Laptop to buy for Game

[tonymustang302 0]

Im getting tired of choppy gamplay playing sim city on my 3 year old laptop  on low settings and my brand new work laptop is not strong enough for the game.  What are your recomendations for finding a good laptop that can handle a huge city in high graphics setting and will hold up to future updates witht he game.

 

When you install the game, does it automatically adjust to your system?

 

My budget is around $1000, any help is greatly appreciated.

[Randall_Lind 19]

problem with laptop is on board video

[DaleB50 0]

i am having the same problem. choppy play and low detail graphics

[flyer2359 92]

problem with laptop is on board video

A lot of laptops don't have them anymore, especially since he's looking at the $900-1000 range.

 

The main thing you need to look for when purchasing a laptop is make sure you have an i7 with QM (signifying 4 cores) for the most part if you want to play future games as well.  Most i7 laptops are within your price nowadays anyways, I know I'm going to be looking for a new laptop soon as well since mine is 2.5 years old and pretty choppy.  Make sure (as the post I quoted says), do not get onboard graphics.  A good place to check your graphics card speed is notebookcheck.net.  I don't really have any specific laptops to point out for you to purchase, just do your research before buying it.

[DCMetro34 577]

I think having a dedicated card is only going to help him.  I have a no-name ATI dedicated card with 512 MB.  I also have a 3 GBs of RAM, and the biggie: and Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 @ 2.53 Ghz.  My processor is even Centrino, yet  I have had not lag whatsoever on SimCity using this machine. 

 

Edit: One way to go about this is by going to Newegg.com, and in the criteria on the left for laptops, you need to select "yes" under "dedicated card".  This way, it will show only the laptops that have dedicated cards.  For your price range, you should find some decent deals.

[MayorTherapist 1]

A great website for this is Newegg. When you start searching in the laptops section, go over to the options bar on the left and there is an advanced search tab. That tab will let you full customize and pic out specific details in you laptop. I recommend staying with brands like Lenovo, ASUS, MSI and ACER. HP is supposedly making a comeback from the hole they dug but they are loaded with bloatware; I wouldn't buy from them. ASUS aslo can have a bit of bloatware but they make good hardware. AS for a GFX card; if you get a AMD (7000 sereis) , I would get an A8/A10 APU (integrated gfx processors that kick butt) or even better a APU with a dedicated (might go over your budget). If you get an i7, you'll wind up with nVidia (600 series) and they very common. Something to keep in mind is that when you do buy the laptop, your going to discover that your not getting any physical media and the OS instal is on the hard drive along side the OS.

 

As a side note, has anyone tried playing putting this on a Surface Pro? It wouldn't be the best option but it would be halrious to see it worked at all.

[tonymustang302 0]

Thanks guys, so basically a i7 quad core processor with at least 1gb dedicated graphics card.

[flyer2359 92]

Thanks guys, so basically a i7 quad core processor with at least 1gb dedicated graphics card.

Pretty much.  For Nvidia cars you will want anything that's X50 or above (x representing a number like 1,2,3).  For example I have a GT230 and it blows lol.

[SDaisy2 1]

I am playing on an older laptop, as well. While you are shopping around for your new one. I suggest you uodate your current stuff. I have the Intel 4 Chipset Family, went to their website and searched for any updates to my laptop. Then, in the game I lowered all the settings to low or minimum, and well it is not perfect, it is now playable. I, myself, would like a better gaming laptop. Who doesn't want to use the best graphics the game has to offer? Good luck! Oh, and I agree with some of these other posts above. My favorite wesite is Newegg...

[Fennis 4]

A dedicated graphics card is much more important than worrying about an i7 processor.  An i5 will game just as well.  What is more important is that you have 4GB ram and a dedicated graphics card with decent power.  Newegg is a good place to start as you can filter out the ones without a dedicated card and then you can narrow down to your price range and preference.  There are some nice laptops there for under 1k that offer dual/sli dedicated cards which will give you plenty of power for SimCity and anything else you can throw at it.

[tonymustang302 0]

What about this one

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230918

[flyer2359 92]

A dedicated graphics card is much more important than worrying about an i7 processor.  An i5 will game just as well.  What is more important is that you have 4GB ram and a dedicated graphics card with decent power.  Newegg is a good place to start as you can filter out the ones without a dedicated card and then you can narrow down to your price range and preference.  There are some nice laptops there for under 1k that offer dual/sli dedicated cards which will give you plenty of power for SimCity and anything else you can throw at it.

I was just warning him if he ever wanted to play future games as the i5 on laptops are only 2 cores.

 

 

 

What about this one

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230918

0.o That thing is very good, especially the video card.

[Eonopeono 2]

I also started the game with a 3 year old laptop.  I got so frustrated with the crappy game play I went out and got a new HP desktop with 8 GB Ram, and a 2.6 MhZ processor. It runs the "game" beautifully (that is when I can actually connect to the servers  )  I even tried turning the graphics settings to higher values. It didn't slow the "game down one bit.  I was told that while installing SC that my video driver was outdated.  Doesn't seem to matter.

[Silvertwister 1]

I'd reccommend an MSI in the same price and equipment range if you're going for newegg.  They look and feel better IMO and this one is new, not a refurb, for close to the same price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152369
 

 

If you can move a little higher in your budget, you could get something really nice like this:

http://www.xoticpc.com/msi-gt70-0nd444us-p-4987.html

 

[tonymustang302 0]

what about this one.  Will I be able to play the game on ultra and high graphics settings without any issues?

 

http://www.frys.com/product/7350044?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

[Silvertwister 1]

You won't be able to max it all out, but you should be able to run high textures and decent lighting and geometry.

[treepondersleaf 0]

I'd like to chime in with an opinion that is very different from everyone here.

 

I had a 4 year old laptop and like you got tired of the choppiness and low settings.  Like you, I wanted to spend around $1,000.

 

I got a Lenovo 13 Yoga with an i5 with integrated graphics.  I am running Sim City 2013 with 1600x900 resolution and high with consistent FPS above 30.  

 

I have 8GB of RAM, but more than happy with the performance.  As a bonus you get a great touchscreen ultrabook. Of course, if you want to play games more intense than Sim City, you may struggle. 

[Catchin22 299]

Personally I wouldn't want to game on anything less than 15" but that's me.

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007Z92SJU/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B007Z92SJU&linkCode=as2&tag=cost-reduced-20

 

Should run most newer games on high / max settings, should easily run SimCity maxed, under $1,000