SL on a notebook

Hi,

Just a quick wee question here that hopefully someone will be able to help me out with...

Q.) Will SL run on a notebook, and will it be usuable.

I am thinking along the lines of something like an Acer Aspire One, or the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and am very grateful to anyone who can give me some first hand experience on running SL on such a machine.

Many thanks for your time.

Tommy!

I run SL on a Dell Inspiron 9300 (can't remember which graphics card I chose, don't have laptop with me today) and a Dell Latitude D830 (with the nVidia Quadro graphics option).

Both run SL "Good Enough (tm)" - Sure it would be great if I could turn on max graphics quality and still have more than half a frame per second, but I can certainly live with medium quality and the FPS that I am getting now.

As long as you're not planning on doing any "twitch" activities (racing vehicles, combat, etc) they are up to the task.

I don't know the Mini 9, but wikipedia says it only has an 8.9" screen. I think that would be a bigger concern for me than speed. With the build and inventory windows open, you might not see any world

SL will run on an Eee PC, which is barely a notebook. Will it be usable on one? Not very, but it will run.

The question is not the one you want to ask, the one you want to ask is what kind of a notebook is required to run SL comfortably. In particular, here's what to look out for:

1. The notebook needs to have a "real" graphics chip. Real meaning not Intel GMA, but something with dedicated video RAM. Anything equivalent to an Nvidia 6000 series or newer will be sufficient, depending on the screen resolution you will run at -- the newer the better. The important part is to look out for video RAM -- the more SL has to play with, the less it slows down as more and more textures go into rendering a scene. Anything under 256 megabytes will be disappointing.
2. The notebook must have at least 1G normal RAM. More is better.
3. CPU speed is, surprisingly, less of a factor than the previous two.
4. A faster HDD drive is also useful because it will affect the speeds at which the texture cache works.
5. If possible, avoid playing SL over wireless, since it introduces network delays which, in other circumstances, might not be crucial, but on a notebook could be a showstopper.

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 has an Intel GMA 950, and as such I cannot call it a good machine for SL. It will run, but you won't be happy about how it does, while Dell Inspiron 9300 cited above has an Nvidia Go 6800 256MB in it, and thus is on the lower end of 'good enough'.

It mostly hinges on the graphics adapter (aka GPU) in the laptop.

Lots of people become unstuck when buying laptops because they choose one with an Intel GPU.

Aim for one with an NVidia GPU and you'll probably be pleasantly surprised.

Hi there! I don't know about your mentioned notebooks but I can say that it runs very smooth on my Acer Aspire 5930G-864G32MN, 15.4 notebook with Vista. SL even runs a lot better on my notebook than my desktop. My desktop is a year old with Intelcore Duo, Winxp SP2, but a poor Nvidia Geforce card (7500LE).

I first hesitated to get the NB regarding Vista, but I'm quite surprised that it runs very well with mid to max settings, using wireless connection. I sometimes get up to 45fps on my notebook using the latest RC. On my desktop I hardly get 6fps using the RC. Using the main viewer is even worse (which I rarely use anyway).

I don't know if the Acer Aspire 5930-864G32MN is available in your country, but I can highly recommend it. It's one of the best gaming NB you can get for an unbeatable price of 999,- EUR (Germany).


Some of the technical details (sorry I couldn't find the specs in english):

- Prozessor: Intel Centrino 2 Prozessortechnologie mit Intel Core 2 Duo Prozessor P8600 (2.4 GHz/ 3 MB L2 Cache/ 1066 MHz FSB / Penryn 64 Bit)
- Chipsatz: Intel PM45 Express
- Arbeitsspeicher: 4 GB DDR2-667 PC2-5300 SO-DIMM
- Festplatte: 320 GB, S-ATA, 5.400 U/min
- Laufwerk: DVD+/-RW SuperMulti Double Layer Brenner
- Display: 15,4 Zoll WXGA CrystalBrite High-Brightness TFT Display (glänzend)
- Grafik: NVIDIA GeForce 9600MGT mit 512 MB DDR3, HDMI, VGA

The only thing I don't like about it is the glossy screen, but other than that, I'm very happy with this notebook. So if you want a good gaming notebook, but you're on a budget, I can definitely recommend this NB.

Here's a link to the NB test:
http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/613

Peace
Can'Tell

I'm running on an Acer Aspire 5920, with an nvidia gpu. I'm running SL on high settings just fine most of the time. The past few days have been rough, but I don't think it's because of the laptop.

Definitaly make sure what you are thinking of buying has a dedicated graphics chip, and does *not* use that Intel graphics garbage. If you do that you should be fine.

Call Best Buy and ask if they have any of the Gateway P6860FX laptops left.
This is a clearance model that I bought for $714.00. My Best Buy still had 3 left last week.

The important stats in a nutshell:

core 2 duo
1.83 ghz
17" screen
nvidia 8800 GTS with 512 discrete memory
4 mb ram

I have to say that it is kicking SL's butt. Woohoo......

This shows as $1,299.99 USD on the Best Buy website right now. Haven't checked to see if any local Best Buy stores have it on sale below that.

Looks like a sweet gaming rig, though, for a laptop.

I first started SL on a notebook, but in short time realized that SL is constantly adding features that tax any computers capabilities and the upgrade path of notebook is pretty much nil. You can get the best graphics card available but in 18 months it may not cut it for running SL. If you have the room or space get a nice desktop pc and know that you can easily upgrade your hardware as needed. I still have that notebook and use it when I travel but the SL experience is greatly reduced compared to that of my desktop.
Of course the ideal situation is to have both.

TomBoy, the exact machines you're asking about are not notebooks. They're "mini laptops". There are lots of actual notebooks (regular laptops) available that will run SL very well (including the ASUS G70S-A1 that I'm typing this post on right now, which I HIGHLY recommend (full review at /327/da/280009/1.html)). But I would tend to doubt that any mini currently on the market would even come close to running it at decent speed. Here's why:

1. They don't have discrete graphics cards, just integrated graphics. While SL will run on some integrated graphics units, performance is never very good with them. They're just not built for this sort of thing.

2. The Atom CPU, while impressive for its size and power requirements, is not meant for anything as resource-intensive as SL. It's designed to give small devices the ability to browse the Web at speed, run MS Office type applications, etc. I doubt it would handle SL very well at all.

SL really requires a gaming rig to run well, and it'll be a god long time yet before there is such a thing as a gaming mini.

That said, I've never actually tried to run SL on a mini. Everything I've said here is based on reading the specs, not on any first hand experience. The only way to know for sure, obviously, is to try it. But I'd be willing to bet just about any amount of money you'd care to name that it won't work very well, if at all.

Yep, the website has it at that price. OP will have to call the store. They are definitely on clearance. Make sure you ask for that one. If you live in NY, the Yonkers store had 3 left.

This thread got me AND the Resident Geek out shopping the web. As always, he beat me to the best deal.

ASUS G50V-A2, as low as $1800. If you don't need the Blu-Ray burner and can take a small hit in graphics performance, try the ASUS M50Vm-B1, $1300 at NewEgg.

He beat me because I got seduced by the beauty of the MacBook Air. So thin, so light, so CUTE! But I bet it wouldn't be such a hot performer with SL.

Now all I have to do is see if the Christmas budget will cover a couple of these...

Oooh, look! The Dell XPS 1530 comes in PINK! Honey....

Except for one MAJOR problem... the Macbook Air connects to your network ONLY via a wireless connection. There is NO way to connect an Ethernet cable to it, not even with an adapter.

And we know how SL loves wireless...

I just ordered a XPS1530 in "PRODUCT" red for the wife. 1049.00 out the door on sale on line untill monday, I had to custom build it but the 128 8400 version is at 949

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5850 (2MB cache/2.16GHz/667Mhz FSB) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista ® Home Premium Edition SP1 edit
LCD AND CAMERA Glossy, widescreen 15.4inch LCD (1280x800) & 2.0 MP edit
MEMORY 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms) edit
HARD DRIVE Speed: 320GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) with Free Fall Sensor edit
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE Slot Load DVD+/-RW (DVD/CD read/write) edit
VIDEO CARD 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600 GT
edit
WIRELESS CARDS Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini Card edit
BLUETOOTH AND WIRELESS USB Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Internal (2.0+Enhanced Data Rate)

Even if you buy a laptop with an Intel GPU it may still run, just not at great speeds. My Gateway which I bought about 6 months ago runs an Intel 945 and it will run SL. It's not great, and I have to turn all the features down, but it runs. I didn't buy it with the intent of running SL, but it's serviceable for small building jobs, chatting, and navigating non-laggy places.

I recently got an Acer Aspire One for my mobile web surfing purposes and was intrigued to see how SL would run if at all.

I was incredibly surprised at how well everything works. Everything is turned down to lowest settings but it is highly usable and movement is fluid and responsive - this even works on wireless lan well. A big win for me as I am mobile a lot

My main computer is a Intel Duo Core laptop witha 256Mb Nvidia Quadro NVS 140M graphics card. I have 3Gb memory and this machine flies at SL and is rock solid when SL is behaving well generally. A friends newer version of mine (mine is about 4 months old now) is even faster - I have never seen SL go so fast - both machines are DELL, mine is a Latitude D830 and hers is a Vostro 1500

Hope this helps

I have an Acer Aspire 5570-2997 and play SL on it exclusively. 2 gigs DDR2. As long as you have a fast internet connection, this little laptop will rock for you. You won't be able to do windlight with the chipset, but it's excellent for the money and I've seen bigger, badder way more expensive laptops that can't run SL.

ETA: I am totally wireless as well.

Me running SL on a Notebook:

Yes SL will run on a notebook. I have been using a Compaq notebook with a GeForce 4 card for years and it works just fine and doesn't get the best FPS but is ok for what I do in SL.