Hi, I love Planetside 2. I think it's a great game, and will definitely be playing for a while. About a year ago, I bought a pretty nice HP laptop. Specs listed below. CPU: Core i7 4700MQ GPU: Geforce GT740M RAM: 16GB @ 1600mHz Storage: 1TB HDD Obviously, pretty decent hardware, and when I replace Integrated Graphics with the 740M, I can get generally around 40 fps with these settings: Med graphics quality 80% render quality 1600x900 resolution (my native res is 1080p) Everything else on low, shadows and flora off My game runs pretty smooth, and occasionally dips below 30 fps in crowded areas. However, the main thing I'm worried about is the health of my laptop. Planetside 2 is a pretty demanding game, simply because of the fast-paced massive online action. So, after around 30 minutes of playing, my laptop runs pretty hot (not the actual processor, the heatsink near the side of the laptop). I'm a bit worried that if I continue playing PS2 on a regular basis (about 3-5 hrs a week) my laptop's hardware will degrade very quickly. So I want to find a solution. I don't really know how to clean the heatsink/fan or any of the components, really (other than the ram, lol). I'm thinking of buying a laptop cooling pad with one of those fans in it, but those are really clumsy and I feel they aren't going to help it out a whole lot. So the main thing I want to do is somehow get a different, better cooling system in. HP laptops are infamous for overheating, and a couple years back a company called Asetek showed off their proprietary (well, not really) liquid cooling system for laptops. It looked REALLY promising, but I don't know what happened to it, and it was only compatible with an Alienware 18. Help? Please? I don't really wanna sacrifice this game and start playing League of Legends (because I'm Asian).
I use an HP laptop, and it over heats even when I'm not doing anything, but I have had it for over 6 years, and its still going strong. Although I have a turbo fan cooling it, I think that your laptop will be fine. Plus, I play PS2 around 40 hours a week.
As long as it doesn't shut down because of temperature or you aren't getting any bsods/artifacts your hardware lifespan shouldn't decrease noticeably. If you play only 3-5 hours a week it will have next to 0 effect. I'm gaming a lot on my laptop, sometimes even 10+ hours a day if i have nothing else to do and it still runs perfectly after a year so you shouldn't be worried.
I played the game just fine for two years on a Acer laptop with no problems. Although I did buy a new MSI laptop couple months back, the old Acer works absolutely fine and is still in everyday use. I will not comment on HP though, as I've had really bad experiences with the brand in the past.
More strain on a system naturally causes hardware to degrade faster, as doing having the computer on. It is the nature of any equipment though, the more you use it, the faster it wears out. Keeping equipment clean(dust/dirt attracts more dust/dirt) and cool(electronics tend to heat up) as possible will help prolong the life. Laptops aren't *typically* designed to always be on like desktop computers, so of course you're going to strain the equipment if you're using it like it's a desktop computer.
I think a computer will be simply be too slow for gaming being outdated before the hardware breaks down. Especially because that GPU can't be updated and is already rather slow. Gaming and Laptops don't mix very well in my opinion. And those computers who are actually designed for that purpose are quite heavy due to the sufficient cooling system and not very portable at all (high weight and low battery lifetime). So it's usually the best idea to get some energy efficient laptop for portable work and another desktop system that can be upgraded easily and is a lot faster than mobile solutions (that little "M" behind the name of a GPU usually cuts performance in half compared to the normal version). It may be likely that this costs the same because "gaming" laptops have a tendency to be quite expensive.
