A Laptop to ESO with?

henrycupcakerwb17_ESO · May 2016

The_Outsider wrote: »

If a laptop is a must, nothing less than a 970m preferably. if you're willing to spend 2000, at least a 980m. (Anything that has this GPU will already have a good CPU)

A laptop is a must. This will be a secondary machine to my desktop at home, so I don't need to be floating around Cryodiil with 60fps.

Now you'll have to update a bit. Make sure the vid card is compatible. I use to run it on a Asus G72 but that doesn't have direct X11

What's the best way to make sure a Vid card is compatible with direct X11?

That's for the responses so far, guys.

lol Open GL / metal API is even better than direct x
are you a microsoft fans or just being ignorant?

henrycupcakerwb17_ESO · May 2016

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

henrycupcakerwb17_ESO wrote: »

I strongly recommend you buy a MacBook Pro . Nicely sleek design . Great performance . And zenimax has done a great job on the OS X client

I sense sarcasm here

not really, we would just simply skip and not buying the games that refuse to release osx version since there are too much to play anyway ( even just the one game : Pantheon: rise of the fallen releasing in 2017 ......that true eq reincarnation developed by the eq origin creator is enough to have us give up our real life )

i wouldnt give up the seamlessly working perfectly together apple ecosystem because of some selfish closed minded developer choose the path of ignoring the osx users

EllieBlue · May 2016

I am a laptop user using ROG G750J. Works just fine. Will be upgrading to the new ROG G series soon.

Azor_Ahaii · May 2016

I recommend you vet the Dell Inspiron 15 7559.
It's only $800 and has a 1080p screen, gtx 960m, quad core i5 6300hq. You should be able to play eso on high/ultra settings with this.

kadar · May 2016

henrycupcakerwb17_ESO wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

Hey all,

Was wondering if you techy folks out there could help me out. I have a job with a lot of downtime, so I occasionally play ESO at work. My previous laptop is a piece of Guar dung for gaming, and since Thieves Guild DLC it can't run ESO because of the DX11 thing.
Whatever I get it needs to:
Run ESO around Medium settings at decent framerates

NOT look like a gaming laptop (I haaaaate the outer-space machinery look)

Decent Battery life

Decent portability (I'm thinking 14inch)

Quality construction

SSD

A "slim" style gaming laptop is in the right vein (less than 1 inch)

I've been lusting after the 2015 Razor Blade 14" Full HD Non-Touch, but it's Retail of 2,000 USD is enough to make me feel faint. But dayummm that thing is sexy. I just think it may be overkill for my needs.
http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-2015
What do you guys think? Any feedback you've got for me would be much appreciated.

seriously ..while macbook pro is the superior choice among all those crap people were recommending to you you chose to ignore my comment?

Run ESO around Medium settings at decent framerates check NOT look like a gaming laptop, check, Decent Battery life
[*] Decent portability (I'm thinking 14inch)
[*] Quality construction
[*] SSD
[*] A "slim" style gaming laptop is in the right vein (less than 1 inch) all checked

Very true, very true. I have nothing against Apple per se. When I bought my previous laptop in 2009 (Yup, played games on an integrated GPU for 7 years), I chose PC over Mac because Macs were super overpriced. My machine had literally double the specifications as a Mac for the same price. I haven't been keeping up to date, and maybe that is no longer the case. I'll definitely consider that as an option, because you're right, it does tick a lot on my checklist.

kadar · May 2016

Azor_Ahaii wrote: »

I recommend you vet the Dell Inspiron 15 7559.
It's only $800 and has a 1080p screen, gtx 960m, quad core i5 6300hq. You should be able to play eso on high/ultra settings with this.

Wow. That's pretty hard to beat. The one on amazon atm even has a 256GB SSD. It's slightly bigger/heavier than I was hoping for with sub-par keyboard/trackpad (according to reviews), but for 800 bucks that's looking pretty appealing.

FriedEggSandwich · May 2016

I have a laptop with an i7, 12gb ram and a geforce 840m. It will run eso at medium graphics at about 30fps but I can't pvp with it (although I used to be able to before zos deoptimised their game). So as others have said; don't skimp on the gpu if you want a desktop experience. Unfortunately only gaming laptops will have the gpu you need, mostly. If you hate the look of gaming laptops then hp do "no frills" aesthetics as a way to cut costs to give you better hardware. The hp I have has a cheap, bendy plastic exterior which is horrible to the touch, seriously it's a monstrosity, but it has one of the best ips panels I've ever seen on a laptop, and some decent hardware and only cost me £800. They do models with better gpus for more money. If you're happy to skimp on aesthetics for a good deal then you can't go wrong with hp imo, you'll just never feel proud getting it out in public.

nimander99 · May 2016

I'm using an ASUS HD4000, which is ancient... But, ESO runs pretty darn good! Only thing I have to lower is shadow/shaders and it runs about 25 to 30 fps. Which is very playable. Not for PVP though, and Dungeons are pretty rough, mega lag when everyone's droppin spells.

Saucy_Jack · May 2016

I'm using a late 2011 MBP; it's not the best-specced, but I can play ESO just fine while hovering between 30-40 FPS.

Granted, 30-40 FPS isn't generally stellar, but for a laptop that's five years old? I'll take it!

phobossion · May 2016

I am running ESO on highest settings on the second generation Razer Blade. You can get that one much cheaper than the latest model...

IcyDeadPeople · May 2016

We'll know more after May 17, but the 1070M and 1080M will likely be GP104-200 (downclocked GTX 1070) and laptops should be coming by mid-August or so.

Hopefully we will also see a few laptops available with GTX 1080 for notebooks (GP104-400).

kadar · May 2016

phobossion wrote: »

I am running ESO on highest settings on the second generation Razer Blade. You can get that one much cheaper than the latest model...

@phobossion
That's the other thing I've been looking at. Razer has 2015 full HD refurbished Blade's for like $1500, they are just out of stock right now. Does yours have the 4k touch screen? Do you like it? Cause honestly I just want the 1080p, but it seems like there's more high-rez versions floating around.

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

We'll know more after May 17, but the 1070M and 1080M will likely be GP104-200 (downclocked GTX 1070) and laptops should be coming by mid-August or so.

Hopefully we will also see a few laptops available with GTX 1080 for notebooks (GP104-400).

Yeah, those are gonna be crazy. I'm not sure I'm going to need THAT much power though... I think even the 970M might be overkill for me, but I'm still shooting for that just for a small degree of future proofing.

IcyDeadPeople · May 2016

phobossion wrote: »

I am running ESO on highest settings on the second generation Razer Blade. You can get that one much cheaper than the latest model...

what's your frame rate at 1080p max settings in large cyrodiil battles?

Solid_Metal · May 2016

i use old 4 years laptop until a week ago, its an old MSi GE60
cpu : intel i5 3210m
gpu : nvidia gt650m 2GB
ram : 8GB

can handle both pve and pvp in mid-high with solid 45-60fps, except when its cluster f*ck battle inside the keep

WalkingLegacy · May 2016

The_Outsider wrote: »

phobossion wrote: »

I am running ESO on highest settings on the second generation Razer Blade. You can get that one much cheaper than the latest model...

@phobossion
That's the other thing I've been looking at. Razer has 2015 full HD refurbished Blade's for like $1500, they are just out of stock right now. Does yours have the 4k touch screen? Do you like it? Cause honestly I just want the 1080p, but it seems like there's more high-rez versions floating around.

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

We'll know more after May 17, but the 1070M and 1080M will likely be GP104-200 (downclocked GTX 1070) and laptops should be coming by mid-August or so.

Hopefully we will also see a few laptops available with GTX 1080 for notebooks (GP104-400).

Yeah, those are gonna be crazy. I'm not sure I'm going to need THAT much power though... I think even the 970M might be overkill for me, but I'm still shooting for that just for a small degree of future proofing.

You'll want that power when Star Citizen releases.

And you'll want that power if ESO pushes anymore eye candy our way.

L2Pissue · May 2016

you will need a proper gaming laptop, otherwise you will greatly suffer from overheating which will decrease battery life AND overall laptop's hardware durability.
i would also suggest you hold on a bit. AMD is working on new technology for its mobile video cards, you could get some pretty decent battery life with such hardware alongside with intel cpu

Egonieser · May 2016

I got my wife a Acer Aspire V3 Touch to play ESO on.

Intel i5 5200,
nVidia GeForce GT 840, 2 GB
8GB DDR3 1600Mhz
1TB HDD, but can upgrade to SSD no problem
Full brushed aluminium case
Touchscreen

It plays ESO like a dream on High-Medium settings, mostly high with shadows and ParticleFX turned down
.
40-50 FPS in PvE Zones and it handles PvP surprisingly well. Or you can turn down the settings a bit more to get 60+ FPS no problem.

And best of all - it only cost me GBP 412 - you can't get a better value for money. All these overpriced "gaming laptops" that cost a thousand and more are just a ripoff. You won't get much better performance in ESO with them anyway because the game is not optimized... Heck you won't even get much better performance with any system (my desktop gaming beast only has 10 FPS more on same settings and cost me 4x more than that - that is not value for money really)
And it also runs all other games just fine aswell, even tested BF4 and it runs it well on 35+ FPS with high settings (no resolution scale though and AA off)

hamgatan · May 2016

L2Pissue wrote: »

you will need a proper gaming laptop, otherwise you will greatly suffer from overheating which will decrease battery life AND overall laptop's hardware durability.

battery life in a gaming laptop lawl u made a funnay...

if you get more than 2-3 hours out of one you're lucky.

not to mention, there's a newer hybridized chipset out there that integrates a Intel HD4000 chipset in conjunction with the 9XXM Series. By default it uses the Intel and only kicks in with the nVidia IF you are gaming AND you are plugged into AC Power. Forgot the name of it.. but yeah.. makes the battery irrelevant.

IcyDeadPeople · May 2016

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

phobossion wrote: »

I am running ESO on highest settings on the second generation Razer Blade. You can get that one much cheaper than the latest model...

@phobossion
That's the other thing I've been looking at. Razer has 2015 full HD refurbished Blade's for like $1500, they are just out of stock right now. Does yours have the 4k touch screen? Do you like it? Cause honestly I just want the 1080p, but it seems like there's more high-rez versions floating around.

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

We'll know more after May 17, but the 1070M and 1080M will likely be GP104-200 (downclocked GTX 1070) and laptops should be coming by mid-August or so.

Hopefully we will also see a few laptops available with GTX 1080 for notebooks (GP104-400).

Yeah, those are gonna be crazy. I'm not sure I'm going to need THAT much power though... I think even the 970M might be overkill for me, but I'm still shooting for that just for a small degree of future proofing.

You'll want that power when Star Citizen releases.

And you'll want that power if ESO pushes anymore eye candy our way.

ESO is one of the most demanding games out there in certain situations, mainly large cyrodiil battles. Even 980 Ti + 5820K drops to 30-40fps at 1080p max settings. Any weaker rigs drop much lower.

Hoping GTX 1080 can manage close to 60fps in that situation, especially as Jared Carr mentioned at PAX East they are looking into options for offloading some of the CPU workload to the GPU.

If OP is not participating much in PVP, however, I'd agree Pascal is overkill. Or at least the flagship mobile cards will be (1080M and GTX 1080 for notebooks). 1060M and 1070M will hopefully reach perhaps 50-60% improved performance compared to 960M and 970M.

kadar · May 2016

@IcyDeadPeople (or anyone)
Any idea how an 870M would compare to a 970M? Huge difference?

Anyone else have any experience running ESO on a GTX 870m?

EDIT: I also read a few benchmarks claiming that GTX 960m (newer card) is slightly worse performance-wise than GTX 870m (older card).

babedenny · May 2016

Gigabyte. I have this:

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5452&dl=1#kf

Half the price of many others, and less than 1" thick.

WalkingLegacy · May 2016

The_Outsider wrote: »

phobossion wrote: »

I am running ESO on highest settings on the second generation Razer Blade. You can get that one much cheaper than the latest model...

@phobossion
That's the other thing I've been looking at. Razer has 2015 full HD refurbished Blade's for like $1500, they are just out of stock right now. Does yours have the 4k touch screen? Do you like it? Cause honestly I just want the 1080p, but it seems like there's more high-rez versions floating around.

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

We'll know more after May 17, but the 1070M and 1080M will likely be GP104-200 (downclocked GTX 1070) and laptops should be coming by mid-August or so.

Hopefully we will also see a few laptops available with GTX 1080 for notebooks (GP104-400).

Yeah, those are gonna be crazy. I'm not sure I'm going to need THAT much power though... I think even the 970M might be overkill for me, but I'm still shooting for that just for a small degree of future proofing.

You'll want that power when Star Citizen releases.

And you'll want that power if ESO pushes anymore wye candy our way.

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

WalkingLegacy wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

phobossion wrote: »

I am running ESO on highest settings on the second generation Razer Blade. You can get that one much cheaper than the latest model...

@phobossion
That's the other thing I've been looking at. Razer has 2015 full HD refurbished Blade's for like $1500, they are just out of stock right now. Does yours have the 4k touch screen? Do you like it? Cause honestly I just want the 1080p, but it seems like there's more high-rez versions floating around.

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

We'll know more after May 17, but the 1070M and 1080M will likely be GP104-200 (downclocked GTX 1070) and laptops should be coming by mid-August or so.

Hopefully we will also see a few laptops available with GTX 1080 for notebooks (GP104-400).

Yeah, those are gonna be crazy. I'm not sure I'm going to need THAT much power though... I think even the 970M might be overkill for me, but I'm still shooting for that just for a small degree of future proofing.

You'll want that power when Star Citizen releases.

And you'll want that power if ESO pushes anymore eye candy our way.

ESO is one of the most demanding games out there in certain situations, mainly large cyrodiil battles. Even 980 Ti + 5820K drops to 30-40fps at 1080p max settings. Any weaker rigs drop much lower.

Hoping GTX 1080 can manage close to 60fps in that situation, especially as Jared Carr mentioned at PAX East they are looking into options for offloading some of the CPU workload to the GPU.

If OP is not participating much in PVP, however, I'd agree Pascal is overkill. Or at least the flagship mobile cards will be (1080M and GTX 1080 for notebooks). 1060M and 1070M will hopefully reach perhaps 50-60% improved performance compared to 960M and 970M.

I agree mostly but highly skeptical of such performance gains.

I've been telling the OP to always get at least a 970m for a laptop if they plan to keep it a while. A 1080M I highly doubt will be powerful enough to run a lot of pretty games at max settings in a PvP environments.

Pascal will give more breathing room for us in PvP though.

And with the DX11 move, they should be able to push more to the GPU but how long this takes we will see.

The_Outsider wrote: »

@IcyDeadPeople (or anyone)
Any idea how an 870M would compare to a 970M? Huge difference?

Anyone else have any experience running ESO on a GTX 870m?

EDIT: I also read a few benchmarks claiming that GTX 960m (newer card) is slightly worse performance-wise than GTX 870m (older card).

And that makes sense since the 870m is pretty beast and a touch above a 960M in power. The 960M will just be more efficient and cooler.

ElliottXO · May 2016

The_Outsider wrote: »

@IcyDeadPeople (or anyone)
Any idea how an 870M would compare to a 970M? Huge difference?

Anyone else have any experience running ESO on a GTX 870m?

EDIT: I also read a few benchmarks claiming that GTX 960m (newer card) is slightly worse performance-wise than GTX 870m (older card).

Not a big difference. The 900 series is just a renamed 800 with 10% higher tact. The performance difference is less than 10%.

Don't let NVidia fool you. Wait for an actual new generation.

Xandryah · May 2016

if you want slim and portable, then Apple is your friend, imo.... idk how the graphics are though on a Macbook

games are made for PC... so, i think, Asus has great gaming laptops, that are big though...; they are more portable desktop-computers...

but very stylish and decent looking and all; i like them very much^^

kadar · May 2016

babedenny wrote: »

Gigabyte. I have this:

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5452&dl=1#kf

Half the price of many others, and less than 1" thick.

@babedenny
Nice! This is very close to what I'm looking for. Any thoughts on build quality and "peripherals?" Like keyboard/trackpad? I'm going to be using this laptop for more than just gaming, so I can about such things.

babedenny · May 2016

It's no toughbook, but it is pretty solid.

I've had mine since September, 2015. I've had no issues with it. I wiped it and did a clean install of Windows 10. No problems getting and installing drivers either. I let the Gforce Experience app set the "optimum" settings, which is basically maxed out for the most part.

If anything feels a little cheap, it would be the keyboard. I think this is due to the keys being very thin to allow for the laptop itself to be very thin. The laptop is 3/4" thick. So far, no issues. And I know I've pounded those keys trying to dodge/roll.

The top/display does have a little bit of flex to it. Not a lot though. Nothing that concerns me, that's for sure. I've seen much worse (Acer).

I bought mine with 8gb of RAM from Amazon, and then ordered another 8gb stick from same. Thanks to Gigabyte for not being stupid and shipping with 2x4GB sticks installed, lol.

One drawback... the fans. They are noisy. I imagine all gaming laptops would be like this. At least they do exhaust out the back. I play with bluetooth headphones. Solves the fan noise issue.

Battery life playing ESO is a little over an hour I'd say. Web surfing, over 3. It is a gaming machine, after all.

The screen is matt finish, not gloss. You can actually game outside, as long as you're not in direct sunlight. A tree/wall behind you, or a patio roof is enough to block the glare and be readable.

I would recommend this laptop to anyone. Also, the lack of flashing lights and stickers means you can plop down in a work meeting and nobody is the wiser. It's a solid work machine as well.

Any questions, let me know.

Edit: I don't know ZOS policy on mentioning brands, retailers, etc. Hopfully I didn't violate any TOS.

Edit#2. The display is 1920x1080. You'll see laptops with higher resolution out there, but those will make the video card have to work even harder, possibly resulting in lowering video settings to compensate.

IcyDeadPeople · May 2016

ElliottXO wrote: »

The_Outsider wrote: »

@IcyDeadPeople (or anyone)
Any idea how an 870M would compare to a 970M? Huge difference?

Anyone else have any experience running ESO on a GTX 870m?

EDIT: I also read a few benchmarks claiming that GTX 960m (newer card) is slightly worse performance-wise than GTX 870m (older card).

Not a big difference. The 900 series is just a renamed 800 with 10% higher tact. The performance difference is less than 10%.

Don't let NVidia fool you. Wait for an actual new generation.

For the 860M and 960M, this is somewhat true, as it was a rebrand. However, the 965M, 970M and 980M were cut down Maxwell GM204-200 (GTX 970), while the 870M and 880M were Kepler cards. 965M is a fair bit faster than the 870M, while also being much lower TDP and available in some laptops starting from around $800 or so.

Seems more likely the 1065M, 1070M and 1080M will be Pascal GP104-200, cut down from GTX 1070, although the lower end mobile cards may be rebrand. As the GTX 1070 is around 50-60% faster than 970, hopefully that will extend to the mobile cards as well.

Senet · May 2016

I'm running it on a Lenovo z70 and it runs great at medium/high graphics.

It's a i7 cores machine with a good NVIDIA card and the best part is that it's a great gaming laptop at a not gaming laptop price. I paid 700.00 for the system through the Lenevo site.

kadar · May 2016

Well, consider the trigger pulled.
Turns out I'm a sucker for quality and specs even it they come at a price. BUT to my credit I didn't give in and get the sexy Razer Blade.
You guys helped me out a TON with all the info, cheers everyone!
http://www.amazon.com/XOTIC-Gigabyte-P34Wv5-SL1-i7-6700HQ-Computer/dp/B01BMTHQ8G?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=nav_timeline_asin

babedenny · May 2016

Congratz! I think you will be very happy with your purchase.