No doubt, you have probably noticed it's been quite some time since I've updated this blog.
However, I feel recent developments in my life almost demand a new entry since they allow me to address a very specific aspect of Flight Simulator often overlooked in the greater FS Community:
Flight Simulator on the go.
Mobile Flight Simulator.
In other words, FS on a laptop!
In early 2010, around March, I was all but through with FS. Having established my Youtube channel ("ProFlightSimMedia") and covered all the topics I thought needed to be addressed I was content with letting FS fly into the sunset and chalking up my experiences with the game as fond and informative memories. I even went as far as trading my somewhat high-end multimedia desktop in for a nice laptop, so I could be more mobile with everyday computing. The laptop I traded my desktop in for was a Compaq CQ60-215DX. It was not a bad laptop and was adequate for what I wanted to do (Dual Core computing and watching HD movies). It was not a very good gaming machine, however. It could run pre-2004 games, but at very minimal settings and resolutions. It just was not made for gaming like most business laptops are not made for gaming. I had the Compaq, for about four and a half months.
The current laptop I traded in the Compaq for is a Medion Akoya P6611.
For those who don't know, Medion is a highly respected brand in Europe. It's German (company), and the quality of the components used are not the cheap OEM parts used by Dell, HP, Compaq, or even Apple. They are direct from the manufactures and the workmanship that goes into their electronic products rivals what the U.S. used to be known for in its heyday before the days of cheap, overseas labor. Not only do they use quality parts, but the products are built to last, too.
The hardware specs of the laptop are as follows:
Core 2 Duo T5800 @ 2.0GHz
4 Gigs DDR2 RAM
9300 M GS (256 MB DDR2)
500 Gig SATA HDD (5400 RPM)*
16" Widescreen LCD (1366x768)
OS - Windows 7 64-bit
*Upgrade -- Stock HDD is 320 gigabytes.
The P6611 runs FSX at Medium High to High settings at the native resolution of 1366x768, depending on the effect itself e.g. water, 3D Cloud density, etc. The frame rate varies, but I can fly the PMDG 747-400X, with an average of 30 FPS depending on area.
I was completely in awe of this performance because most laptops can't even load FSX, or other graphic intensive games... And here is something that also bears repeating, too:
You don't need more than 24-30 FPS for a smooth civil aviation flight experience.
FSX is not a combat simulator where higher FPS means a better gaming experience. Of course, 60 FPS would be optimal for any game, but I don't know of anyone with even the latest and greatest Core i7 system that can achieve this ideal level of performance in FSX.
Also, even when the frame rate dips down into the teens, it still feels like 24 to 30 FPS.
This is another aspect a lot of FS enthusiasts ignore, or forget entirely. This is the biggest improvement from FS9 to FSX. I even loaded FS9 on the P6611, and got worse performance just in default aircraft. This is because FS9 is built on code that is literally a decade old now versus FSX that is slightly newer (four, or five years).
The irony of all of this is FSX seems to perform better on my current laptop than it ever did on my high-end desktop!
Granted, it doesn't have some of the same graphical features enabled due to hardware limitations and it is running at a much lower resolution (1366x768 vs. 1650x1080), but I can still use add-ons like REX (Real Environment Xtreme) and other payware aircraft and still get very flyable results.
So, the question shouldn't be if FSX can run on laptops. The real question should be how well (or not) will it run?
Hardware intensive gaming laptops from Alienware, ASUS, along with Apple Macbook Pros with high-end processors and dedicated graphics chips should have no problem running FSX. This has always been true. It's when FS enthusiasts start referring to laptops in the business and low-end multimedia range where it is going to be a case of individual hardware components determining whether or not FSX can run, and run well.
