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Surface pro for light gaming?
- Thread starter bomblord1
- Start date
Are you referring to the Core M chips or the 5th gen i series?
There are programs that will turn the touchescreen into a trackpad so yes. Idk about actually using it without that though.
Any idea when then next Surface is due?
I was curious about that as well and they have released surface pro 1-3 all released ~8 months apart with the only difference being the day of the month. So I checked the pro 3's release date and going by the same schedule it should release....
By the end of this month which is impossible....
Very, very hit or miss. I'd say the majority of indie games and the majority of old school games do not work correctly. It does not simulate a mouse correctly. The game has to be programmed specifically to support touch screens, as with Hearthstone.
Can you post a link to a trackpad type program? I'd like to see that.
They've been pretty consistently once a year. Not sure when that is this year. Surface Pro 3 was released in summer of last year.
Grover Cleveland
Member
I believe this is it. I haven't used the program myself so I can only go off of other people's impressions.
http://www.lovesummertrue.com/touchmousepointer/en-us/
Edit there seems to be a similar functionality built into windows I would try that first
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/turn-the-touch-pointer-on-or-off
michaelius
Banned
Remember we are getting Windows 10 and Skylake later this year so it makes sense to wait and go for big refresh.
I reckon June at the earliest. They've been on an 8 month schedule but you have to consider the release of Windows 10 and whether or not they'll delay it to coincide with that later in the year.
I don't think the Core M is a *big* performance gain in comparison to Haswell chips though? Looks like around 20-30% increase at best, however the real benefit is in efficiency. Broadwell runs much cooler than Haswell which should eliminate that throttling issue on the SP3.
What settings and framerate for Battlefield 4?
Doominated
Member
Where I work I deal with a lot of SP2's and 3's. Our IT team gets the 3's, the sales team gets the 2's.
I can tell you upfront as a huge fan of the idea of the Surface Pro from the first day it was revealed, the 3 makes the 2 look and feel like a child's toy. The 3 feels like a featherweight compared to the 2, the keyboard is 10000x better, and the screen is much more usable. And, for some reason, despite running the exact same hardware, every SP2 runs like absolute garbage that I've worked on. My Pro 3 runs better than my quad core i7 laptop in pretty much every scenario.
Get the Pro 3. Also, take advantage of Best Buy if you're a student. They have a 10% educational discount and you can get 10% movers coupons from the post office. The i5/128 Surface Pro 3 is also 100$ off right now, which would make your total in the 730ish range + tax. So about the same price as the i3/64gb model is precoupons and pretax.
Of course, you can just do the same thing with the i3/64gb model, but the discounts won't be as nice and you'll be getting a pretty shitty machine for the money.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Global/College-Student-Deals/pcmcat276200050000.c?id=pcmcat276200050000
And like I said, for a movers coupon, just head to the local USPS office near you and ask. They're usually just at the front desks for people to grab. Don't even need to be doing anything to get one.
I can tell you upfront as a huge fan of the idea of the Surface Pro from the first day it was revealed, the 3 makes the 2 look and feel like a child's toy. The 3 feels like a featherweight compared to the 2, the keyboard is 10000x better, and the screen is much more usable. And, for some reason, despite running the exact same hardware, every SP2 runs like absolute garbage that I've worked on. My Pro 3 runs better than my quad core i7 laptop in pretty much every scenario.
Get the Pro 3. Also, take advantage of Best Buy if you're a student. They have a 10% educational discount and you can get 10% movers coupons from the post office. The i5/128 Surface Pro 3 is also 100$ off right now, which would make your total in the 730ish range + tax. So about the same price as the i3/64gb model is precoupons and pretax.
Of course, you can just do the same thing with the i3/64gb model, but the discounts won't be as nice and you'll be getting a pretty shitty machine for the money.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Global/College-Student-Deals/pcmcat276200050000.c?id=pcmcat276200050000
And like I said, for a movers coupon, just head to the local USPS office near you and ask. They're usually just at the front desks for people to grab. Don't even need to be doing anything to get one.
For gaming though, the SP2 brings better performance than the SP3 because the SP3 unfortunately suffers from throttling. Something to keep in mind.
How do I get the 10% education discount? I'm looking at the link and there's nothing there about 10%
I looked this up when someone else mentioned the weight.
The difference is 0.2 pounds (1.98 vs 1.75).
And I'd still recommend waiting for the SP4.
At 1024 by 768 and the lowest settings, right?
Doominated
Member
Put your .EDU email in and you'll get coupons sent to you.
1.75 pounds spread over 12.2 inch screen distributed across a 0.30" thick body
vs
1.98 pounds spread over 10.6 inch screen distributed across a 0.53" thick body
The difference is pretty huge in your hands. Also, the fact that you can change the kickstand to sit at any angle makes it much more comfortable to hold the Pro 3 in different positions than it is to hold the Pro 2.
Like I said, "feels like a featherweight", not "is a featherweight".
And let's be real here, MS isn't releasing the SP4 until Windows 10 actually releases. They've been hyping up the Pro 3 as "The Windows 10 device" for a little while now. I feel like they rushed the releases of the Pro 2 and 3 to meet up with the critics of the original deign's functionality. Now that they have a device that, IMO, is damn near perfect physically, I don't think they'll be keeping to that 8 month schedule.
I got the coupon but it's only another $100 off no 10%
It doesn't matter how you spread it out. They're both flat rectangles, and it's a 0.23 pound difference.
If you're using the kickstand, why are you holding it in your hands?
As for SP4, yes, I do expect it to be relatively soon. Yearly cycles are the norm for these products. There's no harm in not rushing out to buy an SP3 right now, paying a premium for outdated, flawed hardware (fan throttling). Might as well wait a couple of months and keep up on the news.
justsomeguy
Member
We've not announces anything but my uninformed guess is we'll launch a new one alongside windows 10, just seems the obvious thing to do. Problem is we haven't announced that date yet either!
Anyone who was interested in this and on the fence Best Buy is having a 2 in 1 laptop sale . Surface Pro i5 is $100 off. i3 is $40 off. They also have a ton of other computers from various brands and dealers.
Probably the best deal I see is the HP Envy which is $800 for a core M processor, keyboard dock, 8GB of ram and 256GB SSD. It's $300 less than if you were to configure it the same on hp's website.
Probably the best deal I see is the HP Envy which is $800 for a core M processor, keyboard dock, 8GB of ram and 256GB SSD. It's $300 less than if you were to configure it the same on hp's website.
Diablohead
Member
Pro 4 will be for the christmas period IMO along with windows 10, I personally think it's silly to release a new device yearly if there is no need ot requirement, the pro 2 and 3 still sound like they have the beans to get the job done as it is.
Touch on a laptop is useless. 2 in 1 is better but not ideal. I'm not seeing how a traditional laptop is more suited for college work as I have a personal laptop and can't find any decent use for it outside of typing up papers but a tablet with a decent pen can actually be used for traditional note taking (studies show that physically writing notes creates much better retention in memory than typing), reading ebooks in a comfortable manner, as well as used for other work like typing up papers.
How bad is the noise?
I don't think you will ever be able to get a fanless device if you also want the performance of the SP. Look at how much the SP3 throttles down just to get it as thin as it is.
The fans on my SP1 kick in when I'm watching videos or playing some games, but it doesn't bother me since it allows it to be much more capable than other similar sized devices in my home (iPad, Surface RT, etc).
Ok Gaf after some deep soul searching I've narrowed it down to 2 items. I intend with 100% certainty to buy one of them.
The surface pro 3 i5 with pen and no keyboard for $800 (the price is pushing it but best buy is having a sale so I can get it for $799 instead of $999). It's $699 if I go to with the i3. The price is the biggest obstacle I can afford it but just barely.
OR
The Lenovo Yoga 2 10 with a keyboard and no pen for $359. (I can buy a cheap stylus to go with it but it won't be quite the same). It's atom but there's several threads on here about how capable the atom actually is.
The surface pro 3 i5 with pen and no keyboard for $800 (the price is pushing it but best buy is having a sale so I can get it for $799 instead of $999). It's $699 if I go to with the i3. The price is the biggest obstacle I can afford it but just barely.
OR
The Lenovo Yoga 2 10 with a keyboard and no pen for $359. (I can buy a cheap stylus to go with it but it won't be quite the same). It's atom but there's several threads on here about how capable the atom actually is.
Damn that is an insane price for the i5. I just got off the phone with Microsoft - placed an order for the i5 128GB for €900, which is with a student discount (10%) included. I wish I could get it for $800
.Can't wait to get mine.
Natureboy99
Banned
Same, it's amazing. Runs everything I throw at it really well.
My opinion: You should wait on this and get a system with Broadwell. That way you can save up money to buy something that you won't be disappointed with. But whatever you do don't get an i3 or 4GB RAM SP3. You'll regret it later.
michaelius
Banned
Why would you need more that 4GB in "laptop" with low processing power ?
Damn that is an insane price for the i5. I just got off the phone with Microsoft - placed an order for the i5 128GB for €900, which is with a student discount (10%) included. I wish I could get it for $800
Can't wait to get mine.
Best buy has one on sale for $899 and I have a $100 off student discount on an i5 surface pro. I'll probably try to pick it up tonight based on the responses.
On the "wait for a broadwell" I can't see much improvement it would bring outside of battery. It would most likely be a core M series and based on benchmarks the power difference is negligible.
Trying to combine a gaming machine into a laptop always gets you the worst of both. Get a cheap laptop with acceptable build quality and a nice screen and a desktop with some real power behind it.
The cheapest TS140 has more gaming grunt than the highest end Surface. After getting the machine and a 750Ti you would still have money left over for a terrible PC laptop (no offense, they are just all awful. Windows wasn't designed around the trackpad)
Avoid convertibles, avoid machines with removable keyboards, avoid touchscreens (or at least don't pay extra for them)
Do invoke your downgrade rights. Stand up for truth, justice, and laptops that don't pretend to be tablets.
The cheapest TS140 has more gaming grunt than the highest end Surface. After getting the machine and a 750Ti you would still have money left over for a terrible PC laptop (no offense, they are just all awful. Windows wasn't designed around the trackpad)
Avoid convertibles, avoid machines with removable keyboards, avoid touchscreens (or at least don't pay extra for them)
Do invoke your downgrade rights. Stand up for truth, justice, and laptops that don't pretend to be tablets.
gAg CruSh3r
Member
I have a surface pro2 currently and it works great for gaming. Not amazing for newer games but pretty good for older ones. Such as Fallout 3, Mirrors edge, and Portal 1/2. I do have the Surface pro 2 (i5) with 8gbs of ram. I hope the Surface pro 4 will be more towards gaming. I would upgrade in a heartbeat.
thomasmahler
Moon Studios
I really, really, really hope Microsoft will make an 'Xbox Surface' tablet at some point. With the Windows 10 Game Streaming stuff, how awesome would that be? It could even simply be a controller attachment for their Surface line... I'd soooo buy one of these instead of an iPad if they'd turn it into a gaming machine that way (also been thinking about getting a Surface for the Wacom Pen 
)
)I got myself a good desktop the GPU is due for an update though. I don't intend to use it to power through the latest games just something to work and play on on the go.
The 750ti may be powerful but no matter how hard I try I don't think I can take it to school and write notes with it.
Also, who uses a trackpad on a laptop? They have USB ports for a reason.
Modern towers are very small, surely you can fit one under a desk at a dorm? Tablets don't work for most entertainment - no one wants to hold their movie screen up, no one wants to carry about a device that is slightly better than their phone for a few tasks (but doesn't - generally speaking - have cellular data or all the 'stuff' their phone has loaded on it). Tablets are great for things that you can only do on them - exclusive games, mostly - but they no longer seem like the inevitable future of everything.
If you can pull it off - if you can fit a tower under a desk (not a given, as dorms are small) - you can get a super-cheap laptop and throw Office on it and call it a day.
Wireless mice are a hack to get around how awful Windows's trackpad support is. It's effectively required on a PC but not so at all on, uh, another type of computer. I would say the USB ports are for external hard drives and charging your phone more than for connecting a mouse, though.
I have a cheap laptop.
It's crap. A tablet is just so much easier to use on the go I have a venue 11 pro through work (and now I don't) the benefits of it vs a laptop are just amazing.
A surface I can take to a class drop it on my desk and physically write notes on it (handwriting notes has been proven to increase memory retention of something over typing up the same information). Then pull it out drop out the kickstand and watch a movie or plug in an xbox controller and play a game.
edit.
I also have a tower at home on my desk it's for heavy lifting and games but I can't take it into a classroom and take notes with it.
All PC laptops are crap. It's a fact of the land. A combination of Windows being designed for a mouse and the race to the bottom. Hell, even the Blade is slightly less but it doesn't reach '6 year old MacBook Pro you found at the side of the road' levels of good.
The Surface is a terrible machine for typing notes on, as the keyboard is very flimsy and the machine is slow (the processor throttles like mad any time you push it). You get tempted to multitask but get punished as soon as you launch OneNote and it hangs at the splash screen.
I would argue that any laptop is fine for watching movies (and that the Surface is worse, as you can't adjust the screen angle)
There is very little you would be able to play with that Xbox controller as, again, the processor throttles down as soon as you push it hard. Very light gaming here - maxing out, say, DOTA 2 isn't even a given.
If you're committed to physically writing notes on glass, go for it. I tried!
I feel your understanding of laptops and tablets is a few years behind the current technology. Modern laptops and even 2 in ones are more than powerful enough for day to day tasks . They are also easy to navigate and use, windows 8 is incredibly touch screen friendly as well as lightweight.
Higher end laptops are even comparable to their desktop counterparts albeit at a higher price.
edit
Why would I want to max out something on a tablet? Why do I need to max out anything? If I wanted to play Dota 2 I would play it on low at 720p. Also, you are over exaggerating the throttling as it will still play tons of games even throttled and there are ways around it with external devices like usb fans.
double edit
The pro 3 the kickstand can be adjusted to any angle from 90 to around 150 degrees.
It's truly not. I have spent time with every major Windows laptop. I had a Surface 3 Pro loaner unit. I just sent back the new XPS 13.
Generally, no. Most laptops under, say, $600, have some thing wrong with them that rules them out for day to day use. Maybe the thing doesn't come with an SSD. Maybe it has soldered ram and not a lot of it. Usually it is throttling way too early, under minimal load.
Windows 8 is not easy to navigate and use - it's a train wreck. It's also not touch friendly - it has two separate UIs, one with (pretty bad, IMO) affordances for touch and one with none.
There is not a single laptop in the world that compares favorably to a Dell i5 box you picked up for $400 at Staples. The big problem is throttling (again!) but heat generation comes in a close second. Both the Blade and the 15" MBPR pump out a bunch of heat directly on your fingers as you push the thing hard. That doesn't make for a pleasant experience.
Laptops are, as they have always been, the wrong computer for most people. Being able to move the machine around your house doesn't make up for the inherent problems the form factor presents. Even when Intel gets fanless CPUs up to current-day i7 levels of performance, you still have a smallish screen in comparison to the 27" monsters that are typical on any desktop of reasonable quality.
Why...wouldn't you? A tablet - a real tablet - doesn't have graphical sliders. We are talking about PC laptops with removable screens here. Running a game at non-native resolutions is terrible. You could drop the settings until you get a playable framerate but that is far from an ideal experience.
I am not over exaggerating anything. It will play tons of games, just not the stuff that most people like. DOTA 2 and League will run fine (League will run maxed) but you will spend lots of time fiddling with settings. Any modern FPS is out of the question, as are older games such as Skyrim.
USB fans, what a joke. Yes, let me cool my laptop a bit so I can push it ever so slightly harder. Sounds great. Sign me up.
As for the kickstand: I was talking about the Surface 2 you were considering buying, not the latest model.
CosmicQueso
Member
My Surface Pro 3 handles everything I throw at it like a f'ing champion. I multitask PPT, XLS, web, music without an issue. I've played a bunch of stuff on it, mostly strategy stuff but it's been great.
Not sure what Surface you've been running, but perhaps your experience is with an RT model or something?
It's good for some games. Some games like Super Meat Boy run perfectly. Others I'll have to run at 720p which isn't too bad.
However Dolphin runs great on it. I brought my Surface Pro 2 i5 with me on a trip recently and was able to play Smash Bros Brawl on the bigscreen in the hotel at full speeds, even with 4 players. It hitches every once in a while but I think that's an emulator problem more than anything. I've been playing Pikmin 2 and Starfox assault in HD, works great.
However Dolphin runs great on it. I brought my Surface Pro 2 i5 with me on a trip recently and was able to play Smash Bros Brawl on the bigscreen in the hotel at full speeds, even with 4 players. It hitches every once in a while but I think that's an emulator problem more than anything. I've been playing Pikmin 2 and Starfox assault in HD, works great.
Install Far Cry 4 and report back.
My experience comes from spending time with the 1 Pro (highest end config, whatever that was) and the 2 Pro and the 3 Pro.
I am surprised at the reasonably large fanbase the Surface has here. In the larger tech world, it is considered a complete joke. A strong contrast here.
I will say one good thing about the Surface - as the processor is not under the keyboard, you don't have to worry about it heating the keyboard to a point where it is uncomfortable to touch.