thinking of getting a lap top to run SL

im thinking of buying a lap top for a second computer was wondering if any one currently using a lap top could offer some insight as to what may be a good choice to run SL or is it even worth it to try and run SL on lap top and i should just get another reg pc.

Judging from what a friend has said, you should definately inves tin a travel mouse for the laptop - the touchpad is horrible at controls. His also tended to lag more..but I am thinking that was processor and connection.

SL will run on just about any laptop, but I advise you to spend some time searching and be ready to shell out the bucks for something decent.
I've ran SL on 3 or 4 different laptops over the years and here's my quick summary:

$499 laptop - 1-5 fps
$999 laptop - 5-10 fps
$1999 laptop - good

YMMV, of course. Make sure you get something with plenty of RAM, at least 512 megs, preferrably 1 gig. Nvidia graphics chips work best, ATi will also do - avoid Intel graphics chips like the plague, even though most laptops have them.
If you can get something where the graphics memory is not shared with main memory, even better.

God, NO! Travel mice are a stupid marketing stunt. Get a real mouse, one that fits nicely in your hand, and it will already be small enough to take anywhere. Mice that are too small really fuck up your hands.

Well. As I'm not of the laptop carrying crowd (I'm not that mobile, and I'm not that wealthy), I can make some recommendations..

- Look for nVidia graphics. ATI + SL + Laptop = hemmoraging around the optic nerve.
- Look for ASSLOADS of RAM, HD space.
- Look for something ASIDE FROM Sony or Gateway. Toshiba is okay if you're a geek with a driver disk. Dell is acceptible, but you'll need to beef up the carrying bag. I'd go with a Compaq, but that's because I'm a tard who happens to like them.

SL runs perfectly well on my 17" Powerbook. See if you can find anyone selling off a Pbook to buy a Macbook, the fools.

I agree about travel mice; the touchpad is always rubbish for proper control, but you can fit a proper-sized mouse in any bag large enough for a laptop. I've carried my big Kensington about before.

One thing you might think about is a trackball, because often when you're using a laptop, you either don't have much space to move a mouse about too, or you've only got a surface that doesn't agree very well with optical mice. I got myself a trackball a month or two ago and while it feels odd to start with, you get used to it quickly.

My dell latitude D810 with an ATI Radeon X300 works fine. I don't see ripple water, and I always keep local lighting off in any case, but usually run with viewing distance set to around 120m.

well from the looks of it i should be OK then
i was looking at this machine just now even the 1999 machine will work fine from what i have read here. i will prolly add bigger hard drive and more ram though.

I run SL on a laptop - a Dell Inspiron 9300 with a GeForce Go 6800 to be specific.

The 9300 is a bit out of date now - the current version of it is the
E1705, with dual-core chips and a GeForce Go 7800.

Highly recommended if price is a factor for you.

If money is no object, the new Dell XPS M170 is the high-performance version

Tip: If you're in the US, grab a Dell coupon from www.techbargains.com. There's a new one every week, the best you'll ever see is about 35% off. They're almost always applicable to the Inspiron laptop, but not the XPS.

Another value alternative is getting a Sager. (This is what the Alienware notebooks are underneath all that bodykit) A recommended Sager dealer is www.pctorque.com.

The Sager 5720 is not a bad choice.

All these laptops are around the 8-9lbs mark. If you've got a strong back, or don't anticipate moving your laptop very often, the Sager 9750 give you near desktop performance, but it's around 13 lbs.

For me, I like LCDs, and I like high resolutions, because I spend my day reading text on my computer. All of the above choices can be selected with 1920x1200 resolution LCDs. For some reason, to get an equivalent monitor for a desktop, the price is somewhat astronomical.

If you consider against that, getting a laptop instead of a desktop can actually be cheaper.

Hope that helps, cheers

Edit: www.notebookforums.com is probably a better place to ask for notebook recommendations than here.

Hey, that's the one I have. It works great for SL, and you can run Photoshop, Yahoo Messenger, and SL and a web browser all at the same time. Only problem is it's really really heavy. 10 lbs. And, the track pad sucks, so do get a mouse.

This is what I have:

A Toshiba Satellite P35-S609
Intell Pentium 4 Processor 538
17.0" WXGA TruBrite technology screen
1 gig of RAM
80 GB hard drive
ATI Mobility Radeon Integrated graphics (sucks ass)
DVD super multi drive
Windows XP home


SL runs ok. I get a lot of lag in high traffic areas. I wouldn't get another ATI card, that's for sure. My dream laptop is an Alienware.

If price is a consideration, don't get an XPS. That's Dell's way of getting more money out of you for a "premium" machine. Seriously, check out the E1705.

Another money saving tip I forgot: If you're elligible, and in the US, check out the EPP site for an additional discount. If you sign up with dell (give them your email) they'll send you a coupon code every now and again.

Yet another money saving tip: Memory from Dell if you get it bundled with your machine is expensive. You can get a better deal if you order memory seperately from Dell parts, or go to another dealer such as newegg.com.

I have nbever owned a laptop..this is only going off of a friends comments and testimony to thsoe hw was hanging around in SL with.

As for the thrackball issue- good idea. I've got my eye on a trackball for my pc once my tax return gets in, and there is often limited space with a laptop.

Check out my baby here:

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/ntbkx79000.asp?v=d

I've got the 3.4 ghz modem (they go up to 3.
I've got the 6800 ultra instead of the 7800 GTX now available
I've got 3 gigs of ram instead of 1
I've got a 60 gig 7200 rpm drive instead of the 80/5400

It runs SL fabulously - as well as any desktop I've ever seen - for $2500.

Regards,

-Flip

I got a top of the range Dell XPS about 2 1/2 months ago. Fantastic laptop and runs SL like a dream. I did go for the 1920 x 1200 display and the 7800 GTX and I run SL windowed but pretty much full screen and it runs smoothly with great FPS.

Actually, underneath it all the laptops are made by a company called Clevo. Sager and Alienware are both rebranders. There's several others also, including Pro-Star and I've heard Dell, but not sure on that last one.

They are good laptops though, very good in fact. I've been a fan of Pro-Star's laptops for some time (http://www.pro-star.com/). I've had a Pro-Star 9095 (probably same overall laptop as the Sager 9750) for about a year and a half now, with a 3.6Ghz P4, 1 gig of RAM, and the nVidia Go 6800 PCI-X 256mb. It runs SL quite well, and the screen on their laptops is amazing. Of course, they have better laptops now, technology marches on. I've been contemplating selling mine and getting the new Pro-Star 9068 which is the same laptop except it can go up to an AMD Athlon FX-60 (or X2 4800+ for about $400 less) processor with the nVidia 7800 in it. Mmmm. They're heavy laptops though, you are definitely right about that. Mine's about 12lbs not including the power adapter which is enormous (180 watts, which is about twice the average laptop power output). The battery life is also dismal, I get about 45 minutes of battery life out of mine if I don't fire SL up. Looking at about 30 minutes with SL. That's the biggest downside to these killer can-do-anything laptops. The feature list is enough to make any geek start salivating though. One of the nice things about these laptops though is you can stick two SATA-150 hard drives in them and RAID them together inside the chassis, beef up what is typically poorer disk speeds in laptops vs desktops.

As said earlier though, if you're in the market for one of these brutes then shop around with the various rebranders. The prices are usually pretty competitive, but you may like the style of one over the others. In the end they all come from momma Clevo (http://www.clevo.com.tw/). For one of the bigger models, expect to pay $3000-$3500.

Aww, no fair, I want a 3.4ghz modem.

On a more serious note, that's the exact same laptop as mine, the Pro-Star 9095. Welcome to another Clevo rebrander. (see post above) Sweet laptops, aren't they?

Yes I should've said they're the same as Alienware's underneath (While we're on the topic, Flipper's laptop is one of these)

I didn't investigate the clevo's that much when I was shopping around - they didn't have anything <13lbs when I wanted to get one. Is there a reason to prefer Pro-Star branding to Sager? As far as I can tell, they're marginally more expensive.

Yeah, I noted Flipper's in the post above yours. And no, as I said, they're all basically the same. Pro-Star, Sager, Alienware, whatever floats your boat and whatever you can get the best deal on. I've known about Pro-Star the longest of them all (I remember drooling over Pro-Star laptops in Computer Shopper like ten years ago). Not sure if they're really the oldest, but they've been around the block. (just checked, they started in 1992.)

Edit: One thing about 'being all the same' though, is that sometimes they'll offer different feature sets on the same laptops, or one rebrander will offer a model the others don't. Pro-Star has the AMD FX-60 edition of the laptop, not checked if the others offer the same (not seriously been in the market for a new laptop in a while), so it's always good to do a feature comparison. The same laptop may not have exactly the same features from a different reseller, accounting for price variances. I paid $3300 for mine a year and a half ago from Pro-Star, which included upgrading to the highest end processor they offered at the time (3.6ghz) and getting the second optical drive option (dual-layer DVD+-RW burner AND a regular DVD/CD-RW combo) and basically all the options on it except for the secondary hard drive.

wow wow wow omg the choices !
and best of all i now know that a lap top with the right con fig and an nvidia g card will do perfectly fine with SL just a matter of shopping around now.

thank you all for your help in this matter and will be checking back before i make final decision .

I run SL on a 2+ year old 15" Powerbook (512MB RAM) with few problems. I have Shiny and Ripple Water turned on, but not Local Lighting. I'm considering getting more RAM to help switch between apps when SL is running.

They are very sweet machines. The 5 speakers on a laptop is, however, a bit of overkill!

I just helped my mother get a nice cheap, but powerful laptop, ended up with the Acer 1654, 2Ghz processor with built-in wireless, lots of Hard disk space, and Radeon X300 built in.

Runs SL VERY nicely. Infact, better than this PC (mainly due to thsi pc having 512Mb and the lappy having 1Gb, SL is a memory hog.)

Paid? £750

If $$ is no object, here's another link to check out. Starting cost is about $4500, and can go as high as $10,000 with all the bells and whistles.

zOMG PENIS EXTENSION!