Gaming Laptop

[dtmpower]

I am keen to get rid of my desktop machine and replace it with a Laptop. My current machine doesn't play current games that well xp2000 with a Radeon 9600.

I am trying to see what laptop graphics cards are any good. Is there a good comparison for desktop to laptop graphics , or for example what I would need to run GT Legends smoothly....

Thanks

[thepassenger]

Gaming laptops cost a lot more (comparitivley speaking) than a desktop and as far as laptops to score poor in terms of portability, battery life and stuff. It's better to consider them a "portable workstation that just happens to have a battery in it".
With that said and out of the way.

My Dell XPS M170 (P4-M 2.26Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 80Gb HDD, 256mb Geforce 2 go 6800 Ultra, etc.) is an absolute demon on the games front and it's not the latest one either. And yes, you can turn the coloured lights off

I would advise staying away from ATi's mobile Radeon series though their drivers are not the best in the world and frame rates tend to suffer. Nvidia are pretty much the only serious game in town for portable games machines.

Edited by thepassenger on Friday 4th August 11:14

[dtmpower]

thepassenger said:

Dell XPS M170 here.
GeForce 2 Go 6800 Ultra based (not the uber new 7900 based ones). Very well built and quiet even when going flat out.
Half-Life 2, maximum resolution of the panel (1920 x 1200) all the goodies turned on. 30fps
Battery last about an hour and a half though.

What level of graphics ram does that have ?

[thepassenger]

dtmpower said:

thepassenger said:

Dell XPS M170 here.
GeForce 2 Go 6800 Ultra based (not the uber new 7900 based ones). Very well built and quiet even when going flat out.
Half-Life 2, maximum resolution of the panel (1920 x 1200) all the goodies turned on. 30fps
Battery last about an hour and a half though.

What level of graphics ram does that have ?

256Mb

[dtmpower]

Looking at the costs. I will be able to build a good games dekstop and have a nice (non gaming) laptop for the same cost as a "gaming" laptop......

[thepassenger]

dtmpower said:

Looking at the costs. I will be able to build a good games dekstop and have a nice (non gaming) laptop for the same cost as a "gaming" laptop......

Indeed. That's the downside of them, although having said that because gamers demand so many 'goodies' you end up with a very nice system for practically everything (video/photo editing, 3d rendering, CAD work, etc etc) but utterly overkill if you don't need the horse power every day.

[puggit]

As I posted in a previous gaming thread - www.alienware.co.uk make good game-spec machines.

Not cheap, but you've not posted a budget

[JamieBeeston]

the new Dell Gaming laptop M1710 comes witha 512mb 7900 GeForce.

I;ve only got the 256mb 7900 in this, but it still plays any game 1920x1200x16aa without issue.

17" widescreen is nice too.. although I've noticed the hinges are having a little problem holding the weight of the screen (they have a little play in them now after 9 mths)

7200RPM 100gb Hdd too, 2Gb Ram, DVDrw, more USB than you can shake a stick at, FireWire, InBuilt Wifi and Bluetooth, even a Sub

S'all good

J

[Jinx]

JamieBeeston said:

the new Dell Gaming laptop M1710 comes witha 512mb 7900 GeForce.

I;ve only got the 256mb 7900 in this, but it still plays any game 1920x1200x16aa without issue.

17" widescreen is nice too.. although I've noticed the hinges are having a little problem holding the weight of the screen (they have a little play in them now after 9 mths)

7200RPM 100gb Hdd too, 2Gb Ram, DVDrw, more USB than you can shake a stick at, FireWire, InBuilt Wifi and Bluetooth, even a Sub

S'all good

J

Show off

Shuffles off grumbling that his two year old AMD 64 laptop can only play Quake 4 at 800x600.... mumble mumble

[si_j]

I use a Fujitsu-Siemens M3438G lappy for all my gaming now.
Needed a bit of hacking to get the latest nvidia drivers to run but its fine.
Plus if you look carefully it's also the same as one of the Alienware models - but doesn't come with the silly AW lid and price tag.

[JamieBeeston]

Jinx said:

JamieBeeston said:

the new Dell Gaming laptop M1710 comes witha 512mb 7900 GeForce.

I;ve only got the 256mb 7900 in this, but it still plays any game 1920x1200x16aa without issue.

17" widescreen is nice too.. although I've noticed the hinges are having a little problem holding the weight of the screen (they have a little play in them now after 9 mths)

7200RPM 100gb Hdd too, 2Gb Ram, DVDrw, more USB than you can shake a stick at, FireWire, InBuilt Wifi and Bluetooth, even a Sub

S'all good

J

Show off

Shuffles off grumbling that his two year old AMD 64 laptop can only play Quake 4 at 800x600.... mumble mumble

forgot to mention.

the 1710 is also Dual Core now, for lower power draw / heat generation / higher performance

[thepassenger]

JamieBeeston said:

forgot to mention.

the 1710 is also Dual Core now, for lower power draw / heat generation / higher performance

What you play on it?

[JamieBeeston]

thepassenger said:

JamieBeeston said:

forgot to mention.

the 1710 is also Dual Core now, for lower power draw / heat generation / higher performance

What you play on it?

I've played HL2, HL2 Ep1, FEAR, FarCry, Hitman: Blood Money, Sin Episodes... blah blah random high Gfx FPS games.

[nick heppinstall]

I've just built a very nice machine for a neighbour on a budget :

Nice quality black case
Black duel layer dvd re-writer and floppy drive
1GB PC3200 Ram
Decent Asus MB
500W PSU
250GB Western Digi HD 7200RPM and 16MB cache
ATI X800XL Video card with 256MB PCI-E
Microsoft keyboard and optical mouse
Windows XP home
Athlon 64 3200+

Total cost £477. Runs everything i've thrown at it silky smooth at 1280x1024 with 6xAA and 16x Filtering. All from ebuyer.

[thepassenger]

Very nice rig.
To be fair CPU, RAM and disk grunt is so cheap these days that even a 'mid range' system is more than capable of games, it's all graphics processing for the most part and if your struggling and your games are compatible you can even get an add-in card that'll handle the physics engine math reducing cpu load even further.

I really must investigate desktop computer gaming as my knowledge is pretty out-of-date as to what is avaliable.

[nick heppinstall]

I've just upgraded my rig from an Athlon XP 2800+ that I've had for years. Gone for a decent Asus MB and an Athlon 64 X2 4200+. Only £120 od quid from ebuyer and it flies. Was considering an Intel Core 2 Duo but £ for £ you cant fault the 4200+.

Also picked up an X800XL for £89 as an interim measure. Intend to get myseld a DX10 compatible card when they are available. Last time I looked at the 800Xl they were around £260 !!