Laptop specifications for (game)-programming?

[natox1986]

Hey Chili and followers,

I'm willing to buy a laptop to enable myself to learn programming while I'm not at home (mostly at work). As a taxi driver I have a lot of night shifts during the midweek and I get bored rather quickly. There just isn't enough work during the night. So I was thinking, maybe I should purchase a laptop and an adapter that can fit into the 'lighter-plug' of my taxi so the laptop doesn't run out of power.

Anyway, I'm not really sure what to look for when buying a laptop for this purpose.
I think it's a combination of CPU, GPU and RAM but I'm not quite sure.
And if it is, or if the GPU is involved in any way, how do I know it's fit for the job?

If anyone has any tips about it, please, let me know!

Cheers

[GreatJake]

I guess it depends on what you program, if your making something like Skyrim then you will need a gaming laptop but if your just learning to do simple things that your learning with chili or from other places i say stay within the 300 - 500$ price range.

Here are the visual studio requirements... http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/e ... patibility

[icehot]

Depends on your budget too, for basics an Ivy Bridge Processor on an i5 with 8Gb ram would do just fine, ur looking at around 4 to 500 quid depending on hard drive options etc (SSDs are very nice over the standard 5400rpm drives for example).... if you're looking for something much better, then I would suggest the laptop I've got which is ample for programming and gaming alike: Clevo P170em, 16gb ram, 256gb SSD, 1TB secondary drive (can store all ur projects on here and still reinstall etc), 7970m for more advanced gaming and graphics, Ivybridge i7, 1080p 17" screen is really good for programming etc etc.... Could go one better again and go alienwear, slightly better build quality, and more engineering thought but other than that very similar to the Clevo.

Lenovo might be a good midrange choice, with cheaper graphics card, plus ivybridge, 8Gb ram, i7, and that all important 1080p screen.. can probably pick something like that up for 800 quid

[nG Inverse]

Anything you buy that can run MSVC should be PLENTY to create any 2D games. At times I use my three year old laptop to do some 3D programming and have no issues. You will be fine with anything currently on the market (the lower end). The only downfall with slower computers is the compilation time, as it can take forever (especially without pre-compiled headers, which I think is disabled in Chilli's framework project by default).

The only times you have problems is if you would be creating 3D games. However, even then, look at GTA San Andreas. It is capable of running on standard 6 year old computers (1 GB RAM, 1.4 GHz processors, 128 MB graphic cards, etc) and that is including the thousands of models they load. There still are factors that depend on the quality of the texture, the size, etc. but is nothing you will need to worry about (I simply cannot find the right words to express here, I've re-written this a couple times!).


Here is an example that would run anything you create for years to come: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+S ... Id=7334096

Toshiba is also a spectacular manufacturer for laptops.

[natox1986]

Thank you all for your comments!
As I was reading them, I must say that I think I'll have to agree with nG Inverse...
I'm a mere beginner when it comes to programming and by the time I'll be able to create awesome high demanding games, I'll be years further down the road.
By that time I can always purchase a laptop with better specifications.
So I might just as well stay around the 300 buck products.

Thank you!