New laptop to play ps2, advice

Discussion in 'Player Support' started by mikeyyy109, May 1, 2013.

  1. mikeyyy109

    Hi guys, i started playing ps2 about a week ago, i currently only have my laptop which is asus k55vd i5 2.5ghz 8gb ram and a 610M 2gb GPU. With this laptop i can run most games in med-high settings but ps2 is laggy even on lowest settings (14fps in fights 30fps at base). So ive decided to get a new laptop just for ps2 and dont want to keep playing the changing laptop game so im going straight for an alienware M17X which is ~£1900 i7 3.3ghz 8gb ram and either a 7970m or a 680m, but what my real question is has anyone that plays ps2 use a 7970m or 680m? the 680m is £200-300 more than the 7970m but not that much more performance, but ive heard the 7970m has driver issues sometimes, and with the physicx option maybe coming to ps2 soon is this game going to be more optimised for nvivida? Which card should i go for? For all the laptop haters desktop isnt an option, i moved from desktops and not going back, if my 610m which gets slated as a horrible gaming gpu can run most new games at high settings then surely the m17x will kick ***?

    Thanks in advance for any input.
  2. BlackDove

    You won't get PhysX at all on a 7970M.

    A 610M is less powerful than HD Graphics 4000.

    A Maingear would most likely be a better option than an Alienware. You could get an Asus G75 with a 670M and that should play it ok. This game just doesn't work worth a **** now.
  3. DJStacy

    I play PS2 on an Alienware laptop my specs are on my sig. I play with everything on High apart from shadows on medium.
    I have Physx on, max verticle field of veiw and a render distance of 2000m.

    I do have my GPU overclocked to 698MHz its 620 stock, I use Nvidia inspector to do this. PS2 performance has been up and down with patches but at the moment its rather fine, no complaints.
  4. mikeyyy109

    So that's the 7970 gone then, looks like I'll go for the 680, thanks for your input, if the 675 runs it fine then that Should be good news for the 680 :) are you 100% happy with your laptop djstacy? Best thing you ever bought? :D
  5. UnrealGaz

  6. mikeyyy109

    What are the reasons you think alien ware are junk? Every review I've read and watched say there the best, some people have had problems with hardware failures but these were resolved and were in the minority. And any particular reason for clevo? Also I heard 2 GPUs are kinda pointless as most games don't support them and even if they do the performance increase is minimal?
  7. UnrealGaz

    they are extremely over priced for what you pay for, the hardware they use isent exactly the best either your paying for the name "alienware" that's all and many people on the forums will agree with me here
  8. mikeyyy109

    But there's nothing wrong with there capabilities? Same specs just dell charge more, I know alien ware are expensive for there components, they want like a £1000 for 500gb ssd lol but keeping the system standard and just upgrading GPU to the 680 makes it £1800ish, and I love the look and design of the m17x, I would happily pay extra for it, but not if the performance is crap, which it doesn't seem like the case? Any one got any views on this? I'm still swaying towards the alien ware.. But I'm not completely closed minded about it
  9. Chipay

    The Alienware components aren't worse than other (alteast as far as i'm aware), it's just that with that money you could as well buy a pc with better components....
  10. AssaultPig

    with alienware you're paying a premium for the brand name and casemod, when you could get a similar system and a more interesting casemod somewhere else for less money.

    Also I've read that their support has been sort of questionable since they were bought out by dell but I don't have any firsthand experience
  11. Gadamlu

    DO NOT GET ALIEN WARE LAPTOPS FOR GAMING

    i had the exact one your planing to get, and let me tell you something about them. they do not know how to handle heat from gaming. Literally 15 minutes into gaming your performance starts to stutter due to overheating, and to make things even better, PS2 in Beta, fried my Graphics cards in my laptop, because the damn thing cant deal with excess heat of any kind.

    so i repeat, do NOT GET ALIENWARE
  12. Paulus

    Laptop gaming? eek, not if you can help it. The laptop in my Sig is reasonable, but thats for plugging into a TV when i'm away.

    For the money, a desktop PC is MUCH better for gaming.
  13. Gary


    Money buys reviews... Very hard to find a review that has not had some sort of swaying. Alienware are indeed a branch of dell of sorts. The prices are upped as they do indeed have better hardware and stuff however the prices are hiked again due to the branding..... Great example is dell monitors... when bought through the Alienware site have a price increase.

    Whilst you can dig around and find the same specs or equiviliant at a cheaper price i would advise a Desktop when ever possible... Laptops die very quickly for gaming due to the rate at which games are developing... They are harder to maintain and keep inside as well causing heat issues...
  14. HunterPrime

    Don't buy alienware. Way overpriced for, and you can get equivalent systems (if not better) from other manufacturers at a cheaper price.

    I think this system will suit your budget best:

    http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009SJCZGQ/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=
    • 3rd gen i7 @ 2.4GHz (not the best, but still pretty damn good for a laptop).
    • Nvidia GTX675M (this will be more than enough to run at high without causing a GPU bottleneck).
    • 16GB of RAM (you don't need that much, but at least it's future proof).
    • 1.5TB hard drive.
    • Full HD LED 17.3" screen (Samsung screens are among the best).
    • Blu-ray reader.
    • Well ventilated, with an optional turbo mode for the fans.
    • AND the best thing about it is that it isn't as ugly as an Alienware. You can actually use it in public if you want to :)

    Bear in mind you will still be bottlenecked to 20-30 FPS in the really big fights because of the 2.4GHz CPU. I have the almost the same CPU (i7-2670QM@2.2GHz) with a nvidia 540m graphics card. I can run the game with high settings, but I am still CPU bottlenecked in big battles (GPU does bottleneck it in the smaller fights, but you still easily get over 30 FPS).

    PhysX is a bit weird on laptops though. I tried enabling it and I get a massive FPS drop (it's not supposed to make you lose even 1 FPS). Searched around on the forums, and it seems it is a common problem when enabling PhysX on laptops.
  15. BlackDove

    Totally agree. Look at the normal Dells with the same specs as the Alienware, and the Alienware is about 2X the price for no real performance. All you get is a stupid glowing alien head. Also, Asus and Maingear make laptops with the same specs for less money/probably better quality. Dells generally blow and Dell owns Alienware.
  16. Van Dax

    Advice? dont get a laptop.
    Go on a PC forum and give them a budget and they'll tell you what to get.
    better yet build yourself a desktop, cheaper and more powerful.
  17. BlackDove

    Look around at brands that don't suck and rip you off like Asus or Maingear etc. They have the same specs, better options for customization, and they don't charge you a thousand dollars for a simple upgrade. They're actually high quality too, not just some POS with a glowing logo on it.
  18. Alexlightning7

    that i7-3630m has turbo boost to 3.4 Ghz, its not stuck at 2.4. just so your aware.

    anyways...
    Now hold on. Physx is nice, it looks great, but is broken for most people in this game(meaning, it tanks framerates) and is really not nessessary. Only a few games use it and its never worth it to get a card roughly 50% as powerful just to use physx.
    the 7970m is better in half the games then a 680m and almost twice the power of a 670m(675m is only a small percent better then a 670m). its also (in most cases) 250-300$ cheaper then a 680m. In alienwares case, all their prices are out of wack. most likely a bigger difference.

    I would always recommend a 7970m over a 680m.

    Alienware only exists to rob un informed people of their money with gaming laptops that are horribly overpriced. My 650$ laptop has better specs then their 1200$ (at the time).

    When you go higher end, particularly crossfire or SLI, they can be up to 2000$ more expensive then the compitition with the exact same specs and often better build quality.

    Clevo/sager are the best gaming laptops, period. MSI is good, but doesnt always have deals to beat them.
    Clevo/sager(sager gets most of its laptops from clevo) are unique in that they are fully user upgradable. every part, just like a desktop. because of this, they are great deals since you can simply buy a better GPU in a few years as opposed to a brand new laptop. They are all very high quality, however they are lacking in....looks. they look very bland, but its a situation of function over visuals. With alienware, you are paying upwards of 1000$ just for the looks.

    Now I will say this, if money is no object, you want alot of crappy dell bloatware and all the other stupid things dell does(locked bios), worse heating, better looks, and bragging rights, go ahead with alienware.

    If you want better specs for the money, usually better heating, bland designs, upgradability, and more upgradable options then you would believe (last 2 apply to clevo/sager, and some other companies. some MSI for example) then pick nearly ANY other laptop.

    Now as for dual GPUs, they are definitly worth it. now as blackdove will no doubt point out if I say this, amd 7970 crossfire on desktops has been...... buggy. as because of frame time issues(different from framterates) you will actually get less smooth gameplay in crossfire then a single card. I dont know if this applies to laptops, howver, the driver support for the 7970m has supposedly been extremely good. very few bugs in it, from what ive heard mind you. and the last several amd drivers have been specificly addressed to frame time issues.
    now whether it will suffer frame time issues in some games like the desktop version is completely un known, but since your fine with spending lots of money, SLI 680ms will kick ***. should be more powerful then a desktop 590 if benchmarks are correct.

    Some games may not utilize it well, but all games will support crossfire. it might just cause issues like microstutter or framerate drops.
    In these cases, assuming its unplayable, just disable one of the cards and run the laptop as a single card system. not a big deal.
    theres not really a reason not to go crossfire or SLI when you have the cash.

    Now since you keep posting in Euros (or pounds, I cant tell foreign currency symbols) im gonna assume that your in Europe. This makes things more complicated since alot of sites don't ship there.

    since im not really an expert on euro prices, i may be slightly off on my math, but...
    Alienware m17x vs clevo P370EM3(specificly the one posted above)
    price that I chose for this demonstration
    1728 euro to 1829 euros
    1 680m 4 gb vs SLI 680m 4Gbs
    (680m usually cost above 400$ each)

    500 Gb 7200 rpm drive vs 750Gb 7200 rpm drive
    (to upgrade to equaivilent cost 60 euros)

    another extremely important thing to note
    1600x900 res vs full 1080p
    thos upgrades usually cost around 150$ to upgrade screen res.

    cheap game deals if you buy them with clevo laptop

    Edit: wow just found out that it was pounds and not euros..... still, everything still applies. in fact, in some cases its worse. to get a alienware of similar power to that clevo, it costs 2718 pounds.
    I hope you see my point.

    though by american standards, even that clevo is alittle overpriced. roughly 2800$. in america, ive seen those models for 500$ cheaper, but beside the point. I know prices are alittle inflated over seas.

    anyways, that was a little longer then I intended, but it works. You'll find that alienware is almost always the worst price per performance you can get...... well wait.... no.
    Razor sells a laptop with a 650m and a dual core at a price you can get 680m SLI at.
    then theres apple that thought it was a great idea to sell a laptop with an HD 3000 for 2000$.....

    Ok, so you can do worse then alienware, but their still generally not the best.
    • Up x 1
  19. mikeyyy109

    wow, alot of alienware haters here lol, thanks for all the input, i do see everyones point about aw's over price and i looked into the clevos, for quite some time, i just really dont like the look of them. Thanks Alexlightning7 for all the info, very informative :) ive already built myself countless gaming desktops over the years, ive had the phase of everything must be top of the line, and im moving into a slightly more casual phase, i dont know why but ive completely gone off desktops as a whole, laptops are my thing regardless of the performance draw back and extra £££. Ive managed to get a deal out of dell for the 680m + 2 years parts warranty + 2 year accidental warranty and still for £100 less than online, so £1780 which im fairly happy with. So i think thats what im going to do, hopefully im not completely wrong and regret my choice. Thanks again all.