HP Jaguar or Acer Aspire? Recommendations on which is better.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It's not so much about flawlessly. If you have to run on 1366x768 on medium, you're running it on potato mode. You can do that with the Sims. It won't look that pretty but it will run. Moving lots will take a long time. You'll have no problems running it on the G3.
Stellaris will run on anything. It's just a matter of patience. By midgame on my old laptop (i5 6300U, integrated graphics), it took 2-5 seconds per in-game turn. I never finished a game on it as I don't have that kind of patience. If I wanted to play Stellaris on the laptop, I'd start a new game or one I wasn't very far in. Then I could go finish it on my desktop where it didn't take 10-30 minutes to get through one year.
It's not so much about flawlessly. If you have to run on 1366x768 on medium, you're running it on potato mode. You can do that with the Sims. It won't look that pretty but it will run. Moving lots will take a long time. You'll have no problems running it on the G3.
Stellaris will run on anything. It's just a matter of patience. By midgame on my old laptop (i5 6300U, integrated graphics), it took 2-5 seconds per in-game turn. I never finished a game on it as I don't have that kind of patience. If I wanted to play Stellaris on the laptop, I'd start a new game or one I wasn't very far in. Then I could go finish it on my desktop where it didn't take 10-30 minutes to get through one year.
Sims will be an issue as it's not graphics that'll consume so much, it's all the mods and custom content I use.
The laptop is, in all reality, going to be a fun temporary item. I want to build a PC and then, with the leftover money, build a decent laptop (or at least upgrade what i got). My current one is literally falling apart, however, so that's why it's time to shop around before it officially breaks.
It's your money. If you want to spend $300-350 now and then throw it out and buy something decent after you've spent money building a desktop, go ahead. You'll never upgrade those laptops to be decent for running something like Stellaris. They're fine for the Sims 4 at 1368x768 (native for the Jaguar anyway) on medium. It's an old game that isn't demanding and runs fine on potato computers. Stellaris does not. It'll run and I've played plenty of Stellaris on potato laptop. It just slows to a crawl by mid-game. It can work if you just want to play the first third of the game on the laptop and then go finish it on your desktop but it's not ideal. Mostly played Rimworld and Cataclysm DDA on my potato. It's nice having a laptop that runs AAA titles though, which the G3 will do. It's about the cheapest thing that will.
You could always upgrade the G3. Drop a decent panel in, add a second stick of RAM and a 500 GB SSD. I don't know that I would. You're up around $1,000 which is pricey for a GTX 1050. That's 1050 Ti money, maybe 1060 if you really shop around. On the other hand I'm a screen snob so I'd rather have a 1050 with a good screen than a 1050 Ti. GTX 1060 for that $1,000, I can swap my own screen on that too.
Problem with the U processors is they have very, very low base clock speeds. It's device to device on how high a turbo clock they can run indefinitely which mostly depends on how many watts a given manufacturer will shove down a "15 watt" CPU and for how long. Mine will happily churn away at 25 watts for hours, so not surprisingly it outperforms most "15 watt" CPUs at a toasty 96-100 degrees. The H series processors hold turbo much better, which is basically all that matters on something like Stellaris. If it can only turbo to 3.4 GHz for 5 seconds and then settles down to 2.4, it's all kinds of slow.
Dell G3 or Acer Nitro 5, basically same thing -- pick your exterior design preference -- are slightly more expensive but that gets you an i5 8300H and GTX 1050. Both are really good value for the money, especially if you can plug them into a monitor when you're not using them as a laptop as they have awful screens. Thus is life when you want to be significantly under the $1,000 threshold where you get way more options for gaming laptops.
I missed the part about Sims. Not a gamer, gave it up many years ago. I look at it from a business standpoint, that's what I'm into.
It's your money. If you want to spend $300-350 now and then throw it out and buy something decent after you've spent money building a desktop, go ahead. You'll never upgrade those laptops to be decent for running something like Stellaris. They're fine for the Sims 4 at 1368x768 (native for the Jaguar anyway) on medium. It's an old game that isn't demanding and runs fine on potato computers. Stellaris does not. It'll run and I've played plenty of Stellaris on potato laptop. It just slows to a crawl by mid-game. It can work if you just want to play the first third of the game on the laptop and then go finish it on your desktop but it's not ideal. Mostly played Rimworld and Cataclysm DDA on my potato. It's nice having a laptop that runs AAA titles though, which the G3 will do. It's about the cheapest thing that will.
You could always upgrade the G3. Drop a decent panel in, add a second stick of RAM and a 500 GB SSD. I don't know that I would. You're up around $1,000 which is pricey for a GTX 1050. That's 1050 Ti money, maybe 1060 if you really shop around. On the other hand I'm a screen snob so I'd rather have a 1050 with a good screen than a 1050 Ti. GTX 1060 for that $1,000, I can swap my own screen on that too.
Yeah DEFINITELY not spending that amount of money on it. Not only do I NOT have that type of money at the moment, if the laptop isn't upgradeable I consider it wasteful. I never bought my current one, got it as a gift, but still.
Plus, again, my current on is falling apart. Literally falling apart. Like you can clearly see the thing coming apart. I'm definitely on crunch time and can't wait and save up 1000+. The 650 is my limit for a reason.
Also the old laptop will be sold or parted or continued usage. Not "thrown out". Thats also wasteful.
Just looked up Stellaris sys reqs... uh... pretty much a potato should run it.
Stellaris Recommended Requirements
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 850 @ 3.3 Ghz or Intel i3 2100 @ 3.1 Ghz
CPU SPEED: Info
RAM: 4 GB
OS: Windows 7 x64 or newer
VIDEO CARD: AMD HD 6850 / or Nvidia GTX 560TI, with 1024MB VRAM
SOUND CARD: Yes
FREE DISK SPACE: 4 GB
Stellaris is like any 4x game. Even something like Aurora which has no graphical UI to speak of is highly dependent on CPU. Something like Stellaris or Civ 6, you need fairly minimal hardware to make the graphical interface operate smoothly enough to not be annoying, 20-30 FPS is generally fine though. It's not much. The only thing remotely graphically taxing is zooming in on large space battles where there's a lot of particle effects, but you can just not zoom in. If you don't want to play at sandwich pace, however, it's processor, processor, processor. There's only so much that can be off-loaded to other cores and because Stellaris runs more "real time" (it's not, just a day is broken up into 10-1,000 turns depending what's going on in the game) the micro stuttering is much more apparent as concurrent instructions go out of sync and things like draw commands for the UI get stuck waiting for turns to be processed. In Civ 6 that all happens with a nice dialogue box that informs you the AI is now taking its turns allowing you to go get a sandwich on a potato or stare blankly at your monitor for several minutes while you wait.
In Civ 6 that all happens with a nice dialogue box that informs you the AI is now taking its turns allowing you to go get a sandwich on a potato or stare blankly at your monitor for several minutes while you wait.
LOL or watch the other leaders faces bop up and down as they take their turns....
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.