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I'm getting a new laptop in the next few months

chrisgeorgiou46

Roller Poster
Under a grand, and honestly the only specific thing I want is it to run this game very well haha
I'm a Londoner, so pound sterling please, and laptops available in the UK. I'm not really a tech-y.
 

chrisgeorgiou46

Roller Poster
I could have sworn I posted this in the Planet Coaster section. Oops.

Anyway, yeah, I need it for work stuff too, but I can use any laptop for that, so I guess the only specific thing is I want to it be able to support this game.
 

Hixee

Flojector
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I could have sworn I posted this in the Planet Coaster section. Oops.
Don't worry, I think you have!

I'm afraid I can't really help, as I've been using a desktop for gaming for a few years now and am completely out of touch with the laptop market at the moment. There are a few more computing savvy guys on here though so they might be able to help.
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
I always hate recommending laptops. You never know until they're 12 months old just how robust they are.

What I would say is just go for a specifically named having laptop and read as many reviews as you can to get a feel for it.

Planet Coaster is quite gpu intensive, so it needs a decent graphics card (nvidia or at). It will also run hot, hence why you'll need a gaming laptop that has good cooling performance, otherwise you'll find it shutting down regularly.

Basic advice is:

If you're buying a laptop to work on, but want to game as well, buy a laptop and a PlayStation or Xbox.

If you want to game, buy a gaming desktop.

If you want a laptop for gaming, go with a gaming laptop, but you'll pay more for considerably less power than a desktop.

Oh. Only buy a laptop if you need to have it with you a lot. If it's going to sit on a desk for months, always buy a desktop.



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scw55

Hyper Poster
Don't think about upgrading the laptop much. Laptops are so compact it's a mission to open them up. The quickest thing to replace and upgrade is RAM. Maybe bare that in mind when buying a laptop and thinking of the future.
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
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I've just installed it on my laptop.
It runs in 1280x720 (essentially what was know as "HD Ready") with everything set to low or off and manages a blistering 25 frame per second or so.

In real world, it means it looks barely better than RCT3 and is just playable... Like only just.

The laptop is a quad core AMD A6, 6Gb RAM and an AMD RadeonR4 GFX card. It's low spec and was a £350 laptop reduced in Tesco last year.

Just to give you some idea of boundaries on this thing, that's absolutely lowest boundary.
 

ECG

East Coast(er) General
Staff member
Administrator
If you really need to go with a laptop rather than a desktop, be prepared to empty your wallet.
Both the kid and I recently purchased new gaming laptops. Aidan bought his for gaming and I got mine for the processing power in order to render 4K videos faster.
He has the Acer Predator 17 which features an Intel Core i7-6700HQ Processor (2.60GHz), 16 GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 8G RAM video card with a 17" HD (1920x1080 resolution) monitor for £1,800. He can play the game flawlessly at full resolution.
I have the Lenovo Ideapad Y700 fully loaded with an Intel Core i7-6700HQ Processor (2.60GHz), 16 GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M 4G RAM video card with a 17" UHD (3840x2160 resolution) monitor for £2,100. I paid more because I have a touch screen in addition to the UHD resolution and I have a 512GB SSD hard drive as well as a 1TB 5400 RPM secondary hard drive. The kid only has a 1TB hard drive and a non-touch screen. The game won't play at my monitor's full UHD resolution, but does at standard HD resolution. However it doesn't play as well as it does on Aidan's due to his better GFX card.
For that kind of money you can buy a better quality desktop as well as a laptop that will suffice for work, so a few questions to ask:
1, Do you have that kind of dosh?
In other words, can you afford to pay that much for a laptop that is capable of running the game properly?
2, Will you be playing the game anywhere other than at home?
If not, it might be best to get a desktop for gaming and a laptop for work.
3, Will you continue playing PC games in the future?
If you are, you should go with the gaming desktop over the laptop. Upgrading the desktop for future game requirements in much cheaper than purchasing a new gaming laptop, as laptops cannot be easily upgraded.
 

Thekingin64

Strata Poster
I have a similar problem. Have recently brought Planet Coaster off Steam and tried opening it on my 4yr old Samsung NP300V5A laptop, only for this error message to appear:
Screenshot%202017-01-30%2021.44.07.png

Since my graphics card is way below the recommended minimum, I am taking that as I need a new graphics card in order for the game to run. Since my laptop is old and slowly dying on me, Is it worth just getting a whole new laptop or just upgrading the graphics card? (Every other game pictured works fine, including Civilization V)

(p.s. I am a student so don't want to spend massive amounts on a new gaming laptop I'll only use for Planet Coaster)
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
I doubt you'll be able to upgrade the graphics card on a laptop. I know some firms have tinkered with upgradeable laptops, but they're few and far between.

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ECG

East Coast(er) General
Staff member
Administrator
Is it worth just getting a whole new laptop or just upgrading the graphics card?
Your laptop doesn't have the option to upgrade to a suitable graphics card, so the only option is to buy a new laptop or keep your current laptop for work/studies and purchase a desktop for gaming. A gaming desktop is the less expensive option (as I explained above).
 

Thekingin64

Strata Poster
Sorry to dig up this topic but since my laptop is currently slowly dying on me, I have had a serious look at new laptops but have no idea on which graphics cards will be good enough or not. With a budget of £500, I currently have the shortlist of the 4 linked below but have no idea if any of the graphics card would be good enough:
Acer Aspire E5-523 15.6 Inch A9 8GB 2TB Laptop:
http://www.argos.co.uk/product/5496956
Lenovo Z50 15.6 Inch A10-7300 16GB 1TB Laptop:
http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6215246
HP 15.6 inch AMD A10 8GB 2TB Laptop - Silver:
http://www.argos.co.uk/product/5441547
Medion Akoya P6667 15In GTX940M i5 8GB 1TB Perfomance Laptop:
http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6181215

I know the Medion is the only proper gaming laptop in the list but are any of the others ok? If not, any other recommendations? Only requirements are under £500, dvd drive and a good enough graphics card (I know I'm not going to get anything amazing for £500).
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
You're never going to get anything really gaming capable for under £500. It might run a few things in a lower res and low quality.

What I do is look for comparisons in the Web for the gfx cards and just see which one gets the best results. That's really all you can do and then sit and hope...

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