Planet Coaster: new Frontier game

[Steve74]

Can anyone recommend a decent non-custom laptop that is capable of running Planet Coaster without being put on the lowest settings? I’ve had a MacBook Pro for years, and it’s been great, but it’s not even capable of running RCT3 now, and I’m getting annoyed with the amount of stuff I can’t do on it because it’s not supported on Mac. Price isn’t really an issue, but something under £1000 would be ideal, certainly!

Personally, I wouldn't get a laptop for it. For up to £1000 you can get a pretty decent desktop PC with graphics card which will probably be a better spec than a laptop for the same price.

 

[Matt N]

Here you go @Burbs: https://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/comp...-laptop-1-tb-hdd-128-gb-ssd-10174166-pdt.html
It's currently out of stock, but it's £250 off at the moment on PC World, costing £849 instead of £1099. I have the previous generation of this model with the same specifications, and the game works wonderfully on it, in my opinion!

 

[Burbs]

Personally, I wouldn't get a laptop for it. For up to £1000 you can get a pretty decent desktop PC with graphics card which will probably be a better spec than a laptop for the same price.

Cheers Steve but I’m not looking for a PC, due to practicality with my living arrangements for the next few years. Perhaps I can get a cheaper laptop for it then?

Here you go @Burbs: https://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/comp...-laptop-1-tb-hdd-128-gb-ssd-10174166-pdt.html
It's currently out of stock, but it's £250 off at the moment on PC World, costing £849 instead of £1099. I have the previous generation of this model with the same specifications, and the game works wonderfully on it, in my opinion!

Thanks Matt I’ll have a look.

 

[Matt N]

Thanks Matt I’ll have a look.

You're very welcome! I checked on a spec comparison site before I bought it, and it meets all the "recommended" specifications!

 

[Rojo]

If you can get the deal Matt provided I think you are onto a winner, especially if you can get the 16GB of DDR4 RAM at that price. I've been looking to get a new laptop for while but can't get bring myself to spend £600+ just for planet coaster.

From looking around at various forums for recommendations, for this game the graphics card is king and anything Nvidia GTX1050 - GTX1080 is probably the best. Then you want to look at CPU and clock speed, despite the security patching that is slowing down intel chips, I would go for an i7 or kaby lake chip (even and i5 if the other 2 are too much), paying attention to the slowest clock speed, anything above 2.8Ghz should suffice. Finally RAM you should be looking at a minimum 8GB DDR4. Check the specs to see if this is soldiered on or upgradable.

Optional bits will be whether you want HDD, SDD or a hybrid drive. Installing Planet Coaster to an SSD might make it load faster but I doubt it will have that much effect on performance.

I would be looking at something like this laptop or this.

Once you have your specs in mind you can shop around and find a laptop that you like. Good luck

 

[DistortAMG]

The 15 inch version of the laptop I currently own is for sale for £949. Identical specs to mine except mine has a 17inch screen.

Runs Planet Coaster very well on high settings.

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/156...MI9tXkhrj03AIVGOd3Ch1f5wW-EAQYAiABEgJg7PD_BwE

Although if you can get a GTX 1060 with 6GB graphics rather than 3GB it will benefit going forward. Although it is not essential.
You could get a laptop with a GTX 1050 or 1050TI for under a grand and it will play Planet Coaster pretty well. But, you can also get one with a GTX 1060 for under a grand. The GTX 1060 is between 80 - 100% faster in games compared to the 1050TI, that's both the 3GB 1060 and 6GB 1060, much much more performance for relatively little extra cost. No brainer really as the GTX 1060 is quite a large step up from the GTX 1050TI.

The good thing about MSI is they are a very reputable gaming brand and build high quality computers. My laptop for example has an i7 7700HQ with a base clock speed of 2.8GHZ and a boost clock speed of 3.6GHZ, because the cooling in the laptop is very good, it happily sits steady at it's boost clock speed of 3.5/3.6GHZ when playing Planet Coaster. The 10 series Nvidia GPU's are also not 'mobile' chips as was the case a few years ago, they are pretty much the same performance as their desktop counterpart chips, unless you go for an Nvidia card that is labelled as MAX-Q, then they are slower than a desktop card.

Pretty much all gaming laptops will have upgradable ram. Just make sure the computer is built well enough to handle the power. IE, it has good cooling, else the components will thermal throttle inside as a coping mechanism to help with the heat, which results in reduced performance. This is another reason why I sing MSI, they build gaming laptops that can run at that boost clock speeds with the graphics cards running at full pelt for hours and hours and hours in games. With no loss of performance due to heat, the same can't be said for every other brand out there. Although some are pretty good also.

One last thing, try not to buy from PC World. They really are not good value for money. The sell overpriced computers to people who have no clue. Places like Scan, Box, Origin. (which are all top rated UK retailers of computers) Provide much more competitive prices with the big brands, and have much better after sales service. For free with my laptop from Box, I got a free MSI waterproof laptop backpack, MSI gaming mouse and MSI mouse matt. The waterproof backpack is worth £70 alone! On top of the free goodies, the other top retailers apart from PC world also give much better value for money on the actual laptop hardware itself.

 

[Burbs]

The 15 inch version of the laptop I currently own is for sale for £949. Identical specs to mine except mine has a 17inch screen.

Runs Planet Coaster very well on high settings.

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/156...MI9tXkhrj03AIVGOd3Ch1f5wW-EAQYAiABEgJg7PD_BwE

Although if you can get a GTX 1060 with 6GB graphics rather than 3GB it will benefit going forward. Although it is not essential.
You could get a laptop with a GTX 1050 or 1050TI for under a grand and it will play Planet Coaster pretty well. But, you can also get one with a GTX 1060 for under a grand. The GTX 1060 is between 80 - 100% faster in games compared to the 1050TI, that's both the 3GB 1060 and 6GB 1060, much much more performance for relatively little extra cost. No brainer really as the GTX 1060 is quite a large step up from the GTX 1050TI.

The good thing about MSI is they are a very reputable gaming brand and build high quality computers. My laptop for example has an i7 7700HQ with a base clock speed of 2.8GHZ and a boost clock speed of 3.6GHZ, because the cooling in the laptop is very good, it happily sits steady at it's boost clock speed of 3.5/3.6GHZ when playing Planet Coaster. The 10 series Nvidia GPU's are also not 'mobile' chips as was the case a few years ago, they are pretty much the same performance as their desktop counterpart chips, unless you go for an Nvidia card that is labelled as MAX-Q, then they are slower than a desktop card.

Pretty much all gaming laptops will have upgradable ram. Just make sure the computer is built well enough to handle the power. IE, it has good cooling, else the components will thermal throttle inside as a coping mechanism to help with the heat, which results in reduced performance. This is another reason why I sing MSI, they build gaming laptops that can run at that boost clock speeds with the graphics cards running at full pelt for hours and hours and hours in games. With no loss of performance due to heat, the same can't be said for every other brand out there. Although some are pretty good also.

One last thing, try not to buy from PC World. They really are not good value for money. The sell overpriced computers to people who have no clue. Places like Scan, Box, Origin. (which are all top rated UK retailers of computers) Provide much more competitive prices with the big brands, and have much better after sales service. For free with my laptop from Box, I got a free MSI waterproof laptop backpack, MSI gaming mouse and MSI mouse matt. The waterproof backpack is worth £70 alone! On top of the free goodies, the other top retailers apart from PC world also give much better value for money on the actual laptop hardware itself.

The only thing that concerns me is the 8GB RAM, where this is the minimum Planet Coaster needs, but recommends 12GB.

 

[Matt N]

Basically @Burbs, when I asked around on the internet before buying my laptop, I was told that the game basically utilises every component of your computer to its fullest potential. For example, the game generates lots of very unique peeps to come into your park, thus putting strain on the CPU. Also, the game's graphics are excellent, so you want a good GPU to help those be good. So what I'm basically trying to say is that I recommend buying a laptop that meets all of the recommended requirements. That's exactly the same advice as my parents gave me, and it worked out well for me, so here's my personal recommendation. I am just going off of what I was told; for all I know, the game might work wonderfully with 8GB of RAM!

But whatever laptop you get, I'm sure you'll love the game just as much as we all do! And that's all that matters, right?

 

[Burbs]

But whatever laptop you get, I'm sure you'll love the game just as much as we all do! And that's all that matters, right?

Well, quite. Hence the plan to spend so much on a laptop... but I do want the game to work.

 

[DistortAMG]

The only thing that concerns me is the 8GB RAM, where this is the minimum Planet Coaster needs, but recommends 12GB.

Yes sorry, forgot to mention that. It does run great on 8GB of DDR4 RAM to be fair, not so much on 8GB DDR3. But, if you can get 16GB then get it. Will only future proof your system and make games run great going forward.

Basically @Burbs, when I asked around on the internet before buying my laptop, I was told that the game basically utilises every component of your computer to its fullest potential. For example, the game generates lots of very unique peeps to come into your park, thus putting strain on the CPU. Also, the game's graphics are excellent, so you want a good GPU to help those be good. So what I'm basically trying to say is that I recommend buying a laptop that meets all of the recommended requirements. That's exactly the same advice as my parents gave me, and it worked out well for me, so here's my personal recommendation. I am just going off of what I was told; for all I know, the game might work wonderfully with 8GB of RAM!

But whatever laptop you get, I'm sure you'll love the game just as much as we all do! And that's all that matters, right?

I think you just described what any game does to a computer. All modern games stress all your pc.

 

[Burbs]

All these letters and numbers... confusing my head! Cheers all for your advice.

 

[DiogoJ42]

When in doubt, "higher number = better"

 

[Burbs]

A friend of mine has recommended this based on the specs, but just thought I'd put it past you guys who actually play Planet Coaster first... does it look like it will run it well?

 

[alee298]

looks decent, graphics card could do with an extra GB or 2 though, but its hard to find a decent priced graphics card with all the random crypto coin mining being done, inflating the price for them.

 

[Matt N]

A friend of mine has recommended this based on the specs, but just thought I'd put it past you guys who actually play Planet Coaster first... does it look like it will run it well?

I have that exact laptop and it works fantastically for me!

 

[Burbs]

I have that exact laptop and it works fantastically for me!

Well that’s quite the coincidence! And gives me some confidence at least, maybe this is the one I’ll get then.

looks decent, graphics card could do with an extra GB or 2 though, but its hard to find a decent priced graphics card with all the random crypto coin mining being done, inflating the price for them.

Is it possible to upgrade the graphics card on this model if need be?

 

[Matt N]

Well that’s quite the coincidence! And gives me some confidence at least, maybe this is the one I’ll get then.


Is it possible to upgrade the graphics card on this model if need be?

I’d personally recommend it! Do take into account that it doesn’t have a disc drive, if you need one, but I’d still recommend it!

I don’t think laptops are normally upgradable, but 4GB VRAM meets Planet Coaster’s recommended requirements, and is perfectly sufficient at rendering the game’s graphics, in my opinion!

 

[DistortAMG]

Not a bad laptop at all, exactly the same processor as me and what a beast it is. But Dell, eugh. Each to their own though and their systems are not too bad I guess. Reliable machines and that is what matters.

The 1050TI is not a great card though, not rubbish either. Just OK. Remember, VRAM is not the main factor when determing how fast a graphics card is. a 3GB GTX 1060 will absoloutly wipe the floor with a 4G GTX 1050TI in every single way, for example.

Personally, as you are spending alot. I would spend a little more and future proof yourself a little bit and get a 3 or 6GB GTX 1060. Loads more power for a little extra cost than what you are paying now. A GTX 1050TI is starting to struggle in most modern games on medium at 1080p these days, it is an entry level graphics card so naturally outdates quicker. It wont be long before it can do medium to low settings only in games. Especially with Planet Coaster going forward and the updates, I would want something a bit stronger than a 1050TI personally.

However, simple answer. That laptop is not bad and it will play Planet Coaster pretty well above low settings.

 

[Burbs]

The 1050TI is not a great card though, not rubbish either. Just OK. Remember, VRAM is not the main factor when determing how fast a graphics card is. a 3GB GTX 1060 will absoloutly wipe the floor with a 4G GTX 1050TI in every single way, for example.

Is this upgradable in the future at all, or would I be stuck with it?

 

[Rojo]

Personally I wouldn't go with the laptop on the basis of a 3 month warranty, especially when you are spending that much money.

As @DistortAMG pointed out the graphics card is on the low end of a recommendation for Planet Coaster. I searched for the SKU and found the model number of the laptop is the Dell Inspiron 7567. Then looking at some dissambly photo's of that model, the GPU is soldiered on. They only way to upgrade is to buy a new motherboard.

I'd look for a 1060 or 1070 if you plan on keeping the laptop for a while.