Kickass Laptop for SL

I've been involved with so many "What new laptop should I get?" threads lately, I finally decided to bite the bullet and get a new laptop for myself. I figured I'd pass along a quick review of the machine I picked, in case anyone is currently in the market. I guess you could consider this a pre-question resident answer.

The last laptop I had was an ASUS G2S-A1, which I really liked, so I decided to stick with ASUS again this time around. Those that know me probably won't find that surprising, since I tend to recommend ASUS products rather emphatically and rather often.

I was tempted to stick with the G2 series again, since they're extremely well priced, and I happen to like the fact that they look like they were designed by Darth Vader. But I decided against it because the 256MB GeForce 8600's that come in them are pretty underpowered by today's standards. A year and a half or so ago, when I got mine, they were great, but I wanted something a little more future-proof this time.

After deciding on a budget of $3000, and doing a ton of research (of both ASUS's offerings and those of several other brands), I opted for the G2S-A1's more modern counterpart G70-A1. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220364 . See performance benchmarks at http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=269794

I have to say I'm in love so far. The UPS man dropped the thing off about three hours ago, and I haven't stopped drooling since. It's lighting fast, the display is absolutely beautiful, and when ASUS says "double barreled", they really mean it. It's basically got two of everything under the hood. Dual cores (I opted not to spend the extra $600 to get the quad core version), dual video cards, dual physical hard drives, what more could you want? If that's not enough, it's got two preset over-clocking configurations, which can be accessed on the fly. Plus, it's covered in enough flashy things to light up a small airport.

I must confess I was a little leery of the fact that it's got GeForce 8700's in it, which aren't exactly nVidia's latest or greatest, but when I realized that the 8700 is one of the few models not affected by the recent nVidia overheat fiasco, I was sold. These slightly older cards are actually a blessing in disguise, as far as I'm concerned. What good would a spiffy new 9800 or G2 do me if it might melt down at any moment? And in any case, this IS only a secondary machine. It's for travel, and for times when my desktop is occupied with rendering and whatnot. 8700's are more than adequate for that purpose.

That was my mental justification for it, anyway. But I'm starting to feel that there's nothing necessarily "secondary" about this thing. Judging from my experience so far, I'm comfortable saying that if this were my only computer, I'd be quite happy with it. (Knock on wood. Desktop, don't take that as an invitation to quit any time soon. You know I love you and I'd be lost without you, ya big lug!)

Incidentally, one of the reasons I chose the G70 is that unlike any of the G2's, it is XP compatible. It comes with Vista Ultimate 64 pre-installed, but if you want to replace it with XP, you can, which is somewhat unusual for laptops these days. That may turn out to be a non-issue, though, as I'm happy to report that I'm so far very pleasantly surprised with Vista 64. I was expecting it to drag like Vista 32 does, but it just doesn't seem to want to slow down. It runs so well, in fact, I'm half tempted to install it on my desktop. I'll have to see if I continue to like it so much as time goes by, but for now, I'm quite pleased with it.


OK, so enough about the machine itself. On to the relevant part for this forum. How does it run SL? Like a dream. With all settings maxed, except for anti-aliasing, which I've got at the second highest setting (8x instead of 16x), I'm consistently getting around 25 FPS, just about everywhere I go. That's with no over-clocking. (I haven't played with the over-clocking yet.) I did try it with 16x AA, and I was getting around 10-20 FPS, which was a bit slow for my taste, so I backed it off to 8x. Visually, there's hardly any difference. It's noticeable if you really look for it, of course, but for the most part, 8x looks plenty smooth. The FPS is not quite as high as what I consistently get on my desktop, which I do run with all settings maxed, even the AA (16XQ), but for a laptop, it's pretty damned good.


So far, I've only found three things I don't like about this laptop. First, I'm not in love with how they pre-configured the hard drives. They put two partitions on each, which seems a little silly to me. I'd rather have two 200GB drives than four 100GB partitions. When I get around to it, I'll have to change it. Second, while the cosmetic styling of this machine is nice, it doesn't have that "misfit of sci fi" look that the G2 had, and I kind of miss that. Third, while the flashing lights, back-lit buttons, and light-up touch pad are really cool-looking, they're not exactly practical. Battery life is purported to be just over one hour for this machine, which is pretty silly. I'll have to experiment to see how much I could maybe extend that just by disabling all these lights.


Bottom line, if you've got a $3000 budget, and you're looking for a laptop that will run SL really well, I can't recommend the G70S-A1 highly enough. It's fantastic.

If you do decide to go XP, you can blow away the partitions and set the HDDs up like you want them.

You didn't mention it but I thought I would ask; did you download the newer drivers for the video adapters? If you're getting 25FPS with stock Vista drivers I'm impressed.

Yeah. As I said, I'll keep playing with Vista 64 for a few weeks to run it through the mill, and see if it's really as good as first impressions suggested. Either way, I'm gonna kill those partitions.


Nope. I haven't updated any drivers. All I did was turn the thing on, let Windows Update run, let Norton Live Update run (Nortin Internet Security was pre-installed), and then I installed some software (just SL, Maya, and Adobe CS3 Design Premium so far). That's it.

Nice review, good info.

Where did you find this? I keep seeing "doom-doom-doom!!!1!" everywhere but have found little info on what *is* OK.

Aren't they set as 2 RAID-0's? One possible advantage to that config is if the second partition is empty move your swap file there first thing. It's an old Linux trick to put the swap area near the physical center of the drive(s) which can shave a millisecond or two off the random access time. Sometime video editors do the same thing. Prolly negligible on modern laptop sized hw tho.

with 2xgpus and 2xhdds I seriously doubt a handful of leds are gonna have a measurable impact on battery life. Busting open a gem like that just to tinker with some lights? thin line between bravery and foolishness.

Thanks. Anything else you want to know about it, feel free to ask.


From most articles I've read, G92 and G94 chips are the major culprits. I also read in one or two articles that G84 and G86 chips are problematic as well, but the evidence seemed a bit flimsy on that, so I called Asus to ask what their experience has been. According to them, they've only had problems with the G86's. The 8700M has a G84 in it, and if Asus reps are to be believed, they've had no troubles with them.



They can be set up that way, but they're not by default. I'm still considering whether or not to do it.

On my desktop, I've got two Raptors on RAID 0 for my system drive, and it's awesome. But I've also got another pair of them on a RAID mirror for my data drive, another solitary one for a scratch disk, plus an externally housed Caviar on eSATA for manual backup, which I sync about once a week with the data drive. I'm crazy nervous about data loss, after having had a drive fail about a year ago, and having to spend hundreds of dollars with a recovery specialist to retrieve my files.

RAID 0 on anything portable makes me a little paranoid. If anything were to go wrong with either drive, both would be shot. But, I am thinking about doing it, still.


Interesting. I hadn't thought of that.


I wouldn't physically open the chassis and disconnect the lights; don't worry. The lights are all user-configurable. The preset "Battery Saver" mode turns most of them off. I was just talking about testing to see how much benefit there would be in turning them all off is all.

/me pops in long enough to drool, wishing she had a budget anywhere near that for a new laptop.



Oh, well, I'll just have to be content with the decent desktop recently purchased and just keep crying every time I'm forced to use my laptop for SL for any reason (like now while I'm on vacation).

Just wanted to add a few more thoughts after having traveled with the laptop for the first time. From last Thursday through Sunday, I had it with me at SLCC.

From a performance standpoint, I have to say I'm even more in love with it than I was when I first posted. It served me faithfully the whole trip, and the ooh's and ahh's I kept getting from people around me in response to all the flashy lights and the big beautiful screen certainly didn't hurt. Fun times.

Having the machine on hand did help me line up at least one new client, and several potentials, which was great. So it served its purpose perfectly, as far as SLCC was concerned.


OK, now here's the downside. First, the weight started to get to me a little, but that might have had more to do with the fact that I was running on about 2-4 hours of sleep per night, so my body was already aching all over anyway. Still, even on a good day, an 11-pound machine, plus its huge power brick, plus my portable speakers, headset, papers, and other accessories, all in one backpack, makes for a heavy load.

If you get a G70, make sure you bring your muscles with you when you travel. A machine for the weak, it is not.

Second, the attention-getting appearance of the laptop started to make me a little paranoid. I wasn't too concerned about other convention-goers getting sticky fingers, but every time a member of the hotel staff would ogle the thing, I did get a little scared. I made it a point to strike up as long and as friendly a conversation with each of them as I could, under the assumption that it's harder to bring yourself to steal from someone you've gotten to like than from a total stranger. Still, every time I left the backpack in the hotel room, I was afraid I'd return to find it gone. Luckily, nothing happened.

Third, the short battery life did become somewhat of a pain. It wasn't a show-stopper by any means, but I have to admit I was a little envious of the Mac Book Pro users who seemingly could just whip out their unplugged machines and use them all day long. I had to make sure I was near an outlet pretty much at all times. Of course, those guys can't even run SL with anti-aliasing turned on, so "envious" might be too strong a word. I'd much rather have a computer that performs than one that doesn't, even if it does eat batteries. I might just order a spare battery or two from ASUS, and add a little more weight to that backpack. It's annoying, but well worth it for the performance.

At this point, on a scale of 1-10, I'd rate this machine at a solid 9.95. If there were a way to make the same package lighter and use less battery power, that would be a 10. But considering the highest I'd rate any of my previous laptops would be maybe an 8 (the G2), 9.95 is pretty damned good. The missing 5% of a point is nitpicking, really.

Again, if you've got $3000 to spend, and you're in the market for a new laptop, the G70S-A1 is absolutely fantastic. You won't be disappointed.

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On a semi side note, I'm pleased to report that Vista 64 continues to surprise me with how well it works. I'm 100% convinced at this point that all the bad rap Vista gets is because of the 32-bit version. I'd be hard pressed to imagine what anyone with the 64-bit version could possibly complain about. It's great.

Actually, I'll take that back. I do have one minor complaint. My TGA, PSD, and AI thumbplugs won't work with 64-bit. They install without any apparent errors, but they don't end up doing anything. So until someone makes 64-bit versions of them, I'm relegated to using Adobe Bridge to view thumbnails, which I hate. Programmers out there, if anyone wants to make me really, really happy, 64-bit thumbplugs are all I want for Christmas.

Are you running SL's official current client? I also just got a new laptop, about a month ago, running Vista 64. Maybe it's a hardware issue, but I kept having memory error crash problems while running the default SL client, with windlight, etc... Since reverting to a Nicholas viewer from February, everything has been great.

My laptop is 17 pounds, hehe. But I love the 20" screen! (HP HDX)

Good question. I'm getting good results with both the current viewer, and the 1.21 RC viewer. The RC actually seems to perform slightly better than the current one, which is a positive sign, I think.

My guess is maybe you've got a hardware issue or a driver issue. What's under the hood in yours?

Please keep in mind my budget wasn't quite up to par with yours. It is an HP Pavilion HDX9300, Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T8100 @ 2.1 ghz, 4.0gb memory, Win Vista 64 Home Premium, Nvidia Geforce 8800M GTS with 512mb, Bluray disk drive, 20.5" hd screen. I'm not sure what else would be relevant. When I first got the laptop, I dowloaded the current version of SL, 1.2 I believe. SL looked beautiful, but usually within ten minutes, I would crash to desktop with out of memory errors (of the same type described in multiple places in the technical forum). I went back to a Nicholas viewer and the errors and crashes stopped. But of course I don't get to see windlight this way either.

I've sorta taken your thread down a tangent, so if you prefer, I can start fresh in a different forum.

I noticed at Virtual World Conference a lot of the exhibitors had Dell XPS gaming laptops.

I was dissappointed when Newegg stopped selling the ASUS laptop that Chosen mentioned here without providing an adequate replacement model. But it seems like they have made the ASUS G Series G70SG-A1 Notebook available for the same price just in time for Black Monday Online. It's essentially the same model with an updated graphics card (NVIDIA GeoForce 9800M GTS) and more hard drive space (640 GB with the same curious partitioning).

(Chosen, if you see this please let me know if you have had any issues with the your ASUS since your last post in this thread. If not I think I may actually purchase this one this time around. Thanks.)

Edit: Forgot to provide a link to the specs page

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220469

I read that installing the DirectX SDK will give you tga thumbnails in Vista 64.

No problems at all, Dagmar. The machine has remained solid as a rock. It's definitely one of the smartest purchases I've ever made. I'd say go for the newer version.


For what it's worth, I'd be curious to compare the graphics performance side by side between the two models. I'm wondering how the single 9800M GTS compares with the dual 8700M GT. I'm guessing they should be almost exactly the same, but it would be interesting to find out for sure. Specs such as stream processor count, memory bandwidth, and texel fill rate are half on the 8700M GT what they are on the 9800M GTS, suggesting that having the two 8700's would equal it out. And although the 9800 has double the memory, the 8700's memory is twice as fast (higher clock speeds across the board, actually), so again, performance might be about equal there. Not that it really matters, since either configuration is quite good; I'm just curious.



Thanks, Suzanne. I had discovered that as well, after I last posted in this thread. It does indeed work. Still no simple solution for PSD and AI, though.

I did come across a slightly time-consuming hack for PSD that I have yet to try. Someone suggested installing an old version of PS from before they killed thumbnail support (which means 7 or earlier), AFTER having isntalled the newer version. Then open an existing PSD in each folder that has one, make any change at all, and save. The save will force the thumbs.db in the folder to refresh, and establish a link with the psicon.dll from the older version, since that's what was installed last. New folders with new PSD's in them should automatically work, but pre-existing ones need to be "reset" in this manner by hand.

I haven't yet made the time to give it a try, but it sounds plausible. If it does work, I'd imagine doing the same thing with an older version of illustrator would yield similar results for AI.

Well, I am getting poor performance this weekend with the ASUS laptop. Using the same settings that Chosen used I am getting less than 15 fps almost everywhere I go less than 10 fps in many places and now on top of that the rezzing rate of objects and textures is almost nonexistent. Drivers are all up to date so I have no idea what the issue is unless it is SL itself but it has been pretty dissappointing so far.

I'm getting pretty much the same results as you, Dagmar, on both my laptop and my desktop. It's 15-17 FPS just about everywhere with the laptop, and very surprisingly, it's actually worse on the desktop, about 11-13 FPS.

Location seems to make no difference. From relatively empty private islands, to over-built mainland, the results are the same everywhere I've tested today. It's just plain weird.

I can't think of anything that might be going on server-side that could result in such bizarre client FPS, but since there hasn't been a client update in months, I have to assume something funky is going on on LL's end.


How's performance on your laptop outside of SL?

Those arent that bad! Just a bitch to work on when I have to replace something.

Performance outside of SL was fine. Playing an online game on settings maxed which my prior laptop could not do was fine.

Today everything seems much better in SL. Textures are loading much faster and the fps is now varying between 15 and 50 fps and appears dependent on how much detail and distance to be drawn is before my view and whether I am moving or not which is as it should be as I understand it.

Without being too techy about it the net effect is almost maximized settings with no detectable lag which makes much happier than my experience yesterday. I guess it must have been a server side issue rather than my computer.

Glad to hear things are getting better for you, Dagmar. I'm still getting abnormally low frame rates, but at least they now vary from location to location. On islands, I'm averaging about 20 FPS with max settings, and on the mainland, it's about 10-15. Not great, but it's better than that steady 15 everywhere. That was kind of creepy.