PC Gaming - rate my machine

[P-Jay]

Please excuse my ignorance, I've been playing console games for, well probably 30 years now, but Chuckie Egg was probably the last thing I played on a 'computer'.

I've got a reasonably powerful laptop I use for work, is it suitable for gaming, I know a laptop isn't ideal, but I've got a wireless K&M and it connects to my TV via HDMI.

It's a Core i5 (3rd gen) 8GB with NVIDIA graphics (card I think). It's only got 128GB of storage (SSD) which I need for work, I'd like to run any game via a removable USB HDD if possible to separate work / home stuff. I runs Win8 Pro if that makes a difference.

[Oakey]

Aren't you the guy that was slating PC Gamers not that long ago?

Your PC seems fine although hard to say without knowing the graphics card details properly.

[P-Jay]

Oakey said:

Aren't you the guy that was slating PC Gamers not that long ago?

Your PC seems fine although hard to say without knowing the graphics card details properly.

No doubt, I'm a bit of a Mikey taker at heart.

Cool, I'll give it a swing.

[Oakey]

Depending on how big your laptop is, can it fit a second internal HDD? I know some of the Dell laptops have an additional bay. Although if you have USB3 (USB2 may be okay) you should be okay with an external drive.

Knowing the model of the Nvidia card inside it will give you a rough idea of how well it games.

Also, Chuckie Egg was the first game I ever played back in the 80s on my Acorn Electron.

[P-Jay]

Oakey said:

Depending on how big your laptop is, can it fit a second internal HDD? I know some of the Dell laptops have an additional bay. Although if you have USB3 (USB2 may be okay) you should be okay with an external drive.

Knowing the model of the Nvidia card inside it will give you a rough idea of how well it games.

Also, Chuckie Egg was the first game I ever played back in the 80s on my Acorn Electron.

Nvidia is a GeForce GT 640m according to it's control panel.

No second HDD sadly.

TBH I'm not looking to run the latest and greatest games, I'm not sure what I want really, used to like Sim City, but I hear the most recent one is a bit complex and well, st.

[Bullett]

Running an external HDD will make the loading chug a bit I would imagine, it will probably be fine once loaded though.
The CPU and Memory is probably fine, the GPU is the weak link, you need to tell us what model it is.

[Tycho]

Bullett said:

Running an external HDD will make the loading chug a bit I would imagine, it will probably be fine once loaded though.
The CPU and Memory is probably fine, the GPU is the weak link, you need to tell us what model it is.

You may not be able to run from an external drive depending on the games. I don't think Steam allows external drives. TBH a 256Gb SSD isn't too expensive these days so you may be able to swap the current one out.

[P-Jay]

Bullett said:

Running an external HDD will make the loading chug a bit I would imagine, it will probably be fine once loaded though.
The CPU and Memory is probably fine, the GPU is the weak link, you need to tell us what model it is.

GeForce GT 640M, it's a 'chip' rather than a card.

[CBR JGWRR]

P-Jay said:

Nvidia is a GeForce GT 640m according to it's control panel.

No second HDD sadly.

TBH I'm not looking to run the latest and greatest games, I'm not sure what I want really, used to like Sim City, but I hear the most recent one is a bit complex and well, st.

All the Sim Cities apart from the new one are good though.

[Bullett]

Tycho said:

You may not be able to run from an external drive depending on the games. I don't think Steam allows external drives. TBH a 256Gb SSD isn't too expensive these days so you may be able to swap the current one out.

Would it not just see it as another drive? I run my OS on C and install software to F which is admittedly a 2nd drive in the machine, Steam is fine with that arrangement.

GPU benchmark http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeFo... it's not great but there are a lot worse! Best bet is to try it out.

[Tycho]

Bullett said:

Tycho said:

You may not be able to run from an external drive depending on the games. I don't think Steam allows external drives. TBH a 256Gb SSD isn't too expensive these days so you may be able to swap the current one out.

Would it not just see it as another drive? I run my OS on C and install software to F which is admittedly a 2nd drive in the machine, Steam is fine with that arrangement.

GPU benchmark http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=GeFo... it's not great but there are a lot worse! Best bet is to try it out.

Maybe you can now but when I tried it wouldn't let me. Maybe something to do with transfer rates.