CS on toshiba L50D ?

[craigibhoy1 2]

Hi guys can i ask for opinions i am planning on getting a Toshiba L50D purely for CS would i be able to run it on this laptop and what graphical settings would you advise if i can ?

here is a link except the one i seen has only 6GB ram.
http://www.toshiba.co.uk/discontinued-products/satellite-l50d-b-136/

[Horus_Kol 118]

Can't give you 100% yes - but I'm running it on a 6 year old Dell Studio laptop with 4GB RAM... I think you should be alright with that Toshiba

[Koesj 659]

You can try out the game for free this weekend to check out whether or not it runs!

[Kaputnik 27]

Any specific reason why you're getting exactly that laptop?

Looks like you could get something with an i5-5200U or i5-6200U (maybe even with a discrete GPU) for roughly the same price, should be quite a bit better performing.

[craigibhoy1 2]

Thanks for the reply guys, also the only reason i wanted that laptop is because it looked decent enough to run CS, this is the only reason i want a better laptop really, i currently have a toshiba satellite C850D with 4GB ram, i5 processor and an AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics and it runes CS on very low settings poorly :(.

I can't afford a laptop outright so i have a personal account with lookagain which is a uk online catelogue and i can afford that.. but ill check to see if i can find more in the price range.. thanks.

Also im sure im right with saying Intel HD Graphics and intel celeron processors are out of the window?

[Koesj 659]

Sorry I didn't realize you didn't have the laptop yet  Also, please stay away from high APRs!!!

[craigibhoy1 2]

Thanks companies like these tend to have very high APRs, i think would probably be better saving up for one tbh, the one im with have i think is 39% APR  

[Ltw 401]

I've done a check on the specs of the Toshiba laptop on this website. However, it seems like this laptop isn't very good for Cities:Skylines (link), the graphics card is a problem. Especially because you have a shared graphics card this could lead to some problems. These cards share the memory with RAM, this means that the RAM has to process certain aspects of the game (like simulation, mods and other game-mechanics) next to the graphics. Having separate memory on your graphics-card is weigh more efficient and leads to better results.

In general I recommend using a desktop pc for Skylines. The game is quite demanding. Looking at power-supply the difference between desktop pc's and laptops is quite big. PC's often have a power supply of around 500 Watts. The power supply of laptops is often around 70-80 Watts. This difference usually means that the CPU, Graphics Card etc. is less good in a laptop than in a desktop PC (for instance an i7 mobile CPU is weigh slower than an i7 desktop CPU).

[rmjohnson144 42]

On 2/19/2016 at 8:50 AM, craigibhoy1 said:

Thanks for the reply guys, also the only reason i wanted that laptop is because it looked decent enough to run CS, this is the only reason i want a better laptop really, i currently have a toshiba satellite C850D with 4GB ram, i5 processor and an AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics and it runes CS on very low settings poorly :(.

I can't afford a laptop outright so i have a personal account with lookagain which is a uk online catelogue and i can afford that.. but ill check to see if i can find more in the price range.. thanks.

Also im sure im right with saying Intel HD Graphics and intel celeron processors are out of the window?

This laptop looks better than the one from the first post.

You want something with quad core 2.5GHz or better, 16GB RAM, GTX 950m   which will be around $1,000USD if you shop around.  maybe a little cheaper on last years model.

This is if you want to go past 9-tiles with lots and lots of workshop items to make the game look nicer.

This is the first one that came up on a search.

http://www.amazon.com/Envy-Skylake-i7-6500U-Windows-Computer/dp/B00TA6TBKU

[boformer 3,169]

On 19.2.2016 at 5:50 PM, craigibhoy1 said:

Thanks for the reply guys, also the only reason i wanted that laptop is because it looked decent enough to run CS, this is the only reason i want a better laptop really, i currently have a toshiba satellite C850D with 4GB ram, i5 processor and an AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics and it runes CS on very low settings poorly :(.

I can't afford a laptop outright so i have a personal account with lookagain which is a uk online catelogue and i can afford that.. but ill check to see if i can find more in the price range.. thanks.

Also im sure im right with saying Intel HD Graphics and intel celeron processors are out of the window?

I would really suggest you to get a desktop for gaming. It will be cheaper and faster, and you can easily upgrade components like the GPU.

[Ltw 401]

12 hours ago, boformer said:

I would really suggest you to get a desktop for gaming. It will be cheaper and faster, and you can easily upgrade components like the GPU.

I agree with boformer about this. The possibilities of gaming with laptops are very limited, even if you would spend a lot of money on it. Especially upgrading is quite hard with laptops (in general it would be possible to upgrade your harddrive and RAM but that's about it).

If you are interested in getting a desktop for Skylines and other games I would recommend buying an intel i5 processor with LGA1150 socket (which is standard nowadays). These sockets also support the i7 CPU. If your i5 CPU is not sufficient anymore (which could take years) you could upgrade to an i7. If you don't have a lot of money for that you could choose an older i7 model which is cheaper at that moment but works better.

Desktop prices could be very cheap. At eBay there are several vendors that sell packages with CPU, RAM and motherboard for good prices. This is cheaper than buying a desktop pc from the store and it is not that much more work since they usually place the components for you, thus it is mainly screwing the motherboard into the case and that's it. Next to that you'll need power supply, I would buy a 600W PSU if I were you, this way you can upgrade your graphics card (or even place more of them if you have enough money) without worrying about power, I could go on and on about which PSU to buy but then I might go a little bit off topic, this article might help though. The case is important as well, and you could save a lot of money on this, I recommend Coolermaster for this, the cases are quite cheap and good. Next to that it is a pro to buy a SSD since it is very fast and lasts forever, Samsung is the best choice for this (especially the price/quality is very good). I think it is best to buy a nVidea graphics card. I have an AMD Radeon R9 in my pc and even though I really love the card itself (it is silent, powerful and fast) I really hate the drivers that AMD is releasing all the time. Every time I have a new driver I have some problems with compatibility issues and Cities:Skylines. The complaints about AMD-drivers are quite common and I haven't heard those complaints about nVidea yet. However, you'll have to get into that some more since I don't know exactly which card is best.

This might be a little bit too much information (tried to keep it brief but I can go on and on about what's important, anyways this is the most important information about choosing a pc). However, let's make a list of parts you'll need and how much it could cost:
 

• The hardware: CPU (intel i5), RAM (4GB DDR3), motherboard (something cheap, wouldn't worry about that too much in the beginning) - about €350,-
• The drive: SSD Samsung 250GB - about €85,-
• The PSU: 600W (I recommend Coolermaster because of the price-quality) - €50,- til €70,-
• The case: I recommend a Coolermaster mid-tower for this - €35,-
• The graphics card: Depends on what you want but a midrange card seems doable - €100,- til €200,-

This brings you up to a total price between €620,- and €740,- and then you have a very decent pc that could run Cities:Skylines and is quite easy to upgrade. The only things you have to do yourself is screw the motherboard in the case, place the harddrive, place the PSU and place the graphics card into the PCIe slot. And this little bit of work could actually save you a lot of money. However, prices could vary depending on country, thus prices could be lower or higher than the prices I've listed above.

In my experience choosing your own hardware is much better than buying a desktop from the store. Often those pc's have a lot of features that you don't want and have cheap components that you want to choose more carefully (the PSU is an example). However, I could also imagine that you would rather buy a computer which is ready to use, in that case the information I gave above could still apply, you could look closely to the components of the desktop pc and see if it would be worth it. This could take quite some time and research but in the end it could be worth the effort.  

[boformer 3,169]

10 hours ago, Ltw said:

Next to that it is a pro to buy a SSD since it is very fast and lasts forever, Samsung is the best choice for this (especially the price/quality is very good)

An SSD will not last forever. It will not make the game run faster (except for loading).

You also forgot things like a screen, a mouse, a keyboard, a speaker system.

For not so tech-savy people, it is better to buy an assembled PC that meets the specs, with pre-installed windows.

[Ltw 401]

8 hours ago, boformer said:

An SSD will not last forever. It will not make the game run faster (except for loading).

You also forgot things like a screen, a mouse, a keyboard, a speaker system.

For not so tech-savy people, it is better to buy an assembled PC that meets the specs, with pre-installed windows.

Yes, that's true. Only thought about the system itself. Maybe I exaggerated the thing about the SSD but the differences between that and a regular hard drive is huge, so it's still worth it in my opinion. Next to that SSD-drives have a long live-span because they don't have moving parts and are therefore less likely to fail.

My point is that it is worth looking into those pre-installed packages at eBay. It is more effort screwing those things together than buying a ready to use pc but building your own IKEA cabinet is also more effort than buying an assembled cabinet and still a lot of people are going to IKEA . With those packages you don't have to install the CPU (which could be risky) or worry about cooling and cable-management (which is optional but not necessary). We'll leave the more difficult parts of building a pc out of the equation and the basics are quite simple, especially with those packages. My point is that it doesn't have to be that hard and could save you a lot of money. I've built my pc by myself and it spared me about €200,- compared to an assembled pc with the same specs.

Next to that I've also stated in my post before that even if you buy an assembled pc the same issues occur. In my experience they often save money on the PSU because nobody cares about that, however, a good power supply is quite important for your pc to run properly. With all the components of a ready to use pc the same applies, there are certain brands that a good, and some brands that are less good. So critically looking at the different components as if you were building it yourself could really help with looking which assembled pc is good and which pc is less good. But you're right, it could get a little bit too technical.

I forgot the keyboard, mouse and screen indeed. These are often not included in assembled pc's though but I guess it could vary depending on vendor. I use a Logitech K330 keyboard and mouse and I'm quite happy about that, it only costs about €30,- and works fine. For screen I don't know exactly what would be the right choice. I use my TV (Samsung B2430HD) as computer screen and I'm quite happy about that. However, I didn't buy this TV for my pc, I just had it laying around so I thought I'd use it for my pc. Financially it wouldn't make sense to buy a TV. But if you have a small TV (mine is 24") it works great, just adjust the settings so that it doesn't burn your eyes out from close distance and it is quite nice to work with. However, if you don't have a TV you could use, you don't have to spend too much to a screen. You can easily buy decent screens for under €100,-