I have a friend who is looking to get back into PC gaming but due to space limits he won’t be able to go the full tower, multi monitor giant desk route. A high performance laptop will be the best solution at this time.
So my question is to the Mudspiker’s with laptops - how are the flight sims performing on your hardware, especially DCS?
I understand the disparity in performance vs. desktop hardware, but I am looking for some real world data.
Thanks!
I can run DCSW on medium settings, as long as the mission isn’t too full of stuff.
I have an old gaming laptop from 4 years ago or so (970M graphics card).
If you buy a gaming laptop for ~2000 bucks now you should be fine. Not on max or VR but it will work.
Pretty similar to @Aginor here. The much bigger limiting factor for DCS is control peripherals. Flying the a-10c for examplw in combvat without a HOTAS is extremely challenging.
I have a good Xbox controller config for A-10C if you need it! Haha. Yea, I’ll have to try to convince him of all the peripherals (HOTAS WH, TrackIR, Rudder Pedals) somehow. That, or keep it simple with FC3.
If he wants a HOTAS but not spend a lot of money I recommend looking at the T16000 by Thrustmaster.
You can get the stick and throttle separately.
Stick only is enough for FC3 planes, and if you want more you can just add the throttle. Pretty nice stick with good precision.
I have a similar system to Aginor (970M 3GB and an Intel CPU that I think gets to around 3.2 with boost). It’s 4 years old. DCS on Med or Med/High settings runs just fine (although I don’t do MP). IL-2 BOS runs on pretty high settings.
My laptop is “permanently” set up at a desk so I have a powered USB hub and use CH HOTAS, CH Rudder Pedals, Track IR, etc… I used to use only a Saitek AV8R before I had a desk, and while it worked for FC3, I don’t think it would have worked for A-10C or F-18C.
While I absolutely regret buying one of those fancy $2k laptops, I can at least say that it works absolutely fine on it 
*adding link just for spec purposes
https://www.newegg.com/black-msi-gp-series-gp63-leopard-428-gaming-entertainment/p/N82E16834154900?Item=N82E16834154900
I had a gaming laptop ages ago. It eventually died, but I kept it’s hard drive until this year (I just didn’t want to make space for it, still worked).
I always tell friends that expect a wonderous gaming performance on a laptop that they will be severely disappointed compared to a desktop, they can’t upgrade anything (except storage) to stay current, and it WILL suffer an eventual heat related death and at the same time not being modular like a desktop - unable to easily replace the defective part at a reasonable cost.
Looks like up here you have to spend $3,000CAD to get a laptop with 32GB RAM, but $2500 gets you 16GB.
Using 2070 or 1660s with 6 or 8 GB vram on i7-9750Hs.
Edit: and only a NVME SSD at 512GB…wow. Where’s the secondary 1TB HDD or something?
I got my Sager laptop from Xoticpc.com, and it was much cheaper than comparable laptops at the time. I think last time I looked, they were still some of the best deals.
Have my saitek x-55 connected to the usb2.0 ports, works fine.
DCS works great on the mobile 980, but only have 8gig ram. Takes ~5min to load a mission, and 30sec to get shot down…
I’ve been thinking about this too. I’d love to have a portable solution for showing off VR to friends and co-workers. I bought a lightweight laptop last year from ASUS, but it can only handle mild games…and it definitely can’t handle VR.
And as for finding one…you can always keep an eye out here…although read the comments to ascertain whether they are deal worthy. Sometimes they aren’t…