I've been thinking of getting a laptop, nice way to have a pc for myself, and wondered how long it would be possible to keep Sins running on a laptop without overheating? I've heard overheating is very pretty much usual thing with laptops.
But since i mod alot, the game itself only runs about 30 percent of the time, the other 70 percent im listening to music and tweaking files.
Anyway, i saw an entry level Compaq at BestBuy and it looked like a good deal, its $429 with an AMD dual core 2.0 and 2g of memory and a 250 drive.
Anyway, im wondering if this would make a good personal pc or if a desktop would be a really better way to go, i know that for the same money desktops give you more stuff.
Thanks for any comments and suggestions!
-Teal
p.s oh, it has a Nvidia 8200 card too, i forgot to mention that. Also, i know desktops give you more, but really having a pc you can roam around the house on is really really a nice thing.
What OS does it have? I assume it is Vista, in which case you want to find one with more memory. Vista is a memory hog, so the more you have the better.
As for your actual question, Sins can run for quite a while on my laptop without overheating. I can easily play for 5+ hours without it getting unbearably hot. It definetly helps that Sins isn't very power-intensive, however. Games with higher system requirements get quite a bit hotter a lot faster than Sins, although it never gets to the point where it's potentially dangerous. And I do have all of the graphics settings, etc maxed out.
If you buy the laptop, and it gets really hot, you can always buy an external cooling fan, although that isn't the most preferable option.
I was wondering if you had gotten your laptop yet. I remember your thread from a couple months ago asking if laptops could run Sins.
A desktop is always the way to go, unless you like noisy, hot refurbished un-portable pieces of crap. You could get a higher-res (1280x768) netbook like a NC20 and have a long battery life, low noise and heat, etc.
Have still been looking, havent got it yet, but im getting close. I want to get it for the summer, by next month hopefully. Of course i would probably do better at school if i waited until after summer, haha, but im really hoping in the next few weeks.
Thanks for the response. I dont need anything really powerful, and the fact that i can use it around the house, instead of being tied to the computer desk is very nice.
Thanks and take care,
teal, my old toshiba l20 ( celeron 1.8 upgraded to 4g ram winxp) does get warm, but if you keep the airvents on the bottom clear of obstructions then I do not know what the limit is as I have had my toshiba running on system thrash tasks for over 48hour straight
harpo
Lol I rarely overhead my laptop and mine is xp, even 2gb ram it doesn't even get warm. but then again, mine is a well made pc
A laptop is fine for whatever your purposes are, as well as a desktop. I have a high-end Vista laptop and I have played Sins for 10 hours before I am bothered by heat. But I warn you, many programs used to mod won't function on Windows Vista. If you can find similar computer that is not vista, you are probably better off. Choose wisely
My laptop (dual core seanix) will run as long as the battery life or as long as its plugged to a electrical plug.
Sins isnt demending at all compared to other games on that machine (Empire: Total War...etc...) so basically, don't worry bout it! Sins will run fine for whoever long you decide it to be!
Just BE CAREFUL where you put the pc and how! Might not overheat normally...but block the air vent with a pillow and you might get a different story!
Hope it helps!
Yeah, definetly avoid putting it on pillows, beds, or anything soft and squishy.
N well desinged notebook should not overheat at all. No matter what kind of application you are running. Notebooks will never give you the same graphic pleasures as desktop pc's but for testing a few modding results it is fine. If you really want a mobile notebook it should not be bigger than 15"(Those are already clumsy and heavy if you have to carry them around).
I have an DELL XPS M1330(13,3" screen) and i can run Sins on medium-low settings as long as i want(with power socket). With akkumulator i can play around 1:30 hours. (5-6h in normal operation). But it was a little more expansive than the one you picked(1500$).
Let me play it and once my laptop catchs on fire I'll get back to ya
Hehe
-Phal
I have a four year old Dell Latitude with a 512MB (Overkill) Nvidia card. Turns out those things shouldn't be in laptops. I have to manually run my internal fan on high constantly and monitor my temperature or else my laptop will overheat and everything will come to a halt.
If you are going the laptop route (which is fine, it is all I play SINS on), then you NEED a chillmat. There aren't many brands to choose from, most will cost you 30-50 bucks and will all probably break (power chord busts) within a few months (I've gone through FIVE, count it, FIVE).
But they keep your laptop under 85+ degrees celsius (that's what mine was hitting!). I wouldn't try to get a laptop made for running games much better than SINS, a desktop would be a much better (AND CHEAPER) investment for that purpose. You will be able to run SINS fine on higher (not highest) settings, and large battles will cause slowdown.
The dual cores will be nice (I get away with a TON with my 1.6 dual cores, ie COD4, albiet on a lower resolution) and the gfx card should be a 512MB (is it?). Just please get the chill mat. My laptop melted the top of my plastic desk once because of its heating issues. And consider that you can get a desktop that can eat crysis alive at only twice the cost of that laptop.
Hope that helps!
Ya, I usually do take my laptop to my bed (no I don't go to sites like those) and play and after like 20 minutes it sometimes get hot
Like others have said, keeping it on a hard surface can cut your temps quite a bit. Also, an external cooling pad (pretty cheap $10-20) can cut your temps 5-10 degrees (Celsius). Some come with usb or power cord, some don't.
Speaking from experience, my first laptop fried its 8600 GO GT (256mb) before I could save it, sadly. That was about two years ago. Since then I've invested in a cooling pad and heatsinks if things get really hot. So just a warning, GFX cards and batteries are the two main things that can go wrong on laptops... and you can't replace the card without replacing the whole thing if it fries.
P.S. Shouldn't this topic be moved to a different forum?
Hope its not in the wrong forum, i am usually talking about modding, instead of laptops, but i once (two or three months ago) put a question on the general forum and it took 4 days for anybody to say anything. haha, well... i know the people here and not anyone on any of the others and hoped i could get a quick response (which you all are wonderful for!!) and that it would be people i know.
With regards to chillmats, yes, it definately sounds like the thing to get!!
And as to desktop vs laptop, yes, you are right, the things you get on a desktop usually are higher end for the same money as a laptop, but the chance of having it for myself and moveable is really what im hoping for, that and of course that it could run Sins alright.
As to editors, i typically use notepad, i know lots of sophisticated modders use a lot of other stuff, but im not use to those things, notepad has been fine, long time to do stuff, granted, but i still feel comfortable with it.
Phalnax811 says he will play it til it catches on fire and let me know!! Haha - ROTFL - LOL!!! - That was Great!!!!!
Of course, dont really do that, haha, i would hate to have you lose your laptop in a silly test for me!!! But you really had a great line there!!! I almost fell off the chair laughing.
As to screen resolution, i think its a 15.6, a little wide, but its not like i will be lugging it around all the time, mostly around the house, and 15.6 is sooooooo great for movies!! The memory is a little low, and it is vista, but i thought i could lower everything, you know? Like go plain desktop, go standard instead of the aero thing, and cut out all the startup stuff, well.. haha, all except what it absolutely has to have. Then i think i will be ok.
Harpo, it is good to hear the 48 hour thing, but i dont think it will be on quite that long!! Haha, but its nice to know.
And Justin, i will avoid pillows at all costs!!!!! Get out of here Pillows!!!!
I appreciate everyone's suggestions and help, Thank You!!!!! It helps alot. i just didnt know for sure if it was ok, you know, as a full time replacement for my old computer, and it sounds like everyone has a laptop!!!!
Thanks again to everyone for all the help, take care and thank you, will let you know when im back, but then with classes starting this week, it may be a bit, will let you know though!!
Karma for everyone!!!
Take care and keep Modding!!!!!
teal my laptop is mostly for field work when I need to test modems, printers & other peripherals and also chasing drivers etc on the net on site.
Smiley swarm...RUN FOR COVER!!!!!!
DAMN THYRE CHASING ME!!!!
vohhhhh....youI like a lot....stay here
Justin, haha
and Harpo, get a new laptop for playing games!!! Just kidding!!! But it might be a thought, you know?
Take care,
teal I spend most of the tech budget on higher performance desktops eg e8400 intel q6600 intel x26000+ amd all 4gb or more with atleast 500gb hdd 8600gt ati 4850 or better, mostly to minimise tax, whereas a laptop would not help the tax issue and would have to be depreciated over 5 years under australian tax law. I actually have 9 computers that are faster than the laptop, but I do have sins and a couple of other games on it for the quiet times at the trade fairs
SOunds pretty cool to me!!!
9 computers....WOOOOWWWWW!
And here I was happy because I had 2 pc's and 2 laptops... LOL
Indefinitely unlss the laptop has cooling problems because of faulty design ...
Clevo M860TU here
just to blow your minds my current WORKING desktop computer count is 21. ranging from a 486 dx 100, pentium 150, pentium 233,pentium 3 300, amd K 6 350, pentium3 550, amd K 6 500(proxy for network), amd K 6 550 transportable, amd 2400xp,amd athlon 64bit 3700+,p4 1.7, p4 1.8g,p4 2g ddr2 ramtest,p4 2g sd/ddr ramtest, e2180 (file server for network), e4500 tv,amd athlon x2 5200,ant x2 6000+, e8400, amd phemon9750 and my gaming beastie a q6600 w 8gb ddr2 800 ram.
and my laptop count is two, an OLD toshiba libretto 100 and my toshiba l20 w 4gb ram 160gb hdd
so that is 23 working computers in my place, and none of my ciustomers have a larger network.
there are about another 30 computers resident that I have not tested and do not claim to work.
now back to the reason for the thread.
there is no reason for a laptop to stop from heat UNLESS the air inlets on the bottom are blocked or the internal fans die
Recent notebook should not overheat if you place the air outlets unobstructed, unless design is crap. get a good one, e.g. from Asus. Overtime, depending on your place, dust could block the airway. One thing which may help keeping your CPU cooler is the thermal paste.
My brother has a black Macbook, and itused to get hot frequently, with the fan kicking in frequently. I opened the machine, wiped the thermal paste clean using isopropylic alcohol, made absolutely sure the cpu surface did not have one dust speckle, and applied one pro-quality OCZ Freeze thermal paste. It's on the league of arctic silver 5, but is not electrically conductive (safer), and does not require cycles of stressing/idling to settle. The machine got around 12 C lower across the board. Tried the same on my MacBook Pro, but it made zero difference. Not sure if it the Macbook Pro paste is better quality, or if the paste was improperly applied on his machine while building, YMMV. Doesn't hurt to try though, as long as you are skilled on hardware support.
BTW, I once accidentally 'napped' for the whole night while Sins was mid-game (paused). The machine was running nicely the other day (fans at 100% of course). No problems.
Just FYI, Arctic Cooling makes a non-conductive stuff similar to AS5 called MX-2 as well. Dunno how it stacks up to OCZ Freeze though.
I have a Dell from 2005/6 (not sure). I've played games of Sins on it for hours with no real trouble; I just make sure the vents are clear. It does get a little warm, but nothing unmanageable.
FYI: It's a Centrino Duo (2.0 GHz), 2 GB of RAM, integrated video. So unfortunately, I have to keep Sins on low graphics, but I have a home PC for the nice-looking stuff.
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