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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: Laptop performance?  (Read 11422 times)

NoImageAvailable

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Laptop performance?
« on: October 16, 2013, 08:49:24 AM »

So I've been looking to buy myself a laptop and so I'm wondering just how well Starsector performs on those. Also wondering how the load is distributed, is the bottleneck the processor or graphics card? Furthermore, how does it change once you factor in performance-intensive mods like Ironclads or Excelerin? If any of you fellow forum goers can offer some system specs and performance data it would be much appreciated.
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Jmdelrio

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #1 on: October 16, 2013, 08:55:09 AM »

I would think any laptop you buy now should be able to handle Starsector, long as it's not an integrated video card.
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xenoargh

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #2 on: October 16, 2013, 08:56:31 AM »

Bottleneck is CPU unless your GPU is extremely weak.  Anything better than an Intel 945 should be fine :)
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TheHengeProphet

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #3 on: October 16, 2013, 09:09:17 AM »

I run starsector on my laptop and haven't seen any slowdown or processing issues at all, and I got that thing in 2009.  Anything you get nowadays is likely to be much better than it, unless it cost you some 200$.
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NoImageAvailable

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #4 on: October 16, 2013, 09:11:05 AM »

I run starsector on my laptop and haven't seen any slowdown or processing issues at all, and I got that thing in 2009.  Anything you get nowadays is likely to be much better than it, unless it cost you some 200$.

Can you post your hardware specs?
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Jazwana

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #5 on: October 16, 2013, 11:41:24 AM »

With an i5 2.4ghz and Gforce GT540M/1gb video card on my laptop starsector vanilla is ~mostly~ bug free for me, large mods have the hang/lag/memory problem but that sounds like it's more of a java problem than anything else. 
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TheHengeProphet

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #6 on: October 16, 2013, 12:03:59 PM »

Intel 2.4ghz dual core (exact specs excape me... I'm at work), and Gforce GT6400M video card, 4gb ram.

I haven't had any hangups on anything, including Exerelin.
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Sproginator

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #7 on: October 16, 2013, 01:20:49 PM »

4GB Ram on a laptop and a 3+ GHZ Dual core SHOULD suffice with even most mods
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #8 on: October 16, 2013, 01:22:28 PM »

I would think any laptop you buy now should be able to handle Starsector, long as it's not an integrated video card.
One: Isn't that what MOST laptops have for video cards? And two: HOW can you tell if it has one?
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Sproginator

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #9 on: October 16, 2013, 04:07:59 PM »

An inter grated graphics card should be listen in the bundles full specification, or of there is a separate GPU
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #10 on: October 16, 2013, 04:17:43 PM »

An inter grated graphics card should be listen in the bundles full specification, or of there is a separate GPU
Where would it be listed in the laptop specs on the computer itself?
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Zaphide

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #11 on: October 16, 2013, 04:28:25 PM »

My laptop (and only computer currently) is a 2010 MacBook Air 11" 1.6Ghz Core2Duo, 4Gb RAM, 128Gb SSD and a NVidia 320m (pretty similar to a Intel HD 3000, memory shared with system). So it is extremely low performance compared to even base model laptops these days.

On this I can play Vanilla StarSector fine, and the Exerelin mod with lower setup settings (8 systems, 10 stations, 9 planets). I also play with a few faction mods too.  Performance isn't great with a lot of fleets on the screen in campaign mode and shift pressed down (for double speed) but it manages OK (30+ FPS). Performance is fine in combat.

I have the Java 64bit JRE and have upped the memory to StarSector to 1024 - 2048, which is actually probably more important than your computers specs (provided they exceed what I listed above) for playing most mods.

Hopefully that helps :)

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NoImageAvailable

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #12 on: October 16, 2013, 10:44:02 PM »

An inter grated graphics card should be listen in the bundles full specification, or of there is a separate GPU
Where would it be listed in the laptop specs on the computer itself?

If you're on Windows press Windows+R, then type in dxdiag, the display tab lists your graphics card.

With an i5 2.4ghz and Gforce GT540M/1gb video card on my laptop starsector vanilla is ~mostly~ bug free for me, large mods have the hang/lag/memory problem but that sounds like it's more of a java problem than anything else. 

Do you have Turbo Boost on that i5?
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miro

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #13 on: October 18, 2013, 07:20:29 PM »

You will be absolutely fine. My five year old, 2gb ram computer can run it with various mods at 60 fps quite easily.

As long as you don't get too crazy.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Laptop performance?
« Reply #14 on: October 19, 2013, 10:49:56 AM »

Yeah it looks like I'm screwed... Got a "Mobile Intel 4 series express chipset family. Oh and apparently it has 1695 MB of memory
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