For several reasons, I will be confined to a laptop for a long time. Not that thai a bad thing. I really like the one I have now, but it lacks the juice to run the new simming software well. When I bought my present Dell Inspiron 8200, I had no idea that MSFS even existed. Now, I am up to my ears in flight sim, and lovin' it.I am thinking that I may be able to swing a newer model in a few months, so it is time to start looking. It doesn't have to be very portable, as I only move it every once in a while. It is more of a "desktop replacement". Some questions:1. How common is laptop flight simming?2. Are any good flight simming laptops on the market?3. Does anyone have any wisdom on the subject to lay on us?Stuttering in Silversale - Steve

Steve, I have a Toshiba Satellite A55 with a 1.6 ghz centrino chip and I am running FS9 with no problems.The computer only bad fault is the Intel graphics card which only runs up to 1024x768 and the onboard sound card.I added 768 of ram to make it a full gig and that has helped some.I am running at normal settings and getting 20-30 fps.I hope this helps. Jeff

Thanks, Jeff. I just read my original post and noticed what a lousey job of editing I did.What kind of FS9 add-ons do you run? I am thinking that my 32mb video card is severely limiting. Gotta Run Now - Steve

Steve,I have also been using a docked laptop to run FS9 (as a 2nd computer). Been averaging about 17fps in the heavy airports with the sliders up (JFK/EWR/DTW/LAX) and about 25-30fps in overcast flight conditions and steady precip. Also on board is Ultimate Traffic, FSNav, PMDG800/900 and FS2Crew. You'll take some frame hits from UT but can adjust the volume of traffic to make it more tolerable for you in the terminal areas.Getting ready to go turbo with a 3.4GHz also so I can put this Radeon 9800XT card to better use!!! Alienware looks very interesting to me right now to deal with FS2006....Mike CostonDell Inspiron 82001Gb RAMNvidia GeForce 440 Go(Dell 2000FP 20" flat panel or Gateway 21" VX1110 mon.)

I've got a 1.7 GHz Pentium M Dell Lattitude D800 with nVidia 4200 Go 64 MB WUXGA 15.1 in screen 1920 x 1200 graphics 1 GB mem and it's fine for me. I tried adding some traffic with GA-Traffic and it killed the framerate, but I run default+ traffic at max and I get 19-24 fps and everything else at max. I've got 17 GB of scenery and airplanes etc. loaded. I could do a lot more, but I just don't have the time. Most of my time is spent just looking for airplanes and scenery, tweaking what I've got (I modified the DF Archer so the panel matches that of my own airplane and created the airport I fly out of (KASH)). I love the portability, and it's got plenty of USB ports for controllers, etc. My problem now is I've only got a 40 GB drive on it, so I think I'm going to have to start removing some things. Perhaps moving some of the stuff I rarely use to DVD and running it from there. When I get some cash, I want to get ActiveSky and maybe a couple of other things. But I think I'm basically set.Thomas Perry

Thanks, guys. Question: How do you get 1 gig of RAM into the Inspiron? When you go to the Dell site and look for parts, they only advise 512mb. I upgraded to 512 two years ago, but more would be better. It sounds interesting - please tell me about Dell Inspirons and RAM.Think I'll take the Dash-8 from Elko to Tahoe now.Later - Steve

Check out the new Dell XPS Gen 2 laptop - has a GF6800 in it and looks like it would run FS very very well. HardOCP reviewed it and loved it, they were playing Doom3 at 1600X1200 as well as a desktop system on it...

I have been using FS in a laptop since fs2002 and I can say the performance is good. I have a HP Pavilion Series N5450 PIII 1.0 Ghz 256 RAM, my only complain is that video does not take the best of FS.Regards,

I also have an Inspiron 8200 similar to Mike's in the previous post but with an ATI 9000 Mobility 64mb (the next level up from Mike's) and I usually get very acceptable framerates with UT traffic locked at 70%. However, I have been using this thing for a couple of years and I think somone that has been using a more powerful machine will think it is running quite slow.

Hi Steve,I am using a laptop during those months where we stay in Spain and since last year I have a 3.2 GHz HP laptop with 1 GB RAM. The unit also has a 128MB Geforce FX Go5700 graphics card. It has a brilliant transflective lcd screen. I am running FS9 with Ultimate Traffic as well as MyTraffic for General Aviation traffic and lots of scenery and aircraft add-ons.Before getting retired, I used to travel extensively, mainly to our headquarters in Denver. Since FS4 I have always been enjoying FS on a laptop (my first one was a Compaq A4 size laptop), though with limited performance. But today's laptops performance is almost at par with desktops.J.J.http://jdtllc.com/images/RCsupporter.jpg