Gaming on a LaptopNovember 30th, 2007 by Monique
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I recently upgraded computers. As a college student, a laptop made the most sense; as much as I would like an amped out desktop system, going balls to the wall with the latest card and processor, I needed something portable. I needed something light.
But I’m also a gamer, so I couldn’t get an Apple. I didn’t feel like having to tweak my system and manipulate it simply to run Counter-strike, or Hellgate: London.
I also didn’t want to waste my money. My last laptop got fried by World of Warcraft. It was a Toshiba, with an ATI video card and 1GB of ram. It didn’t like Blackwing Lair’s suppression rooms with all those goddamn whelps and it really fucking hated Saphiron’s blizzard effect. It averaged 10 FPS on some encounters, sometimes peaked at 20 in battlegrounds with settings on low, and completely froze for several minutes while loading populated cities like Ironforge. When I quit WoW last year, around this time, I retired my laptop as well. It had gotten so bad that the keys were melting into the frame, and it was turning off every 20 minutes unless it had a fan. Its warranty was also expired.
I recently turned twenty-one (oops should update my bio!), and was offered a laptop as a birthday present. I decided this time, I was going to research ahead. I ended up with a Dell. 2GB of Ram, a 2.4ghz Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor, and an Nvidia Geforce GeForce®8700MGT make up the system. It’s not the best system, and there are a million desktops that blow it out of the water, but I’m incredibly pleased with it for the following reasons:
1. I logged into Shattrath and had 75 FPS with every setting maxed out. On my 512MB of Ram desktop, I was averaging 5-10 FPS maximum in 800×600 mode—more often than not 1 for several minutes, then up to 5, when it had finally rendered its pixels. For once, I could see the Draenei firing squad and the mass amounts of people at the arena master. I could do Night Elf backflips around, flipping in and out of flight form, without my pc even stuttering. Furthermore? I could do all this and browse the internet, have ventrilo open, and AIM at the same time! It was so sweet it brought a tear to my eye. My DPS Warrior commented in an EotS later that my NS heal actually went off before he died. “Yes,” I said, “it appears it did.”
2. I can finally play Oblivion. My old laptop, although not very old and made in 2005, couldn’t run Oblivion. It hated Oblivion. It would install it, get to the character select screen, allow me to make a beautiful character—and then be unable to render the textures, and eventually crash because of the water.
3. I’m back to living in coffee shops. I used to play Starcraft over coffee, or design layouts while eating breakfast, and now I can do that again–I can multitask! (This also means there should be a new layout for Girls Don’t Game, time permitting.)
4. Too lazy to get out of bed? Just game in bed. Stuck in a boring class? Do a Warsong Gulch. I’ve installed Final Fantasy VII for the PC and I plan on replaying it during class next week.
5. Finally being able to say, “Dude, I got a Dell.” Years too late for the joke to be funny, but I’ll still say it.
6. If my house is on fire, I’m now 20% less likely to burn alive. I can take my cat in one arm and my laptop in the other—there will be no frantic disassembly of my desktop as the fires creep up on me.
Currently, a day into my ownership, I’m a happy girl. I got a 3 year protection warranty in case it begins to overheat, or in case I didn’t like the color case I chose and need to find a sledge hammer. But so far, playing World of Warcraft is like playing a new game and Adobe Photoshop is seamless. I can’t wait to test this baby out more and install HG:L onto it—this weekend is gonna be fun!
So tell me, what’s your FPS like in your most popular video game? Have you given up on PC gaming for console? What’s your dream laptop and/or system?
November 30th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Dell warranty doesn’t apply when a computer appears to have hammer dents (there really is a provision in there somewhere for this).
I’m really happy you got your laptop. It sounds pretty darn hot!
November 30th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
My first PC was a Dell. It always worked well enough. Of course, I traded that in for a mac a few years ago, and sometime next week I’m getting a brand-spanking new macbook with Leopard. Be still mine heart.
One of the plusses of my job was they gave me a new PC so I could play the games I was meant to be promoting
Also a Dell - a lovely machine, that makes WoW look beautiful. Unfortunately, Vista is a pain in the £$@!% ass. It won’t let me install C&C Generals, amongst other things. It has meant, however, that I have access to a whole bunch of games I didn’t before - including my precious collection of Monkey Islands. This I forgive it its occasional eccentricities.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
I recently bought a new desktop comp to be able to play raids in WoW, but the whole thing kind of failed… I should have never ever bought a HP package comp.
It came with Vista which didn’t work at all and I had to reinstall the whole crap. It’s been 6 weeks now and I still haven’t received the recovery CDs I ordered and paid for. So yeah, I guess I had to learn that the hard way. Dells aren’t available in the stores near me, although people keep saying good things about them.
Anyway, it has XP now. The FPS isn’t as good as I hoped for though, but it’s going around 15-20 in Mount Hyjal AOE and around 30-40 in Shattrath which is enough for me. My last computer, I was constantly playing with 2-5 FPS which eventually didn’t work out at all at Archimonde. This comp has 3GB memory which made me think it should run things faster, but I’m guessing the gfx card, NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT, is what’s failing. I don’t know, I’ve never been very computer savvy and don’t know what’s good and what’s not, hence why I wanted a ready made computer. But yeah, I had the worst possible experience with HP when getting this computer. It has randomly started overheating recently as well and I don’t know what to do if I have to take it to warranty repair. /sadface Here’s a link to the comp’s specs so you know what to avoid. (Hopefully this doesn’t break your site.) http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?docname=c01113067&cc=uk&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_UKEN
I used to want a Macbook so bad, since I’m a console kid at heart and WoW is really the only PC game I play… But I couldn’t afford a good enough laptop system from Apple, so I ended up with that HP desktop.
I wish Apple made stuff that was a little bit more cheaper, being a student getting such stuff is a pain in the ass… I still worship my iPod since I know if it breaks or I lose it I’m going to cry because it took me ages to save up for it.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
I have the same card and it’s being awesome, but it sounds like we have very similar specs. I’m thinking perhaps your processor is bad, but again, I am not a computer nerd so I have no idea. But my card definitely seems to be one of th etop mobile ones. I always heard bad things about HP and Toshiba and Sony–of course, only bad about Toshiba AFTER I purchased one.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Selphie - could you not afford an apple even with your student discount? The only reason I could afford my first was because they knocked something like a third off the price.
Sucks about the HP computer. I had a HP printer that was fantastic, but Dell do seem to make the easiest PC systems to deal with, if you’re not prepared to build from scratch.
December 7th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Glad to see you got a new laptop. I really like the Dell XPS systems. They seem like a solid gaming/work system. I’m currently running a Acer Aspire, but I didn’t buy it for gaming. Though right now I am stuck playing WoW on it, because my desktop’s motherboard decided to die after only a year of having it (Hopefully the replacement will be more reliable.
I kind of miss my desktop already. It was a pretty killer setup. I hardly ever went under 60 fps in WoW, and I had v-sync on (which put a cap of 60 fps due to the monitors’ refresh rate, otherwise it would have peaked a lot higher).
January 9th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Grats on the laptop, that is awesome.
January 13th, 2008 at 3:36 am
Thanks everyone :]
January 19th, 2008 at 10:25 am
heh I have a cutomized desk top and I actually have the same lap top you have and yes I agree it is amazing sitting in class and hearin ga boring lecture just whip it open and do some WSG or EOTS during class…(just have to be careful about screming when you cant get to the person at 2% because some hunter is shooting you in the ass!!)
January 20th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
AFK stealing your laptop lol