laptop

[goodfella]

surely someone out there can recommend a laptop to run this, please help as i really have to play ths game and my parents will only get me a laptop.

[CHRISGEO]

I play my KRS on a vaio VGN-FE31M,now its old but has an 7600 GF graphics card with 128MB memory,1,5GB RAM,CORE DUO 1,83PROCCESSOR and runs great

[drwho200]

What kind of budget do you have?

[goodfella]

I know this sounds realy bad but my top end limit is about £600

[CHRISGEO]

OK I would suggest you the vaio VGN-NR11.I have seen it many times,but my overall impression is excellent for a base model.Excellent quality
http://www.laskys.com/pcs_and_laptops/l ... VGN-NR11ZS

[goodfella]

Do you have rail simulator on that laptop, its because once I have bought it I'm stuck with it ruddy parents!!!So I have to get it right first time.

[bozza]

I run fs 2004, Rail sim & Msts all on my sony vaio VGN-C15GP, All i did was buy 2 sticks of 1Gb Ram and it runs fine, although you should get the biggest Hd you can i have 80GB and im running out of space......

[Fodda]

You'll get a lot more PC, and upgradeability if you ditch the laptop idea and go with a desktop. Does it really HAVE to be a laptop?

[bigvern]

Also ensure whatever you buy has a seperate Nvidia or ATI graphics chip, not "on board" or integrated Intel solution. Experience of laptop users is that RS will not run unless there is dedicated graphics.

[goodfella]

it really has to be a laptop im afraid

[RSAdam]

Laptops are not officially supported because we cannot guarantee the version of graphics card drivers released by the laptop manufactures. These drivers are not supplied by the Graphics Card manufacutrers. However, laptop versions of the supported desktop graphics cards may workbut as we say they are not guarenteed.

It should be mentioned that one of the suggested laptops above has an Intel integrated graphics card which is below the minimum specification for Rail Simulator and will not work.

[steam4me]

All i did was buy 2 sticks of 1mb Ram and it runs fine

Wow..... can you get memory sticks as low as 1MB?

I can't seem to find anything under 1G these days <g,d,r>............................

[Gizabroon]

I use a Laptop, but mine's a "Mid-range" and cost just over £1000 a year and a half ago! RS works fine but I have to rein in the graphics a bit on some of the routes. Incidentally it's a Toshiba Satellite A100.

Good luck!

[bigvern]

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/produ ... l=en&s=dhs

Here you are...

If you go for the middle option and add another gig of memory, it comes in at around £529. Okay it's an older dual core processer rather than a Core 2 Duo but that's not a huge issue with RS as far as we can see.

You get a Geforce 8600 Gfx card which okay is a multimedia orientated rather than pure gaming piece of hardware, but for performance vs cost it ain't a bad compromise.

I've just ordered one as my sub 1Ghz Compaq Presario can't run RS, struggles with TRS and I would hope the Dell would cope with MSTS2 as well.

I know some people don't like Dell but this is a fair bit cheaper than other brand names with a similar spec.

[stuartrayner]

I have little experience of laptops, although I am in the market for one now.

In my experience of Dell desktops, the build quality at least has always been very good. Also, the one time I needed to call their tech support line, I was impressed with the service. Thats just my experience though, so please dont just take my word for it. The Dell Vern mentioned does seem to strike a good compromise between performance and price.

I have a few questions myself if I can be forgiven for hijacking the thread just a little....

1) Is there any upgradability to a laptop at all (apart from memory). The (semi-stripped) picture I saw seemed to suggest that NVidia GO cards can be swapped, SLI'd and/or upgraded at a later date. What about the processor and HD?

2) Can anyone comment of the practicalities between an 8600 GO GS gfx card and an 8600 GO GT one? The GS has higher clock speeds, but the GT has twice the pipelines and a higher fill rate.

3) Drivers & OS. It sounds as though some laptops require drivers from their manufacturer rather than, say, nvidia. Anyone know about this? Do you usually get the Vista setup CD (as opposed to one of these recovery CDs that are no good fir heavy duty surgery), as I would like to set up Vista / XP dual boot.

4) Vista 64 bit. Is it worth it, and are there many hardware/software compatability issues?

Thanks for any help.