Best Laptop choice to run secondlife well?

I'm looking around the stores and such for a laptop that will run secondlife efficiently.

I figured I'd come by with this question and see what those in the know will share.

thanks in advance!

i hardly ever play on my laptop, but where i do, i noticed this:
you'll need a ok video card (not top of the line tho. it runs on the geforce 6150le well.
processor is less important, but again, you don't want horrible. my laptop's 1.6ghz
the mroe ram you have, the better. mine has 2gb, and i wish it had more.

and the single most important SL related feature: internet speed. if you cannot get fast wireless internet where you plan to use it, bring a ethernet cord, and plug it in somehwere.
you seriosuly need at least 700kb/s imo, else it lags too much.

I'd think the same things would apply as for desktops -at least 1GB RAM, a decent video card, etc.

I'd recommend a nice mouse and a nice-sized display, but that's mostly because I'm all thumbs and can't find my glasses.

*squints*

I have been using this one for my business trips, with 4GB of RAM: http://www.gateway.com/gaming/index.php?page=pseries.

Works very well and pretty cheap for what's inside it.

Asus is my favorite laptop brand. Since they're the only laptop maker in the world who manufactures their own motherboards and video cards, they usually offer far more features per dollar than anybody else. Also, their stuff is always rock-solid, and they make hands down the nicest screens I've ever seen on laptops.

I haven't checked what is their latest and greatest in a while, but when last I looked, the G2Sg-A1 seemed like a hell of a machine. I used to have its predecessor, the G2S-A1 (no little g), and it was awesome. My only beef with it is it's Vista-only, no XP option. But there's less and less getting around that these days, anyway, no matter what you buy. For under $2000, you can't get much better in a 17". http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220284

Question: How about a Mac Laptop?

SL burns up laptops unless you get one of the special gaming laptops.

The two big issues with a laptop are Graphics card and HEAT.

i would say that any graphics card in the nvidea 8xxx is great. 76xx or higher is good enough.

somehow, Macbook pro's do not run hot. On the other hand, my HP9000 with a go 7600 gets hot as hell when I play SL. This also causes the noisy fan to start up and run run run.

I love my iMac, but for the laptops, imo, you are paying a LOT more for one of them and they don't have the same power. To get one with equivalent GPU power, you are going to be paying quite a bit more than you would for a gaming laptop.

I agree the biggest thing to look for is a Nvidia graphics chip set.

The Intel one's are very weak in 3D performance.

/me waves to Phoe!

Anything in the stores with nVidia graphics, just remember the 2nd number is the important one (a 7900 is faster than a 8400), so it's worth spending more for that 2nd digit 'Nix.

Also, if you will be using it exclusively, get a "cooling mat" thingy, which is just more fans that plugs into the laptop that it then sits upon. Since you can't upgrade or replace the graphics card in a laptop, you want to get the most advanced graphics you can and not have it die on you! (Even if it is then noisier...)

All of this came from reading many of the "which is the best laptop for SL" threads here over the years, LOL

I got a nice 17" HP dv9000 late last year.
It has a GeForce Go 6150, It can't run much. I have to use lowest possible graphics settings and It is no fun if I switch the fancy stuff on. I Do to take a few pictures but it is very slow till I turn it off again. Just barely runs digital tv. If it wasn't for the lack of graphics it would be perfect. And it was touted as a "Multimedia Machine"

ibuypower.com

My concern with them is that their website looks virtually identical to cyberpower's. Do not, under any circumstances, buy from Cyberpower. They are the worst comapny I have ever dealt with in my life, and that is REALLY saying something. They flat out lied to me about the computer I ordered, they did not install the parts I ordered, they lied repeatedly about the delivery date, and then when the motherboard failed within weeks of the purchase and I asked them to honor their warranty, they laughed at me and dared me to sue them. Then they refused to return phone calls.

I replaced the motherboard on my own dime because the cost of suing them exceeded the cost of the repairs.

ibuypower may be a totally different company, but the website is so closely related, that it would scare me off.

I have a Dell M1530 running at 2.4 GHz with 3G RAM, with an Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT card. Runs well, haven't had any problems. Yet. Knock on wood.

I second the cooling fan recommendation.

And it's a good time to order one as well, Dell is running a sale on this particular model right now.

I can't speak to their laptops, but my desktop machine is from Cyberpower. While I did have some issues with it in the beginning, overall it's been fantastic. Coincidentally, I had a motherboard fail as well (EVGA's fault, not Cyberpower's), and Cyberpower had no problem shipping me a new one right away. They only required putting a hold on my credit card in case I should fail to return the defective one, perfectly reasonable.

My only lasting complaint is with their factory overclocking service. They really shouldn't be offering that (not that they're the only company who does, by any means). It can take weeks of fine tuning to get an overclocked system to behave properly, and there's just no way they can do that in a factory environment. If you buy a factory-overclocked system, you are almost guaranteed to have problems. So, in my opinion, factory overclocking is in itself a disingenuous thing.

To Cyberpower's credit though, when it was determined that overclocking was the cause of my initial instability issues with this machine, they instantly refunded the cost of the factory overclock. Can't complain about that kind of service.


That said, I won't be buying from them again, but not because I'm displeased with them. The fact is I'll never again buy another desktop computer from ANYONE. Why? Well, that defective motherboard actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. When I did the work to swap it out, I learned enough through the process that I'm now fully capable of building a desktop machine myself. Not only is this obviously the least expensive way to go, but I also discovered that the parts companies tend to have much better customer service than any computer assembler out there. EVGA, in particular, has been wonderful. I can't praise those guys enough, always willing to answer questions, always with a seemingly genuine desire to help and to educate.

I only wish it were that simple with laptops. But unfortunately getting a barebones notebook along with all the parts to make it into a high end machine actually costs way more than just buying a pre-assembled one. It's just not worth it. It's a shame.

Cyberpower used to make power supplies. Cheap crappy power supplies with cheap crappy capacitors in them. Had no idea they had branched out into other hardware. Thanx for the heads up.

My laptop runs SL beautifully - I have all the graphics cranked up full except draw at 256m. I tend to replace laptops every 18-24 months to keep up thats the only downside of course. Also I run Vista in classic mode which lowers the resource drain alot.

Its a Sony Vaio FZ31Z T8300 2.4Ghz 4gb
http://www.microanvika.com/product.asp?PNO=SON14992

It's already £200 cheaper than when I bought it 3 months ago

The interesting bits:

Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T8300
Memory 4GB (2x2048MB)DDR2 SDRAM 667 Mhz
Graphics NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GS GPU
Total Available Graphics Memory of 1023MB
Display 15.4" WXGA X-black LCD with double lamp technology
Resolution Format 1280 x 800

I have a coworker who had the same experience you did with Cyberpower, Trout. Only he bought 2 PCs at the same time and they were both DOA. He told me on no uncertain terms don't touch them, and I didn't.

That said, it appears to be a back-end eCommerce engine they're both using. I bought a laptop from ibuypower last month and had a really good experience. It even arrived before the projected ship date. Best of all, I got WinXP on it and with the exception of begging me to use the fingerprint reader ("I'll give you the finger, all right, if you don't stop nagging me..." I'm pleased, and it runs well.

I recently got a Dell XPS N1703 with Nvidia 8800 SLI. It rocks! Heavier then a load of bricks, but that is what they made laptop bags with wheels for.

Win money giving a simple click! :


---- Advertisement URL removed by Katt Linden --

Do you have to post your spam scam crap on every thread?

I'm running SL on a Rock gaming laptop. Works great

CPU: Intel Pentium III/Pentium III Xeon (0.25 micron process) with external L2 cache (2493 MHz)
Memory: 3070 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (Build 6001)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 8800M GTX/PCI/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 2.1.2
LLMozLib Version: [LLMediaImplLLMozLib] - 2.01.16119 (Mozilla GRE version

I believe you're talking about a different company. There are at least two different companies that use the words "cyber" and "power" together in their names.

"CyberPower Systems", also known as "CyberPower Systems (USA), Inc.", "CyperPower Systems B.V.", and "CyberPower Systems, Inc." is a maker of UPS's and surge protectors for PC's, networks, and telecom systems. They are a large international corporation with headquarters in Minnesota, The Netherlands, and Taiwan. http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/

"Cyberpower Inc.", better known as "cyberpowerpc.com" is a builder of gaming PC's. They are a small private company, located in Baldwin Park, California. http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/

As far as I know, the two have nothing to do with each other.

One interesting thing to notice is that CyberPower Systems has a registered trademark symbol in their logo, and Cyperpower Inc. does not. I'd bet that if CyberPower Systems wanted to force Cyberpower Inc. to change their name, they easily could (and probably should). Trademarks are, after all, intended to protect the public from confusion. Your (quite natural) assumption that Cyberpower PC's must be from the same company as CyberPower power supplies is exactly what trademarks are intended to prevent.

I myself own both a Cyberpower computer and a CyberPower AC power converter for my car. When I first bought the power converter at Best Buy, I thought "That's odd. I didn't think Cyberpower was big enough to have national distribution with the likes of Best Buy." So I got curious and looked into it. All signs are that Cyberpower is not in any way affiliated with CyberPower. Apparently, that capital P makes all the difference.

ibuy power is not affiliated with cyberpower just like every other website that uses VB and the default blue theme is not affiliated with secondlife or linden labs

i know quite a few people who bought from them and have had little or no issue, even in the little issues they were extreamly quick to resolve it

they are not some random internet site i picked out of the blue either, they advertise in all the major gaming magazines and have won a few awards from the likes of pc magazine

to base your entire judgement on the looks of a website is retarded, theres like (maybe max) 40 theme bases for every web system out there for download