First, apologies if this isn’t the best community; please direct me to a better venue if so.

TLDR: I need to buy 2× used gaming laptops that are powerful enough for 3D-heavy games – I don’t know what to look for?

Situation:
My kids have used Lenovo laptops for their rooms, and after some years, their gaming choices (BeamNG and other such 3D-heavy games) mean that old business laptops won’t cut it. They need to be replaced (the laptops, not the kids!).

Problem:
Back when I was young, I understood CPU and GPU requirements - these days I don’t. Help!

  • An Intel i7 may be great but it may also be several years old. I don’t understand the naming anymore.
  • Most normal laptops have integrated graphics which don’t satisfy even most basic GPU requirements.
  • Real “gaming laptops” are expensive! And I need 2 of them! Gotta find something used, and I have no idea what search criteria to set.
  • @Shea
    4•8 months ago

    Basic Criteria to look for if you want to run VR games:

    I would reccomend AMD’s Ryzen 5 or above, or an intel i5 released in the last few years.

    ! (Intel has the i3, i5, and i7, and with each generation the number increases. We’re on the 13th generation, so the newest processors will be named something like “i7 13700”) An i7 isn’t really much better than an i5 for gaming purposes, but an i5 is usually much much better than an i3.!<

    I get along just fine with my Nvidia rtx 2060. it’s the lowest end card that supports RTX features and I play in VR using it all the time.

    Then you’re gonna want some RAM, i would reccomend an absolute minimum of 8gb and 16gb to be comfortable. i don’t have the greatest highest end RAM and my genes run just fine.

  • @[email protected]
    4•8 months ago

    Do they really need to be laptops or could you just as well use a desktop if they use them in their room only?

    • @Chev
      2•8 months ago

      This would make everythink much cheaper. Especially if you build it yourself. It’s easier than ever to build a PC yourself.

      Check out https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/wiki/builds/ if you are looking for good PCs in general.

      But if you are looking for PCs that can handle 3D games with VR than I have no idea.