Not all IBM notebooks are power horses. I have a IBM Thinkpad too, and it is unable to run FS2004 at all. As a matter of fact, it can't even run an OS newer than Win98! :-lol OK, so it's a really old Thinkpad - circa 1997! It sports an Intel 486-75 (DX3 no less), 24M RAM, 12.1" TFT display @ 640x480 16bit colour (no dead pixels after all these years!), unknown graphics chip, 400M HDD, butterfly keyboard (remember those?) and a 14.4K modem. It was top of the line in its day, and was bought in the USA by my work for a staggering US$5000 :-eek Nonetheless, it runs MS Office 97 on Windows 95 quite acceptably, and only takes up a quarter of the space in my brief case.I am hoping that my inbound Dell 9300 will run FS2004 nice and sweet. It's sad to think that in 8 years time, the Dell 9300 will be just as ancient as my IBM Thinkpad is to me today!Gary

Hi Gary,Your 9300 must be arriving soon, hey?

You can tell I'm just itching to get my hands on it hey? :-lol Mr Dell says its touching down in my neighbourhood on 23Apr05. I plan to run the 9300 head to head against my A64 / 6800 beasty and, if I have enough time, against my sons middle-of-the-road Athlon 3200+ / 9800 Pro. I'll use both a stock FS install, and one loaded to the gills with all my addons, with a couple of saved static scenarios running Fraps over 30 seconds to give a consistent FPS. The scenarios I choose will range from basic (eg. default flight, default settings) to complex (all sliders right and a mixup of clouds, scenery, traffic, complex aircraft, external support programs and all of the above). I'll even time start ups and load times, although the notebook, on paper, has a handicap with only a 4200RPM HDD. Any other suggestions for a good comparison?Gary

I think you have all your bases covered. I also think the default flight at KSEA with sliders on the high side can be testing enough, let alone the rest.My biggest annoyance with FS9, and it may well be due to my aged hardware, are those graphical-micro-stutters in 2D cockpit, while in turns and especially near airports and ground in general. I would be very interested in seeing how the 9300 deals with that. Also, the same stutters that are caused by ATC chatter.I'm excited for you Gary. That is one nice notebook. Let us know as soon as you get it. :-) Regards,

I forgot to ask; Do you have the PMDG 737NG? I would also like to see how that is handled. On my system, the PMDG usually gives me on average 5-10fps less than the default aircraft, and very choppy graphics.

Yep, I have the PMDG 737NG. I'll check that out too!Gary

my 9600XT falls on its face and gets laughed at when it trys 2xAA.. You would think it was a drunk man that had just been hit up side the head and has no brains what so ever..

I have a 2.13 GHz Dell XPS Gen-2 on order, and I will be migrating most of my sim stuff over to the laptop before my desktop systems get boxed-up for 3 months to make yet another international move. I use an AGP 6800 Ultra in my primary desktop FS server at 2560 x 1024 res and it kicks some serious bootie. In fact, the GPU upgrade from a FX5600 to the 6800 Ultra was the single biggest improvement in FS performance I've seen in years. So I'm fairly confident that the 1920 x 1200 display on the XPS' PCI-Express based 6800 Ultra won't have unhappy performance issues.As soon as the XPS Gen 2 notebook arrives, I'm giving it a critical trial run with FS as the primary focus...if the performance isn't there, back to Dell it goes. I'll try to remember to post my findings here.CheersBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-V L-300

Thanks Bob,Yeah the XPS2 is a nice unit. I was hesitant on it because of the really high native resolution and I honestly cannot comment on how it will handle interpolated resolutions.The other thing is an issue which may well be blown out of proportions at notebookforums.com where many users are reporting light leakage from many of Dell's notebook displays, where the seals aren't placed properly at manufacturing. The XPS2 being one of the units singled out. Hopefully yours won't have that issue.Please do report back on FS performance on it if you get the chance.Regards,

Just want to keep this thread somewhere near the front so it doesn't fade away. Anyone have new laptop for gaming input?

My Dell XPS Gen 2 laptop arrived on the 26th, a full week before the expected ship date given to me at the time of order. First-blush results with FS9 are very, very good.The machine is configured with a 2.13GHz Pentium-M (Centrino) CPU, 1GB DDR2 RAM, a 60GB 7200 rpm HDD, a 256MB nVidia Go 6800 Ultra video adapter driving an amazing 1900x1200 widescreen WUXGA screen, a DVD writer, and a dual-band Intel WLAN adapter.I have no regrets about going with the 2.13 GHz Pentium-M...it is holding a rock-steady 25 fps (I constrain the frame rates there to preserve CPU headroom) with every advanced panel I've thrown at it, including the PMDG 737 and Aeroworx B200 (with the Reality XP gauge suite running on top of it). The fps did not budge when 38m terrain mesh was added to the mix, nor for clouds. I have not yet attempted any of the tweaks I used on my desktop system, such as Chris Willis' cloud replacements...mostly because it hasn't been necessary. This laptop is outperforming my 3.06 GHz P-4 desktop system, which is equipped with 1GB of 1066MHz RDRAM and the AGP version of the 6800 Ultra. Quite a surprise, really.After an hour of running FS9, the bottom of the XPS Gen 2 is pleasantly warm to the touch, definitely not hot--would be easily tolerable sitting on one's lap, and the only (barely) detectable heat is on the top rear of the unit adjacent to the hinge for the screen. It has two small fans, one on each side at the rear of the box, that are very quiet. As a contrast, all of the HP and Compaq units I looked at were using desktop P4 (Northwood) CPUs, and they all had significant hotspots...in fact one of the HPs on display looked to have actually heated the surface of the counter it was sitting on enough to discolor it.The display has a non-glare resistant dark mirrored finish that could be a problem for some in a room with lots of windows or other bright light sources, but the lack of the anti-glare coating makes the screen uncommonly bright. The fonts are indeed quite small, but can be adjusted in the video settings when running office applications. In fact the machine shipped with font size set to 125%, and it caused some text overruns in a few of the advanced panels like the PMDG 737 and PSS Scarebuses...it was necessary to reduce it to 100% (96 DPI) to make the panels look correct. My desktop system, which is currently being boxed up for an international move, uses two 22" NEC flat-screen CRT displays situated about 4-5 feet away, so the laptop screen at 1900 x 1200 located 2 feet away is not too much different or impossible to read. In fact it's possible to put small but useably sized FMCs, throttle windows etc in the margin when running FS in windowed mode in a 1600 x 1200 window (leaving a 300x1200 pixel margin). The XPS2 display area is 14.25 inches wide, and 9 inches tall...my 22" displays are only 1.5 inches wider. The trick is to stay fairly close to the screen.A portable input controller for simming on the road has been a tough nut to crack...right now I am using a Logitech wireless Rumblepad 2 gamepad, which has two analog "thumbstick" joysticks and an 8-way pad. I have one analog thumbstick mapped as a regular joystick (aileron/elevator) and on the other, the X axis is mapped to rudder and Y to throttle. The 8-way pad functions as a POV hat. I've flown RC planes and helicopters for many years, so the controls seem fairly natural...it's a reasonable compromise to have a sim available on the road when you can't pack a joystick/throttle.Mechanically, the XPS-2 seems sturdy enough. There is no problem with light leakage at the edges of the screen as some had reported on earlier versions. I haven't tried battery longevity trials yet, but would expect somewhere between an hour or two with FS running.The system came in a hair above $3,000. If you've got to take it on the road, I think this one will work well.RegardsBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-V L-300Escaping from Washington, DC

Thanks Bob,I'm just curious, are you running FS9 at the default resolution of 1900x1200? Does it look geometrically incorrect? As in the guages aren't round. If so, is it very noticeable?The other thing, do you notice any graphical micro-stutters? Especially when in turns or turning on the ground in 2D view?Thanks again,

I have FS9 set to 1900x1200, and in full-screen mode the stretch effect is very noticeable. One of these days the wide format may be popular enough for someone to make a panel in native widescreen format. For now, I run FS in windowed mode (with a ~1600x1200 window), and use the remaining 300 pixel wide area for undocked FMC, throttle, or other windows.No stutters at all. Haven't tried yet with a really complex airport add-on.CheersBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-V L-300

Yeah, I have seen the stretch effect and I think I can live with it, and I would bet the next FS will have widescreen support.The XPS2 is one nice notebook, but is it ever expensive right now, at least for us Canadians. We don't have access to all those great Dell coupons.Cheers,

Hi guys,A quick post back from me following the arrival of my Dell Inspiron 9300 (specs as noted earlier in this thread). I've only had time to do a qualitative comparison between the 9300 and my signature rig, but I can confirm that they perform just as well as each other under various different FS conditions.Yesterday, I gave the 9300 the full FS test drive, conducting a number of back to back flights with my VA. Most of the flights were with AVSIM, with AS2004.5 weather loaded, wireless internet, yoke / rudder pedals plugged in, headphones for audio and microphone and external mouse. I also connected up my 20" monitor and set it up as the primary display for FS, using the notebook LCD for undocked panels, FMC and ancillary windows. Let me tell you it was a real treat to use, both performance and stability wise, and I was left looking at my desktop system wondering what to do with it now that it appears redundant.An issue that I did note was that at certain bank angles the ground textures seemed to flicker a little as they drew. Thinking this might be a trait of the WXGA display, I tried the same FS load on a mates 9300 with the WUXGA display and it did the same thing. Interestingly, this flicker does not appear in any other game that I have tried, so it doesn't seem to be an LCD refresh issue. This is the main reason why I ran the FS cockpit view on the 20" CRT monitor with my trial yesterday.Also of note is the effect that the widescreen display has on gauges. At first it was very noticable, especially if FS was run in window mode where the menu and task bar accentuated the issue, but in full screen I became accustomed to it.I'll post again when I have a few more comparitive benchmarks to post. One thing I have noted is that this is the fifth computer I have trialed with my exact same FS setup, all of which have been in the mid-high performance band, and I have been able to bring all of them to their knees (ie. < 10FPS) with the saved scenario suite that I have. FS configuration is such a major variable that I find comparative benchmarks on the same FS configuration to be the only viable means of comparison.All in all, I am mighty impressed with the gaming power that can be unleashed by a modern laptop, and that the Pentium-M lives up to its "wolf in sheeps clothing" legend! :-hah Gary