Buying a new laptop and could use a bit of info

[WillowFish]

I'm in the process of shopping for a new laptop and one of the 4 most important factors for me is whether or not it meets the system requirements for playing Resident Evil: Zero on Dolphin.

I looked at the minimum system requirements for the program itself and shot for a computer that met or exceeded them but RE:Z seems like it might tax the system a bit more than Luigi's Mansion if you get my drift.

I've narrowed my selection down to 3 and was wondering whether anyone could help me figure out which between the two is going to be best equipped to play RE:Z on Dolphin on at least medium settings. It doesn't have to be as fast or as responsive as it would be on an actual GameCube but I would like it to run a bit faster than it does on my current system (AMD Athlon II X2 250 CPU with an ATI Radeon HD 4350 GPU) It managed to run the game but just barely and with a lot of audio stutter and lag. And I don't intend to run a million programs in the background while I play either.

The options that I have narrowed it down to are as follows:

Toshiba Satellite C55-C5246
OS: Windows 10
RAM: 8GB (max 16)
CPU: Intel 5th Gen Core i5
GPU: Intel HD 5500

Lenovo ThinkPad or ThinkPad Edge
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
RAM: 4GB (upgradable to 16GB)
HDD: 500GB SATA
CPU: Intel 5th Gen Core i5
GPU: Intel HD 5500

and

HP Envy TouchSmart
OS: Windows 10
RAM: 6GB
HDD: 1TB SATA
CPU: AMD FX-8800P
GPU: AMD Radeon R7


My question is this: which, if any, of these set ups is best equipped to handle the demand of RE:Z on Dolphin?

[Amy Rose]

I'd avoid the one with the AMD processor if I were you. As for the other two, do you know of their clock speed?

[WillowFish]

Well, that's just as well. The one with the AMD processor was the most expensive one on the list. I just liked that it had a touch screen.

As for the clock speed, I think I'm citing the right number (I hope). They both run at 2.2GHz I'm not sure if that's good or bad though.

[Amy Rose]

That's pretty bad. I don't really think you could have an enjoyable experience with Dolphin at those specs at all, although I'm no expert.

My current desktop has 2.2GHz processor dual-core, and Dolphin runs awfully.

[piccolo289]

the satellite. I used a macbook air with a core i5 5250u, 4 gigs of ram, clocked at 1.8GHz and it runs very well at window size(fullscreen)

[Helios]

Those are all pretty meh laptops if you want to run harder to emulate games in Dolphin.

Avoid the AMD laptop. Beyond that, pick your poison I guess.

[WillowFish]

(11-18-2015, 12:51 PM)helios747 Wrote: Those are all pretty meh laptops if you want to run harder to emulate games in Dolphin.

Avoid the AMD laptop. Beyond that, pick your poison I guess.

I guess the real question I have then is how hard is RE:Z to emulate? I mean....is it middle hard or the hardest? Will the CPU's be able to handle it? It's, by far, the most CPU intensive task this system will be running.

Also, just looked up the CPU and the clock speed is 2.2 with a max of 2.7

[WillowFish]

So... I opted to just buy an ASUS Chromebook for school and build a PC for my gaming needs.

Basically identical specs to the laptop except I'm putting in a dedicated GPU for running Dolphin.

Thanks for your help everyone!

[Helios]

Not a bad choice! Chromebooks are great for school. I trust school networks about as much as I would trust a defcon network.