Advice for a new laptop that will run Construct games well?

My laptop is about 10 years old, and I will most likely need to get something newer this year.

I haven't kept up with gaming, and feel like I'm growing out of that- but I still want to develop my own games, and do some video editing. I'm also not that tech savvy, hence this post.

I'm wondering what you think are good choices as far as devices capable of running Construct games, and doing game dev/creative work.

I know with my current laptop, construct games can be unplayable if there are too many effects, graphics, etc, hence I'm wondering if I need to still worry about that with newer devices.

Any new laptop, even the bottom of the line will be able to run construct games. I replaced my 10 year old laptop last year and every c2 game I’ve tried runs fine. Before, I was like you and most c2 games had trouble running.

I benchmarked my old laptop and 95% of systems are faster than it. The new $400 one has 75% of systems faster than it. The benchmark is overall, but things like cpu and graphics performed way better.

I could probably do some video editing with the new one just fine, but a beefier system would probably help.

Well, how much do you want to spend?

I always go with Clevo laptops, in the US re-branded as sager, xotic PC has some, 15" version will cost you around $1700 for a pretty nice one.

Another bonus with these is that you don't get any pre-installed crap like you do with most mainstream brands ( Dell, HP, Toshiba , etc... ).

There are cheaper ones, but if you really want to edit video, if possible better to go with something in the $1500 + range

If you wanna pay absurd prices for a 17" one that has a desktop CPU and 2 nVidia cards running together, it may be about $4000+, but you can't beat that one at anything.

But, do some research, because screen options vary quite a bit and you wanna make sure you get a good one. Nothing worse than paying $2000+ for something like Alienware and the screen is crap.

Since you also want to do video editing a GTX 1050 GPU is probably enough, and any dual core 2.4GHz and up CPU.

Recommended brands would be ASUS ROG or MSI

Any new laptop, even the bottom of the line will be able to run construct games. I replaced my 10 year old laptop last year and every c2 game I’ve tried runs fine. Before, I was like you and most c2 games had trouble running.

I benchmarked my old laptop and 95% of systems are faster than it. The new $400 one has 75% of systems faster than it. The benchmark is overall, but things like cpu and graphics performed way better.

I could probably do some video editing with the new one just fine, but a beefier system would probably help.

Wow, that is good to know! Yeah- I have trouble doing video stuff on my current laptop, so I'm bit concerned about that. I may have to get a laptop with a graphics card I think.

Well, how much do you want to spend?

Your suggestions are above my price range. Ideally, I'd be comfortable in the $800 range, but if necessary, I might consider $1000 range. And yeah, one big concern I have is with the screen- I will ideally want to first be able to get my hands on it and look at it before buying.

Since you also want to do video editing a GTX 1050 GPU is probably enough, and any dual core 2.4GHz and up CPU.

Recommended brands would be ASUS ROG or MSI

Hm ok.. I currently have an Asus, and it has served me well. I heard that laptops are now coming out with quad cores- are there any benefits of that? gtx 1050 seems like it would be good.

Quad cores are mostly standard now. So common that they have even stopped touting that the cpu is quad core in the specs sometimes. Lower end models might have dual core, but you'd be hard pressed to find a single core cpu on a new laptop unless you're getting some tiny netbook. The benefit is it lets the cpu do more things at once, especially useful for something like video editing.

Thanks R0J0hound , I'll keep that in mind. Since my current laptop has dual core, it might be good to step up to a quad. Do quad cores help with virtual machines? I may need to run a virtual machine from time to time to test my games- I think I remember something about cores helping in those cases.

Sure, more cores are beneficial to operating systems in or out of virtual machines.

In ten years there are a lot of things that will just be better that make things faster.

CPUs have more cores, maybe higher clock speeds and a bunch of internal things that make it faster.

Memory is much faster and you can have more of it.

Graphics cards are faster and support more recent apis. As such html5 will work very well.

Even the motherboards themselves have many changes to make them faster. Faster booting, faster interaction between cpu, gpu, and everything else.

If you want a higher end cpu, generally the intel i5/i7 series have the best benchmark scores. Do note there are many different versions of each that provide differing performance. They generally have quad cores and you can get them at different clock speeds too.

If you're really curious you can open window's system information to get the cpu model number and lookup benchmark results.

For graphics cards, nvidia is usally the high end, but amd graphics can be good too depending on the card model.

More memory is always nice. Faster memory is good too, but that isn't usually indicated. Sometimes it mentions it's ddr3 or ddr4 memory. That's a hint, higher numbers are faster.

The chipset is also of importance with the speed of the system and memory, but that is harder to look up. Generally a pricier laptop has a better one.

You can also try benchmarking the laptops if you are buying them in person.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... 3c77187378

Thanks for that info R0J0hound , it helps ease my mind.

I've been considering a new laptop for quite a while now, but end up very undecided. So it is good to get feedback from others and understand what I should look for.

Prominent if you're developing for mobile i can really recommend a laptop with touch functionality, or some kind of tablet hybrid surface like product. It really speeds up testing as you can touch the screen directly, and don't need to test on a mobile device every time. If you're not targeting mobile, any decent laptop will do.

tunepunk , yeah that is something I'm wondering about too- since I do art work, that it may be good idea to get something with touch/pen support. I haven't considered developing for mobile, since I don't have any way to test that sort of platform. If a laptop with touch helps in that regard, then it seems like something I should consider.

Any new laptop but ask for Windows 7.

Windows 10 comes pre-installed with many shitware that will slow down your pc.

Any new laptop but ask for Windows 7.

Windows 10 comes pre-installed with many shitware that will slow down your pc.

Windows 7 extended support will end January 14, 2020 - so I'm sure a lot of new software won't support it after that time.

It makes more sense to go with a newer operating system I think.

Any new laptop but ask for Windows 7.

Windows 10 comes pre-installed with many shitware that will slow down your pc.

The last thing you should be running is Windows 7. Windows 10 comes with a surprisingly low amount of bloat. Of course, your mileage will vary depending on the machine manufacturer. The only downside to Windows 10 is privacy. Saying that, if you use anything by Apple, Google or Facebook, youve already sold your soul.