FSX on a ...... LapTop ?

[VaporZ]

Suppose I have a secondary family summer house near a beautifull
lake, 60 minutes from my main house, that permit me to Windsurf, Kitesurf, Cycling, Kayaking, RollerSking, Etc...

Could be usefull to have FS9 on my Laptop for Rainy Days !
No problem ! I have it for now 3 years and it works fine.

But what about FSX on a ..... Laptop ?
Do you have tried it ?
What is the best LapTop on the market for FSX ?
Please share your experience !

Thanks !
:rollerskater:
VaporZ

VaporZ near its private beach, Matapedia Lake, with one of
its Formula Racing Windsurf Equipment.

http://images.cjb.net/e9950.jpg (http://www.cjb.net/images.html?e9950.jpg)

[kilo delta]

Depends on if you want maximum sliders or not. The Dell XPS range especially the 15xx and 17xx series can run it reasonably well. I've tried it on my current Alienware M9750 (with dual core Intel T7600 2.33ghz,4GB pc5300 memory,1x64gb SSD and 1x160gb 7200rpm hdd, sli'd 512mb Nvidia 7950GT cards (and spare dual Nvidia 8700GT for dx10 should I revert to Vista), bluray drive and 1920x1200 resolution) and was not overly impressed.......possibly as I'm spolied with my desktop systems.
The new Alienware M17 with Intel X9300 3ghz chip, ddr3 memory and current dual ATi 3870 (or the forthcoming ATi 4870 mobile cards) will be THE notebook to have if you want to run FSX with all of the eye candy.:)

[kjb]

I have a Dell XPS M1530 with the T9300 processor and nVidia 8600M GT video cars. It runs FSX just fine.

[jankees]

I have an Acer Aspire 5920, core2 T7500, 2Gb Ram, Geforce 8600M GT 512 Mb, and FSX runs fine.
OK, I shouldn't overdo it scenery/autogen wise, but FTX is no problem, I even have a bit of France VFR photoscenery that isn't too bad.

[Kiwikat]

I'm on an ASUS C90S, about 18 months old. I get more than acceptable performance, but its not very reliable.

I'd recommend any of the mid range ASUS gaming laptops. They are slightly cheaper than what Dell offers and no less quality. For 1500 bucks or so you should be able to pick up a really nice one.

[chinookmark]

Gateway P7811-FX. It runs FSX great! I don't have everything maxed, but I can juggle traffic, weather, and big cities at high settings and still have respectable framerates in the mid 20s. Awesome performance, and an affordable price, too.

Core2Duo P8400 2.26GHz
4GB Ram
200GB 7200rpm HD (upgradable to RAID)
17" 1920x1200 widescreen
GeForce 9800M GTS 512MB


Although if you want a real powerhouse, check out the Sager 9262. Very customizable, priced better than a XPS or Alienware, and uses desktop quad core processors.
http://www.sagernotebook.com/product_customed.php?pid=29175

[Kiwikat]

Sager does indeed make very nice lappys. I'd recommend them.

Good idea, chinookmark :applause:

[chinookmark]

My buddy has a Sager, and the thing is Chuck Norris fast. He talked me off the XPS bandwagon. Three HD bays, super quiet, and a QX9650 to boot. I had mine all priced out, including some bargains like special discount for deployed troops, free shipping to APO addresses, etc.

But then I realized I could buy a dirtbike for that price, so during Best Buy's Labor Day sale I picked up my Gateway. And I still have enough left over for several more RC helicopters. :)

[harleyman]

We have a Gateway FX that comes with a 2.2 CPU(order by choice) a 8800gt card(I think its GT) and 3 gigs of Ram....

Never put FSX on it but other games rock on it .....

[Lionheart]

If money is no issue, I hear that the best in the world for gaming is Alienware. Alien makes a dual Sli graphics card laptop. This should provide for a powerful laptop to fly FSX on.

Otherwise, FSX with sliders way down will run on most laptops that have 2 gigs of Ram and the latest CPU's and GC's. Thats with most sliders near the left though.



Bill

[kilo delta]

I had a go of the new Alienware M17 today..............I'm sold on it. :)I'd have reservations about the Sager 9262 due to it using a Clevo chassis. I've first hand horror stories with Clevo's previous D900T/K series. :(

[Lionheart]

I did an experiment last night. I loaded FSX on my 1 year old hp laptop. It loaded up fine, ran fair, poor graphics. I then loaded up the SP1 and SP2 updates and it failed to start FSX, saying that the graphics card didnt have the proper shaders and that I needed a nVidia 8500 or better graphics card. (Now, I have never seen that before, lolol... but thats what the window said when it crashed, over and over again).

So, I put the discs back in and ran 'repair installation'. That took another long while (must have totally reinstalled everything). That didnt work either.

I then deleted it through the 'Add and Remove Programs'. I then put the discs in again. It said I had to delete FSX first (I just did), so it started deleting.. Took ages. It then was done so I reinserted the ejected CD and began installing again.

Ran great on basic installation. I installed only the SP1 this time. Started it, ran fine.


My graphics, even with max global texture qualities set to full, kept going fuzzy, like in the DC3, the interior would turn to milky gray instead of a high detailed cockpit.

This lappie is only about a year old, and I purchased it for backup to design for FS9 and FSX. It has 4 gigs of Ram.

My suggestion is get one heck of a powerful laptop and make sure to ask 'will this run FSX extremely good'... Make sure of that. Perhaps find a group that have a list of laptops that run FSX flawlessly so you know for sure.



Bill

Edit; I should add, this has Windows XP on it.

[kjb]

Interesting...FSX on my Dell (from 3/29/08) looks just as good as my desktops. I really don't have the settings turned down much at all (full autogen, water at medium 2, 1m ground textures etc) and it runs a pretty consistent 30 fps over photo scenery. It does slow down a lot over places like Seattle, but I think a lot of that is the broken LODs in SP2.

The Dell is running Vista Home Premium and runs the DirectX 10 preview without any notable performance loss.

[mcjerkyls]

A friend of mine got one of the Dell XPS machines a good 8-9 months ago, and a copy of FSX too, so down the street i ran, joystick in hand, I had to have a go. Got it all installed, all service packs, updates, blah blah blah, couple of hours later, i was zipping around at 30 FPS with at least 75% on all the sliders. I was hmm...shall i say..."impressed" (read:EFFing jealous). Here I am on a 4-5 year old HP junker that really, and i mean really struggles with FS9, im talking 20 fps max with sliders averaged to 50%. Hahaha and now the dvd drive dont work...maybe i'll get one on obamas tab.

[Lionheart]

A friend of mine got one of the Dell XPS machines a good 8-9 months ago, and a copy of FSX too, so down the street i ran, joystick in hand, I had to have a go. Got it all installed, all service packs, updates, blah blah blah, couple of hours later, i was zipping around at 30 FPS with at least 75% on all the sliders. I was hmm...shall i say..."impressed" (read:EFFing jealous). Here I am on a 4-5 year old HP junker that really, and i mean really struggles with FS9, im talking 20 fps max with sliders averaged to 50%. Hahaha and now the dvd drive dont work...maybe i'll get one on obamas tab.


DANG!!!!


Man.... That would be awesome to have a laptop that could run FSX at high sliders and run at 30 FPS... Even 20 FPS!!!! lol....


:banghead: <--- goes off to sulk and bang head


I am thinking my mistake was in going with hp's....



Bill

[harleyman]

Awww...Poor Bill...I feel your pain buddy....:wavey:


Check this out....I sent Ted an old HP that struggled with FS9...it was extra..

he replaced the HDD and said it rocked FS9...Go figure.....:monkies:

Never did for me...i think its all in your Karma or something...or what ancient burial ground you live over....LOL

[Lionheart]

Never did for me...i think its all in your Karma or something...or what ancient burial ground you live over....LOL


LOL....

Yep.. That could be it. I will not be touching another hp again though.


Bill

[Kiwikat]

I am thinking my mistake was in going with hp's....

:jump::applause:

[TimA]

I've been using FSX on a Dell M1710 for the last 18 months or so, and it runs perfectly acceptably (15 - 25fps depending on location and settings). It does grind to a crawl with VFR London 3D, but that's pretty much the only issue I have with it.

I have added a 750GB external HD, and maxed out the internal RAM (4GB). This particular model also needs to sit on a laptop cooler, otherwise the graphics card (7950GTX Go) overheats after a time. But with the 17 inch 1950 x 1200 resolution screen, it's simply to die for! :wiggle:

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL]

Not all HP's are "unserviceable" , i have three running ,the oldest for five years uninterrupted and the new ones for over a year without issue.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
It’s important to keep them clean by blowing them out , i do it 4 times a year and touch wood never had any problems.<o:p></o:p>
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Running FSX on the laptop is possible provided you are only using SP1 on the Intel graphics chipset, it doesn’t support shader 2 but i do use it for bug hunting during development of projects for sp1 installs , it runs FSX <o:p></o:p>
with medium settings well enough to be called serviceable , FS9 just flies.<o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
In a perfect world where money was no object those Alienware quadcore laptops with dual graphics cards sure can't be beat but boyoboy you could get a hell of a desktop setup for the price .<o:p></o:p>

[chinookmark]

Unless you are aiming for a cost-be-darned top of the line gaming rig, I'll reiterate my suggestion to check out Gateway's FX series laptops. I got mine for 12 hundred bucks, and it has no problems with FSX/Accel. I just checked Gateway's website, and it looks like the FX laptops come with 1GB graphics cards now.

[Flundkvist]

Will these specifications for the Sager NP9150 run FSX on pretty high settings. I would love to get in the range of this guy named Ronald Griffin. He is my inspiration for getting a good computer right now but I am going to college so the laptop is my only hope. Help please.


1. Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M GPU with 2GB GDDR5 Video Memory
2. 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3820QM Processor ( 8MB L3 Cache, 2.70GHz)
3. 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 2 X 4GB
4. IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU

Thanks for the tips!!!

Fredrik

[Dimus]

At work I am using a Dell Precision M4500 laptop, actually Dell calls these mobile workstations. It has an Intel I5 processor at 2.67Ghz, 2 gigs of RAM and a NVidia QuadroFX 880M with 1Gig of VRam. This card is supposed to be a "buissiness" adaptation of the Geforce 9xxx series. I got this one year ago, and although I am not supposed to install non-work software on it, I could not resist the temptation to try FSX on it. I installed it up to SP2 (for some reason Accel could not install) and also loaded some addons. It run quite well at 1920x1080 (native) and sliders on the right side of middle. Unfortunately I could not apply any AA and AF tweaks in this card as I seem to not have control over such things on card level. I had to uninstall it pretty quickly though to avoid any trouble.

[Xilence]

A friend of mine got one of the Dell XPS machines a good 8-9 months ago, and a copy of FSX too, so down the street i ran, joystick in hand, I had to have a go. Got it all installed, all service packs, updates, blah blah blah, couple of hours later, i was zipping around at 30 FPS with at least 75% on all the sliders. I was hmm...shall i say..."impressed" (read:EFFing jealous). Here I am on a 4-5 year old HP junker that really, and i mean really struggles with FS9, im talking 20 fps max with sliders averaged to 50%. Hahaha and now the dvd drive dont work...maybe i'll get one on obamas tab.

I can confirm this. I am working with the latest XPS17 with 2670QM and GT555M. I can play FSX smooth (with the right tweaks ofcourse) on a 2560x1440 screen! =D

[aeronca1]

Not all HP's are "unserviceable" , i have three running ,the oldest for five years uninterrupted and the new ones for over a year without issue.<!--?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /--><o:p></o:p><o:p></o:p>

Lucky you! The HP I'm typing on now is on it's second screen. The case actually split on the left side and I was using tape for a while (OBIO, your racing stripe muffler tape suggestion did look awesome and just geeky enough for me to retain my rep) This is a known issue with HP laptops and I guess it was costing them too much to fix, so they stopped doing so... This is the only operating HP laptop I have out of 3. The others are serving as parts sources. Lucky for me, a local laptop repair service has a wall of HP laptops if I ever run out of parts. They won't even sell HP's in their retail outlet.....

Another known issue with these HP's is video going blank. This is the result of HP using some kind of foam filler between the graphics chip and it's heatsink. Often the two don't even touch. You can restore the systems to operation by heating the back of the board behind the GPU to reflow the solder then put a copper shim between the GPU and the heatsink. On my example there was no heat transfer paste at all between the CPU and the heatsink.

All in all, HP laptops are very poorly designed and put together.