Gaming Laptop Security Setup

I picked up a Sager NP8235 and will use it primarily for gaming of all sorts. Everything from War Commander on Facebook to Battlefield 3, Sims 3, Hawken, etc.

Hardware specs:

12Gbs of DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA GTX770M 3Gb GDDR5 GPU w/Optimus
2.5Ghz-3.4Ghz i7
750Gb 7200RPM HD
Win7 x64 Pro or Win8 x64 Pro (Havent decided on OS yet)

I want to squeeze every ounce of speed out of this as possible. Ill be sticking with the built in Windows FW or an alternative like Tiny FW. I currently have an active license for KAV2013, but feel that it may be too heavy when running full 1080p games.

 

I have a gaming laptop computer please see my sig below on my Security Setup, you can have both Windows FW and Tiny FW together and I would choose Avast Free and buy yourself one life licence per computer of MBAM Pro I don't believe you need Hitman Pro if your running a free limited version.

You can still keep Private FW along side with Avast Free, MBAM Pro and MCShield anyway see my setup for my gaming laptop.

 

I have a MBAM and HMP license. Either one would work.

I think MBAM in on demand with Tiny FW and Avast Free will be what I go with. As long as I limit the modules that Avast has installed I should be good to go.

 

Comodo FW+HIPS+Cloud AV, without local AV, and then maybe something like exploit shield and Crystal Security

If not avast should be enough, I have read comments about MBAM being very I/O demanding

Anyway I think that an AV won't decrease your performance, since the game files will be cached and some of them save as trusted so they won't be scanned every single time.

 

MBAM would be on demand only.

Cloud AV is out of the question as alot of these are online multiplayer games. I dont want any un-necessary lag.

 

My Gaming Laptop.

4Gbs of DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA GT 540M 2Gb GDDR3 GPU w/Optimus
2.3Ghz-2.9Ghz i5
500Gb 7200RPM HD
Win7 x64 Ultimate.

You can see how mine is a lot older. I use what ever security, and have not found anything heavy enough to even slightly impact a game. In-fact run whatever you want as it won't effect you. I also have never heard of a cloud AV lagging an online game.... what is a cloud AV using all of your multiple megabytes a second internet connection? I run my online games from a TCP VPN @ a server outside of my country and still maintain 40 ping or less, seriously use whatever you want because it won't matter. Also, have fun with Optimus, oh Optimus how you choose to be lazy and default to the Intel graphic chip during games... Oh you Optimus!

 

end point benchmark : -http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/corporate-user/windows-8/janfeb-2013/- webroot seem to be the winer for the lightest and forticlient comes second. webroot also the winner on consumer product btw.

but I dont think even kasperky will have that much effect on your machine.

 

I don't see how some of the recommended setups consisting of several real-time protection applications (HIPS + AV + second real-time AV) should have a lesser performance impact than KAV alone. In fact I would regard that as bad advice. If you really want to exclude the risk of performance impact issues, you might want to try a completely different approach, ditch real-time protection altogether and try sandboxing your threat-gate applications. If that's not an option, just stay with Kaspersky.

 

Sandboxie and Appguard. No cloud, no real time shenagins. Light and very tight.

 

I must recommend Norton Internet Security 2014. I'm using it on my gaming laptop and it feels very light. I'm really impressed.

 

Don't worry there wouldn't be lag, the Cloud AV will only work the first time you open a file in case is not trusted, and it would be only a lookup CIS won't upload an unknown file automatically but I'm no 100% sure. Anyway this is not that usual I have several games installed from STEAM and all the .exe's have been recognized by CIS, and I have no file in the unrecognized files to be uploaded. So all the files/games were already known (recognized ) by comodo (the file was already uploaded by someone) but if it is not classified as trusted it will show an HIPS popup

It also has the game mode to suppress the alerts.

I have a gaming PC like yours (or better) and my setup is CIS FW+HIPS+CloudAV(file rating), ExploitShield

 

Considering your specifications and desire for speed - it is hardly to be believed that you are not getting an SSD. If you had an SSD it would make your computer MUCH faster even with heavy security programmes than an HDD with no security.

Move up to an SSD as your primary drive and you can use an HDD as an archive drive if that computer has a second drive bay.

Best wishes

 

System performance notwithstanding, your gaming performance will be likely unaffected by most popular Anti-malware products.

- You have enough RAM, most games will not take over ~4GB (and that is stretching it)
- Most games are GPU limited, not CPU limited - your Antimalware product can have higher CPU usage and it wouldn't really impact the FPS
- Most antimalware products are really light on the internet use when you are not doing a scan, so this won't be a huge issue, though it depends on the bandwidth you have available.
- Load times may be affected, but this will again not impact your gaming performance.

Even in the worst case, you face perhaps a small difference in ping times and increased load times. For this reason, I would not recommend you to choose a perceived "lighter" product due to expected gains in gaming performance.

 

Choose Windows 8 x64 Pro! It has more games like Jetpack Joyride!

On a more serious note, my gaming laptop with similar specs (except an SSD+HDD combo) runs fine with all the security listed on my signature. Games run without hiccup, even on 1080p (with NVIDIA card). Didn't try maxing out all the settings, but that shouldn't be necessary.

I don't have any particular recommendations, since those kind of machines have the resources for virtually anything. Disk I/O is the biggest bottleneck, so do note that.

 

I dont think your laptop will struggle due to the hardware. It will be due to the software so it comes down to choosing the right software setup and not based on hardware.

 

Just throw in Webroot SecureAnywhere and you're good to go with your gaming laptop. Light, fast and effective.

 

+1 .. WSA and nothing else. Ideal for gaming, super light and fast

 

Im not worried about Optimus. I have tricks up my sleeve as I support this stuff as a Network Engineer all week long.

I refuse to use SandboxIE. I dont want to air bad laundry between Tzuk and I, but with my experience its not a very trustworthy company.

What a great security solution. If you must know I have 3 drive bays available to me. A Samsung 840 Evo SSD will be the main drive, however at the time of purchase the SSD wasnt in the budget. That will be an upgrade in the near future.

Windows 8 was forced on my at work for my desktop and tech laptop. Im not a huge fan of it, however the resource usage seems to be much lighter. As a power user I know my way around Win7 much better and Im alot more efficient in its use.

I may go with WSA if Newegg has a sweet deal on it. Im not paying for an AV solution with so many good free options available.

 

Or you could make it even lighter.
Windows hardening + Sandbox + Hitman Pro. Thats all, as lean as it can get IMO.

Windows hardening = no performance impact
Sanboxie = no performance impact
Hitman Pro = no performance impact

 

.....................

 

Thank you for all those dots, PIInfinity. Maybe you would be so kind as to explain the meaning of your dots in relation to the quotes, especially with which quote you want to signal agreement or disagreement.

 

Oh sorry, i didnt know he didnt want to use Sandboxie. Hahahahahaha

 

+1

 

I think the person concerned got the point.

 

Who me?
I guess you were just trying to point out that the OP said he didnt want to use Sandboxie.