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unmerged(467767)

Corporal
1 Badges
Mar 22, 2012
45
1
  • Crusader Kings II
Hi,

I'm in the market of purchasing a new portable device, such as the Asus Zenbook UX31A or the Microsoft Surface Pro.
My priorities are being able to play games such as Crusader Kings 2 and Guild Wars 2, work obviously, and tinkering with Photoshop.

Has anyone got experiences to share with specific products when playing Crusader Kings 2? What portable device do you play on, and do you ever encounter any problems when playing this game in particular?
 
I'm on a Toshiba Satellite L755, and I have no problems running this game, although the days to start to move by slowly if I hold too much land. i.e. this much:
R1Ye
I got it last year and it cost ~$700, which seems to be half of that Asus one you suggested.
 
If you want to be able to do just about anything productive, I'd steer as far as you can away from the Surface, at least until someone demonstrates that it can be a productive device as well as a consumption device. It's going to be shit for battery life, too, especially when gaming, which is another plus for the Zenbook (keeping it tethered won't seem as awkward on a laptop as a tablet).
 
If you want to be able to do just about anything productive, I'd steer as far as you can away from the Surface, at least until someone demonstrates that it can be a productive device as well as a consumption device. It's going to be shit for battery life, too, especially when gaming, which is another plus for the Zenbook (keeping it tethered won't seem as awkward on a laptop as a tablet).

That's a pretty bold statement about Surface's battery life, can you back it up with any facts? To date I've only seen estimates of Surface's battery life based on the parts included in the device. Estimates aren't facts.

I know it's cool to hate on Microsoft, but I think it's a bit premature to pass judgement on Surface. Microsoft hasn't made any announcements about battery life, and nobody in the tech world has gotten their hands on a final review unit. What does that tell me? It tells me that nobody really knows what to expect with regards to battery life.
 
Facts? No, because the only facts that exist are tucked inside Microsoft's walls.

I can speculate, though. How good is the battery life on an average Windows tablet device? Some push 10-12 hours, others hit only about 3, so a good average might be 6 or 7 hours of life. This is a Surface Pro, so it's an x86 CPU, not a low-powered ARM chip. Depending on how Microsoft was able to tweak things (and granted, the current tablets are full form with a swivel screen, not the half form, screen-only, Surface), I'm guessing you're going to see a generous average of 8 or 9 battery hours on your tablet for mundane stuff like internet browsing and office work, 5 or 6 hours for continuous video and maybe 3 hours for a CPU-intensive game like CK2.

And I think I'm probably over-estimating on this. I would be pleasantly surprised if a tablet like Surface lasted more than 2 hours playing CK2, especially with a mod like CK2+ or TPATT that will slow things down even more. Consider all the time you might need to waste on re-touching when the screen misinterprets your click, which touchscreens are apt to do more than precision mice. Also consider the absence of keyboard shortcuts to speed up your game, unless you're using the tablet's keyboard case, in which case you'd be better off just using a full laptop anyways for the power and battery life.
 
Facts? No, because the only facts that exist are tucked inside Microsoft's walls.

I can speculate, though. How good is the battery life on an average Windows tablet device? Some push 10-12 hours, others hit only about 3, so a good average might be 6 or 7 hours of life. This is a Surface Pro, so it's an x86 CPU, not a low-powered ARM chip. Depending on how Microsoft was able to tweak things (and granted, the current tablets are full form with a swivel screen, not the half form, screen-only, Surface), I'm guessing you're going to see a generous average of 8 or 9 battery hours on your tablet for mundane stuff like internet browsing and office work, 5 or 6 hours for continuous video and maybe 3 hours for a CPU-intensive game like CK2.

And I think I'm probably over-estimating on this. I would be pleasantly surprised if a tablet like Surface lasted more than 2 hours playing CK2, especially with a mod like CK2+ or TPATT that will slow things down even more. Consider all the time you might need to waste on re-touching when the screen misinterprets your click, which touchscreens are apt to do more than precision mice. Also consider the absence of keyboard shortcuts to speed up your game, unless you're using the tablet's keyboard case, in which case you'd be better off just using a full laptop anyways for the power and battery life.

Speculation is fine, as long as it is noted as such. In your post you made it sound as if it was a fact that Surface's battery life would be terrible. The only fact about Surface's battery life is that we don't yet yet know how good or bad it will be.

Regarding your estimates, it is unwise to estimate based on swivel screen devices running Windows 7. Surface is a new device format with a new operating system. There are many hardware and software differences to consider. And don't forget that Windows 8 includes improved power management. The Consumer Preview showed small but solid improvements in that area, and it's possible that Microsoft made further improvements before their release to manufacturing.

Rather than rail against Surface specifically, I think you should be pointing out that tablet devices in general are probably not the best choice for running games like CK2.
 
I didn't realize I was railing against Surface specifically. The OP is deciding between the two, and I gave an opinion referencing the device of his choice. I'm not going to dumb it down so Microsoft fans don't get their feelings hurt.

Besides, I have doubts that any OEM is going to get too serious about Windows tablets now that Microsoft's putting its own foot in the market. There might be a few at first, but if Surface starts dominating, I expect those to be fringe devices and not mainstream.
 
I didn't realize I was railing against Surface specifically. The OP is deciding between the two, and I gave an opinion referencing the device of his choice. I'm not going to dumb it down so Microsoft fans don't get their feelings hurt.

Besides, I have doubts that any OEM is going to get too serious about Windows tablets now that Microsoft's putting its own foot in the market. There might be a few at first, but if Surface starts dominating, I expect those to be fringe devices and not mainstream.

I'm not a Microsoft fan, and my feelings aren't hurt. I just have a problem with people making empirical statements that they cannot back up with facts.
 
Anyway, to answer this question, I always play CK2 on my laptop, and playing the game I get about an hour and a half battery life (tested on a plane flight) with the following notes:
*If I run vanilla or any mod besides Game of Thrones it gets very laggy if not plugged in (Game of Thrones works better because it has much fewer provinces).
*It heats up the laptop pretty well, so much that I bought a cooling pad for it, which corrected the problem.

I have a pretty cheap HP Pavilion notebook from 2010, and it can run vanilla or CK2Plus with minimum lag for most of the game, so I'm not using something big here. I love Paradox because their games have such low requirements. No experience with tablets running this game, though it sounds vaguely interesting.
 
I'm not a Microsoft fan, and my feelings aren't hurt. I just have a problem with people making empirical statements that they cannot back up with facts.

You also felt the need to have me generalize my statements. Please don't try to control what I say unless you're a moderator and my statements are outside the bounds of the rules. kthnxbai
 
Regardless of technical specifics, CK2 is a game that generally demands long sessions and a fair amount of precise clicking all over the screen, which is tricky given the interface isn't designed with fingers in mind. For those reasons, I don't think tablets can offer a comfortable gaming experience.

It's not comfortable to do anything time-consuming and input-heavy on any tablet, really.
 
Make sure ALL the specs are at least the minimum. Especially the graphics card, which is usually the main laptop-game compatibility problem. For some reason, laptop makers figure that having good RAM is enough. :mad:
 
You also felt the need to have me generalize my statements. Please don't try to control what I say unless you're a moderator and my statements are outside the bounds of the rules. kthnxbai

You had the kernel of a valid argument (tablets aren't great for games like CK2), but it got lost when you decided to smack around Surface rather than explain that point in more detail.
 
Hi,
I'm in the market of purchasing a new portable device, such as the Asus Zenbook UX31A or the Microsoft Surface Pro.
My priorities are being able to play games such as Crusader Kings 2 and Guild Wars 2, work obviously, and tinkering with Photoshop.

Personally I play Crusader Kings II on a laptop, an Acer travelmate 7720G from when we had one planet more in the solar system. It works pretty good for me (turning of trees in the setting file is a suggestion for anybody who wants to play multiplayer though)
I don't recommend tablets for Photoshop or Illustrator and as far as other games such as Guild Wars 2 go, tablets really need to improve before I would personally recommend them for gaming.
Might be easy for your work though, I have a minilaptop for the mobility. (Doesnt run CKII though, sadly enough, I play Fallout II on the airplane)

I recommend laptop over a tablet because of the adaptability, and also because nothing beats a mouse for gaming. It will save you frustration.
 
Thanks everyone for your input.

I am currently deciding between the Asus Zenbook UX32VD and the tablet/ultrabook-hybrid Asus Transformer Book.

Both have great screens, upgradeable RAM, can be fitted with SSDs, decent discrete nVidia cards, quick processors, etc.

To be honest, the Transformer Book is looking absolutely fantastic. It's as powerful and pretty as the higher end ultrabooks when docked to its keyboard, and as portable and couch-friendly as a tablet once unplugged. Shame about no release date yet, though. It runs Windows 8, so possibly in October?
 
I still can't imagine a tablet experience being good for battery life on Windows. But I have to say that Asus makes some damn good hardware, so even if the battery life eventually sucks under Windows, you can't go wrong with an Asus build.

*strokes his Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101 for good measure*

Maybe Paradox will get wise and make CK2 compatible with Android so I can play on my TF101, too?! :p
 
if you do plan on playing on a device with an ultrabook or lower, you'd probably want to use some of the mods that lower graphics to make it run a little faster. the biggest bottleneck is still the CPU though

....

though if your choice is between the zenbook and the transformer book, then you really don't have to mind at all :laugh: (core i7? that's even faster than my desktop's ancient Core2Duo :rofl: or my netbook's AMD Fusion working in parallel)