On a very tight budget, can you recommend a gaming laptop to run ESO for "around" $500?

bethsheba · February 2020

I really need something portable to play on, since my desktop died and my schedule changed leaving me less time to play on a stationary system. I am however poor as dirt.

Any ideas, recommendations would be most welcome and gratefully accepted.

Thank you

markulrich1966 · February 2020

depends on if you are an advanced ESO-player on PC. If yes, the following is not of interest for you.

If you can start from scratch, consider a console.

I play(ed) on PC since more than 20 years, but when Fallout4 required me to buy a new system (around 1800 Euro), I made a switch.
PS/4, later xbox. For office stuff and websurfing I use a windows-tablet with keyboard/mouse.

Price for both (tablet + console) is around 450 Euro, add a Hama speedshot ultimate to be able to play with mouse/keyboard, and you will not feel a difference to a low budget gaming PC.

Stebarnz · February 2020

I think the entire ZOS server setup cost less than $500, or it certainly feels like it! so you should be fine.

On a serious note, if it were me I would look for a slightly older but still effective machine, they should run ESO fine but you can pick older stuff up cheap as with tech once the replacement comes out the 'replaced' model goes cheap.

markulrich1966 · February 2020

disadvantage of my solution:
xbox as well as ps4 require a monthly subscription to their gaming networks to play online games, I currently buy 6 months xbox live for 60 euro at german amazon.

On the positive side, the consoles are far less noisy than my former Gaming-PC fans.

Moloch1514 · February 2020

markulrich1966 wrote: »

disadvantage of my solution:
xbox as well as ps4 require a monthly subscription to their gaming networks to play online games, I currently buy 6 months xbox live for 60 euro at german amazon.

On the positive side, the consoles are far less noisy than my former Gaming-PC fans.

And resolution, FPS limits, add-ons, no account transfer from PC to Consoles

Stebarnz · February 2020

Switch from pc to console??? would be like losing an eye and arm and half my brain!

Cactus_Back · February 2020

I play on an old Lenovo g510 I bought back in 2014. I think it cost me roughly $500 or even a bit less. It's not that great for gaming obviously so I play ESO on the lowest settings possible and even with that I get regular FPS drops. But it's tolerable for me and overall I think this laptop is amazing - it still works great after 6 years for all my needs and it's extremely easy to open and disassemble to clean it from dust and then assemble again (as opposed to some other laptops which are a real pain when it comes to this).

So if you can live with playing on the lowest settings, I'd recomment you to buy a newer Lenovo laptop model for around this price. And considering that yours will be roughly 6 years newer than mine (and also considering all the new performance improvements ZOS has been rolling out recently), you might even get away with playing on medium.

markulrich1966 · February 2020

Moloch1514 wrote: »

markulrich1966 wrote: »

disadvantage of my solution:
xbox as well as ps4 require a monthly subscription to their gaming networks to play online games, I currently buy 6 months xbox live for 60 euro at german amazon.

On the positive side, the consoles are far less noisy than my former Gaming-PC fans.

And resolution, FPS limits, add-ons, no account transfer from PC to Consoles

keep in mind his price limit. For 500 bucks you will get no 4k HDR gaming PC I think.

Concerning account, this I adressed in my first message, "If you can start from scratch"

jircris11 · February 2020

Lappy around 500 wont be easy. Desktop would be a safer bet.

Acrolas · February 2020

On that budget, you'd probably find more overall satisfaction getting your desktop problem diagnosed by a trusted professional and replacing the component or components that don't work. Parts are relatively cheap right now and you can get a lot more mileage across the board (gaming, productivity, social) out of $500 in PC parts than you ever will from a $500 laptop.

Portability is attractive but I don't feel it's worth the trade-offs in gaming performance and other hardware bottlenecks.

kargen27 · February 2020

If refurbished doesn't frighten you ya might look on NewEgg.

technohic · February 2020

Thats really cheap for a gaming laptop. I have no idea if it supports ESO but I heard the new Geforce Now is free to try and better than Stadia. If it does; I cant imagine it being perfect but might be better than a cheap laptop. Loooks like it does

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/games/

I might attempt it on my work laptop for when I have to travel.

Path · February 2020

For me and my love of graphics my answer is no.
No such thing.
You can get a decent desktop cheap.

oddbasket · February 2020

Look for one of those ryzen 5 laptops.

Salix_alba · February 2020

When I first started playing the game in 2014-2015 I was using one of those dell 300$ laptops it ran the game at ~ 14 fps but was still playable I'd bet with the upcoming changes the game might run even better that it did for me on a laptop. nowadays a 500$ laptop should be able to play the game

ZonasArch · February 2020

You want anything with a nvidia mx150(or is it 150mx?) Or a 1050 if you can find. Newer stuff wine be that cheap, but you'll be able to run just fine in those cards. Not maxed out, but fine. Processor wise, you want to go 4 cores, but you won't be able to on that Budget, so stick with i7 If you can, but i5 Will be ok, and you want. Loads of ram(8 may not be enough, but you can get with 8 and upgrade later). I'm *sure* you can find some very suitable options for 500 brand new.

Nyladreas · February 2020

Let's each donate 5 bucks to this pereon so they can at least get $1000 😂 gamers gotta help each other cmon.

dan958 · February 2020

markulrich1966 wrote: »

On the positive side, the consoles are far less noisy than my former Gaming-PC fans.

Why didn't you just replace the fans with better ones?

Narvuntien · February 2020

Most of the money is in the graphics card, but ESO runs primarily on CPU power so you can make sure to get the latest i5 CPU (i7 is better but ESO doesn't use multicores well so i5 is enough). So with that budget, you'll have to go with a downgrade in graphics. I ran this game on a 10 yr old desktop but it looked awful. Perhaps you can find one second hand?

You can save a lot by using old school hard disk drives rather than SSD drives, loading will be slower but you'll get a lot of space for very little.

RAM is super cheap and easy to add more. You can go with a smaller screen, 15' is plenty.

Acer tends to be very cheap compared to their competition but they aren't that durable similar for Dell/Alienware.
I got my laptop from a local company perhaps there is somewhere that will import and build you a laptop from parts rather than going with a brand?

Blazedont · February 2020

Our just wait and wait when you get more money to buy a better laptop i got the acer predator 700 and its the best

snoozy · February 2020

i seriously recommend fixing your old pc. some parts must be salvageable and you can always upgrade later.
buying a cheap laptop is simply a waste of money.
even if you don't have much time at home on your stationary... on a cheap laptop eso runs like ***. can't recommend. 0/10

get a decent cpu for your pc and replace what other parts are broken. will leave you with more money and a better sytem in the long run.

but for the love of god, don't switch to laptop or console. you'll just regret it

Lady_Linux · February 2020

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-i5-8265U-Keyboard-Fingerprint-A515-54-51DJ/dp/B07RF2123Z/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=laptop&qid=1580896983&refinements=p_36:-50000&rnid=386442011&s=electronics&sr=1-5

TwiceBornStar · February 2020

I have two PC's, and my budget PC runs ESO absolutely fine. The game usually hovers between 65-75 FPS.

75Hz iiyama FreeSync monitor. (1080p)
Pentium G4560
RX 560 AERO
MSI H110M ECO
2x Ripjaws V 2400

It's very, very quiet as well. I think you can build this for less than 500 and have a positive experience.

Lady_Linux · February 2020

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Convertible-Touchscreen-Processor-81SS000DUS/dp/B07TWHYTSQ/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=laptop&qid=1580896983&refinements=p_36:-50000&rnid=386442011&s=electronics&sr=1-6

RD065 · February 2020

Someone mentioned Acer earlier they'd be a good choice for a budget laptop that should run the game well. Acer Aspire Slim 5 for $529 on Amazon now. 8th Gen i5 with 8GB ram. Might be worth looking into.

Lady_Linux · February 2020

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i5-8265U-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-3500U/m566107vsm760067

RD065 · February 2020

RD065 wrote: »

Someone mentioned Acer earlier they'd be a good choice for a budget laptop that should run the game well. Acer Aspire Slim 5 for $529 on Amazon now. 8th Gen i5 with 8GB ram. Might be worth looking into.

HD620 also. Should be fine with that.

JasonSilverSpring · February 2020

technohic wrote: »

Thats really cheap for a gaming laptop. I have no idea if it supports ESO but I heard the new Geforce Now is free to try and better than Stadia. If it does; I cant imagine it being perfect but might be better than a cheap laptop. Loooks like it does

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/games/

I might attempt it on my work laptop for when I have to travel.

First, you have to own ESO via Steam to play it on Geforce Now. You cannot play it if you have a direct account with ZOS.

Stadia and Geforce Now are different and it is hard to compare. Stadia does not yet support ESO and it is not really clear, but believed it will support existing PC accounts. I have been in the Geforce Now beta for a while and have Stadia. While Geforce Now does have a benefit of allowing you to play PC games you own (if it supports the game and via the correct launcher), I find its performance and usability to be far behind Stadia. Stadia just works. I own Witcher 3, but cannot play it on Geforce Now because I have the GOG version and it only supports the Steam version for example. Streaming performance and latency is largely dependent on network conditions, but for me Stadia performs far better and supports 4K and HDR which Geforce Now does not. I have also found Stadia much more consistent. With Geforce Now I have had very good sessions and others that were unplayable. The free version of Stadia (not out yet) will have no time limits, while the free version of Geforce Now puts you in the back of the line waiting for a server and limits you to 1 hour per session.

Also, neither Stadia or Geforce Now support add-ons for ESO.

Another possibility might be Shadow. You get a full remote PC which you can install ESO on and any add-ons. If you are in a location where it is available and have good Internet connection it might be a good option. It is currently $13 per month with a 12 month commitment.

If you really want to go the laptop route, I think finding a good used or refurbished one might be best. And, as others have stated, ESO needs a decent CPU.

Khrogo · February 2020

Moloch1514 wrote: »

markulrich1966 wrote: »

disadvantage of my solution:
xbox as well as ps4 require a monthly subscription to their gaming networks to play online games, I currently buy 6 months xbox live for 60 euro at german amazon.

On the positive side, the consoles are far less noisy than my former Gaming-PC fans.

And resolution, FPS limits, add-ons, no account transfer from PC to Consoles

There are pros for both PC and console. The main ones are: add-ons and frame rate for PC; built-in voice chat and price for consoles. That said, the OP wants something portable so consoles are out the window.

Aurielle · February 2020

I’d encourage everyone who is telling OP to fix their desktop to actually read the OP properly:

bethsheba wrote: »

I really need something portable to play on, since my desktop died and my schedule changed leaving me less time to play on a stationary system. I am however poor as dirt.

Sadly, at that price point (tax included, I’m assuming?), you’ll be looking at systems running cheap integrated graphics. You might be able to find an older used or refurbished laptop with a dedicated graphics card that will work for you on low/medium settings, but you’d likely run into performance issues within a year or two, as each ESO update taxes systems further and further. “Budget laptop gaming” is a bit of an oxymoron, I’m afraid.

I tried as well to find a cheap gaming laptop a few years back because I also needed portability, and it was just easier to switch to PS4. That was back in the days when ESO actually ran well on PS4, of course.

Aurielle · February 2020

Khrogo wrote: »

Moloch1514 wrote: »

markulrich1966 wrote: »

disadvantage of my solution:
xbox as well as ps4 require a monthly subscription to their gaming networks to play online games, I currently buy 6 months xbox live for 60 euro at german amazon.

On the positive side, the consoles are far less noisy than my former Gaming-PC fans.

And resolution, FPS limits, add-ons, no account transfer from PC to Consoles

There are pros for both PC and console. The main ones are: add-ons and frame rate for PC; built-in voice chat and price for consoles. That said, the OP wants something portable so consoles are out the window.

I have a PS4 slim that is extremely portable... it fits easily into a backpack and works with any HDMI compatible TV, which you will find in any hotel. Unless OP is planning on gaming on the subway or on a plane, consoles are just as portable as laptops. The bigger issue is the lack of account transfer options from PC to console, and the fact that ZOS no longer gives a flying poop about console performance and/or cannot fix the problems introduced with the last two DLC/chapter updates.