Dear performance experts,

 

Finally decided I probably need a dedicated PC for 737NGX ... Can't be doing with any more greyouts and OOMs and freezes on short final, ages while FSX boots, performance limitations and no room for advanced scenery.

 

I am no technie and frankly can't get into building my own kit .. and it needs to a laptop for domestic reasons (!).

 

So, if I wanted to add the best of everything: online weather, the heaviest worldwide scenery and airports, FS2Crew, Radar Contact, joysticks ... and all the stuff I don't even know about yet, and still achieve great in-flight and visual performance, what's the best off-shelf Windows laptop for the job?

 

This Dell one .. or some other advanced "gamer's" PC?

• 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM Processor (2.2GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz)
  
• 8GB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x4096]
  
• 500GB (7,200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
  
• DVD+/-RW (DVD, CD read and write)
  
• 1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 550M Graphics Card
  
• 44 cm (17.3 inch) HD+ with Multi-touch WLED TL (1600x900) 900p with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
  
• English Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
  

Directional advice would be very much appreciated!

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Best wishes,

 

David

I am using an Alienware M17xR3 desktop replacement. Almost the same config as above, but with the AMD 6870. Software: PMDG 737 NGX, REX, UT2, GEX, UTX. Running pretty smoothly (20fps+) in almost every condition but not at the busiest airports (around 12fps).

 

Alienware seems to be the brand to look for FSX laptops.

Marcelo Chulam.

I'm not the best when it comes to hardware, but that graphics card looks like the choke point with only 1GB.

Limitless performance in FSX is impossible unless you overclock a desktop to 4ghz, and have a powerful video card like a gtx580

Limitless performance in FSX is impossible unless you overclock a desktop to 4ghz, and have a powerful video card like a gtx580

 

Even then, you are still going to have areas where it wont perform as expected....

I'm at 4.9 GHz, with twin GTX580s, and I still can't max everything out all the time.

2 video cards slows down FSX from what I've heard.

I bought a Qosmio Toshiba just for simming cause i'm never home working in the Alberta oil patch and was a waste - This thing has a 18 in. screen and weighs 12 pounds and the grafics are so bad i don't sim at all with - never again will i buy a labtop for simming

I am an experienced laptop user and here is what i can tell you.

 

The most important thing nowadays is the CPU. I have a similar CPU as above and a Geforce GTX460M. The NGX runs on busy airports between 10-20 frames in the cockpit. Outside view around 40, when i am in the middle of nowhere, i have cockpit frames between 25 and 45. Outside view above 60 then. You should try to get a laptop with a different CPU (maybe the Ivy´s that have about 600-700 MHZ more).

 

My specs are:

 

Intel i7-2630QM

Geforce GTX460M

16 GB RAM

1 TB (2 Harddrives)

 

I will soon buy a laptop with an Ivy i7, a Geforce GTX675M and also 16RAM... BUT this time with one SSD for my OS and a very fast 7200 RPM 750 GB Harddrive. Most laptop harddrives still have 5400 RPM which slows down things as well (i guess). How much money do you want to spend?

You do have other options available. With laptops you are paying a premium for the fact it is portable and you must pay even more for performance. Desktops arn't protable so you are only paying for the performance you need. I would suggest you consider a cheap laptop that mets your portable requirements and a cheap desktop that mets your performance needs.

 

A decent Dell Alienware that will handle FSX on a reasonable sized screen is going to be north of £2000. For that, you can get a rocking desktop, (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-190-OE&groupid=43&catid=2040&subcat=), a solid laptop ( http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=n00q1547&c=ie&l=en&s=dhs&cs=iedhs1&model_id=inspiron-15r-n5110), a huge monitor (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-051-BQ) that you can use with both, and a bloody good weekend away!

Thanks for your thoughts everyone ...

 

Best wishes,

 

David

 

You do have other options available. With laptops you are paying a premium for the fact it is portable and you must pay even more for performance. Desktops arn't protable so you are only paying for the performance you need. I would suggest you consider a cheap laptop that mets your portable requirements and a cheap desktop that mets your performance needs.

 

A decent Dell Alienware that will handle FSX on a reasonable sized screen is going to be north of £2000. For that, you can get a rocking desktop, (http://www.overclock...id=2040&subcat=), a solid laptop ( http://configure.eur...piron-15r-n5110), a huge monitor (http://www.overclock...rodid=MO-051-BQ) that you can use with both, and a bloody good weekend away!

 

Hmmm ... See your point, Paul ...

 

David

 

I am an experienced laptop user and here is what i can tell you.

 

The most important thing nowadays is the CPU. I have a similar CPU as above and a Geforce GTX460M. The NGX runs on busy airports between 10-20 frames in the cockpit. Outside view around 40, when i am in the middle of nowhere, i have cockpit frames between 25 and 45. Outside view above 60 then. You should try to get a laptop with a different CPU (maybe the Ivy´s that have about 600-700 MHZ more).

 

My specs are:

 

Intel i7-2630QM

Geforce GTX460M

16 GB RAM

1 TB (2 Harddrives)

 

I will soon buy a laptop with an Ivy i7, a Geforce GTX675M and also 16RAM... BUT this time with one SSD for my OS and a very fast 7200 RPM 750 GB Harddrive. Most laptop harddrives still have 5400 RPM which slows down things as well (i guess). How much money do you want to spend?

 

Thanks for all those helpful details, Ulrich. Budget? IDEALLY not more than GBP 1000 ...

 

Best wishes,

 

David

allienware is too expensive for it's components/quality. There are many other, much better options then dell. Olso it looks to childish with all those lights and crap, while others look more presentable in my opinion.

 

Here is a link to one good US shop: http://www.xoticpc.com/custom-gaming-laptops-notebooks-clevo-sager-notebooks-ct-95_51_162.html

Sagers are good for quality/prices and have top end components.

 

here is a good shop for EU : http://www.mysn.de/brand.asp?userid=E6D2271BAF144B0AB342B1BD1C0D1F65&KategorienOrder=010;020;010

 

But there are many others. I was researching for gaming laptop for half of a year, but went for desctop anyway. It's much better in terms of perfomance.

for those of you that expect to get desktop performance out of a laptop are going to be very disappointed. I can't seem to understand why anyone would want to "cut" out the best FSX has to offer by getting a laptop.There is no comparison period.I had both and the only thing I use my so call fsx laptop for is weather and charts along side of my real Fsx computer.

I throw my 2 cents worth in. It's been my experience with FSX (and previous versions) that the CPU is the main item you need to worry about when being concerned about performance, followed by the Graphics card and lastly the RAM/Hard drive.

 

I have built many PC systems for personal use and for other gamers. I like to use FSX as a benchmark sometimes to see how much processor usage there is and how much heat is generated on both the CPU and the graphics card. I have found with experience that the hard drive does play a role as pulling the sceneray data from the hard drive quickly is key to smooth stutter free flying as well.

 

I sometimes think too much emphasis is placed on a frame rate being shown. If it flies jitter or stutter free, who cares what the frame rate is. Smooth is smooth regardless of frame rate.

 

Also keep in mind that while you might achieve a smooth stutter free setup on a machine with FSX and some scenary addons, adding additional scenary/enhancements could affect that smoothness. I think that's why some folks say they can't get limitless performance with high end systems.

 

We all have to keep in mind that everyone does not run FSX with identical setups on identical hardware. The combinations are too varied to create a standard. The key is tweaking it so it works for you. As far as a laptop for FSX, if I traveled a lot, I might consider a laptop if that were my only means to fly FSX. Desktops just offer more options and flexibility for achieving whatever your FSX goals are.

for those of you that expect to get desktop performance out of a laptop are going to be very disappointed. I can't seem to understand why anyone would want to "cut" out the best FSX has to offer by getting a laptop.There is no comparison period.I had both and the only thing I use my so call fsx laptop for is weather and charts along side of my real Fsx computer.

Laptop can run FSX not very badly mostly depending on the scenery. If you had celeron 1.7 or cheap AMD processor with integrated videocard, that doesn't mean that ivy bridge mobile with the lastest NVIDIA/ATI can't handle it.

 

Everything in your arms. I know people who can't run FSX on i7 2700k + GTX580 without lags.