Hardware What is the best laptop for Orbiter ?

[Kelly Wright]

Hi Everybody !
I am a longtime orbiter going back to the red brick days. I am seeking general advice.

Back in 2009, I bought a Sony Vaio CW-17 FX with a Nvidia Geforce graphics card, just before I went overseas. To make a long story short, there is some sort of bliting problem that has prevented the 2-D panels from displaying correctly that I have never been able to sort out. Sony never updates video drivers for Vaio.

Unless someone has found a fix for this problem (the question has been asked many times with no solution). I am ready to trade-up to a new laptop.

What do you recommend ?

What Laptops do you all use now that are A-OK for Orbiter ?

I am particularly thinking about this one:
Dell XPS 15 Blu-ray Laptop
Intel Core i7-2670QM 2.2GHz
1GB GeForce GT 525M
But my previous bad experience Nvidia Geforce is scaring me off. Over the last 11 years of orbiter, I have never had any problems with ATI cards, but of course that was with earlier generations of Orbiter. Based on what I have read on the forum, ATI card users have had their share of problems also.

I am going to be traveling 28 weeks next year-so I want something small and light.

Thanks

 

[Spacethingy]

back, sort of!

Never had problems with Intel integrated chips with Orbiter, except for rather tentative local light source support (sometimes crashes, sometimes doesn't...)

 

[RisingFury]

Why would you get drivers from the Sony website? Get them directly from nVidia website:

www.nvidia.com/

Find your driver for the correct operating system, download and install it.

 

[Urwumpe]

I would recommend no laptop at all. Notebooks are a compromise, a powerful notebook is usually only smaller than a tower, but equally immobile because of the power demands, and impossible to repair yourself.

Even a small tower with dedicated GPU is better suited for Orbiter, costs much less than the notebook and is usually more powerful than comparable hardware choices in a notebook, because the mobile versions of CPU and GPU are more geared towards power saving.

But that is your choice then... I currently opt for dedicated hardware here, rather having multiple computers but then using the computers where they are best.

 

[mojoey]

I would suggest HP, since Dell has horrible customer support, and chances are, you'll need help. I have an HP Dv7 with an AMD A6-6400 W/ radeon graphics, it runs fine, however you can find yourself push 60-75% Memory usage...and that can become uncomfortably hot.

 

[astrosammy]

With my laptop I have the same problem with the drivers, they just don't update them (and drivers from ATI can't be installed). There seem to be some workarounds to install newer drivers from ATI.

My laptop is a Toshiba Satellite L650D-15F, specs are close to that Dell XPS 15 in your post. Orbiter and Flight Simulator X work quite good on it.

 

[Kelly Wright]

Why would you get drivers from the Sony website? Get them directly from nVidia website:

www.nvidia.com/

Find your driver for the correct operating system, download and install it.

Sony locks-out downloading drivers direct from nVidia (I will never buy another Sony computer). There is a crack that gets around this, which I tried about a year ago. The updated drive still didn’t solve the problem.

 

[Hielor]

I am particularly thinking about this one:
Dell XPS 15 Blu-ray Laptop
Intel Core i7-2670QM 2.2GHz
1GB GeForce GT 525M
But my previous bad experience Nvidia Geforce is scaring me off. Over the last 11 years of orbiter, I have never had any problems with ATI cards, but of course that was with earlier generations of Orbiter. Based on what I have read on the forum, ATI card users have had their share of problems also.

XPS15 doesn't have a physical numpad, but then again most laptops below 17" don't. Just remember to factor in the cost of an external bluetooth or USB numpad (about $20 for a USB one, I think) to carry with you for orbiting. You can use the fake numpad on the keyboard on a laptop, but the offset on the keys will make it difficult.

nVidia is always the right choice for graphics. ATI drivers are terrible and always have been. If your current laptop isn't letting you update the graphics drivers, that's something specific to your model, not nVidia's fault. You said you updated the graphics drivers a year ago--have you tried re-updating them since then?

FWIW, I was looking at the XPS15 for my next gaming laptop, although it won't be for Orbiter specifically.

 

[Cras]

I would also recommend AGAINST a laptop. Follow Urwumpe's advice.

 

[rodion_herrera]

The fact that I show Orbiter to kids when our outfit tours schools around the countryside, requires me to use laptops. The two Acers I use, an Aspire 5750G (Core i7) and Aspire 4755G (Core i5) does Orbiter pretty well under Win7.

-RODION

 

[n72.75]

Numberpad is a must.

 

[Fabri91]

Hi, and welcome back!

I've not had any problem playing Orbiter on my Asus laptop, which has a nVidia 310M graphics card.

There is only one thing you should be aware of with newer (<2 years) laptops: many use the integrated gpu for everyday work, while switching to the discrete gpu only for specific applications. When you first run Orbiter you have to remember to create a profile for it and to specify in the nVidia control panel to use the discrete card. That's all.

With that being said, anything with a numpad will do. Make sure that the discrete gpu is a GF5xx or GF6xx, which are DX11 capable, since there is a graphics client being developed.

 

[Hielor]

I would recommend no laptop at all. Notebooks are a compromise, a powerful notebook is usually only smaller than a tower, but equally immobile because of the power demands, and impossible to repair yourself.

Even a small tower with dedicated GPU is better suited for Orbiter, costs much less than the notebook and is usually more powerful than comparable hardware choices in a notebook, because the mobile versions of CPU and GPU are more geared towards power saving.

I would also recommend AGAINST a laptop. Follow Urwumpe's advice.

Re-quoting this part of the OP's post because apparently you two missed it:

I am going to be traveling 28 weeks next year-so I want something small and light.

Even the smallest tower would be significantly more difficult to lug around than even the largest laptop.

As for being "equally immobile because of the power demands"--that's just ignorant. You can find an open outlet in an airport, sit down at it, and be actively working on a laptop in under a minute, and packing it all back up again is just a matter of unplugging the one cord, closing the lid, and shoving it in your backpack.

As for battery life, many of the more modern airliners have outlets at the seats so you can plug in. Even failing that, all modern laptops have the battery life for a movie or two, so you can occupy yourself with something other than the screaming children in the row behind you. Try that with a desktop.

Yes, for general gaming, a desktop is better. If you're only going to be moving a couple times a year, and moving by car, and not needing the computer during your transit, then sure, a mid-size desktop would work better. But if actual mobility is important, you can't beat a laptop. And if Orbiter is your primary game? It's old enough that modern laptop hardware with a dedicated GPU should have no problem at all running it, even at an entry-to-mid price range.

 

[rodion_herrera]

I think it would be helpful to add this info, and while it's a bit "product specific" the two laptops are actually quite different physically, so this could help the TS in considering/selection of what he wants to get:

Aspire 5750G vs. the 4755G

The Acer Aspire 5750G is a large laptop, but the plusses of course, is a keyboard that actually has a numeric keypad on the right side--important for Orbiter, and obviously, the larger display. It's also heavier than the 4755G. The keys "feel" somewhat better than the 4755G's because they are larger and have more travel (deeper when depressed).

Acer Aspire 4755G is smaller, but surprisingly, both have the SAME resolution for main display (1366x768), but the screen is just smaller for the 4755g. The 4755G lacks a numeric keypad so one would need a numeric keypad for this. Heck I actually got a wireless (IR) full sized keyboard (and not only a keypad) so that I can be more comfy for long duration typing and working with graphics (3D/2D, Photoshop, etc.) it to the fullest, but this is a personal decision.

Both laptops have an nVidia GeForce GT 540M (2GB), so they are pretty parallel in terms of graphics capability. Power drain, I think the 5750G drains power more, based on my experience, but I don't really know why, but I'm guessing due to the larger display.

Finally, Windows7 Performance index rates the 5750G at 5.7 and the 4755G at 4.7, I know, but I think it's just coincidental. Also I don't trust it really...I had the 4755G installed with 8gig of RAM and now in some cases I feel it's actually faster than the 5750G (which only has 6gig of RAM).

-RODION

 

[Mantis]

It's a heavy beast but more powerful than most desktops: Asus G74. I've had one for more than a year now and love it.

Intel Core i7 CPU 2.6Ghz quad core
12GB of RAM
2x 500GB hard drives.
Blu-ray/DVD-RW/CD-RW
Nvidia GeForce NTX 560M video card with 3 GB dedicated video ram.
17" HD screen

I can run any 3D game or simulation at full resolution with maximum detail with no slowness or loss of fram rates.

 

[dumbo2007]

I recently got Asus E72. A bit expensive, $900 !!, but no issues so far.

 

[EndeavourCmdr]

I actually own an XPS, so let me jump in here and save you all the trouble. Skip it. Find a different brand. I've had terrible performance with the XPS, even right out of the box. Upgraded the BIOS and the drivers to the latest, and the thing crashed. Had to roll back to earlier drivers from 2009 because the laptop just wasn't built to handle the newer instructions apparantly. Within 3 months of owning it, 1 of the RAM sticks had already failed giving me a blue screen of death at startup. Had to call DELL for replacement parts. I actually had bought three of them at the same time, and of those three, 2 of the power supplies failed within 8 months. I don't know how else to say it, but if you buy the XPS, you are making a poor choice.

 

[jimblah]

I'm sticking with MSI for now...

This laptop has your numerical keypad, and you can program the color of it's back-light for it and the entire keyboard as well. I own an MSI GX-720 and I'm most likely going to upgrade to the MSI GT70 0NC-011US later this year. I'm also a big ASUS fan as well. I'm currently running Orbiter-111105 with the DX9-RC44 client with hires textures on my current NVIDIA 130M graphics card with 512 MB of dedicated memory. My framerates are 120 +. I just think I'm going to want more performance as work progresses on the visualization projects. I believe you can't go wrong with ASUS or MSI based on my experiences.

 

[asmi]

Alienware M17R3 wins hands down! And its 3D monitor is a nice addition to experience. The only downside is that it's really expensive...

 

[mojoey]

Alienware M17R3 wins hands down! And its 3D monitor is a nice addition to experience. The only downside is that it's really expensive...

Anything with Alienware in the name is next to useless. Ibuypower FTW!

Seriously, though. Go find the parts list of an Alienware machine. Now, take that list and go to newegg, or wherever and compile the same parts list there. See which one has the cheaper price.