situations.

Very High graphics settings to show 25 cm terrain textures were a must. Autogen is set low, and all traffic is set to 10 percent. Highest water settings too.

The comparison FRs for similar situations gave the laptop the advantage in all tests by about a 10 percent improvement. The laptop has a turbo setting which gives FRs up to 2 to 3 times the non turbo mode in a few situations but usually just a 50% increase.

The pc came with Win7 home premium. Had to turn off UAC a couple of times during installs, but FSX runs fine.

Yes, I believe laptops can now be considered game pcs and good enough for FSX, at least this one meets my needs for 8 weeks out of the year.


http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss230/jimjones_04/DSC_6135.jpg
http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss230/jimjones_04/DSC_6145.jpg (http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss230/jimjones_04/DSC_6145.jpgASUS)

ASUS
(http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss230/jimjones_04/DSC_6145.jpgASUS) Laptop Specs
G74SX-A1 Notebook Intel Core i7
2630QM(2.00GHz) 17.3 12 GB Memory DDR3 133
1.5 TB HDD 7200rpm BD Combo NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M
Turbo to about 2.9 GHz

[Kiwikat]

I was running FSX on my ASUS C90S laptop 4 years ago at 25-30 fps... :mixedsmi:

Specs were:
15.6 inch semi-glossy screen 1680 x 1050 (the best laptop screen I've ever seen, including macbooks)
E6700 (yes a desktop processor) @ 2.67 Ghz
3 GB DDR2 RAM (can't recall the speed)
8600M GT 512mb graphics card (usually was overclocked, NOT a good idea...)
120 GB 7200 RPM Seagate hard drive
Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit (ugh...)

[jimjones]

You are way ahead using laptops. I don't like to run either my desktop or laptop overclocked. I was running the laptop with Manhattan-X, the most dense scenery I own, and still at just 10 fps the flying seemed smooth. Landing would probably have been a bit more dicey. The few times I turned turbo on the heat just poured from the rear. Would be a good heater in winter. I love the illuminated keys, great for a darkened room. Also was surprised that directx11 gives the same result as preview of dx10 without having to set that option. I suppose that could be a problem with fs9 planes, although I did not try them, only native fsx planes that have been loaded.

[Kiwikat]

The few times I turned turbo on the heat just poured from the rear. Would be a good heater in winter.

LMAO. I kid you not, that laptop kept my whole bedroom warm during the winter. That thing pumped out so much heat between the desktop processor and overclocked graphics card. It had special fans mounted on the back of the laptop to try to keep the thing cool. Notice I said "try". :engel016:

http://laptopsorama.com/wp-content/plugins/jobber-import-articles/photos/96841-asus-c90s-laptop.jpg

[fliger747]

I do about 90% of my developing and testing work on an ASUS G51J I7 Laptop, including some on going demanding Milviz stuff. Certainly big screens and elaborate control setups do add to the immersion.

T

[Naismith]

I hate laptops. My big ol' HULK fingers are not compatible with the miniscule keys and that hateful touchpad thing.

[SPman]

I hate laptops. My big ol' HULK fingers are not compatible with the miniscule keys and that hateful touchpad thing.Touchpad! Yuk! I've used a bluetooth mouse for the last 4 yrs and it's great!

[jimjones]

Agreed, touchpads are only ok when without a mouse which still rules. All Laptops keyboards are not the same. My Laptop kb, the main section measures 11 inches the same as my M$ desktop kb. Plenty of room for regular sized keys. However the laptop total kb width is 15 inches compared with the desktop kb of about 16.5 inches. Therefore the laptop has a few less keys and the right side keys are arranged differently.

Yes a laptop would make a good development tool where speed is not essential.

[fliger747]

The i7 processor, 4 GiGs mem and a 1 GIG Video Card make the ASUS plenty fast. The only thing lacking is a huge screen and really big speakers, the kind that shake the floor....

T

[EMatheson]

I just bought one with an amd a8 processor, 6 gb ram, and a radeon 6720 chip with 1 gb vram. Will this work ok for fsx?

[Kiwikat]

I hate laptops. My big ol' HULK fingers are not compatible with the miniscule keys and that hateful touchpad thing.

Who needs a touchpad when you have a trackpoint? :mixedsmi:

It is so much more convenient than a touchpad or mouse. Don't ever have to take my hands off the keyboard when coding.