[Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

If it's not ZDoom, it goes here.
User avatar
Jeimuzu73
Posts: 1663
Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 8:44 pm
Location: Dropping today in Station Square.

[Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by Jeimuzu73 »

As you know, I'm stuck with a 3-year-old Lenovo Ideapad P500 touch and obviously it can't run the new DOOM. I don't want to miss out on the beta and I'm thinking of getting a proper gaming laptop to play it. The problem is that the system requirements and prices for such hardware are astronomical and according to Game Debate's GPU/CPU List for laptops almost nothing can run DOOM on minimum settings.
Spoiler: My current PC:
These requirements are actually for the desktop.
Spoiler: Minimum system requirements:
Spoiler: Recommended system requirements:
After some research, I pinpointed some minimum requirements for a laptop to try and run DOOM:
  • NVidia GTX 965 4GB SLI or better/ Radeon 7/8970M Crossfire
  • i5-6300HQ 2.3 Ghz or better/ no AMD equivalent
  • At least 8GB RAM
The closest laptop I can find to meet those requirements is a Lenovo Y700 for $799.99 but even that is seriously underpowered for Doom.
Spoiler:
The good laptops happen to be way over $1K which makes them off-limits for me, and given that I pre-ordered the PC version, forget about the consoles.

If you happen to be able to play the beta at any capacity, please post your specs here or recommend some options so I can figure out which PC should I get. Hell, even suggest that I should wait till the full game comes out or something, I'm getting restless here.
User avatar
leileilol
Posts: 4449
Joined: Sun May 30, 2004 10:16 am
Preferred Pronouns: She/Her
Location: GNU/Hell

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by leileilol »

reconsider the prospect of playing a fps game on a laptop and how comfortable it could not be
User avatar
wildweasel
Posts: 21706
Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2003 7:33 pm
Preferred Pronouns: He/Him
Operating System Version (Optional): A lot of them
Graphics Processor: Not Listed

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by wildweasel »

leileilol wrote:reconsider the prospect of playing a fps game on a laptop and how comfortable it could not be
Well, there's that, and then there's the fact that you're unlikely to get a game released in the last couple of years working smoothly - if at all - on a laptop that costs less than $1,000. I mean, sometimes you'd be surprised (the HD 4000 series tends to surprise even me; Killing Floor with all details at ~40-50 FPS?), but New Doom - like all id Software games before it - is obviously intended to push the envelope. My current gaming rig is extremely unlikely to run it, because I'm an entire video card class below the minimum requirements, and I'm not sure my CPU will be beefy enough for it either.
User avatar
Jeimuzu73
Posts: 1663
Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 8:44 pm
Location: Dropping today in Station Square.

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by Jeimuzu73 »

Killing Floor shares the same engine as Unreal Tournament 2004 and having played both games I can tell you they run smoothly with HD 4000, without any external graphics cards.

I guess the proportions of hardware required for the new Doom are like RetroAhoy in his video saying that the original Doom back then required a 386 with 4 megabytes, and even then only a 486 would suffice just to give the game good performance. And I just happened to be stuck with a modern equivalent of a 286.

I had a similar scenario with Wolfenstein, but I was just lucky that it would eventually run even though my specs are below the minimum requirement.

BTW what are your specs exactly?
Last edited by Jeimuzu73 on Fri Apr 08, 2016 9:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
wildweasel
Posts: 21706
Joined: Tue Jul 15, 2003 7:33 pm
Preferred Pronouns: He/Him
Operating System Version (Optional): A lot of them
Graphics Processor: Not Listed

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by wildweasel »

MJ79 wrote:BTW what are your specs exactly?
I'll just quote my post from the "Post your computer specs thread" from a page or so ago:
wildweasel wrote:The Gaming Powerhouse from 2010, "ARNGRIM":
  • Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 Motherboard
  • AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition @3.2 GHz
  • 16 GB of DDR3-1600 RAM (Corsair Vengeance)
  • EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 560 GTX 1GB
  • On-board sound
  • Storage: 1 Samsung 850 EVO solid-state drive (250 GB), 1 Western Digital hard drive (160 GB), 1 Samsung hard drive (1 TB), two Western Digital external drives (750 GB and 1 TB respectively), 1 DVD+R DL w/LightScribe
Where I suppose the biggest hiccups are going to come from is the CPU (it's about five years old by now) and the video card (because "only" 1 GB of VRAM has already run me into some stumbling blocks with stuff like Rainbow Six Siege and GTA5).
User avatar
DoomRater
Posts: 8265
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2004 8:21 am
Preferred Pronouns: He/Him
Location: WATR HQ

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by DoomRater »

leileilol wrote:reconsider the prospect of playing a fps game on a laptop and how comfortable it could not be
Personally if I weren't scared of throwing money at the Titan I'd counter with that, but it's at least two pay grades above anything I could afford. Yes it needs a desk all to itself, a power cord, and a mouse but it's still more portable than my current aging system, half as upgradable as the desktop I own now, and mechanical keyboard.
User avatar
Sgt. Pepperoni
Posts: 88
Joined: Mon Feb 16, 2015 6:57 pm

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by Sgt. Pepperoni »

You should buy a "standard" computer instead of a laptop IMHO, they aren't known for their lifespan and they are expensive.
User avatar
TypeSaucy
Posts: 1000
Joined: Wed Sep 17, 2008 9:31 am

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by TypeSaucy »

Yeah. $700 bucks on a laptop is not good for gaming. A $700 desktop however can make a big difference.
User avatar
ibm5155
Posts: 1268
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 4:24 pm

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by ibm5155 »

"Radeon 7/8970M Crossfire " Do you really want a toaster? That gpu is old and uses 200 Watts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For doom, I can only recomend an Nvidia GPU, it's going to be bug free, since the main GPU from Graf is an Nvidia gpu (so.... you may see less bugs on it)
EDIT:
If you really want a badass GPU for a notebook:
https://www.msi.com/Notebook/GS30-2M-Shadow.html
Here, cheap and support Desktop like GPU.
User avatar
darkhaven3
Posts: 502
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2004 5:33 am
Location: East Germany, 2023

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by darkhaven3 »

Building your own PC with a GTX 960 or 970 for the GPU and any quad-core Intel will be plenty to run Doom. Considering the 970 is only $300 (and the 960 is only $200), and you can get a good i5 for under $200, you could build a much better PC for $700 than you could buy a new laptop.

I use a GTX 980, 24 GB of RAM, and an i5-3450. I am able to run the closed beta at greater than 60FPS at above 1920x1080.
User avatar
ibm5155
Posts: 1268
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 4:24 pm

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by ibm5155 »

My notebook can only play the Doom 4 with everything on minimun, and still lags (15 - 28fps)
And the creepy part is that almost all the system were at fully usage:
Intel Core I7 3635QM 2,4GHz (80 - 100% of all cores) - The alpha version could only reach 50% of usage from all cores
8GB of RAM (near 100% of usage) - The first alpha was only using 50% of the avaliable RAM
FPS: (15-28) and on the alpha it was 28 - 40 fps
AMD HD8870m : 60 - 70% of usage, for some reason, on the alpha version almost all the time it was running at 100% (maybe because the processor had some extra power free)
vRAM: 2GB GDDR5 (100% used) - The alpha version never passed from 1,5GB of vram used.

This is my log comparing the new beta to the first alpha version

Out of curiosity, how much processor/ram/vram is Doom 4 using on that system?
User avatar
darkhaven3
Posts: 502
Joined: Mon Jan 05, 2004 5:33 am
Location: East Germany, 2023

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by darkhaven3 »

Unfortunately I can't go back and actually benchmark in-game because the beta is now closed, but from what I can remember, CPU usage tended towards the 80-90% range and I seem to remember the game preferring to use between 7 and 8 gigs of RAM. My GPU never reached its full clock rate running the beta for some reason; I only ever observed it hitting 1000MHz give-or-take (it should be hitting 1450MHz), but usage was very high anyway.
User avatar
Jeimuzu73
Posts: 1663
Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 8:44 pm
Location: Dropping today in Station Square.

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by Jeimuzu73 »

Open beta has already started and I'm still hunting for a compatible rig. I actually found an Alienware laptop with 970M for around $1499, which is probably the low end of the price tier for 970M systems. Maybe I'm probably aiming too high with this one, but I'll keep looking.
User avatar
Viscra Maelstrom
Posts: 6200
Joined: Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:14 am
Location: plergleland

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by Viscra Maelstrom »

you're probably better off going for a gaming desktop if you want something prebuilt, or go to a store where they assemble the components for you. it'll probably take some years before you get a laptop that can run Doom at a not absurdly high price.
User avatar
ibm5155
Posts: 1268
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2011 4:24 pm

Re: [Wanted] New laptop to play DOOM

Post by ibm5155 »

Or get the MSI GS30 and add it a desktop gpu

Return to “Off-Topic”