Along with getting the art and testing done on LGGWG v23, I'm beginning to work on "LGGWG 2: The Quickening", the sequel to LGGWG. I need a machine that's big enough to really develop on that I can haul around with me. I imagine I'll mostly be commuting around the house (desk to couch, couch to desk), but now and then hit the road.
I'd like to be able to hook it up to a second monitor so I can debug and see what I'm debugging at the same time. LGGWG 2 is going to be (partially) in 3D, so I have to do better than the usual horrendous on-board Intel graphics cards you get in lower-end machines.
I know Dave and Adam use Sagers of some sort, but how has that worked out? Have other people had success with other sorts of laptop/desktop replacement machines for gaming or development?
I spent the last two evenings animating the Dogbot and the Carpenter units for v23. Things are coming along!
I got a ton of use out of both of my Sagers, and they performed quite well.
On the minus side, both of them generated a ton of heat (I bear a scar that, when fresh, was clearly an imprint of the PS2 port in the back of one of them, after I fell asleep with the thing on and resting on my arm, branding myself like cattle). With any of the desktop replacements, the battery life is super-short. With my Sagers, it was about an hour and a half when new, and dwindled to about 15 minutes by the end. They may have gotten better about that. They use lots of power (the power supply adapter block had its own cooling fan). They're heavy as hell - schlepping the computer and the power cord can get your shoulder sore pretty fast. They're also noisy - I found that every 3-4 months the thing would get to where the fans were just screaming constantly, and I'd have to unscrew the case and peel off the lint and cat hair that had built up on the heat sink near the fan. The design wasn't much; pretty blocky - they didn't look cool, but everything was accessible and utilitarian.
On the plus side, I got a huge screen, a very fast processor, a full-size keyboard with number pad, a desktop-style graphics card that worked on every game I threw at it for 3-4 years after purchase. Both Sagers were very reliable under hard use.
I switched to a smaller, sleeker laptop two years ago, and added a brawny desktop for the basement, and that fits my computing needs a little better now, but if I wanted to go back to a single computer, I'd definitely look at Sagers again.
If you're looking for a good place to shop, I found pctorque.com very helpful and knowledgeable, and they helped me very promptly when I had a keyboard issue with the second one - not a big deal; it started bulging up a little and I got a replacement under warranty.
On Sat, 4 Aug 2007, Wolff Dobson wrote: > Along with getting the art and testing done on LGGWG v23, I'm beginning to > work on "LGGWG 2: The Quickening", the sequel to LGGWG. I need a machine > that's big enough to really develop on that I can haul around with me. I > imagine I'll mostly be commuting around the house (desk to couch, couch to > desk), but now and then hit the road.
> I'd like to be able to hook it up to a second monitor so I can debug and see > what I'm debugging at the same time. LGGWG 2 is going to be (partially) in > 3D, so I have to do better than the usual horrendous on-board Intel graphics > cards you get in lower-end machines.
> I know Dave and Adam use Sagers of some sort, but how has that worked out? > Have other people had success with other sorts of laptop/desktop replacement > machines for gaming or development?
> I spent the last two evenings animating the Dogbot and the Carpenter units > for v23. Things are coming along!
> Wolff
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Dobson d...@snood.com | Note: Please include a copy of any previous WWW: http://snood.com | correspondence if you respond to this mail ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I second all of Dave's statements. pctorque is where I got my Sager as well. The forums seemed to have the most intelligent posts in terms of technical service, and I got updated roms in the mail when i asked for them. My battery has also gone from 2 hours to about 15 minutes, but I have had my laptop for about 3 years now.
My laptop doesn't brand me from ps/2 ports, but the mic and speaker jacks on the front get scarringly hot at times. I also found that the sound card was not sufficiently shielded from electrical interference, so I got a USB headset and solved both problems. Having a 17 inch screen, the surface area of the laptop keeps it cooler than some other laptops, but it is very uncomfortable in the summer, both for my lap, and for the video card (I underclock the video card in the summer, though I should just clean out the fans). But having a full size keyboard with numpad is very nice, especially for those few games that require the numpad (i.e. Allegiance and Final Fantasy XI).
On 8/5/07, David McCullough Dobson <d...@snood.pair.com> wrote:
> I got a ton of use out of both of my Sagers, and they performed quite > well.
> On the minus side, both of them generated a ton of heat (I bear a scar > that, when fresh, was clearly an imprint of the PS2 port in the back of > one of them, after I fell asleep with the thing on and resting on my arm, > branding myself like cattle). With any of the desktop replacements, the > battery life is super-short. With my Sagers, it was about an hour and a > half when new, and dwindled to about 15 minutes by the end. They may have > gotten better about that. They use lots of power (the power supply > adapter block had its own cooling fan). They're heavy as hell - > schlepping the computer and the power cord can get your shoulder sore > pretty fast. They're also noisy - I found that every 3-4 months the thing > would get to where the fans were just screaming constantly, and I'd have > to unscrew the case and peel off the lint and cat hair that had built up > on the heat sink near the fan. The design wasn't much; pretty blocky - > they didn't look cool, but everything was accessible and utilitarian.
> On the plus side, I got a huge screen, a very fast processor, a full-size > keyboard with number pad, a desktop-style graphics card that worked on > every game I threw at it for 3-4 years after purchase. Both Sagers were > very reliable under hard use.
> I switched to a smaller, sleeker laptop two years ago, and added a brawny > desktop for the basement, and that fits my computing needs a little better > now, but if I wanted to go back to a single computer, I'd definitely look > at Sagers again.
> If you're looking for a good place to shop, I found pctorque.com very > helpful and knowledgeable, and they helped me very promptly when I had a > keyboard issue with the second one - not a big deal; it started bulging up > a little and I got a replacement under warranty.
> On Sat, 4 Aug 2007, Wolff Dobson wrote:
> > Along with getting the art and testing done on LGGWG v23, I'm beginning > to > > work on "LGGWG 2: The Quickening", the sequel to LGGWG. I need a > machine > > that's big enough to really develop on that I can haul around with > me. I > > imagine I'll mostly be commuting around the house (desk to couch, couch > to > > desk), but now and then hit the road.
> > I'd like to be able to hook it up to a second monitor so I can debug and > see > > what I'm debugging at the same time. LGGWG 2 is going to be (partially) > in > > 3D, so I have to do better than the usual horrendous on-board Intel > graphics > > cards you get in lower-end machines.
> > I know Dave and Adam use Sagers of some sort, but how has that worked > out? > > Have other people had success with other sorts of laptop/desktop > replacement > > machines for gaming or development?
> > I spent the last two evenings animating the Dogbot and the Carpenter > units > > for v23. Things are coming along!
> > Wolff
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Dave Dobson d...@snood.com | Note: Please include a copy of any > previous > WWW: http://snood.com | correspondence if you respond to this mail
|
