Laptop suggestions for running SWTOR on max settings

[AppleMacFinder]

How could bootcamp not be smooth?
Macbook Pro was a best performing laptop with Windows Vista,
guess it's the same thing with Windows 7.

You could also use a virtual machine, and run Mac OS X and Windows simultaneously.
I have conducted the benchmark for Parallels Desktop 7, and the virtual machine was just 5% slower than bootcamp!
The only downside is that you would have to upgrade to 8GB RAM, because Macbook Pro has 4GB out of the box
and virtual machine will eat half of RAM.

 

[cluthz]

How could bootcamp not be smooth?
Macbook Pro was a best performing laptop with Windows Vista,
guess it's the same thing with Windows 7.

MBP has great CPUs, but mediocre GPUs.
The 6770M scores around 10k in 3DMark06, the laptops he looks at here scores twice.
The MBP can game, but it is not a gaming laptop.

You could also use a virtual machine, and run Mac OS X and Windows simultaneously.
I have conducted the benchmark for Parallels Desktop 7, and the virtual machine was just 5% slower than bootcamp!
The only downside is that you would have to upgrade to 8GB RAM, because Macbook Pro has 4GB out of the box
and virtual machine will eat half of RAM.

Sounds very scientific, what is 5% slower? Minesweeper? Pong? SWTOR?

 

[jmdMac]

By the way, both AMD 7k and GeForce 700 (mobile series) was announced just before xmas and should be shipping within weeks, it might be worth the wait.

I have not found anything on the imminent release of the 700m series. All I have read is that they will begin mass production Q1 2012, so likely not available till later in the year.

Can you provide a link to an article that says otherwise? I am very interested in this. If anything, it would lower the price on the 500m series.

 

[DustinT]

Sager laptops are every bit as well built as a MBP, granted they don't look as good, but they're function over form.

Hrm... The Better Business Burea doesn't seem to think so since they are C- rated. That's pretty far from the A+ that Apple has. I've actually purchased a high end system for a client and it had numerous issues over the years requiring numerous repairs. Quite unlike the Apple's I've owned.

 

[jmdMac]

I have not found anything on the imminent release of the 700m series. All I have read is that they will begin mass production Q1 2012, so likely not available till later in the year.

Can you provide a link to an article that says otherwise? I am very interested in this. If anything, it would lower the price on the 500m series.

I've actually found this article http://semiaccurate.com/2011/12/30/nvidia-gpu-roadmap-slips-a-year-too/ that says the next gen nvidia cards are being delayed to late 2012 or even 2013.

 

[jmdMac]

Hrm... The Better Business Burea doesn't seem to think so since they are C- rated. That's pretty far from the A+ that Apple has. I've actually purchased a high end system for a client and it had numerous issues over the years requiring numerous repairs. Quite unlike the Apple's I've owned.

Apple's and especially Apple laptops are not gaming machines. End of story. I'm not even considering getting another MBP for gaming or using this one as such. I use my MBP for school, work, and for just general use. Please quit wasting your and my time trying to convince me otherwise. Yes, Apple's have amazing build quality and a great feel to them, I will vouch for this any day. I love my MBP, but it is in no imagination a gaming rig.

 

[DustinT]

Apple's and especially Apple laptops are not gaming machines. End of story. I'm not even considering getting another MBP for gaming or using this one as such. I use my MBP for school, work, and for just general use. Please quit wasting your and my time trying to convince me otherwise. Yes, Apple's have amazing build quality and a great feel to them, I will vouch for this any day. I love my MBP, but it is in no imagination a gaming rig.

No worries, I absolutely agree with you that MacBooks are not designed to be gaming machines. I wish the best with your purchase.

 

[cluthz]

I've actually found this article http://semiaccurate.com/2011/12/30/nvidia-gpu-roadmap-slips-a-year-too/ that says the next gen nvidia cards are being delayed to late 2012 or even 2013.

This is the desktop roadmap. There are already released 600M, but only low end so far.
The 600M will not be based on the new architecture (it lags one behind), but will be an improvement of the current.

At best a dieshrink, but at least a upgraded version of the current, with higher clocks.

 

[jmdMac]

This is the desktop roadmap. There are already released 600M, but only low end so far.
The 600M will not be based on the new architecture (it lags one behind), but will be an improvement of the current.

At best a dieshrink, but at least a upgraded version of the current, with higher clocks.

Can you by chance post a link to any of this? All I seem to find points to a later release.

Found this article from today that seems to think later also:
http://fudzilla.com/component/k2/item/25503-jensen-on-kepler

 

[cluthz]

Can you by chance post a link to any of this? All I seem to find points to a later release.

Found this article from today that seems to think later also:
http://fudzilla.com/component/k2/item/25503-jensen-on-kepler

So far there isn't much:
http://www.geforce.com/Hardware/NotebookGPUs/geforce-gt-635m
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-635M.66964.0.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/AMD-Radeon-Nvidia-Mobile-GPUs,14218.html

Only 630m and 635m is available yet.

The good thing is that the 635m is equivalent to 555m, which means that nvidia have made space for several faster cards in the naming nomenclature. (460m was faster than 555m)

 

[dlowmoney]

I know this thread has been dead for a bit, but I just started playing Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) on my 2011 15" MBP. I don't know the exact specs of the machine off the top of my head, but I'm sure you're all familiar.

I totally expected my machine to eat this game (graphically) for breakfast. I originally purchased the machine to do video and audio editing, and it's never even had to take a breath when doing some of larger projects.

I was extremely suprised to find the game is completely unplayable on max settings. I don't know what the exact frame rate drops to, but it's aweful.

I can run the game great at a low to medium setting at the moment, but I feel like I should be able to run it at max settings.

I am running SWTOR through Windows 7 through Bootcamp. Could this be a simple driver issue? Someone suggested this previously, but I haven't had a chance to investigate it yet.

Anyone else having similiar problems? Anyone solved it? Just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[SlickShoes]

I know this thread has been dead for a bit, but I just started playing Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) on my 2011 15" MBP. I don't know the exact specs of the machine off the top of my head, but I'm sure you're all familiar.

I totally expected my machine to eat this game (graphically) for breakfast. I originally purchased the machine to do video and audio editing, and it's never even had to take a breath when doing some of larger projects.

I was extremely suprised to find the game is completely unplayable on max settings. I don't know what the exact frame rate drops to, but it's aweful.

I can run the game great at a low to medium setting at the moment, but I feel like I should be able to run it at max settings.

I am running SWTOR through Windows 7 through Bootcamp. Could this be a simple driver issue? Someone suggested this previously, but I haven't had a chance to investigate it yet.

Anyone else having similiar problems? Anyone solved it? Just doesn't make sense to me.

If you are using the drivers that were installed with bootcamp then yes that is a problem. You will need to get the updated ones from AMD.

SWTOR isn't the best in optimisation though so I wouldn't expect it to run amazingly well on anything.

 

[dlowmoney]

Cool, thanks for the response SlickShoes.

I'll do a driver update tonight and give an update with how well it runs with the newer drivers, just incase anyone else is curious.

 

[dlowmoney]

Just as a follow up, I updated the drivers and and the performance is like night and day. Still can't run the game at the highest settings, but close enough for me.

Thanks again for the advice!

 

[Ace134blue]

Wait a month for ivy bridge. possible new kepler mobile gpus will be out by in the ivy laptops, already shipping in some sandy bridge laptops. mainly want a laptop with the new kepler 660M at minimum to run SWTOR; its poorly optimized btw.

ah looks like you solved problem.

 

[dlowmoney]

Another update on this issue:

It turns out that there is a graphics engine issue with this game. Apparently if you have Directx 11 installed and don't play games that utilize past versions of Directx (specifically Directx9c), the performance of the game will take a 20+ FPS hit in performance. If you play games on Steam, this shouldn't really be an issue since a good deal of games (Team Fotress 2 ect.) utilize Directx9c. See the link below for details:

http://thenoob.net/gaming/improve-star-wars-republic-performance/

This is the first game I have run on my Bootcamped Windows 7 partition, so I wouldn't already have the older version installed.

If you do a Google search on the issue (SWTOR Directx9c), you get a ton of hits.

I am currently at work for the next 8 hours, so I won't have a chance to test this until tonight.

Hope this helps and I'll report back if this indeed helps my perfomance at all.

 

[dlowmoney]

Update:

In case anyone cares, this did indeed make a big difference in my performance of SWTOR. I am currently getting a 15-20 FPS boost since installing the above mentioned Directx9.C

Hope someone else finds this information as useful as I have.