Microsoft Surface Book?

[The Stig]

Can you put FFXIV on it lol

If it plays well in 720p Void Ark settings I'll plunge.

[Katlan]

I'm waiting for the SB still. I ordered the i7 dGPU 16gb RAM 512gb model. Ordered it about 3 weeks ago and its still back ordered. I want to get it from another vender, but the MS student discount is too good to pass up and I like the extended warranty they offer since its basically like AppleCare

as much as I want it, I'm kinda glad I'm getting it in the 2nd batch tbh since i assume it will have ironed out a lot of the issues software and faulty hardware wise that plagued a handful of the first batches

Can you put FFXIV on it lol

If it plays well in 720p Void Ark settings I'll plunge.

Based on what people have reported from Fallout 4, ect.. for the dGPU version it should have np running XIV on 1080p on medium+ settings

[Melena]

Can you put FFXIV on it lol

If it plays well in 720p Void Ark settings I'll plunge.

That I can't do. I don't have an active logon account, plus I'm sure if I connected to an MMO on the county's network I'd get reamed lol. Think the closest I got to that was playing Hearthstone during lunch on my phone using the county's public wifi.

[Hellfury]

I caved in and ordered the top Pro 4 instead (i7/16GB). Supposed to arrive next week. There's no known ETA on the book in Norway, so I decided "Meh". Maybe I'll try to push it on a boss later so I can play with it first.

[The Stig]

Based on what people have reported from Fallout 4, ect.. for the dGPU version it should have np running XIV on 1080p on medium+ settings

Ohhh if you read that it plays Fallout 4 fine then .. hmm... very interesting

[Katlan]

My SB actually shipped today. I can let you know how it runs XIV in a few days... hope i get it tomorrow otherwise its gonna be Friday

[The Stig]

Nice, which model (i5/i7?) did you go for?

And no rush, I won't be getting one anytime soon unless something wins me over. Looking forward to your report.

I play on 720p windowed (on a 1440p screen) on my home all-in-one, runs smooth enough for everything and it's set on medium low settings, but sufficient. Has enough room for all my buttons etc, while allowing me to read/watch stuff on the other half.

edit: surface pro right? I just realised this thread is Surface Book orientated but we ended up talking about both lol

[Katlan]

I got the Surface Book, i7 (dGPU) / 16gb RAM / 512GB SSD.

From reports of various games, playing any modern high-end game on the native res won't be that great, but ill report native and 1080p. While I didn't buy it for gaming, side gaming is definitely one of the reasons behind it lol. So yeah, I'll be able to report back shortly after I get it and get it all setup since XIV will be one of the first things I install on it

[The Stig]

! You got the BOOK! The good thing!

Fair enough. I wish I was rich haha

Congrats! And yeh I don't expect much from native but will happily eat 1080p. Not going to be "seriously" gaming on it anyways. But it's nice to have such ability.

[Katlan]

TBH the difference between the i7 Surface Pro and Book is like 600$, So I figured if I was going to drop 2200 on a 2-in-1 may as well get the version that has the dGPU. They kinda fuck you since the only way to get a i7 and the 512GB is to get 16gb ram (which lets be honest is a waste). I would of been more than happy w/ a 8gb or 12gb version, but 512gb of storage is kinda necessary for a laptop.

and they dont check to ensure your actually a student. I graduated from TJSL in December and still went in on the Student discount. Hard to pass up for 10% off

[Katlan]

In regards to XIV on the i7 Surface Book w/ the dGPU:

at 1440x1050 on med-high settings (90% medium / 10% high), i get 30'ish fps in densly populated areas like Idlyshire, etc.. It sometimes drops to no lower than 25fps, but at the size of the screen I don't notice the dip at all and its very smooth looking. It's very much playable as the size and real resolution of the screen makes it seem like 45+

[The Stig]

Nice, thanks for that.

The dGPU was a mystery last time, were you able to dissect approximately what model GPU it is? I am estimating a GTX 950m.

edit: nevermind, just saw a review:

Graphics adapter
NVIDIA Maxwell GPU Surface Book (940M, GDDR5) - 1024 MB, Core: 953.6 MHz, Memory: 1252.8 MHz, GDDR5, 10.18.13.5415

[Katlan]

It's supposed to be equal to a 940M, so not that great.. but way better than the integrated. People on redditt figured out how to custom add the new 940M drivers (I have not done that yet), since you otherwise have to wait for the windows update due to it being a MS special dGPU, and its supposed to increase performance a bunch
-----------
1 - Download NVIDIA 359.00 drivers here: http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/95561

2 - Download these modded INF files here: https://mega.nz/#!qR8TRSQZ!84Ygh4lu5...rOMwZd2cnCGGKA

3 - Extract the downloaded NVIDIA drivers to a folder using something like 7Zip

4 - Extract the modded INF files to the "Display.Driver" folder in the extracted NVIDIA drivers.

5 - In order to install we must disable driver signature enforcement. To temporarily disable driver signature enforcement follow these directions: http://www.howtogeek.com/167723/how-...igned-drivers/

6 - Install drivers manually using the Device Manager:

· Go to Device Manager -> Display Adapters -> NVIDIA Geforce GPU -> Properties.

· Go to the Driver tab then click "Update Driver..."

· Then choose "Browse my computer for driver software" and point it to the Display.Driver folder containing the modded INF files. EDIT: jeffmk1 had to do this slightly differently by choosing "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer" and then selecting "Have Disk". Link to comment

7 - Profit. The Device Manager will now call the GPU "NVIDIA GeForce 940M." This name is entirely arbitrary and can be whatever you want it to be. It has no real world effect.

I can still detach the tablet without issues. Despite what many people think display adapter hot plugging is primarily a feature of Windows and doesn't require specific driver support. Clock speeds and such are set by firmware so the updated driver functions just as the one provided by Microsoft.

I've tested Fallout 4 and I noticed a significant increase in frame rate stability vs the old drivers from September. Battlefront runs as it should with these drivers as well

[Melena]

Finally getting a chance to get this set up for our director. It is beautiful. Very fast, actually was the fastest computer as far as our county anti virus software installation is. Typically thing takes like 10 minutes as it removes the MS antivirus and installs and configures itself, and this thing did it in 2 minutes.

Of course though I thought it bricked 2 hours in after installing some updates, went to reboot and came up with an error that the boot configuration was corrupted. Restart fixed it though.

Also the surface dock is amazing. It immediately picked up the wired network configuration the second I turned the surface book on.

All in all, it's pricey as hell, but i'd consider one for work if I had the money.

[Katlan]

You should run every single update before you do a single thing on the computer. And by doing a single thing I literally mean anything other than the updates. It fixes nearly all the brick problems and GPU crashes. Ive had mine for over a month and have only had 1 black screen (from the GPU crashing) that required me to do a force restart.. otherwise been working flawlessly aside the awful battery drain issue. I think I lose roughly 7%% of battery per day while its "shut down," which means that a shutdown doesnt actually turn off all the processors.

A fix is supposed to be coming in January for that