Anyone got experience with new laptops/ gfx cards?

[Heavyporker]

I'm thinking of buying a Gateway MX6421 with AMD Turion 64. It's got integrated wireless, a little low on RAM, but the main thing is it has ati radeon X3000 graphics.


Anyone got experience with that card? is it any good?

Normally, I'd go straight for a strong desktop, but lately, I've been thinking, and I just *may* go with a laptop if it's pretty decent. Money has been getting better lately, and I'd probably be able to wing a $900 computer ( INCLUDING tax, of course).

Otherwise, I may go with the previously mentioned gaming computer systems from an old thread.

[Brammers]

You mean a X300? - http://www.ati.com/products/MobilityRadeonx300/index.html

Looking at the ATI website, that one is listed at the bottom of the list of Mobile Graphics cards, that may indicate that it's the slowest one out there.

Where is this thread for your Desktop PC?

[Nidhogg]

Don't know about that particular one. This laptop has an ATI Mobility FireGL T2 (http://www.ati.com/products/Mobilityfglt2/index.html) which works just fine. There's no reason why you can't get acceptable games performance from a laptop these days.

N

[Heavyporker]

Yeah, that x300, I guess. I looked at that link, and that frightens me... it's 5th place on that list.

Anyways, Nid -

Well, this laptop I'm on right now is 5 years old. I'm amazed and very glad it still works so well, but I've been burned by several issues with this laptop - overheating that was pretty damn severe (actually killed it once, had to send it back [very luckily, still under warranty), lower than expected specs (was SUPPOSED to be 256 mb ram, but it's sometihng lame like 232 mb or something. Really ticked me off because I couldn't run anything that specifically checks for 256+ mb ram.) I could, though, and did play some graphics-heavy games like the first two Myst games, syberia, among others. This did decently, so, yeah, actually RUNNING the games on a new laptop doesn't concern me. Your qualifer: "acceptable" games performance - is what I'm concerned about.
This is Neocron we're talking about. It is pretty much the major reason I'm even thinking about getting a new computer. There aren't many games out there that I actively pursue. Sure, there are other things that I want from a new laptop, but Neocron is the big ticket here, and it has been absolutely wonky. I mean, hell, the desktop I was on is less than a year old, new AMD 64 chip and 128mb radeon ati card, and it had problems with Neocron. If I'm going to be tripping on fatals every 30 minutes on this new laptop, that's just shit, pardon my french.

Also, doesn't wireless have significant latency issues? Since I don't PvP (very much, but I did when I was in NC), it's not a big issue, but I was wondering, can I even PvE in Neocron, with wireless, if I so choose. Let's say I'm up against 5 giant raptors on a PSI-capped apu. Normally, on a land line and with cover, I'm pretty sure I can handle them. However, on wireless.... I'm concerned.

[suler]

I wouldn't worry about wireless hurting your nc connection, you already have to be getting 200-300 ping.

[Nidhogg]

Yeah, bear in mind that your bottleneck isn't going to be an 11Mb wireless connection when you consider the size of your internet pipe. ;)

N

[RusSki]

Surely wireless will be faster than his net connection so that wont matter.
It never has on our wireless network connection, even back in the darkages of wireless B.



edit : god damn, pipped to the post :)

[zii]

I'm taking delivery of a Sony Vaio SZ next week, if Sony actaully ship it on time, so will be able to see if its good for NC, which it ought to be. This has an NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7400 and an Intel Core Duo inside it.

I have tested NC on the Intel 945 chipset with the integrated GMA 900 gfx cards, and they will play NC but you get FPS jumps between 10 and 60FPS in the launcher cylops bunker outside the miltary base. Forget it for PVP. I tested it on a Sony TX and an IBM Thinkpad x41 with 512mb and 1gb respectivly. Screen size was 640x480 window mode.

I have only used wireless for NC. Latency is not an issue and nor is bandwidth as meantioned earlier by Nid. NC plays fine over a low bandwidth connection, like ISDN. Its the latency that matters, which is seldom a problem over wifi.

[Nidhogg]

I just tested my laptop graphics card at MB bunker and I get a steady 60 to 70 FPS (which is pretty magical considering my last laptop wouldn't run the game at all.)

Also, latency shouldn't be a problem unless you're playing over satellite. That's high bandwidth but abominable latency.

N