Hi!
Below are a few questions - Feel free to answer only 1 or 2 if you don’t have time for all of them. I would really appreciate it!
I decided to buy a new laptop exclusively for FS2020 and I am quite confused about the specs needed.
Interested in FS2020 as a casual simmer (not a pro by any means).
I plan on using it less than 2-3h at a time.
What matters to me are very realistic views and smooth flight (no lags/stuttering).
Most likely, I will go for a Dell (G7 or Alienware), due to existing ecosystem at home.
Looking to find the right setup without breaking the bank.
Questions: Graphics card:
6G or 8G? Is the difference noticeable in terms of flow, speed, and overall experience?
RTX or GTX? Does ray tracing have any impact on how the landscape and planes look? If using GTX, are you really missing out?
RAM: 16G or 32G? In what ways does 32G improve running FS?
SSD Drives: I see many configurations with 2 drives instead of 1. Is it just to have more space or does a 2-drives setup help loading the simulator faster?
If FS is the only software used, can I get away and be comfortable with 500G or do I need 1TB?
Heat: I read many reviews of Alienware getting very hot. Since many on this forum have Alienware as I could read in other posts, can you please weigh in?
In general, is heating a problem often encountered while running FS2020, for no longer than 2hr at a time? SHould i really be concerned about this, and would excess heat be problematic for longevity of laptop?
I’m not too big on laptops myself, so I’ll leave that for others, I can comment on the RAM and SSD’s though;
RAM will very much depend on where you fly. If you stay outside of the heavy photogrammetry areas, 16GB is more than enough. If you do want to fly around those areas a lot, the 32GB might get rid of some microstutters. Don’t expect an FPS gain though.
SSD wise; if MSFS is the only software on it, you should be OK with the 500GB one, unless you’re planning to download 300+GB of scenery and other addons. Currently the full install is around 110GB, so the 500 should cover you. If you do run out in the future, you can always add another one if the laptop has a spare slot. Go for M.2 SSD’s if you can, but I think those are standard in most modern laptops these days anyways.
In general with laptops you’ll find they will all run hot running a sim like MSFS. If you have it on your lap it might be uncomfortable, but if you have it on a desk you should be fine. If it gets too hot it will clock itself down to protect the hardware.
Thank you for the prompt reply!
Well noted for the RAM and SSD.
Regarding the add-on you mentioned, my understanding was that this FS was revolutionary because the whole world was digitized and fully included in the software. Can you elaborate on what kinds of add-ons are available? Actually, where would be a good place to look for them so i can get a better understanding?
you’ll have the whole world with the base simulator, but as you might have noticed, most (read, 99,9%) of all the scenery and buildings are auto-generated by AI from available map data.
You can download let’s say, airport scenery from different websites, or from the in-sim marketplace, where people have recreated the actual buildings on airports, or landmarks in cities (where there is no photogrammetry available). You can purchase these, or look for free ones to add to your sim.
In general, I would suggest only doing this for the areas where you fly a lot. To me it makes no sense to spend 20 euro on an airport I might land once or twice at, or purchase landmarks for London if I’ll only be visiting it once or twice.
Is it needed? Not really, especially if you’re still finding your feet in the sim, and enjoy exploring the whole world that’s available to you.
If you have a favourite area your frequent a lot, it might be worth it to you to look for addons.
Just as a data point, I have a Razer Blade 15 2020. 10875h (8/16), 32 Gb RAM, 2080S max-q, 1Tb NVMe. I get solid framerates in the 45-50 range over non-high density locations. Over large cities like NYC or areas where I’ve installed large addons (like Yosemite) I hover b/w 35-40. I’d say for the most part everything is smooth. I’ll get a pause once and a while and rarely any stutters.
EDIT - forgot to add that this is all at 4K.
You’ll want to investigate leveraging Throttlestop (or similar) to undervolt your laptop. This will keep the temps down. I also reduce my max frequency from 4.6 (max for all cores loaded) to 3.8. This keeps the temps around 75C during flight and I lose maybe 2FPS. Well worth it.
To your questions:
My card is 8Gb and I frequently see it around 6.9 to 7.2Gb while flying (most settings on High, a few on Ultra)
RTX/GTX - I vote RTX, just bc is more future-proof
32Gb - I know it costs more, but it’s worth it. However, I typically only see MSFS using around 18Gb max, so you might be able to get away with 16Gb
You absolutely want to do NVMe. I don’t think for the speed of these drives having 1 or 2 matter as long as you have enough space. I’d go for more ram and video card memory over 2 drives. And go for 1Tb if you plan on installing any addons (I have 76Gb of addons so far).
In terms of heat, my laptop gets warm, not hot. Again, b/c I use Throttlestop, which also helps keeps the fans down, not a full blast. If you’re worried about heat, check out places like notebookcheck.net (example) scroll down a bit to Temperature.
Best of luck. Let me know if you have more questions. Happy to help.
Thank you, this is very helpful. It’s a jungle out there when you’ve been out of the tech area for just a few years. I feel like I need to learn everything again so grateful for this forum and members like you.
I’ll def check out Throttlestop. I think I’ll go for 32g ram and RTX as you suggested.
Now I just have to understand the nuances between maxQ, 2060, 2070, 2080…!
another thing you can try is downloading MSI Afterburner, it comes with the ‘Riva tuner’ tool as well, which you can use to limit FPS (so let’s say 30), so the system doesn’t have to work as hard, which keeps temperatures cooler as well.
Glad I could help. I’ll try to boil down your last comment. 2060/70/80 are performance variants. Each is about 20-25% faster than the next. Also, I think the 2060 only comes in 6GB, 70/80 come in 8Gb.
Max-q is where it gets harder. Max-q is the lower power version of the chip and is ~18% slower than the actual desktop card, but, at greatly less heat. So. if you REALLY want a light, thin, and portable gaming laptop, something similar to the Razer Blade 15 I have with the Max-q. However, if you’re ok with more of a “desktop replacement” laptop that’s substantially thicker, heavier, and barely portable, you can get an almost full-blown 2060/70/80.
In my case, when not gaming, I can disable the Nvidia card using Optimus (comes with the card) and rely on the integrated graphics. This means I can get 8+ hours of battery life if I need it for work/travel. With a “desktop replacement” type laptop, you’ll barely get 1-1.5 hours on battery.
Thank you, it seems like gaming computers are a totally different beast, with lots of settings to take care off. I think i’ll do more reading to understand CPU and GPU better (clock, speed, fans, fps,…), before choosing the laptop.
Thank you!
Thank you @sttovo. So it seems like Max-Q is worth the extra expense if i select a thin laptop. For some reason, I havent seen it available in many manufacturers configurations so i’ll keep looking.
THANK YOU for the linked article about the m15 R3 in your previous email. While I do not yet grasp all the terminology and how certain concepts impact the machine, it certainly gives me a good roadmap to learn more about gaming laptops.
I may take you up on your offer and send you more questions in the future.
Much appreciated.
Jeff
Hi @sttovo, I have a question about what you said above, in your first reply. What would happen to the simulator if it is ran on a 16Gb machine and it actually needs 18Gb? Does it slow down? stop working? what can be expected practically?
Thanks.
some of the content will be swapped between RAM and your SSD (well hopefully, otherwise to your HDD). This will normally result in some stuttering.
I noticed that my system only goes up to my 15-16GB in heavy photogrammetry areas. So for me, an upgrade is not needed/worth it (especially since I have a really fast M.2 NVME SSD).
Thank you. You bring up a good point, I noticed on some manufacturers sites that offer you to customize a laptop, that an SSD drive that read and writes at slower speeds than another SSD drive may cost more (I suspect because they’re famous brands like Samsung?).
What parameters do you use to select “a really fast M.2 NVME SSD”?
take a look at the read / write speeds in the spec sheets and compare them. Some webshops can be filtered on this information as well.
You need to beware of the regular (non-NVME) SSD’s which have just been restructured to fit the M.2 form factor.
I’d say they’d be very similar. On paper the Lenovo is ahead, but cooling an i9 processor in a laptop seems insane. If it was my choice, I would pick the one that ran cooler.
That brings me to asking whether the number of cores has any impact on how FS run? What about the speed of the processor? I understand that faster is better but does FS require high speed cpu to work well?
If anyone knows a webpage that tests various configurations for FS2020, that would be very helpful. Thank you
