General Question System requirements

[3334steve]

Having just learnt that there is a new orbiter!!!! orbiter 2016!
I am keen to buy a laptop to enjoy this game, i haven't played it due to commitments since 2010!

I'm in the market for a Laptop, but i'm struggling to choose one.
I want a lap top that is cheap but will run orbiter 2016 with ease with out any issues ideally with visual settings at their highest.
I have no intention of video editing or anything else, i just want a dedicated laptop for orbiter with the intention of using 3rd party add ons.

I have looked on the internet for minimum requirements for orbiter, but cant seem to find anything.

can anybody help.

please list min requirements & max requirments

or ideally link a laptop

regards

 

[steph]

They should be on the main site, I guess. Or at least somewhere on the forum. From my experience, it runs on pretty much any old pc, as long as you don't you high res textures and that kind of stuff. I still remember when I first fired up Orbiter 2006, I had something like a 350 mHz processor, with 128 MB RAM and 32 MB video, and it worked :lol: . Sure, the framerate was pretty abysmal at take-offs and the it took a while to start up, but other than that, it worked fine.

 

[Urwumpe]

No idea what can be considered a good "minimum". I run it happily on a notebook bought in 2013.

What you can be sure: You need a full GPU, even the newer Intel graphics isn't always enough. But then, almost any GPU is good enough.

A fast SSD is better than number of cores, because orbiter does not make much use of multicore CPUs - anything beyond two should not bring a big improvement. And the differences in clock rate are too low today to make a big difference for Orbiter. (Especially since Orbiter itself does not make much use of the CPU. When playing, I often have around 30% CPU load.)

RAM is also not important, as long as it is more than 4 GB - Orbiter is a 32 bit application and can't use more.

For comparison: I can run the pretty hardware-straining SSU add-on fine here in 1080p resolution with the following hardware:

Intel Core i7-3630QM (Ivy Bridge generation)
16 GB RAM
750 GB HDD
128 GB SSD
NVidia Geforce 675M GTX

Its pretty antique now, but works great. Its good enough to fly with good FPS with it, bad enough to make me complain about not being too wasteful with CPU and GPU resources.

 

[3334steve]

Thanks for the responses.
ideally i want to be running the game at its max settings with out busting the bank.

i have no idea what to buy when it comes to laptops, i do not want to waste my money based on what ever machine the shop tries to sell me.

 

[3334steve]

any good

does this lap top do the job?
is it a good choice or bad choice?

Processor
Intel Pentium N4200 processor ( 1.10GHz 1600MHz 2MB )
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64
Display Type
15.6"HD LED backlit AntiGlare 1366x768
Memory
4.0GB PC3L-12800 DDR3L SODIMM 1600MHz
Hard Drive
1TB 5400 rpm
Warranty
One year Depot or Carry-in
Graphics
Intel HD Graphics 505

 

[dbeachy1]

TBH that looks too low-end to run Orbiter -- people often have trouble with Intel HD Graphics with Orbiter, for example, and a 1.1 GHz Pentium N processor is only half the speed of what would even be considered "low end" in 2018. However, maybe someone on the forum will know if Orbiter can run with those specs.

 

[Urwumpe]

does this lap top do the job?
is it a good choice or bad choice?

My feeling says: Rather bad choice.

Not that I really tried it. But alone looking at the CPU and GPU specs suggests that buying a 5 year old PC would be faster - the 505 graphics have 1/3rd of the execution units of a Intel HD 5000 and half the clock speed.

 

[3334steve]

Help

Would you be able to link me a laptop that will sufice please.

 

[Marijn]

My laptop has a NVIDIA GeForce GTX950M videocard and a SSD. Orbiter runs on an external monitor in 1900x1200 resolution and all graphic options are enabled. It wasn't very expensive a few years ago and you should be able to find something which is better for a good price.

 

[Ripley]

Would you be able to link me a laptop that will sufice please.

You should tell us your max budget first.

 

[Tommy]

TBH that looks too low-end to run Orbiter -- people often have trouble with Intel HD Graphics with Orbiter, for example, and a 1.1 GHz Pentium N processor is only half the speed of what would even be considered "low end" in 2018. However, maybe someone on the forum will know if Orbiter can run with those specs.

The Intel Graphics would likely cause a problem, no argument there. But I was able to run 2016 on a 900 MHz AMD (first gen) once I upgraded to a 256M graphics card. Framerate was disappointing, nearly unplayable (~16 fps) so I would certainly recommend something quite a bit better. Landing at that low framerate was damn near impossible!