Elwood Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 Dear pilots :helpsmilie: Selling the old laptop this Saturday I have a solid idea about specs, just a massive doubt... Should I wait for the new Nvidia Pascal GPUs or grab one MSI/XMG/Lenovo with a 970m 4GB? Usually I play with the FHD laptop screen or Oculus DK2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coke23 Posted June 5, 2016 Share Posted June 5, 2016 IMO a 970m will not be enough for VR. On the other hand, careful because VRAM is VERY important in DCS 2.0 and (see my specs) MSI laptops only have 3.0 GB which is not enough. Ensure you get 4.0GB. [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] MSI GT72 6QD Core i7 6700HQ 2.6GHz-3.5GHz - 16 GB DDR4 RAM, NVidia GTX970M 3GB DDR5 - 256 GB M.2. SATA SSD + 1TB HDD 7200 RPM - 17.3" 1920 x 1080 Full-HD IPS Screen - Trackir 5 - HOTAS Warthog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VF-51_Cobraj Posted June 6, 2016 Share Posted June 6, 2016 Just bought an Alienware r17 with the Graphics Amplifier which I installed a 970GTX. Runs Oculus DK2 smooth and qualifies for Oculus CV1. 32Gigs of system ram and SSD's works like a charm so far. Intel graphics becomes a pain to override Regards, Cobraj Commander - Air Group 51 airgroup51.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaos Posted June 6, 2016 Share Posted June 6, 2016 Also, make sure the keyboard has a proper num-pad on it. "It's not the years, honey. It's the mileage..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudikoff Posted June 6, 2016 Share Posted June 6, 2016 Dear pilots :helpsmilie: Selling the old laptop this Saturday I have a solid idea about specs, just a massive doubt... Should I wait for the new Nvidia Pascal GPUs or grab one MSI/XMG/Lenovo with a 970m 4GB? Usually I play with the FHD laptop screen or Oculus DK2. If you've waited for so long, you can wait a bit more for the new mobile Pascal GPU's. They should offer a worthwhile performance boost. i386DX40@42 MHz w/i387 CP, 4 MB RAM (8*512 kB), Trident 8900C 1 MB w/16-bit RAMDAC ISA, Quantum 340 MB UDMA33, SB 16, DOS 6.22 w/QEMM + Win3.11CE, Quickshot 1btn 2axis, Numpad as hat. 2 FPH on a good day, 1 FPH avg. DISCLAIMER: My posts are still absolutely useless. Just finding excuses not to learn the F-14 (HB's Swansong?). Annoyed by my posts? Please consider donating. Once the target sum is reached, I'll be off to somewhere nice I promise not to post from. I'd buy that for a dollar! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elwood Posted June 6, 2016 Author Share Posted June 6, 2016 Was discussing now a little that. It make sense if you go for a not upgradable solution. But looking at MSI or Eurocom laptops looks that with a Mxm3.0 I could upgrade to 10XX in the future. High end CPU and Ram are no an issue anymore, so grabbing and i7 6700 should work for 5 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudikoff Posted June 6, 2016 Share Posted June 6, 2016 (edited) Was discussing now a little that. It make sense if you go for a not upgradable solution. But looking at MSI or Eurocom laptops looks that with a Mxm3.0 I could upgrade to 10XX in the future. You probably could, but the 980M upgrade is still pretty expensive AFAIK (e.g. just checked and it's almost 400 EUR on the XMG page) so if you can't wait, perhaps it's better to go for a 970M configuration (and if needed overclock it to stock 980M performance levels) and then upgrade to some 10XX in a year or so. Unless you've got money to burn, that is :) I've upgraded my workstation to 980M, but in retrospect, I think I should've gotten the 970M (was 200 EUR less) and OC it to these performance levels (as I can't OC the 980M, it heats up on my laptop already at stock). Edited June 6, 2016 by Dudikoff i386DX40@42 MHz w/i387 CP, 4 MB RAM (8*512 kB), Trident 8900C 1 MB w/16-bit RAMDAC ISA, Quantum 340 MB UDMA33, SB 16, DOS 6.22 w/QEMM + Win3.11CE, Quickshot 1btn 2axis, Numpad as hat. 2 FPH on a good day, 1 FPH avg. DISCLAIMER: My posts are still absolutely useless. Just finding excuses not to learn the F-14 (HB's Swansong?). Annoyed by my posts? Please consider donating. Once the target sum is reached, I'll be off to somewhere nice I promise not to post from. I'd buy that for a dollar! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elwood Posted June 6, 2016 Author Share Posted June 6, 2016 You probably could, but the 980M upgrade is still pretty expensive AFAIK (e.g. just checked and it's almost 400 EUR on the XMG page) so if you can't wait, perhaps it's better to go for a 970M configuration (and if needed overclock it to stock 980M performance levels) and then upgrade to some 10XX in a year or so. Unless you've got money to burn, that is :) I've upgraded my workstation to 980M, but in retrospect, I think I should've gotten the 970M (was 200 EUR less) and OC it to these performance levels (as I can't OC the 980M, it heats up on my laptop already at stock). That's a very nice suggestions. 970m configuration could be enough as I'm playing with just one screen or Oculus DK2. Which XMG serie comes with MXM3.0b slot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elwood Posted June 6, 2016 Author Share Posted June 6, 2016 And.... could you tell me your FPS and graphic settings on NTTR? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudikoff Posted June 6, 2016 Share Posted June 6, 2016 (edited) Which XMG serie comes with MXM3.0b slot? I'd expect all 15" or 17" which fit 970m/980m cards and are not very slim (in which case the GPU's are soldered on the mainboard). So, not the A or C-series I'd expect, but Pro and Ultimate series for sure. Those are Clevo rebrands, as well as the A-series, while the C-series is a Gigabyte rebrand. Regarding the settings and the FPS, I'd have to check, didn't really run the 2.0 much as I'm waiting for 2.5, but it seems the performance got worse than I remember it when it came out. Edited June 6, 2016 by Dudikoff i386DX40@42 MHz w/i387 CP, 4 MB RAM (8*512 kB), Trident 8900C 1 MB w/16-bit RAMDAC ISA, Quantum 340 MB UDMA33, SB 16, DOS 6.22 w/QEMM + Win3.11CE, Quickshot 1btn 2axis, Numpad as hat. 2 FPH on a good day, 1 FPH avg. DISCLAIMER: My posts are still absolutely useless. Just finding excuses not to learn the F-14 (HB's Swansong?). Annoyed by my posts? Please consider donating. Once the target sum is reached, I'll be off to somewhere nice I promise not to post from. I'd buy that for a dollar! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elwood Posted June 6, 2016 Author Share Posted June 6, 2016 I'd expect all 15" or 17" which fit 970m/980m cards and are not very slim (in which case the GPU's are soldered on the mainboard). So, not the A or C-series I'd expect, but Pro and Ultimate series for sure. Those are Clevo rebrands, as well as the A-series, while the C-series is a Gigabyte rebrand. Reading from the specs seems that the U and P has Mxm video cards. Thanks! IRegarding the settings and the FPS, I'd have to check, didn't really run the 2.0 much as I'm waiting for 2.5, but it seems the performance got worse than I remember it when it came out. yep same here, waiting the 2.5. BTW: I think that you deserve a 486DX4 100 to run Battle of Britain, maybe with a Tseng 200 video card! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elwood Posted June 6, 2016 Author Share Posted June 6, 2016 Just bought an Alienware r17 with the Graphics Amplifier which I installed a 970GTX. Runs Oculus DK2 smooth and qualifies for Oculus CV1. 32Gigs of system ram and SSD's works like a charm so far. Intel graphics becomes a pain to override Great! Can I ask you about FPS in NTTR? And then... I'm looking into it also, but seems that they change for upgradable (mxm of the R2) to fixed video card, all in favor of graphic amplifier solution. Can you confirm? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudikoff Posted June 6, 2016 Share Posted June 6, 2016 And then... I'm looking into it also, but seems that they change for upgradable (mxm of the R2) to fixed video card, all in favor of graphic amplifier solution. Can you confirm? That's true. For the last series, they went for somewhat slimmer laptops and soldered GPU's with the external graphics dock option for upgrade (rather expensive at $300 IIRC). 1 i386DX40@42 MHz w/i387 CP, 4 MB RAM (8*512 kB), Trident 8900C 1 MB w/16-bit RAMDAC ISA, Quantum 340 MB UDMA33, SB 16, DOS 6.22 w/QEMM + Win3.11CE, Quickshot 1btn 2axis, Numpad as hat. 2 FPH on a good day, 1 FPH avg. DISCLAIMER: My posts are still absolutely useless. Just finding excuses not to learn the F-14 (HB's Swansong?). Annoyed by my posts? Please consider donating. Once the target sum is reached, I'll be off to somewhere nice I promise not to post from. I'd buy that for a dollar! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elwood Posted June 6, 2016 Author Share Posted June 6, 2016 So seems that the best solution, with chance to survive its a MSI or XMG or Eurocomp with a 970m on a Mxm3.0 card with a thunderbolt3. Isn't ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudikoff Posted June 6, 2016 Share Posted June 6, 2016 (edited) So seems that the best solution, with chance to survive its a MSI or XMG or Eurocomp with a 970m on a Mxm3.0 card with a thunderbolt3. Isn't ? Well, yes, you can go the Thunderbolt 3 plus compatible external dock route for the upgrade (rather than MXM) if you don't need the extra GPU power on the move. In which case the primary concern is to get the strongest CPU possible plus a case with good cooling so it doesn't throttle. Perhaps one of the models with the desktop CPU inside? :) But, there are some other considerations here. E.g. if you need it for VR, IIRC Oculus Rift doesn't support Nvidia Optimus technology? At least it used to be the case, not sure if the Oculus guys fixed it afterwards. In that case, you'd need to choose a laptop which uses only the dedicated graphics card, rather than using both the Intel CPU integrated one and the dedicated one. I'm not sure if it has any implications on the external dock support as those things are not released yet. Also, some manufacturers have proprietary docks which are guaranteed to work on their supported laptops, while some have also generic ones which may or may not work on another laptop, depending on the Thunderbolt 3 implementation. So, you'd need to investigate this more closely or go with a laptop which has a proprietary dock announced for it. Edited June 6, 2016 by Dudikoff i386DX40@42 MHz w/i387 CP, 4 MB RAM (8*512 kB), Trident 8900C 1 MB w/16-bit RAMDAC ISA, Quantum 340 MB UDMA33, SB 16, DOS 6.22 w/QEMM + Win3.11CE, Quickshot 1btn 2axis, Numpad as hat. 2 FPH on a good day, 1 FPH avg. DISCLAIMER: My posts are still absolutely useless. Just finding excuses not to learn the F-14 (HB's Swansong?). Annoyed by my posts? Please consider donating. Once the target sum is reached, I'll be off to somewhere nice I promise not to post from. I'd buy that for a dollar! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elwood Posted June 7, 2016 Author Share Posted June 7, 2016 Yes, I found that some producer, MSI has a manual switch to select the iGPU (internal) or the dGPU (dedicated). So hopefully will works find with my Oculus. About MXM, the NVIDIA did not release yet the required wattage but I guess if I go for a laptop that can support the 980(desktop not mobile) sure it will work with a 10XX, in terms of dissipation. But that's just a theory! Considering that those MXM GPU cards cost 600 euros or more I'm happy to leave me the eGPU (external) way, but loosing portability might be a cons. Then, consider that Alienware (MSI?) are using custom connector and/or standard (thunder3) solutions.... who know what will happen in the next years! Anyway,thank you very much for all your help. Now it's much clear where I'm going to. Research continue, shortlist of selected laptop is coming, I can't stay without DCS much longer :-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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