Laptop advice

[sss1927]

Hey all - I had a similar thread a few days ago, but I'm back for some more advice. I'm trying to find a laptop for around $1,000 (US) that will run the game decently with mods and assets - I care more about graphics than simulation speed - but is not a gaming laptop, or at least doesn't look like it. Anything with a funky gaming design is, unfortunately, a no-go for me. Unfortunately that seemingly means I'm left with some high-performing PCs that are meant more for video work than gaming. I've been trying to do a bunch of research, comparing graphics cards, trying to figure out how important the graphics card is compared to the memory, etc, but ultimately I'm not really a tech guy so I feel at a lost about how to ultimately make a decision.

Bottom line, I'm looking into these three:
Dell XPS 15 (which I can get for 1200): https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/new-xps-15-laptop/spd/xps-15-7590-laptop/xnber5cr653ps
HP Pavilion 15z (much cheaper but with as far as I can tell a much inferior graphics card): https://store.hp.com/us/en/ConfigureView?catalogId=10051&langId=-1&storeId=10151&urlLangId=&catEntryId=3074457345619203818&quantity=1&color=mineral+silver
Acer Aspire 7 (although I've heard very mixed reviews about Acers): https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Display-i7-8750H-Fingerprint-A715-72G-71CT/dp/B07CZC81F6/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=acer+inspire+15&qid=1568773385&s=gateway&sr=8-5

Any advice? Or do you have any other recommendations? Thanks so much!

[MarkJohnson]

They're all terrible and have poor cooling. I actually have the XPS model with touchscreen as I needed a touchsreen, and it was $2,000 with upgrades. There was little else out there in gaming laptops with touchscreens. Hopefully you don't need touchscreens or you will be limited on your options.

It's good to look at YouTube videos of disassembly for each laptop, so you can see the cooling pipes. MSI probably has the best, but $1,500+ for a good one. They will all be over 5 lbs.

This game doesn't bet very good graphics and horrible FPS. 30 FPS is about max zoomed in on medium sized or larger cities. Adding workshop will make it worse. Much worse.

For Example:
Here's an MSI GL73 model 8R series 17-inch ($1,000) on YouTube disassembly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWzRWsmKmjM

Here's the more expensive Dell version and smaller 15-inch ($1,500-$2,000)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXxXa_beXc4

Here's an MSI GL73 9R series at Newegg:
https://www.newegg.com/black-msi-gl-series-gl73-9rcx-029-gaming-entertainment/p/N82E16834155244

[FORTE11]

A laptop around 1500+ to 2000 USD will suite your needs, If you prefer your computer to be stationary then I suggest buying a Rig for Cities. 2500 to 3000 USD is more for laptops specialized in Engineering / Architecture software. I personally need one both for gaming and work so yeah.

[Big]

Well another thing to keep in mind is this game is heavily cpu based as unity, it’s game engine is voxal based. You should try to do some research on YouTube: try Austin Evans or LTT.

[Pirazel]

This game does not perform well on Laptops.

[botanical bob]

Hey! I have an XPS 2018 model with a dedicated graphics. I played Cities on it just fine with the fan on full throttle. Temps would be stable of 60' for the GPU. Ran for 4 hours straight with no issues.

I now however, cannot get it to run on the GPU, it always runs on the Intel Graphics which I am trying to figure how to get it back to run on the GPU, lol.

[Big]

Originally posted by ßobblez Đivinity:

Hey! I have an XPS 2018 model with a dedicated graphics. I played Cities on it just fine with the fan on full throttle. Temps would be stable of 60' for the GPU. Ran for 4 hours straight with no issues.

I now however, cannot get it to run on the GPU, it always runs on the Intel Graphics which I am trying to figure how to get it back to run on the GPU, lol.

It’s an nvidia control panel settings. You have to set the gpu for each game which is annoying but it does work

[dirtface]

i have an acer 5 nitro. it plays all the games in my library perfectly and i do play some mmo games. i upgraded the hd and the ssd and its still under $1k

[botanical bob]

Originally posted by Big:

Originally posted by ßobblez Đivinity:

Hey! I have an XPS 2018 model with a dedicated graphics. I played Cities on it just fine with the fan on full throttle. Temps would be stable of 60' for the GPU. Ran for 4 hours straight with no issues.

I now however, cannot get it to run on the GPU, it always runs on the Intel Graphics which I am trying to figure how to get it back to run on the GPU, lol.

It’s an nvidia control panel settings. You have to set the gpu for each game which is annoying but it does work

I actually have Radeon Settings, I use to be able to see it run on the GPU a few months ago. Now it doesnt run at all no matter how many times i've added the cities.exe into the profile to be ran. My other games like Anno 1800 and Leauge runs on my GPU

[Big]

Hm, I’m not a huge AMD gpu enthusiast but try googling the question and a solution might come up

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by sss1927:

Laptop advice

My advice is just don't ;)
Aside from all of the serious hardware concerns, think about how you play the game itself.
Most players will play for hours upon hours at a time. That duration of heavy use for a laptop is more than your average game and this is why they simply aren't good for this type of game. They'll overheat more often than not, forcing you to shorter sessions than you'd like.
So, unless you are always mobile and you must play this game while you're not at home, then I would never recommend any laptop for this game.

[botanical bob]

Originally posted by Big:

Hm, I’m not a huge AMD gpu enthusiast but try googling the question and a solution might come up

Solution Solved. Had to go into power management settings in switchable graphics