TotalMoo can you help? To Laptop, or not to Laptop? That is the question.

[Hannodb]

Hi TotalMoo

As I've mentioned before, this game is my motivation for buying an new PC, and I believe that when you buy a new PC, you go for the best, or you're wasting your money.

However, I'm now sitting with a Conundrum: Should I concider buying a laptop instead?

There are 2 very important reasons why I'm considering a Laptop:

1) Mobility - If I go on holiday, I can take Cities:Skylines with me, and show it off to my friends.
2) Battery - Let's just say that the "Mayor" of South Africa is not the best, and now we have a power problem. Electricity is becoming increasingly unreliable, and the power can be switched off unannounced at any time. When you run the game on a laptop, then at least the battery kicks in and allow you to save the game when that happens.

But there is the flipside:

Appearently, Laptops do not perform as well as desktop machines, and they cannot be upgraded. Having the above mentioned benefits is all good and well, but if my laptop cannot process a very large city, then it isn't really worth it.

Since you guys at Paradox are much more clued up with what games need and how fast the industry is changing, can you guys give me a recommendation? Are you testing this game on any laptops as well? How is it performing? Do you think it would be safe for me to go with a laptop, or do you think I'm going to limit my city building experience with a laptop?

Thanks in advance.

 

[yupog2003]

I am wondering whether I can use cities in motion to judge if my laptop can run cities:skylines smoothly. I have good enough CPU and RAM, but I am not pretty sure about my GPU.

I saw the minimum GPU requirement of cities in motion and cities:skylines are the same. So I guess you may use the same graphical engine to develop both games? If yes, could I use cities in motion as a GPU test?

If I could not run cities:skylines smoothly, I will buy a new laptop, too.

Thank you for seeing my question.

 

[City Builder]

Buy a desktop unit and a power backup battery (I've got one on every desktop I own) and you'll have your battery backup so that when the Mayor of your city/state doesn't do as you think he/she should, you'll still be able to save when the power grid shuts down.

I live in a modern city but a very rural area of the modern city, and I have backups on every PC desktop that I have and as soon as I hear the damn "beep beep beep" of the power backup I save and shut down until the power returns. If power blackouts is really your primary concern, then a PC desktop with a power backup supply is the way to go, if on the other hand you're travelling a lot and want the ease of travelling with a laptop well... Be prepared to either put out a huge amount of money or make do with a less than stellar performance computer.

 

[redjericho3]

I am wondering whether I can use cities in motion to judge if my laptop can run cities:skylines smoothly. I have good enough CPU and RAM, but I am not pretty sure about my GPU.

I saw the minimum GPU requirement of cities in motion and cities:skylines are the same. So I guess you may use the same graphical engine to develop both games? If yes, could I use cities in motion as a GPU test?

If I could not run cities:skylines smoothly, I will buy a new laptop, too.

Thank you for seeing my question.

Post your GPU/other specs and we can give you a rough idea!

 

[redjericho3]

I threw together a nice budget gaming computer that should be capable of running this game maxed out

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/HkGW6h

The specs are much higher than the recommended

Recommended

3 Ghz quad core
4 GB RAM
GTX 460

This has:

3.6 Ghz hex core
8 GB RAM
R9 280 (significantly better than 460)

 

[yupog2003]

Post your GPU/other specs and we can give you a rough idea!

OK. My current laptop is ASUS X552VL. It has:
CPU: i5-3230m (dual core 2.6Ghz-3.2Ghz)
RAM:8GB
GPU:g710m (1024MB vRam) <- seems unenough

Because I am still a student and I don't want to spend my parents money too much. If I could run CSL with lowest setting and not lag too much, I won't buy a new laptop. But my GPU is at a critical point for minimum requirement. So I want to use cities in motion to judge whether my laptop can run CSL but I am not sure If I can.

Thanks for help.

 

[redjericho3]

OK. My current laptop is ASUS X552VL. It has:
CPU: i5-3230m (dual core 2.6Ghz-3.2Ghz)
RAM:8GB
GPU:g710m (1024MB vRam) <- seems unenough

Because I am still a student and I don't want to spend my parents money too much. If I could run CSL with lowest setting and not lag too much, I won't buy a new laptop. But my GPU is at a critical point for minimum requirement. So I want to use cities in motion to judge whether my laptop can run CSL but I am not sure If I can.

Thanks for help.

It will definitely be tight, but I legitimately think you should be capable of maintaining a 30+fps framerate on minimum settings with that GPU. At the very least it is worth waiting to see. As far as using CIM 2 to benchmark, I couldn't really speak to the accuracy of the test. They both use Unity as their engine, so it might be a decent comparison, but that alone isn't really enough to know for sure.

 

[yupog2003]

It will definitely be tight, but I legitimately think you should be capable of maintaining a 30+fps framerate on minimum settings with that GPU. At the very least it is worth waiting to see. As far as using CIM 2 to benchmark, I couldn't really speak to the accuracy of the test. They both use Unity as their engine, so it might be a decent comparison, but that alone isn't really enough to know for sure.

Yeah, it is worth waiting to see. I can build my city first with lowest setting and then turn to the highest setting just for watching

 

[Greygor69]

Although not a Laptop, the upcoming release of this game (and receiving my quarterly bonus ) prompted me to invest in a new computer.

i5 4690 3.9 GHz CPU and a GTX 970 4GB card.

I think I'm ready to play, bring it on

 

[Anders Larsen]

I would suggest to checking the recommended system requirements instead of the minimum ones when getting a completely new hardware.
Recommend system requirements for Windows:

OS: Microsoft Windows 7/8 (64-bit)
Processor: 3 GHz Quad core
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: nVIDIA GeForce GTX460, 1 GB RAM or AMD Radeon HD 6850, 1 GB RAM
DirectX: Version 9.0
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: 2 GB available space

Soooo, a 64-bit Win 7 system with 2,8ghz duo core(Intel E7400), 8GB RAM, Nvidia 9400 with 1 GB ram will not lag that terrible much (with medium graphics-settings ofc.)?

 

[Lord Canterbury]

To weight in with a couple of factors on the laptop vs desktop debate:

Having gamed on laptops for about a decade, you need to be aware that laptops that spend a lot of time gaming overheat and eventually that overheating will fry your laptop. So if you're likely to spend a decent amount of time on the thing you may well be having to buy a new one in a few years. Coupled with the fact that you pay more for a laptop with the same spec as a desktop can make laptop gaming pricey.

It didn't stop me choosing a laptop for convenience (in my case space - living in a small flat), but now that I have room for a desktop I've happily gone back to one.

 

[Zpot]

Hi, i dont speak english so i will try to speak in "Tarzan" english XD. I want buy this game (in "can u run it" pass the minimum) but I am afraid about end-big city game performance. This is my pc:

-AMD Radeon HD 7670M

-Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3630QM CPU @ 2.40GHz (I think this cpu can be boosted if the pc need more power to 3,X GHz)

-8 Gb Ram

Sorry for my english

 

[Tropical Guy]

Please tell me you're going to connect this laptop on your TV because playing this game on such small screen is sad!! Since I have done that, I can't go back to a regular PC monitor anymore!!

 

[Gaute65]

Hi, i dont speak english so i will try to speak in "Tarzan" english XD. I want buy this game (in "can u run it" pass the minimum) but I am afraid about end-big city game performance. This is my pc:

-AMD Radeon HD 7670M

-Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3630QM CPU @ 2.40GHz (I think this cpu can be boosted if the pc need more power to 3,X GHz)

-8 Gb Ram

Sorry for my english

Sorry for the late answeer
Cpu better than recommended, Gpu around minimum. So the game will run, but how well it will run with big cities I don't know.
Check this video:
[video=youtube;f2ypNQdw8JY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ypNQdw8JY[/video]

His gpu has about the same performance as yours.

 

[Zpot]

Sorry for the late answeer
Cpu better than recommended, Gpu around minimum. So the game will run, but how well it will run with big cities I don't know.
Check this video:
[video=youtube;f2ypNQdw8JY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ypNQdw8JY[/video]

His gpu has about the same performance as yours.

Thanks!, I will buy it

 

[flizzy]

Hello fellow builders.

I got a Macbook Pro retina with these specs:
2,8 Ghz intel core i5
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Intel Iris 1536 Mb
Os: osx yosemite 10.10.1

The mac req specs these are

Minimum:
Operating System: OS X 10.10 OS X 10.9 OS X 10.9 (64-bit), Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo, 3.0GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+, 3.2GHz, RAM: 4GB, Graphics Card: nVIDIA GeForce GTX 260, 512 MB / ATI Radeon HD 5670 (Does not support Intel Integrated Graphics Card), 512 MB, Hard Drive: 4 GB
Recommended:
Operating System: OS X 10.10 OS X 10.9 OS X 10.9 (64-bit) Processor: Intel Core i5-3470, 3.20GHz / AMD FX-6300, 3.5Ghz, RAM: 6GB, Graphics Card: nVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (Does not support Intel Integrated Graphics Card), 2 GB / AMD Radeon HD 7870, 2 GB, Hard Drive: 4 GB


And if I'm not incorrect the Iris card is an integrated GPU.

I bought the game and it's lagging on absolute minimum settings. Is this maybe cause of the Iris card?

Might I have to build a new pc ?