Can someone help me pick out a new laptop?

[Clutz450]

I currently have a Sony Vaio Laptop that is probably about 8 years old.  I remember it being an excellent laptop when I bought it but now it just seems to be running super slow no matter what I do to it.  Plus there are other things going wrong with it too so after 8 years I think I'm due for a new one anyways.  I don't really know much about computers when it comes to hardware specs so I was hoping that someone here could help me out.  I just don't want to spend too little and get a laptop that is no better than what I already have or spend too much and have a laptop that is overpowered for what I am looking to do with it.  Basically I'm looking for something that will be able to push LaunchBox to it's limits in BigBox mode.  As far as emulating goes the latest console I would probably emulate is PS2 but would most likely be spending most of my time playing N64 and below using retroarch.  I used to play Steam games too like the Half Life and Portal series but again haven't played them in a long time because of my laptop's performance.  My store of choice to buy from is BestBuy.  So if someone could take a look on their web site at what they have to offer and give me a recommendation as to what laptop I should get to get the most out of BigBox I'd really appreciate it.  Thank you.

[Zeromod]

I've been using Asus Republic of Gamers laptops for some years now. I honestly just got too busy to keep up with my full tower (I was a modding enthusiast) and it was taking up a lot of space. My primary front end is actually and older ROG laptop i7-3610qm with an Nvidia 670m-3GB and 12GB of ram. It's running Dolphin, PCSX2 and even Cemu quite well early on (Mario 3d world and new mario bros for now) You could probably do pretty well with that particular brand and they certainly have more powerful offerings now.

What is your budget, And what are you looking to achieve on the machine from an emulation perspective and are you looking to play PC games as well? If so, what games? Also, are you locked into Best Buy? I don't have any issues with them beyond you paying a lot more in many cases than if you were to go through Newegg or another reputable online provider. Although the convenience of driving to a local brick and mortar is nice for a purchase like this.

[Clutz450]

Thank you for your reply.  I know that I could get cheaper by shopping online but I kinda don't want to wait and I want one now.  Lol.  The only thing I searched for on best buy as far as specs go was processor speed 3 ghz and only because I read that the bsnes accuracy core for retroarch needs it.  There were only 2 laptops in Stock at best buy that have that and I think I am going to go with this one.  http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-xps-15-6-4k-ultra-hd-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-1tb-solid-state-drive-silver/4550500.p?skuId=4550500.  So I'm probably going to go out and buy that one.  Hopefully it's a good buy.

Edited February 22, 2017 by Clutz450

[Zeromod]

I'm not sure I'd go with a Dell. A quick search for a laptop geared for gaming gave a lot of results. Most Best Buys will not charge you and will order a laptop and get it into inventory. Again, I'm biased as I'm an Asus user, but Sager or Alienware would be your next best bet and frankly, I think Alienware (also owned by Dell) is overpriced and most people would agree. Sager is generally not going to be in any brick and mortar store like Best Buy. For that price range, you can do so much better in a laptop geared toward power users.  

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?st=Asus+Rog&_dyncharset=UTF-8&id=pcat17071&type=page&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=&sp=&qp=&list=n&af=true&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960&keys=keys

 

Edit: Also, do some research on mobile chipsets. A higher number does not mean that it's more powerful. Nvidia in particular has a ridiculous naming convention for their cards. A 150m may be less powerful than a 100m for example. (Note totally made up model number lol)

Edited February 22, 2017 by Zeromod

[Clutz450]

Thanks for all the informatiom.  I'll check it out.

[Ptondo]

And also this week they are 829.00$  usually they are 1199.00 $  I just got an asus desktop gaming computer  at best buy too ! 

 It's the g11cd  Intel core i5,  ddr4 16g , nVidia gforce, gtx 1080 6GB , hdd 1 tb , ssd512gb, 

Edited February 22, 2017 by Ptondo

[Zeromod]

Yeah, that is a good price. Generally you are paying a premium for the mobility and power of a true gaming laptop. I'm excited that non mobile chipsets from Nvidia are becoming available. The notion of a fully fledge 1080 or even 980 in a laptop gives me gaming wood lol. Hell, the new models have water cooling setups and it's just insane. However, at a 3k USD price point, I'll relax until they become more affordable. I'm already accustomed to taking a 1500-2000 hit on the bleeding edge mobile chipsets, so I don't have a need to take out a second mortgage on my home for a laptop lol

[DOS76]

Just build your own PC (not an option for a laptop) you can get better specs for less money if you put in the effort.

[Clutz450]

So I went out and bought a new laptop today.  I ultimately went with that Dell XPS one (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-xps-15-6-4k-ultra-hd-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-1tb-solid-state-drive-silver/4550500.p?skuId=4550500).  It was already in stock and they had an open box one and was able to get it for under $1,500.  I have 15 days to return it so if it just doesn't do what I want it to do then I'll just order one of the other ones you guys recommended and take thus one back.

 

So anyway, now that I have this beast maybe you can help me out on how to use it.  Lol.  Like I have an Nvidia GeForce control panel that has all kinds of settings in it and I'm not sure if I should touch any of them.  I already had to touch one because I noticed when I installed and ran retroarch the frames weren't going any higher than 30 fps.  Then I noticed that in that control panel there was an option that said optimal and next to it said limit to 30 fps.  Why would anyone want to do that?  But anyway I changed it to 60 fps and retroarch was giving me 60 fps.  

 

Now another thing I'm noticing just from browsing the menus in retroarch is that I have some diagonal screen tearing going on.  I did some searching and it seems like it's a known issue going back like 2 or 3 years from what I saw but no way to fix it.  Hopefully I was overlooking something and one of you guys can help me fix it.  I havent tried any real PC games yet but I have Steam downloading Portal 2 and Half Life 2 now.  When it's done I'll see if I get the same screen tearing.  But if this is a known issue with those graphics cards and there is no fix then I might just return this thing tomorrow.

 

In the end I'm hoping it's just some settings I need to tweak on my computer or in retroarch.  Maybe you guys can take a look at my specs and recommend what settings would be best for my setup.  Then if everything looks good I can finally enjoy Launch Box and Big box in all its glory.  :-)

[Clutz450]

On ‎2‎/‎21‎/‎2017 at 8:44 PM, Zeromod said:

I'm not sure I'd go with a Dell. A quick search for a laptop geared for gaming gave a lot of results. Most Best Buys will not charge you and will order a laptop and get it into inventory. Again, I'm biased as I'm an Asus user, but Sager or Alienware would be your next best bet and frankly, I think Alienware (also owned by Dell) is overpriced and most people would agree. Sager is generally not going to be in any brick and mortar store like Best Buy. For that price range, you can do so much better in a laptop geared toward power users.  

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?st=Asus+Rog&_dyncharset=UTF-8&id=pcat17071&type=page&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=&sp=&qp=&list=n&af=true&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960&keys=keys

 

Edit: Also, do some research on mobile chipsets. A higher number does not mean that it's more powerful. Nvidia in particular has a ridiculous naming convention for their cards. A 150m may be less powerful than a 100m for example. (Note totally made up model number lol)

So do you really think this Asus laptop is really better than the Dell?  Because as of right now I'm not really happy with the Dell.  Everything just seems off to me.  Like text everywhere is so small.  Also text in pop up dialog boxes look blurry or just plain off.  I'm sure this is due to the 4k resolution setting and probably something I can fix by tinkering around some.  But that diagonal screen tearing is really irking me right now and I don't know how to fix it.  As of right now I only see it in retroarch on the menu and any game that I try and play.  Plus I feel like I have a slightly bit more input lag now that I didn't notice on my old laptop.  I did get half Life 2 downloaded and tried playing that and while I didn't notice any screen tearing in that game the screen just didn't seem right there either.  Like whenever I would move my mouse around quickly I felt like the screen had a slight stutter.  My wife couldn't see it and she thinks I'm crazy but I didn't spend $1,500 on a laptop that I'm not happy with. 

 

I've never owned a laptop that was this "powerful" before so maybe this is all normal or maybe I just don't understand all the settings that I have and how to fine tune it to be perfect.  Maybe I'm just not ready for a "gaming" laptop if this is how it is.  I mean like my 6 year old Sony Vaio played NES, SNES, and N64 pretty well in RetroArch.  So I just don't get how having a better computer is causing me such a headache.  So unless there is anyone here that can help me tweak my laptop to where I think it should be I'm might just be taking this thing back.  I would probably buy that Asus laptop you recommended but I worry I am going to have the same problems since it also has Nvidia GeForce graphics card. 

 

So does anyone here have a laptop that has in their opinion the perfect setup for LaunchBox and BigBox and have no complaints?  And if so can you tell me what laptop you have.  Because I really just need a new laptop for that and other small daily tasks.  The only reason why I wanted something more powerful was so that I could maybe try and get back into PC gaming again but it's not really a necessity if I'm only going to keep running into these kinds of issues I'm having now.  Thanks again for everyone's help.

[Zeromod]

If you are seeing small text, you should adjust the text in Windows. And yes, higher resolution will do that as well. I'm not sure why I would need 4k res on my laptop if it has a 15 inch screen, I just use my 1080p and my Asus has a 17.3 wide screen. But those issues don't sound like faults with the laptop. If your screen is tearing in a game, turn Vsync on. If it's tearing outside of a game, then that could be an issue, I'd have to have more details. As for the Asus being better, yeah the ROG brand is geared toward gamers. The XPS is a model that can't make up it's mind. The Alienware is geared toward gamers (stupid expensive though compared to most Asus ROG models) As for the systems you mentioned emulating, yeah your 6 year old Sony should be able to handle those easily. Again, my main laptop for emulation is an old Asus G7VW it has an i7-3610qm and a 670mGTX and it plays Cemu and Dolphin upscaled etc. So that is not surprise.

I doubt you have any input lag, some of this sounds like buyers remorse and I've been there before. Unless of course you are using a touchpad or something, that may be the case. You really shouldn't rely on those much anyway. As for the comparison, look at some of the Asus notebooks on that list, you could have a better cpu gpu combo for less money. I get that you really wanted a notebook then and there, but in my opinion you rushed this purchase a bit.

 

[Clutz450]

28 minutes ago, Zeromod said:

I get that you really wanted a notebook then and there, but in my opinion you rushed this purchase a bit.

 

Yeah I did.  I'm sorry for not listening to you.  It's just I'm always crazy busy with work and I don't have much free time to myself at home.  So I have off from work until Tuesday next week and wanted to spend this free time finally setting up LaunchBox to my liking.  Plus the salesperson basically said buy it now and if you don't like it return it. 

So this one here looks like a good one to you (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-gl502vt-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i7-12gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/5090905.p?skuId=5090905)?   It looks like it's in stock too so I get swap it out tomorrow.  The only thing I worry about is that it's the same graphics card as the one I have now so I hope I don't have the same diagonal screen tearing video problems.  Or in your opinion is there a better one that I can get if I just order it and wait?  I will totally listen to you this time around if you say yes. Lol.

 

[Zeromod]

In terms of price, yeah that is a ridiculous good price. The Dell has a lot of features that are clearly better than the on sale model at the top of the list such as an SSD Hard drive and a 4k display (although I doubt anyone is enjoying a 4k display on a screen that size) On the other hand the video card is a better offering on the ROG. etc. You have to compare the various models and look at the budget and make a choice.  I mean, look at this one

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-128gb-solid-state-drive-metallic/4637108.p?skuId=4637108

Nearly the same specs but at a significantly lower price plus it edges the Dell out in some areas. I think you are paying a lot for that 4k display and it's funny to me personally. I'm not trying to pick a laptop out for you, but to encourage you to research, come back and ask specific questions IE: Does this GPU outperform this one? etc. And you can make an informed decision. Here is another thing, cooling and access. Those ROG notebooks have a one screw plate on the bottom of most and are easy to clean the fan filters, access the ram slot, add extra hard drives etc. Do the Dell models have the same thing? Worth looking into.  If you are looking to spend that money, maybe you want an actual gaming model from Dell from the Alienware line as seen below.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?st=Alienware&_dyncharset=UTF-8&id=pcat17071&type=page&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=&sp=&qp=&list=n&af=true&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960&keys=keys

I mean, you can spend upwards of 6k on a ROG or as little as less than a thousand and I'm sure the same can be said for Dell's line. The money should be the easy part, I'm just looking for you to take your time and make an informed decision so that you aren't unhappy with something you dropped a lot of money on. 

Here is one I'm looking at myself for my son, not sure if it's on Best Buy site but they have their own ROG SKU so they likely can stock it. A 980m is not top of the line since we now have non mobile chips in the newest models (which are crazy expensive yet) but it's not going to struggle with anything for a long time.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834234184&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Gaming+Laptops-_-N82E16834234184&gclid=CjwKEAiAirXFBRCQyvL279Tnx1ESJAB-G-QvJFT5G08HiR-nfzRa3U9-sA4weKRev_k91Exav0FZ9RoC_dfw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Here is a comparison chart from Asus website it comes in handy as well

https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/Notebooks-Products/?_ga=1.173137504.2113363406.1487826851

 

Edited February 23, 2017 by Zeromod

[Clutz450]

So yeah, I like the ROG here (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-gl502vt-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i7-12gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/5090905.p?skuId=5090905) because it is cheaper but it's has that same 970M graphics card as the one I just bought and I see other people having the same diagonal tearing issue.  The Alienware here (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/alienware-17-3-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1070-1tb-hard-drive-128gb-solid-state-drive-silver/5623233.p?skuId=5623233) while more expensive and probably like you say overpriced, has a GTX 1070 card and I have seen any reports of diagonal screen tearing with them.  I found posts about regular screen tearing but it seemed fixable.  Maybe I'll just go into Best buy today and talk to the Geek Squad people a little more before buying.  Because as far as all the other specs go, I don't really care which one looks better on paper.  I just want to be able to turn on my laptop, install my games and be able to play them without having to do any tweaking.

[Zeromod]

Neither one of the cards are likely the cause of any screen tearing. My gut says it's a poor display, display is important in laptops if you are not projecting to a monitor using HDMI. If you are in a game and seeing that, you likely need to just turn Vsync on. That is actually a good thing, because it means your GPU is kicking that games ass. Can also mean the display is not very good. Look up Vsync and you'll have an idea of what that is. 

The 1070 will definitely destroy that 970m. Also, I'll note that the on sale ROG has a slow hard drive at 5400RPM. However, Hard drives are fairly inexpensive and very easy to upgrade on those laptops. I'd add a second on anyway. I personally use the NAS rated WD Red drives for movies and then a decent WD Black 7200rpm for gaming. You can go SSD if you wish, but I still haven't encountered a situation in where I actually need one of those and they are still more expensive when you factor in cost to performance and storage. The Dell Alienware has an SSD drive and a large Hard drive to compliment it, but I don't see any specs on the hard drive so I can't tell what speed it is etc. 

You are paying more if you are comparing just those two. I'd probably go with the Alienware in that case if it's within budget. However, I'm betting you can find other models with a 1070, the same CPU and probably at a lower price range. Here is a good site to give you comparisons on hardware. Keep in mind that if there is an "m" for mobile next to the GPU it's important to include that. A 980m for example is nowhere near a 980 desktop GPU. There are laptops that have non mobile chipsets, I believe they start with the 980 and go to the 1080 at this point and they are pricey as all hell right now. 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/08/nvidia-pascal-laptop-specs-gtx-1080/  Good article on the emergence of non mobile chipsets hitting the laptop market

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-980M-vs-GeForce-GTX-970M Good site that compares hardware. Remember to watch for mobile chipset versus non mobile branding.

Edit: Totally forgot, you can also look into the Razer and MSI brands. I think that ROG and Alienware are the top tier models but that is my opinion. 

Edited February 23, 2017 by Zeromod

[DOS76]

have you made sure that the GPU has the latest drivers also.

[Clutz450]

Here is a post explaining exactly what I was seeing (https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/903422/geforce-mobile-gpus/diagonal-screen-tearing-issues-on-gtx-860m-870m-960m-965m-970m-980m-/).  And another one here (http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1232123).  And finally Microsoft chiming in on the problem (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3158621/hybrid-graphics-and-vsync-results-in-graphic-tearing-in-some-games-and-apps-on-windows-10).  And yes, I did have all my drivers up to date.

 

So I wound up going back to Best Buy and returned the Dell.  I was kind of torn between the Asus Rog and the Alienware.  Asus was cheaper but it had that graphics card and was worried I would still have the same problem.  The Alienware did not have a card that I could find that issue with and it also had g-sync on it which I had read in a few posts would fix everything.  But that Alienware was almost $2,000 and I just couldn't justify it for the purposes of playing Nintendo. Lol.  So I went with the cheaper Asus Rog here (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-gl502vt-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i7-12gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/5090905.p?skuId=5090905).

 

So I took it home and the first thing I did was try and play Super Mario Bros. through RetroArch.  It played really well and I didn't see any diagonal tearing.  So I then went and updated everything.  When I went back into SMB I noticed the diagonal tearing again.  But the weird thing was that it kind of worked itself out.  Like after running right for a little but and seeing the tearing it just kind of went away on its own and didn't come back again until I closed out of RetroArch and opened it back up again.  I can live with this as long as it goes away and doesn't get worse.  

 

I didn't have time to try out any Steam games or try tweaking some of the settings as mentioned in those posts I linked to but I'll try and do that tomorrow.  But for right now I think I'm happy.  Maybe you guys can read some of those posts I linked to and maybe help me better understand why it's happening or be able to help me eliminate it all together.  Thanks. 

[Zeromod]

Go to your Nvidia Control Panel and under 3d application settings, enable vsync. Let me know if it happens again.

[Clutz450]

22 hours ago, Zeromod said:

Go to your Nvidia Control Panel and under 3d application settings, enable vsync. Let me know if it happens again.

The vertical sync option originally said "Use the 3d application settings".  Not sure what that means but I think it means it's on because I saw the same diagonal screen tearing with that and when I switched it to just on.  Like I said, I only notice it for a little bit and then it looks like it works itself out and I don't see it anymore.  When I turn that option off, I don't see the diagonal screen tearing anymore but the screen stutters a lot when running to the right in Super Mario Brothers to the point where it is unplayable for me.

 

Now I did see in one of the forum posts I read where it said to just disable the Nvidia card and go with the internal one.  So I tried that by in that same menu choosing Integrated Graphics from the drop down under "Select preferred graphics processor".  That gave me no screen tearing at all and Super Mario Brother ran smoothly the entire time I ran to the right and saw no issue.  I also noticed in that same menu that I could go to the Program Settings tab and select just the RetroArch exe and tell it to use the Integrated Graphics for just that program.  So I now have the default settings back under the global settings and under program settings have it so only the Integrated Graphics option is selected for only RetroArch. 

 

So that seems to be my fix for right now.  Not sure if it's a good one though.  Because I mean I paid so much money for a laptop with an Nvidia Graphics card only to turn it off and not use it. lol.  I was kind of busy today so I didn't get a chance to download and try out Half Life 2 or Portal 2 on this laptop like I did the last one.  Maybe the Nvidia graphics will work well in those more modern games and I won't notice the diagonal screen tearing but I will try it out tomorrow.  Either way I think I fixed (or more worked around) my issue.  But from your opinion based on what I experienced and from what others have experienced by reading through those forum posts I linked to, do you think I should just still return this laptop and go for one that doesn't have a graphics card that has that weird diagonal screen tearing issue in it?  I mean a part of me says yes because why pay for something if it's not working correctly.  Plus it seems like this issues has been around a quite some time now without any kind of fix so I wonder if it ever will get fixed.  Let me know what you think about all this.  Thanks.

[Zeromod]

It's not a good workaround, that internal card is shit. With that being said, you are correct, if there is an issue with the nvidia card, I wouldn't want it. I just have never heard of any major issues with them and have never experienced them myself. Can you share a thread in where this is being discussed by another user? I'd like to research it a bit. I'm nursing a mild hangover this morning so I'm not quite up to speed.

Edited February 25, 2017 by Zeromod