Ok, so I live in Ireland, and I want to get a decent gaming laptop which will be able to run GW2 pretty well on more or less max graphics settings, even in “hectic” in game situations. Although, I suppose I’d be hard pressed getting it going pretty well on max even in the hectic situations…so if that’s not quite plausible given my budget I understand. Yes, I know there are issues in the game code that cause things such as having a super powerful gfx card not mattering so much due to how the game code is.
Anyway, I’ve been looking on a custom pc build site and I have a page saved of something I thought looked nice:
I had selected these extra/custom options:
RAM – 8GB
Hard Disk 1 – 120GB SSD
Hard Disk 2 – 500GB HDD
How does that look for running GW2? If you find something better on the site feel free to suggest to me by linking here, but I would say my absolute limit on the cost would be ~€1250.
HD has zero impact on performance. all that SSD will do is decrease loading times (takes 5 seconds to waypoint instead of 20)
RAM will only impact performance if you’re low on it. I believe GW2 only requires 2GB of RAM. your OS will need some, but any extra above that will not improve performance at all (unless you also want to play starcraft and watch a movie and edit your midterm – all at the same time)
two things about what you said will cause your biggest problem: “laptop” and “max graphics settings”. high-end desktops are barely able to maintain high fps with max graphics in a wvw zerg. laptops are never as good as desktops. This laptop will need to be the top of every line if you want to even get close to what you’re describing. I am highly doubtful that €1250 will be enough.
Easier solution is just use middle graphics instead. there is very little difference, and you’ll get twice the fps and be able to do it on a cheaper computer.
I don’t think you’ll find any laptop that will run the game at max settings. As Mystic said, that will be possible on a tower. You want a fast CPU, an SSD, and a high end graphics card for your laptop. Personally, I run the game on an Alienware 14" laptop I purchased last year. It has the i7, an SSD and the top graphics card I could get with it, as well as Killer Wireless N card. It plays on medium settings and looks almost as good as my tower PC (high end, custom made for gaming). My load screen times beat pretty much everyone. I’m not suggesting you get an AW laptop. I’m just saying that you need to look at more than RAM, and price may be an issue. I paid $1600 Canadian for my laptop, but I don’t know what that works out to in your currency.
Yes, I know. I just feel like I’d like some extra space.
Yea…I realise laptops aren’t really gonna be as good as high end desktop PCs, and yea I could settle for medium settings I guess. Ideally in the not too distant future I would like to get a gaming PC but now is not the time for that. But how does what I linked look? Should it handle GW2 on “medium” fairly well?
As for the RAM, I just like having decent “multitasking potential” I guess you could say. I nearly always have a browser open when playing and often enough end up having many tabs open. Sometimes other programs too like an IDE for looking at code, although of course if I was highly focused on doing that I might be more likely to log out of GW2 altogether, but yea.
Yes, I know. I just feel like I’d like some extra space.
Yea…I realise laptops aren’t really gonna be as good as high end desktop PCs, and yea I could settle for medium settings I guess. Ideally in the not too distant future I would like to get a gaming PC but now is not the time for that. But how does what I linked look? Should it handle GW2 on “medium” fairly well?
Given that the screen resolution is 1600×900 the specs look good enough to run medium+, might be able to handle high even. The SSD wont impact game performance much, will help loading times and ofc, laptop HDD’s tend to be less than speed monsters normally, 8Gb of Ram isnt per se a necessity for GW 2 but if you run other, memory intensive, applications it might be worth it.
Another thing to think about is fan and placement of the graphics card. You need a laptop that will stay cool, because this game will melt stuff. Before buying my AW laptop, I was using a new HP laptop, and whatever it was (CPU, GPU) that gets hot, was right where you put your left hand. I literally got burned. That was actually the entire reason I decided to get a dedicated gaming laptop. I never have that issue with my AW… on the contrary, the fan on that thing is like a jet engine, but I don’t get burns
Read reviews of any laptop you’re planning to purchase.
Yea, the fan is certainly important….wish they had that info on the bloody page I linked :/ Oh well, I shall need to look into this more tomorrow and such.
Update: I had indeed heard of Alienware before so I googled just now and I found laptops listed on dell.ie. I’m actually quite liking the Alienware 14 laptop. If I’m reading it right it seems including delivery I’d be looking at about €1280 for it. That should be doable…it’s just my situation is my parents pretty much said they’d give me €1000 towards a laptop or w/e for my birthday but I also already got a smartphone since my old phone died so that has left me with about €750 I believe. I can likely manage to get the rest of the money together out of my own bank account, but when posting ofc I had to draw a line somewhere and say “well I don’t really wanna go over this” because I don’t want to spend a massive amount of money in addition to what I have from my parents.
I’ve been looking for a laptop myself, and the site I was checking was http://www.xoticpc.com/ with Clevo/Sager as the manufacturer. I’ve heard that they’re a reliable/reputable brand and a great bang for you buck.
Listed below are the things I chose to add/customize:
-(Upgrade) Thermal Compound
-(Add) 120 GB SSD
Bringing it to around $1,154 (~€ 838?). I’m not sure how much extra the shipping will cost if you’re wanting it internationally. From reviews and predictions/projections, I believe the FPS it should reach is ~30 if playing in Ultra settings and 1920×1080?
GW2 is indeed more heavily reliant on CPU, than GPU (so there isn’t too huge a difference here CPU wise). But figured I should suggest a different site to consider.
Don’t go Alienware IMO. You pay for the name more than anything. If you get computer specs that you are aiming for, go to ibuypower.com and see how much it’d cost you there. Most things you can get cheaper there especially if you catch a good deal running. It’s also very customizable so you can tweak lots of things to fit your price range. Not to mention some deals they offer will be free upgrades on a certain part.
Also be aware that some people hate AW “just cuz” it’s AW even though they’ve had no experience with them personally. There are also other good gaming laptops, FOR SURE. As Sera said. There are probably one or two others. Shop around. One thing you could do to save a bit is find a good used one, if possible.
If heat is a problem, or if you think it could be, check out the reviews that you can find via Google, its generally something that’s remarked on in tests of gaming laptops.
Brands dont mean a whole lot tbh but again, check the reviews, reliable manufacturers sometimes produce clangers and iffy brands sometimes produce brilliant machines.
Also highly recommend not getting an alienware laptop. I have one I bought 2 years ago and it’s a piece of crap. What’s hilariously sad is they even advertised GW2 on it but it barely plays. My boyfriend tried to optimize it multiple times, it was advertised to do some things it never does thanks to bugs and has massive problems with overheating despite the fan sounding like a beast. I have to have some form of external cooling like sitting it on a covered ice pack or a fan going just so it can maintain running GW2 at extremely low FPS rates.
Any event will get me kicked out almost immediately because it cannot handle the game period. My boyfriend built his desktop PC custom 5 years ago and it runs the game smoother than a baby’s bottom, even in big events. I agree with Chaotic, Alienware is a brand, not a gaming pc.
Also highly recommend not getting an alienware laptop. I have one I bought 2 years ago and it’s a piece of crap. What’s hilariously sad is they even advertised GW2 on it but it barely plays. My boyfriend tried to optimize it multiple times, it was advertised to do some things it never does thanks to bugs and has massive problems with overheating despite the fan sounding like a beast. I have to have some form of external cooling like sitting it on a covered ice pack or a fan going just so it can maintain running GW2 at extremely low FPS rates.
Any event will get me kicked out almost immediately because it cannot handle the game period. My boyfriend built his desktop PC custom 5 years ago and it runs the game smoother than a baby’s bottom, even in big events. I agree with Chaotic, Alienware is a brand, not a gaming pc.
What Alienware laptop exactly? Could you give a least some of the specs?
I appreciate all suggestions of course but keep this in mind.
Unless I have grossly misunderstood, this “ibuypower” seems to refuse to ship anywhere outside the USA besides Canada…and while I’m not ruling it out as an option altogether I am a bit miffed that xoticpc seem to want to be awkward for international orders and only accept wire transfers (never done such a thing afaik….but I guess if I have to it won’t be anything too complicated).
Also highly recommend not getting an alienware laptop. I have one I bought 2 years ago and it’s a piece of crap. What’s hilariously sad is they even advertised GW2 on it but it barely plays. My boyfriend tried to optimize it multiple times, it was advertised to do some things it never does thanks to bugs and has massive problems with overheating despite the fan sounding like a beast. I have to have some form of external cooling like sitting it on a covered ice pack or a fan going just so it can maintain running GW2 at extremely low FPS rates.
Any event will get me kicked out almost immediately because it cannot handle the game period. My boyfriend built his desktop PC custom 5 years ago and it runs the game smoother than a baby’s bottom, even in big events. I agree with Chaotic, Alienware is a brand, not a gaming pc.
You know they have a warranty? They also have superb customer service. My AW laptop handles GW2 like a champ.
Keep in mind that GW2 is also very CPU-heavy, especially in large scale battles like WvW. So try and pair a good processor to a good graphics card. It won’t be a top-of-the-line product with your budget, but it’ll be able to handle GW2 on high at least.
Do note that for that same budget, you can build a desktop computer that can run GW2 on ultra.
I highly suggest not going with a laptop, especially alienware, i had an alienware m17x r4 with an nvidia gtx 675m, it played gw2 fine on max settings…for a while, then the card shot itself, of course dell replaced it for me, then 7 months later it did the same thing, by that point the warranty expired and they offered to sell me a new card for $900. My laptop now runs intel 4000 graphics and i built a tower, my tower has never given me any problems and does max settings no problem, although i am using a gtx 780 which might be a little pricey depending on your budget.
Ok, so I live in Ireland, and I want to get a decent gaming laptop which will be able to run GW2 pretty well on more or less max graphics settings, even in “hectic” in game situations. Although, I suppose I’d be hard pressed getting it going pretty well on max even in the hectic situations…so if that’s not quite plausible given my budget I understand. Yes, I know there are issues in the game code that cause things such as having a super powerful gfx card not mattering so much due to how the game code is.
Anyway, I’ve been looking on a custom pc build site and I have a page saved of something I thought looked nice:
I had selected these extra/custom options:
RAM – 8GB
Hard Disk 1 – 120GB SSD
Hard Disk 2 – 500GB HDD
How does that look for running GW2? If you find something better on the site feel free to suggest to me by linking here, but I would say my absolute limit on the cost would be ~€1250.
I’ve spent 1200€ on a laptop 3 years ago and it can play GW2 in high settings at a cool 20~25 fps so you can get it unless prices in Ireland are ridiculous (sorry didn’t check your link).
You’ll need an i7, and a cooling board, I have an aluminium one with 3 fans I can’t remember the brand but you definitely will wanna get something like it, cost about ~60€.
Lastly for God sake don’t play on battery, don’t even have it on if you can have it plugged regardless of what you hear, 3 years later I can still get 4 hours off my battery because it’s almost never on the laptop and that’s the best way to prevent decay.
Ok, so I live in Ireland, and I want to get a decent gaming laptop which will be able to run GW2 pretty well on more or less max graphics settings, even in “hectic” in game situations. Although, I suppose I’d be hard pressed getting it going pretty well on max even in the hectic situations…so if that’s not quite plausible given my budget I understand. Yes, I know there are issues in the game code that cause things such as having a super powerful gfx card not mattering so much due to how the game code is.
Anyway, I’ve been looking on a custom pc build site and I have a page saved of something I thought looked nice:
I had selected these extra/custom options:
RAM – 8GB
Hard Disk 1 – 120GB SSD
Hard Disk 2 – 500GB HDD
How does that look for running GW2? If you find something better on the site feel free to suggest to me by linking here, but I would say my absolute limit on the cost would be ~€1250.
I’ve spent 1200€ on a laptop 3 years ago and it can max GW2 at a cool 20~25 fps so you can get it unless prices in Ireland are ridiculous (sorry didn’t check your link).
You’ll need an i7, and a cooling board, I have an aluminium one with 3 fans I can’t remember the brand but you definitely will wanna get something like it, cost about ~60€.
Lastly for God sake don’t play on battery, don’t even have it on if you can have it plugged regardless of what you year, 3 years later I can still get 4 hours off my battery because it’s almost never on the laptop and that’s the best way to prevent decay.
I take it by cooling board you are talking about those stand/cradle things that you rest your laptop on to cool it?
And yea, the initial laptop I was looking at on custompc.ie has an i7 processor, and Nvdia GTX760M graphics card. I think I might go with that after all and try to get my hands on a decent cooler.
I take it by cooling board you are talking about those stand/cradle things that you rest your laptop on to cool it?
And yea, the initial laptop I was looking at on custompc.ie has an i7 processor, and Nvdia GTX760M graphics card. I think I might go with that after all and try to get my hands on a decent cooler.
Depending on the case you might want to take off the access panel underneath so the cooling board will work better.
Dust? Honestly it will get in there regardless.
A laptop will run much hotter than a desktop specially with games, anything you can do to cool it is always welcome.
You should always use some software to keep an eye on the temperature too, where’s a good one openhardwaremonitor.org/ remember that will likely only register till 95 degrees, so needless to say you wanna stay at 70~85 tops.
Also if you’re handy (even so this is not recommend) you can take it apart and be more generous with the thermal paste, costs about 15€ and you can look up a how to video on YouTube.
