EVE New Citizens Q&A

shaders v3.0 I think is all you need. You can adjust graphics settings to make it run smoother otherwise.

He's right. Damn near any card with the right technology will run the game fine. My old laptop had a Geforce 9600M GT, which has a benchmark rating of mid 300s on that Site, ran it at medium settings just fine. Something notably weaker would run it fine on low settings.

My notebook with an i5 processor without separate grahpics runs EVE fine enough. The sandy bridge processors have OK built-in graphic capabilities, better than I expected.

Would recommend making sure you can run at higher resolution as EVE can get busy with various windows open. So either have a built in display or the capabilities to support an external display with enough pixels. I personally dislike anything under 1280 x 1024, and even this resolution is uncomfortable for my tastes.

The i5 can run captains quarters although with lower settings.

Not going to install that websites benchmarking software. Never heard of them before and not feeling very trusting at the moment.

Just be sure its a discreet graphics card with say, at minimum 512m dedicated graphics memory.
For what it's worth, - I'm having no serious issues running all settings high, HDR & AA off, with an NV 8600M GT 512m. In space & char gen / walking in CQ.

The same card all other variables equal, with 256m DOES have some issues and is notably slow/sluggish unless your character is bald or has really short hair. [Hair being such a render hog].

You don't actually need a DVD to install or play EVE. You download the whole thing. Some notebooks don't have DVD's these days. If yours doesn't its no problem.

meh you can't part me from mine. I replaced my old gateway laptop with a new bargain level toshiba satellite this year, and it's nearly overkill (Intel HD, best settings for space). I see no reason to think about an upgrade until CCP totally revamps the graphics again, which will be what like another 9 years?

As for heat, I've learned from my last three laptops that you don't place the laptop on your lap, you get one of those laptop tables like you can get at staples or walmart for $30 (great for a recliner hah). If you need to get it even cooler, you can get one of those plastic board-things with a built in fan to sit the laptop on. But I hardly use my external fan-thingy, and this laptop runs cooler than my last (which didn't burn up). Battery life doesn't matter, now a days there is always someplace to plug into, and if you are on the move you are probably doing something other than spending a lot of time playing games.

I have a new ASUS desktop too (AMD), NVIDIA card, runs captains quarters at best settings, but the laptop gets 80% of the luv when it comes to EVE. That 20% simply because I like to jump on the bigger screen at times, but my laptop I keep up a little closer since the laptop table is easy to adjust. Only real downside is sound, but headphones work, also there are external sound devices (e.g. my Line6 guitar port), or just turn the sound up on the TV/entertainment center from your recliner anyway.

Oh and to be fair to desktops, I did my char gens on the desktop. I can do it on the bargain laptop, it'll render, but just a little slow (fine in quarters at mid settings). But as a graphics artist, running modeling, texture, animation apps and shader programming on this thing, np, just I view incarna to be a little clunky at real-time rendering (should improve over time/development). This thing even runs the newer Bethesda games at decent frame rates, so no complaints here.

If you're looking at Brands/Manufacturers, Asus and Lenovo are the Top-Tier for quality. I've got a Ideapad Z575 (Got it for a low price), and it runs EVE pretty well, besides for the obvious screen real estate issues that come with a laptop.

Well you could go spend $2k on a laptop and not get anything more out of it than one for $500, as far as for running EVE.

I don't know how those do with EVE, but speaking for the toshiba I have EVE runs great. Although I have an ASUS desktop and have come to regret the purchase to a point (for reasons other than playing EVE). I'd never buy a lenovo, myself. But I think the important thing is Intel chips at this point. Sadly that coming from a long time hard core AMD user since like 98 or something.