Alienware 17 Graphics Card Upgrade

fifthtexas

Estimable
Aug 25, 2015
1
0
4,510
hi
can anyone advise, i have an alienware 17 laptop with GTX860 graphics card.
i been using microsoft flight simulator and not happy with graphics, tried various settings but getting lots of flashing even with add on scenery i have bought, it does not look good, i have seen some video's and graphics look amazing, so much better than what i have.
so looking at upgrading to a better specification, can i upgrade to a better card and if so which one could i have that would be suitable, also would performance improve if i put in more memory
any ideas?
 

Robert Cook

Honorable
Herald
Dec 15, 2014
160
0
10,710
it sounds like you can put up to a 980m in that laptop.but I am surprised that the video is that low quality, it is not like the 960M is a lame card. how much memory do you have now? anything over 8 will not really help at all.
 

jason_34

Estimable
Oct 12, 2015
1
0
4,510


flight simulator leans heavily on cpu performance. i currently also own a 17 ( 2013 ) and i had the same problem the only thing that would fix it was to build a computer. put a minimum of a i7-4790k or up, and a midrange gpu and you're done. FSX is a old heavy simulation game whose not been optimized for mobile cpu's. even some desktop cpu's can't handle FSX. and how more Ghz you can hit how more frame's you'll get.

I'm not saying you cannot play fsx on you laptop. but if you want some bloom effects coupled with your pmdg 777 landing at Amsterdam (aerosoft pack ) with Vatsim on the background enabled REX 4 who renders my weather and last but not least GSX ground services. You're gonna have a bad time ( and framerates ).

I recommend you to build a desktop with raw CPU power cause it can handle the raw power that fsx wants. ( sawwry for mah english )

and if you want some extra mhz added to your components, look in the bios where you can overclock CPU, RAM, and more