Query

[Filonian]

I've had an E-mail from a friend asking if FSX can be run on a laptop.

Never owned one and probably never will.

Any guidance would be most welcome.

Graham

[DaveB]

I guess it will mate but at the same time, you may need a laptop expotentially more powerful than an equivalent tower to see similar performance. If your friend is going to buy an Alienware laptop.. he should be ok It needs a pretty beefy graphics setup as well as a fast cpu to get the best out of it but it's all down to what you're prepared to put up with I suppose

ATB

DaveB

[Tako_Kichi]

One of the Admins at the SOH Flight Centre (that's sim-outhouse.net not .com) is using FSX on a laptop and he's very pleased with it. Not sure just what exactly it was but could be a Dell or Gateway and running Win7. I have flown MP with him many times and he doesn't seem to have any issues even in MP operations. If whoever is interested I could probably get specs from him.

[DaveB]

Hi Larry

I think it's pretty much horses for courses mate. FS (in general) doesn't seem to run particularly well on laptops but that doesn't mean to say ALL laptops. Certainly, FSX and Win7 seems to be a good combination but that's no guarantee. By all means, get the spec for that laptop and post it as I for one will be interested. My offspring is due at Uni in the not too distant and wants to throw some £700 at a laptop. I'd like to throw £700 at a tower but couldn't get close. I guess that's progress

ATB

DaveB

[Tako_Kichi]

I just PM'ed him over there Dave and will let you know what he says in due course.

[VEGAS]

My last rig was a laptop. Only within the last 12months have I upgraded to a desktop.

The laptop when I bought it was a high spec one. But as always with Computers. They get outdated pretty quickly.

It was an ACER 9513 wsmi. Dual core 1.83 CPU, nVidia 512mb GFX, 3GB RAM, 500GB HDD. That cost £1100 brand new.

Ran FSX at an acceptable rate. Never could compete with a desktop though.

Alienware do some of the best high performance laptops these days but the prices are just bonkers.

[Garry Russell]

I did read somewhere a while ago from someone who said that FS.X ran well on his £2,000 laptop so it would seem you need to pay a lot.

One problem is the inability to upgrade them much due to the physical space restrictions.

[Tako_Kichi]

I got a PM back when I fired up the computer this morning and here are the important specs for the laptop I mentioned:

Make: Asus

Model No.: G72GX-RBBX05

CPU: Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processor P8700
Features 2 processing cores, 1066MHz system bus, 3MB L2 cache and 2.53GHz processor speed per core.

RAM: 6GB DDR2 memory

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M graphics
Features 1GB GDDR3 video memory for lush images. HDMI output for connecting to an HDTV. 2 built-in speakers with DSP and Dolby Home Theater support.

OS: Win 7 Premium Edition 64 bit

Price: $999 USD

NOTE:
He had TWO complete hard drive failures within the first couple of weeks of ownership of the laptop. Research showed him that the Seagate Momentus drives as fitted by Asus were having a very high failure rate. He persuaded Asus (after the second replacement drive failed) to exchange it for a Western Digital drive and he has had no more problems.

Regarding FSX performance he had this to say:

My installation of FSX has a few payware/freeware planes and a mesh in the Alps and thats about it for add on software. Any planes that were port overs were removed they impacted frame rates too much.

Depending on where I am in the world I see frame rates still up around 40 fps. Most of the time its 20 - 25 again because I bumped up the traffic and clouds another notch. I will probably cut those back as I like it up at 40 fps better than 20.

On another note my FS9 install on the lap top will do 100 fps if I leave it unlimited. Runs great at 60 fps locked. That test convinced me I need a new desk top gaming PC but that money is not in my pockets right now.

So it runs FSX at a reasonable level (even 20-25 FPS in FSX is way better than the same in FS9 as it runs so much smoother) and if you back the sliders off a touch runs it well. The key is the non-use of port-over AC. They can really drag the system down compared to a fully native FSX aircraft.

Hope that helps.

[SkippyBing]

Due to the constraints of geography I'm currently running (and developing for) FSX on my three year old Toshiba Satellite which has some sort of Centrino Duo and a dedicated nVidia 7600 graphics card. I think it's currently got 2.5 GB of RAM after I did an upgrade (came with two 512mb strips which was a bit of a pain with only two slots).
At the time it wasn't near top of the range costing ~£600, now I only get 15fps (locked) out of it but as long as I steer clear of massively built up areas, or turn settings down, that's fine for my purposes.
Certainly I'd expect if you paid the same amount now you'd have no real problems, just make sure you get one with a dedicated graphics card..

[Filonian]

I thank yopu all for your input.

However, you aren't aware of the type of dick head this guy is.

He has just sent me an e-mail, querying whether he actually asked for the information, and stating that "The only flight Sim I installed ( but would not play was F/S 98, but I believe it could work with an update conversion download )

I know I am soon to reach 72, but believe not yet completely GA GA.

He is about to be downgraded from friend to someone to be barely tolerated, with close attendance of men in white suits.

Once again,

Thanks for all your help.


Graham