Laptop Spec

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02-19-2012, 01:48 AM
crowdx

Laptop Spec

Hi all,
so I am going to be travelling in a month or so and I want to get a laptop that I can still play rift on. I currently have an ASUS G73 which works well with Rift but it's battery life is only around 2 hours. I am looking for a laptop which can last on the batter but can still make a decent attempt with Rift (not sure if I can get by with single boxing :P ) .
I am seeing HP have several of their 9 cell units that can run for up to 9 hours off the battery, not sure though with gaming, anyone used Rift with Intel® HD Graphics 3000?
I really want the battery life for movie watching on the plane and will have it plugged in for gaming.
Any input welcome.
02-19-2012, 03:20 AM
MiRai

That integrated Intel chip struggles to hit 60 FPS on a single game client using low settings in most games.
You might be able to pull off 3 clients max... maybe.

Source:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/t...2100-tested/11
02-19-2012, 01:20 PM
crowdx

I think the link above links to the desktop variant?
02-19-2012, 04:45 PM
MiRai

Quote:

Originally Posted by crowdx

I think the link above links to the desktop variant?

From the article:

Quote:

Mobile is a bit different. The base GPU clock in all mobile SNB chips is 650MHz but the max turbo is higher at 1300MHz.

So, I'm going to guess that the mobile chips will perform slightly worse overall than the 2500K
in those benchmarks.
02-19-2012, 07:17 PM
Smedbox

I think the Intel mobile HD 3000 will barely be able to run Rift with a single client. I don't think there's any chance it'll be able to run two. There are not many GPUs in existence that are worse than that GPU. However, I have access to a laptop with it and I can test it sometime during the week.

For video on the plane, I would highly recommend getting a tablet instead for that.
02-19-2012, 08:25 PM
Sajuuk

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smedbox

I think the Intel mobile HD 3000 will barely be able to run Rift with a single client. I don't think there's any chance it'll be able to run two. There are not many GPUs in existence that are worse than that GPU. However, I have access to a laptop with it and I can test it sometime during the week.

For video on the plane, I would highly recommend getting a tablet instead for that.

Strong words, would you like to cite a source for that? Until a source is cited I'm going to consider your post as rubbish and ignore it.

I was going to and did post something here, but I forgot I was ignoring your post, so I edited my post.

Pineapple? Pineapple.

Laptop graphics is all about trade offs. High power, low battery life/high heat. High battery life, low power, lower heat. The Intel HD 3000 on board graphics work well for general tasks and videos, even light games. I haven't done much heavy gaming at all, but performance is dependent on what settings you want to run. You can change power settings, throttle the GPU[and CPU] speed/power for better battery life, or you can get a bigger battery.
02-19-2012, 08:26 PM
crowdx

I have a motorola Zoom I used on my last trip but it just is a little small on screen side PLUS all videos have to be converted to mp4 or similar to make them playable (it will play other formats but it gets jerky)
02-19-2012, 09:06 PM
Smedbox

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sajuuk

Laptop graphics is all about trade offs. High power, low battery life/high heat. High battery life, low power, lower heat. The Intel HD 3000 on board graphics work well for general tasks and videos, even light games. I haven't done much heavy gaming at all, but performance is dependent on what settings you want to run. You can change power settings, throttle the GPU[and CPU] speed/power for better battery life, or you can get a bigger battery.

If you read my post, you'll notice that I'm talking about multiboxing Rift. Not about browsing the Internet or reading email. Intel integrated graphics is pretty much the worst GPU you could possibly choose for gaming. The HD 3000 is much better than older Intel GPUs, but it just brings the experience from "completely unusable" to "barely usable".

Regarding MP4 video conversion: For maximum battery life, you'd want to convert your videos to H.264 because there is specific hardware to decode and play that. The device (tablet/phone/laptop/etc) can shut down pretty much everything (CPU, GPU, etc) and just have the little video hardware enabled (which consumes very little power). When you play other formats, the video is decoded and played back using the full power of the CPU, which draws a lot more power. But it's true that it's much more cumbersome... :/
02-19-2012, 09:14 PM
Sajuuk

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smedbox

If you read my post, you'll notice that I'm talking about multiboxing Rift. Not about browsing the Internet or reading email. Intel integrated graphics is pretty much the worst GPU you could possibly choose for gaming. The HD 3000 is much better than older Intel GPUs, but it just brings the experience from "completely unusable" to "barely usable".

Regarding MP4 video conversion: For maximum battery life, you'd want to convert your videos to H.264 because there is specific hardware to decode and play that. The device (tablet/phone/laptop/etc) can shut down pretty much everything (CPU, GPU, etc) and just have the little video hardware enabled (which consumes very little power). When you play other formats, the video is decoded and played back using the full power of the CPU, which draws a lot more power. But it's true that it's much more cumbersome... :/

If you read my post, you'll notice I ignored your post.

If someone is multiboxing they will want smooth performance. Smooth performance comes at a cost: money! Space! Heat! Low Battery Life! You'll also noticed I mentioned throttling CPU/GPU to improve battery life.

Quote:

I really want the battery life for movie watching on the plane and will have it plugged in for gaming.

Now here's an idea. I've been looking into wearable displays for the upcoming release of Raspberry Pi, because I want to build a wearable computer. I was thinking of picking up a head/glasses mounted display from here (refurb item for lower cost) http://www.vuzix.com/consumer/refurbished_goods.html

I don't know how good it would work, but since it's running at such a low resolution (Two displays at
640 x 480), you could eke out some extra performance and have it look "okay". maybe. I dunno.
02-21-2012, 10:26 PM
Smedbox

Sorry, going to be traveling for two-three weeks and won't have time to test Rift on the HD 3000. :/
02-21-2012, 10:58 PM
crowdx

actually had my plans move too, so no time to get an updated laptop :(