Gaming on a plane for 12 hours

First of all, do most air planes have regular outlets for laptop chargers? I heard of some requiring car adapters, while others just use regular 2-blade holes. I'll be traveling from USA to Ukraine and the flight takes about 12 hours. I need to make sure I can keep my battery charged became games discharge them real fast. I won't be flying first class though. Anyone with experience is welcome to provide feedback/advice regarding this!

The second issue is that I don't know how much space is allocated for laptop usage and whether a 17" NP9377 giant can be place comfortably on my knees or some surface. I also doubt there will be a place for a mouse, which means I will be limited to gamepad games and to the ones I can play using the touch-pad. What kind of games are playable with a touchpad? I have some oldies - Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and IceWind Dale Enhanced Editions, Grim Fandango Remastered, Wasteland 2, Fallout 2 (with Restoration Project), Fahrenheit - Remastered, Heroes of Might & Magic III - HD Remastered, maybe even The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Please let me know of whichever games you think are most fun to play during a long flight!

Thanks!

 

I fly sometimes business, sometimes coach seating, check with your airline but most international flights have AC outlets in coach as well. I usually use wireless trackball mouse on planes, small enough to fit next to 15" on the tray table. Civilization series / turn based strategy are playable with touchpad.

 

You can actually plug in your laptop in the plane? Whenever I do it, the PSU shuts down and no power goes to the laptop. I thought it had to do with power draw. What's the wattage on your laptop PSU?

 

Been using a "universal" laptop power adapter for the past year or so, before that I believe I have also used 120W adapter on plane:

Output
90W, 19.5V, 1.62a

Input
100-240V
1.5a
50-60Hz

 

Alright thanks for the info. My 180W PSU did not work on two or three different occasions then I read somewhere that there was 75w limit but clearly that's not true.

 

British Airways told me that there is a 75W/90W limit... My old HP laptop used to work with this much power but no way my Asus or AW would..

 

Even beyond power, a 17" is going to be quite the squeeze on a tray table....

 

Lol even my 15 inch was tight. I don't think 17 would fit. Definitely not in economy class anyway.

 

The flight attendants will kindly ask you to put it in an overhead bin, if the people sitting next to you don't slap you first. That laptop is huge. A normal 15" laptop is already borderline obnoxious for an airplane, let alone an extra-large 17" gaming one.

 

Why would a 15 inch laptop be "borderline obnoxious"? It definitely does not enter the space of the passengers next to you. Not sure about 17 though.

 

Would be a real pity if an airplane ran out of fuel mid-flight because someone wanted to play some video games .

 

Are you so addicted to gaming that you can't take a break for 12 hours?

 

Haha I think it's more about avoiding boredom during the flight. What would you do for 12 hours in a plane?

 

Listen to music. Watch the in-flight movies. Read a book. Eat. Sleep. Join the mile high club.

 

Well I personally can't sleep during a flight and I'd rather game than read a book if I have the possibility and it's 12 hours sitting in the same spot! I would want to have a wide range of entertainment. I guess it also depends on your "boredom tolerance".

 

Well, the power adapter will draw a certain amount of power depending of what you ask of the laptop, so it should technically be possible to use even a 240 W power brick as long as all you do doesn't draw a lot of power. Obviously, that excludes gaming.

 

Alright. I guess my laptop draws a lot of power even at idle then because the PSU shuts down before I can launch anything.

 

It would surprise me that it draws more than 75 W of power, but it isn't impossible. Assuming that have a fair bit of things running idle, no switchable graphics, power hungry display, etc. I'd have to measure it, but I'm willing to bet that at power on, my laptop draws quite a bit more power to perform its tests and all before going into lower power modes.

I'd also expect different power ratings in different planes, sot hat might also have played a role.

 

It has optimus so it shouldn't be idling with the dGPU on and there isn't much running at startup especially because I try to save as much battery power as possible before flights. No idea why it can't even power the laptop at idle.

 

I used the plane rides from nyc to lha and back to watch 6 movies on the in flight thing. I don't get out to the movies much and my wife and I tend to watch series on dvr or live more than anything else with our tv time. Those few times a year flights are my binge movie time.

That said, just game until the battery gets low then let it charge while closed sleeping and do something else for a small time.

 

So what kind of adapter would I need to make sure I can get SOME charging done at least? Can the plane divert emergency power towards seat? I ain't payin' $2K for no ticket with 90W BS in econ seat! I game! Addiction my ass, I don't do that, I just game and I don't stop! I need my 120W/240W to work!

I assume even NP9377 comes with some battery saving features in software and hardware? I want to at least play Baldur's Gate 2 Enhanced Edition, I can pass on Dying Light and all.

 

No idea if this affected the wattage but in my case I never tried launching games on a plane, just work stuff, some Adobe apps, Blu-print, media player classic, etc.

 

BG2:EE is not very intense. That's a perfect game to pick.
Turn the brightness on your panel down and it'll probably last hours.

You could even force it to use the Intel iGPU and save a ton of battery.

 

Edit: I'm disappointed I spent time making a good response, but this appears to just be Troll thread.

 

15" is about as big as you can go, so that is why it is borderline. The 17" laptop that the OP is talking about is huge even for a 17" laptop. I've used a normal 15" laptop on a plane just for watching movies, and it was the absolute limit of anything that would fit.

 

SO I will just encroach onto my neighbor's territory? What if he/she likes games too? Its so much fun to play together.

 

I agree. My 15.6" Toshiba actually slightly overhangs the tray table, but since I always pick an aisle seat it wasn't much of an issue. That said, I definitely wouldn't want to try using a 17.3" laptop, not in an economy class cabin at least.

 

Well, can't I just TRY? I mean what's the worst that can happen? I mean seriously, we could play some games, take turns. I'll take the gamepad with me!

 

Ha, I'll just give people in the next seat some drugs and they pass out, while I game-game-game, don't stop and game-game-game, recharge and game-game-game, poop and just game-game-game, oh yey 12 hours passed already!

 

Why can't I just put the laptop on my knees? I'm a big 6'2 guy and I can't see why it won't fit on my knees. I mean my torso is wider than 17", so how can it NOT fit and move onto whoever sits next to me? Can't I try to ask for the isle seat or window seat to get more space?

Then, I narrowed down to Fallout 2 + Restoration Project, Baldur's Gate 1, 2, and IceWind Dale - all Enhanced Editions, then Grim Fandango, Shadowrun - Dragonfall. Are there any other cool semi-new or remastered games that are low on specs? What about Civilization 5? Wasteland 2?

 

I was playing the original Company of Heroes for the first time yesterday. My fans hardly kicked up on max details at 1600x900.

 

You started a thread saying the exact opposite..

 

Which part? I said it appears we cannot even use 17" laptops on planes because everyone kept saying it won't fit, but I figured if it won't fit onto the tray, then it can fit on my lap, can't it?

 

Depending on the plane and the seats. I'm 6'1" and I have had issues able to sit with my knees straight on, had to spread them or lean to one side the whole flight. I'm fat, but not that fat (~ 230lbs), I have a little bit of a belly and tray table pushed right up against my gut. If the person in fornt of me reclined I would have been trapped, literally. 13" notebook barely had enough room, let alone a 15 or 17".

 

I just checked the width of your laptop and the width of airline seats. With an arm rest on each side, the laptop will be blocked from resting on your knees.

 

Damn it, maybe it can rest on the arm rests? I am skinny, so I'll just have to keep it side-ways a bit, enough to see what's on the screen, even though TN angles will suck! I'll figure something out, start chanting "BOOM! HEADSHOT!" or something strange and people will move away, letting me have 2 seats. There's ALWAYS a way!

 

Don't worry, just be yourself and people will give you plenty of room!

 

Either that or I will have to suck it up and go first class! BTW, no offense, but your sig is outdated.

 

For the extra price of the first class ticket, you could buy yourself a smaller disposable gaming laptop to use just for the flight there and back. As a bonus, when you are walking around outside carrying your big laptop for no reason and you get mugged, you have a backup laptop to game on. Also what sort of a person in this day and age affords 17" gaming monsters and first class airline tickets but is forced to live in a dangerous ghetto?

 

I don't get it, why do you still bother with this question? After no less than 5 separate people have told you it's not a good idea, you're still here trying to find ways to convince us (or is it really yourself?) that it'll work, somehow.

So go ahead and buy that 17.3" laptop and use it to game on the plane for 12 hours and be happy. The end.

 

No, you are

 

BTW if the limit is 90W on aircraft AC sockets, it'd be perfectly possible to play something like GTA 4 with reasonable settings on iGPU (HD4600), and max out the TDP.

I also tried watching a movie on a 15" monster once on a plane, never again. It involves holding the laptop up at weird angles, which makes your arm sore, ruining the whole experience. That's what tablets and ultrabooks are for.