poll, what would you rather do upgrade or lower settings

poll post comments below

 

In what situation? If I had enough money, definitely upgrade. I mean who would like to lower settings if you had more than enough money to have better graphics?

If I'm on a budget, lower settings until I have the money to upgrade to somthing that's worth the money.

 

i would RATHER buy a whole new laptop with quad sli eGPUs (idk if thats possible) but i will MOST LIKELY just lower settings

 

Can you provide more background about your question, 3293? Upgrade or lower settings in what situation?

Obviously, many of us can't go out and buy a new laptop every six months, but we probably would if we could. In my case, my hp envy 15 has held up nicely since 2009, still runs every game I've tried at 1080p except Witcher 2. At this point I'm tentatively planning to upgrade to the super portable (0.82" chassis) Samsung Chronos H with i7-3635QM and AMD 8870m, depending on how it is reviewed after release.

 

Too many variables, but I'd either upgrade or buy a new laptop.

 

I usually plan on upgrading to a new system every two years or so. Give you a decent balance in performance without having to dump out huge amounts of money. It's another reason I go with a single card system, I can afford to upgrade to a newer card for way less money if I choose to.

Edit: Also with the new consoles coming out here in the next few months, hopefully we will be seeing some better quality console ports than the crap we have now. That means more high powered hardware.

 

That's exactly what I plan to do with the M17x, upgrade the gpu once Maxwell is out, then buy a new laptop when Skylake is out.

 

Makes sense to me. I'm just looking forward to getting even better battery life with haswell than I do with my current sandy bridge machine. Plus sandy bridge is starting to get old.

 

Money is a problem: Lower settings
Not poor, not rich: New GPU. Could also go the route below sometimes
Lots of money: Sell the old notebook, buy a new with better hardware

 

Hey, if Sandy Bridge is getting old then so is Ivy

You know I wanted to wait for Haswell too, but I'm impatient and worried that the longer I waited the more my Sager would depreciate. Turns out nobody wants to buy the Sager anyway lol

 

I think you be better off @ ebay than here. I had my K4000M for sale for a month with over $1000 discount (brand new too) just to get rid of it. I would have made a lot more @ ebay but didn`t want the hassle (lazy me)

 

Lower settings. I plan to get 3-4 years out of my machine.

Once i need games on low settings or a mix of medium/low it's time to upgrade.

 

Interesting posts the poll is almost dead even at 6-5

 

I think upgrading to a new laptop about every three or four years is pretty reasonable, even if you are not using it for gaming.

 

Thanks Cloud, I'm thinking the same thing. I'm not in a huge rush to sell, so I'll probably wait another week then go the ebay route. I'd rather sell it cheap to someone on NBR than someone on ebay though.

I remember that f/s thread, I couldn't believe it hadn't sold once you dropped the price to around 500.

 

Upgrade if I'm lowering settings past what I deem is acceptable. I usually end up upgrading ever 2 years or so.

 

I would try to max out and then lower discrete aspects of the settings or customise them entirely in such a way so as to achieve decent image quality without a massive performance hit. People have been doing that on older machines and still managing to get high quality visuals out of new games. It also works out great for console developers. In my opinion, it's better to fully explore and understand the maximum limits of the hardware and exploit the maturation of drivers, which would then help one in working towards running everything at the most within those limits until one reaches a point where that's just not possible--then there's the upgrade route. Otherwise, I just see upgrading straight off the bat the moment a poorly coded game runs at slightly low FPS as getting into a bit of a pointless cycle of constantly acquiring new hardware that remains unexploited in terms of its maximum potential.

 

Agreed, this is the way it has always been. I've been PC gaming since 1981. If you only count IBM compatible and not trs80 model I, III, c64, Amiga, then 1992.. It has not changed in all these years. You keep what you have until it isn't good in your own opinion. Everyone has a different opinion and budget to work with.

 

On my desktop, I'll be likely to upgrade sooner because the net cost of doing so is much less, but I'm still happy to dial back settings for a while if necessary. I tend to play games that have been out for a couple years though, since I can get them on the cheap, so my current Metro 2033 installation might be the most intense gaming that machine does until 2015.

With my laptop, gaming capability has never been the primary impetus in the drive to upgrade. I can always play older games that run on my laptop. Rather than play newer games with less-than-optimal performance, I historically just wait until I have a system that can handle them. Now that I have a desktop, my laptop is a last-ditch gaming machine anyway - I'm currently playing Gabriel Knight 3, from 1998, on it.

 

I'm at the point where I can't really lower settings anymore, and games are not supporting resolutions that allow me to play games smoothly. In fact, video drivers haven't been supporting those resolutions for a year or 2. It's definitely time for an upgrade. Those 9150s are looking mighty tasty.

 

I think your "lots of money" situation is not really lots of money situation .. For instance you'd not be selling your old notebook at all.

 

You can be rich and still be frugal. Selling the notebook makes sense unless you find it's a complete waste of time. If you're rich, it's probably pretty new anyway

 

I usually upgrade when the next nm tech comes out, not really bothered by the games. I think I just wanted to try out the new tech.

 

I sell my notebooks all the time. I don`t need 2 gamer notebooks and if I can get a little money back from the "old" notebook I will sell it whenever I can before it lose its value

 

If I have enough money I will buy a new laptop. If I can't afford a new laptop (or can't justify a new purchase) I will just lower some settings.

 

Lower settings ofc lol, i wont upgrade if its not really necessary.

 

Well at some point you may still be able to lower the settings but then you'll be playing in 480p on low which isn't that great.

 

Well that scream for an upgrade indeed.

 

This is the most ambiguous poll I've ever seen. Of course I'd "like" to upgrade, but lowering settings isn't a horrible thing either. Most users have a somewhat set time frame in mind when they buy a "gaming" laptop and tend to try to stick with it due to financial reasons, unless newer games are completely unplayable. I wouldn't doubt you'll see a number of die hard laptop gamers go buy a new machine because of the requirements of Crysis 3.

 

Hehe yes, I'm sure we would all love to upgrade, unfortunately Santa didn't bring me a new laptop last month!

 

stupid poll
everybody want to upgrade
the only problem is $$$$

 

15 dont 10 char. and rep for typing something when you cant read

 

So if money weren't an issue, people still wouldn't upgrade?

"Here, take this 680m sli setup! It's free"
"Um, no thanks, I'll just keep lowering settings with my 2 year old gpu"

derp

 

I agree, who would want to lower settings if they have more than enough money to buy a better pc?

 

I would only trade my Envy 14 for a dual-680m setup if I could sell the monster machine and buy something more suitable.

In my case, I could afford to upgrade to something more powerful and more suitable for my mobility needs, but I choose not to. It's still a money issue to an extent because I don't particularly want to spend that extra cash, but I'm actively choosing to hold off on upgrading when I could easily afford to do so.

 

If that's true, you're in the minority then. Most people have a dream laptop that they would take over their current setup if money weren't an option. Mine just happens to be a fully decked-out M18x, so that's why I gave the example of 680m sli.

You said you would sell the 680m sli setup and buy something more suitable. That means there's something out there that you would rather have than your current laptop, right? Something you would buy if you had unlimited funds?

 

Sure, I'd trade up if it were free or if I had a billion dollars, but that's so theoretical as to be a useless argument. My point is that I have the spending money to upgrade to my dream laptop (or its closest extant equivalent) without taking a significant financial hit, but I choose not to. Contrast that to the "I'm saving my allowance to replace my 7970m with a 680m" mentality and I think you get the realistic extreme poles of this poll.

 

lol I know it's a ridiculous hypothetical example, I was simply using it to support fantomasz's post. I think he was responding to the title of the poll: "would you rather upgrade or lower settings?" The answer is obvious, everyone would upgrade if money weren't an issue. Since it is an issue, we have to decide when it's a worthy investment given our financial situations.

 

Pssh.... You can keep those 680m's. I want my 780m quad sli setup.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Resurrection Remix

 

lower settings untill i cant play anything decent anymore then scrap together money and buy another laptop . hopefully by then win8 would have been smoothed out so then touchscreen hybrids with power come into play

 

thanks for the laugh =) .

 

Technology and manufacturers play a part as well. Technology of course determines what's available to upgrade to, and manufacturers build the laptops, so they determine what combinations of features are available, be they computing and gaming power, screen quality, size and weight, build quality, battery life, and other features. One reason I'm not in a great hurry to upgrade my Envy 14 is because it offered a good combination of all of those features and there still aren't many great successors to choose from when it comes to hitting all of the buttons I want in a laptop.

 

22 would rather upgrade?

99 percent of games ports can have some settings turned down without any image quality loss, so for free you get plus 10-20fps. yet 22 people would rather pay to upgrade yeilding the same image quality results.

?.

 

Yes.

People want better stuff than they already have if they have plenty of money or get it for free. That's fairly logical. I find it hard to believe that if you yourself are more than rich enough you would turn of some settings on far cry 3 because your 6990m can't handle it instead of buying a 680m/7970m.

 

Funny you say that, I was talking to a guy on the EUROCOM development team, and their new Panther 7.0 is supposed to feature Quad MXM 3.0 GPU's... It won't be out for another 5-6 months.. But you can check out the outline specs sheet on their website.

My responce to the question, is that i would overclock and overvolt the crap out of the card, then in a few months when i have the money upgrade to a new card.

 

depends on the games and software that comes out i guess lol and what games that i like to play at ultra. i would upgrade

 

Most likely, I'll lower settings. I'm usually in the camp of, if I can get a game to be good enough to play, keep lowering settings. Once there start being a fair few games where they aren't really playable, then I'll start considering upgrading. This is in no small part because I'm also usually in the camp of gameplay > graphics - so if the graphics aren't so limited as to interfere with gameplay, it isn't usually worth the money for me.

Even now that I can afford upgrades, I'm accustomed to the more frugal route. Sure, I could upgrade my desktop's 6870. But, I don't really see a reason to. It's not like I'm playing with three 2560x1600 monitors - and if I were, I'd need a bigger desk first.

Fat Dragon also raises a good point. Especially with laptops, there's more to one than the graphics. When I eventually upgrade mine, I'll want something with a matte screen, for instance, and that rules out a fair number of high-power laptops - although less than at some points in the past. And even then, I wouldn't want a behemoth of a laptop. I have a desktop now that can be top performance dog - I'm okay with not playing the latest games when I'm on the road. Most likely, my next laptop will actually end up being more towards the thin-and-light segment. Though it might yet still have medium-range dedicated graphics, or at least ATI integrated ones instead of Intel, so it isn't a step down from what I have now.