Hello. I am customizing the Sager NP9377-S gaming laptop. The specs are as follows:

4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4710MQ Processor ( 6MB L3 Cache, 2.50GHz)

Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M GPU with 8GB GDDR5 Video Memory

IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU

Genuine MS Windows® 8.1 64-Bit Edition

24GB Kingston HyperX CL9 DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 3 X 8GB

1TB 7200rpm SATA2 Hard Drive

(and of course the highest warranty of the choices)

I know this is similar to another topic I created in this forum section, but it is still a little different. I've just been trying to do my homework before I spend $2,500 or possibly $3000 on a gaming laptop. I don't play any other PC games. I only want it for GTA, as stupid as it may (or may not) sound. My question is: Do you guys think that this laptop, with the specs listed above, is good, or more than good, enough to run GTA 4 and GTA 5 heavily modded and on their highest settings with no lag, little to no crashing, no slowness, no texture loss, and none of the other things that make gamers sad, etc.? Do you think I should spend an extra $650 to add in a second "Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M GPU with 8GB GDDR5 Video Memory"?

 

Thanks!

Edited June 29, 201510 yr by BROOKLYNBOY2497
add info

Have you actually played these games on that laptop yet? That's really where you should begin to ask yourself whether you need the extra power.

GTA V is only asking for 2GB of video memory, and GTA IV just 256MB, stock. Mods barely impact performance, unless you're using ENBs in GTA IV, which you can definitely handle.

Have you actually played these games on that laptop yet? That's really where you should begin to ask yourself whether you need the extra power.

GTA V is only asking for 2GB of video memory, and GTA IV just 256MB, stock. Mods barely impact performance, unless you're using ENBs in GTA IV, which you can definitely handle.

Oh, yeah I play gta 4 all of the time. Or at least I try to play. With all the texture loss, and walking on eggshells to play because if I patrol during a certain times of the day (ingame) with certain weather settings and patrol in certain area of the map the game will be slow/lag, complete texture loss upon pausing/unpausing the game, I want to throw my laptop off of the roof sometimes. And this is all with the game settings on their lowest.

 

My PC Specs (Lenovo G780 Laptop that I play GTA 4 on currently):

Intel Core i7-3632QM CPU @ 2.20GHz  2.20 GHz

GeForce GT 635M with 4GB total available graphics memory. dedicated video memory: 2GB DDR3 and 2GB of shared system memory (and an Intel HD Graphics 4000 which I'm assuming handles all other graphics related things on the computer)

8.0 GB (7.87 GB usable) RAM

Windows 8

 

I have to play on all low game settings, absolutely no ENBs-they've actually screwed up my game so bad, even though I backed up all my files, that I had to reinstall the game and reinstall all of the mods as well. EVERY single ENB I have every tried did this even though I installed everything 100% correctly.

 

I'm aiming to not experience any of these problems and to be able to play with zero lag, little to no crashing, zero texture loss, be able to have ENBs, etc. So that sager gaming laptop with the specs I listed above will be able to handle GTA 4 & 5 heavily modded and on high game settings with no problem of any sort whatsoever? I won't have to spend an extra $650 to add in a 2nd of the same graphics card?

Edited June 29, 201510 yr by BROOKLYNBOY2497

So that sager gaming laptop with the specs I listed above will be able to handle GTA 4 & 5 heavily modded and on high game settings with no problem of any sort whatsoever? I won't have to spend an extra $650 to add in a 2nd of the same graphics card?

Yes. Also, I think you might not be using your dedicated graphics card in GTA IV on your current laptop; my friend had this issue with GTA V, where it was the only game that automatically used the integrated Intel HD 4600 instead of his 860M. That was fixed in the NVIDIA control panel.

 

Don't consider buying another 980M for your new laptop until you actually play these games on it. I don't think you should be worried at all.

I'm aiming to not experience any of these problems and to be able to play with zero lag, little to no crashing, zero texture loss, be able to have ENBs, etc. So that sager gaming laptop with the specs I listed above will be able to handle GTA 4 & 5 heavily modded and on high game settings with no problem of any sort whatsoever? I won't have to spend an extra $650 to add in a 2nd of the same graphics card?

The 980 is a really nice gpu, and should run GTA V beautifully. The 8GB of VRAM will give you a ton of leeway with graphics settings (so you should be able to have everyting on high + most of the advanced settings as well with an fps of around 60).

GTA IV was really poorly optimized for CPU/GPU cooperation, and a lot of stuff was unnecessarily unloaded onto the CPU. GTA V uses the massive processing power of modern GPUs to unload a ton of its heavy-duty processing like animations, rendering, and even some of the vector calculations, while leaving the CPU to do a lot of the logical processing (which is what its good for).

In other words: you don't need to drop $650 on another gpu if you aren't going to use it. That having been said, if you're planning on using the laptop as a mobile-desktop and plug it into 4K monitors then you may want to consider it (but I'd at least wait for the price to come down a bit).

The 980 is a really nice gpu, and should run GTA V beautifully. The 8GB of VRAM will give you a ton of leeway with graphics settings (so you should be able to have everyting on high + most of the advanced settings as well with an fps of around 60).

GTA IV was really poorly optimized for CPU/GPU cooperation, and a lot of stuff was unnecessarily unloaded onto the CPU. GTA V uses the massive processing power of modern GPUs to unload a ton of its heavy-duty processing like animations, rendering, and even some of the vector calculations, while leaving the CPU to do a lot of the logical processing (which is what its good for).

In other words: you don't need to drop $650 on another gpu if you aren't going to use it. That having been said, if you're planning on using the laptop as a mobile-desktop and plug it into 4K monitors then you may want to consider it (but I'd at least wait for the price to come down a bit).

Okay, thanks! That helps a lot. Just needed that extra reassurance. I'm planning on ordering this beast next weekend.

I'm not planning on using it as a mobile desktop, I just like the convenience of being able to bring a gaming beast from room to room.

I haven't had any experience with GTA V on PC yet, so I'm glad to hear that it works in a more efficient and logical way than GTA IV does. And being that it should run GTA V very smoothly on all high settings and heavily modded, I'm assuming it should do the same for GTA IV?

Okay, thanks! That helps a lot. Just needed that extra reassurance. I'm planning on ordering this beast next weekend.

I'm not planning on using it as a mobile desktop, I just like the convenience of being able to bring a gaming beast from room to room.

I haven't had any experience with GTA V on PC yet, so I'm glad to hear that it works in a more efficient and logical way than GTA IV does. And being that it should run GTA V very smoothly on all high settings and heavily modded, I'm assuming it should do the same for GTA IV?

I've run GTA V on mostly-high settings on a single 770 before I got a new setup and got frames of around 55-60 consistently, and the 980 (inc. the M) performs about 40% better in benchmarks. As for GTA IV - it depends. The i7s are nice processors and 2.5Ghz isn't bad, but GTA IV sucks at multi-core optimization so I'm not sure how good it would run.

Edited June 29, 201510 yr by nAssailant

I've run GTA V on mostly-high settings on a single 770 before I got a new setup and got frames of around 55-60 consistently, and the 980 (inc. the M) performs about 40% better in benchmarks. As for GTA IV - it depends. The i7s are nice processors and 2.5Ghz isn't bad, but GTA IV sucks at multi-core optimization so I'm not sure how good it would run.

I have the Intel Core i7-3632QM CPU @ 2.20GHz  2.20 GHz now in my current laptop that I play gta iv with (along with my other specs listed above) and average about 30-40 fps max, which sucks. One of my favorite youtubers I watch who plays both games modded with an ENB, stevetrackboyz55, has an i7 5820K @ 3.3GHz (a little better than the one I will have-i think), a GTX 980 4GB (superclocked X2), and 16GB RAM and runs GTA IV beautifully with an ENB in and a lot of other mods. My specs for the new gaming laptop I am getting are a little better than his, with the exception of the processor, which his is a little better (i think). I think it should handle the same, if not even a little better, right?

Yes. Also, I think you might not be using your dedicated graphics card in GTA IV on your current laptop; my friend had this issue with GTA V, where it was the only game that automatically used the integrated Intel HD 4600 instead of his 860M. That was fixed in the NVIDIA control panel.

 

Don't consider buying another 980M for your new laptop until you actually play these games on it. I don't think you should be worried at all.

Here are my current settings for GTA IV under the NVIDIA control panel:

There is also another setting:

Which one should I choose? The first one already has the setting "Auto-select: NVIDIA GPU". What is the difference between the two?

 

*****EDIT*****: I actually just changed it in the NVIDIA control panel to the high-performance NVIDIA processor real quick and messed around a little with the game and it made the game slower. Even slower than usual. I'm just going to leave it on the first setting for now until I get the the new laptop.

Edited June 29, 201510 yr by BROOKLYNBOY2497

I'd recommend that you tweak the settings yourself rather than selecting the presets.

GTA IV sucks at multi-core optimization so I'm not sure how good it would run.

Enable it in the control panel, I've got a gain from it...

The 980 is a really nice gpu, and should run GTA V beautifully. The 8GB of VRAM will give you a ton of leeway with graphics settings (so you should be able to have everyting on high + most of the advanced settings as well with an fps of around 60).

GTA IV was really poorly optimized for CPU/GPU cooperation, and a lot of stuff was unnecessarily unloaded onto the CPU. GTA V uses the massive processing power of modern GPUs to unload a ton of its heavy-duty processing like animations, rendering, and even some of the vector calculations, while leaving the CPU to do a lot of the logical processing (which is what its good for).

In other words: you don't need to drop $650 on another gpu if you aren't going to use it. That having been said, if you're planning on using the laptop as a mobile-desktop and plug it into 4K monitors then you may want to consider it (but I'd at least wait for the price to come down a bit).

It should be noted that the 980M, which is a mobile card, is not equivalent to the GTX 980.

It should be noted that the 980M, which is a mobile card, is not equivalent to the GTX 980.

This is correct, but it is irrelevant concerning what I said. The 980M and the 980 have the same architecture and design, but the 980M is a small chip whereas the 980 is a full card. You're always going to get less-powerful mobile versions of GPUs for laptops, which is why most people prefer having a desktop for gaming. 

Both are still really nice, and the 980M he is talking about still comes with 8GB of VRAM, which is important for a lot of texture-heavy games like GTA V. The performance will not be the same frame-wise with the same settings, but the 980M is a very capable chip and he should be alright running it on higher settings.

This is correct, but it is irrelevant concerning what I said. The 980M and the 980 have the same architecture and design, but the 980M is a small chip whereas the 980 is a full card. You're always going to get less-powerful mobile versions of GPUs for laptops, which is why most people prefer having a desktop for gaming. 

Both are still really nice, and the 980M he is talking about still comes with 8GB of VRAM, which is important for a lot of texture-heavy games like GTA V. The performance will not be the same frame-wise with the same settings, but the 980M is a very capable chip and he should be alright running it on higher settings.

Oh yeah indeed, I wasn't really comparing it to what you said, just in general. 

You shouldn't need too, especially with a 980. My reference GTX 760 can run IV maxed with an ENB and V with mostly High/Very High settings (except MSAA) so you should be A-OK