Mantis
Member
Is it all about videocards?
All other things equal, absolutely. Onboard video cards which share RAM with the rest of the system perform at a much lower level than a dedicated graphics card with it's own memory and GPU. The more graphics memory the better.
I specifically went shopping for a laptop with a high end video adapter and dedicated graphics memory for that very reason. My Computer is an ASUS G73 "Ultimate Gaming Laptop" with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 with 1GB of dedicated video memory. (Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM, dual 500GB SATA hard drives, CD/DVD-RW/Blue Ray Drive, 17.3" High Def screen with 23" High def external monitor. With that setup, I can view Orbiter at full 1920x1080 resolution with all the graphics "goodies" turned on and get framerates that never drop below around 30fps and which are usually higher than that. For example, with the AMSO Apollo 11 launch scenario (external view) I get an average of around 57 fps on the pad and through the launch sequence.
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