Can someone recommend me a good gaming laptop?

Basically, and probably rather ambitiously and hopefully, I'm currently looking for a gaming laptop, one that could play rfactor, and run most if not all of the graphics max whilst still attaining a good framerate.

I am really just looking for specs that I should be looking at when searching eBay etc, but if anyone could suggest a specific laptop then that would be much appreciated also.

Many thanks

Look at Alienware laptops, copy the specs, and go on searching about something reasonable. Or wait until the gurus arrive in this thread.

Ill be the first to say it then..

Laptops arent designed for gaming, even gaming laptops I just really dont see the point.

For the price of a gaming laptop you could get a pc 4 or 5 times quicker.

If your going to be travelling and want to game thats understandable, however I just done see how any reasonable machine can do hardcore gaming on the move.

What is your situation, do you have to travel alot and you want to take games with you?

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weird, i was about to post a similar thread yesterday! I'm after a "gaming" laptop too, however, i need the power to run 3D CAD (namely Solidworks and Unigraphics). I've seen an Acer Aspire 8930G, with 18.4" screen, Core2Duo (2.something GHz) and an Nvidia 9600M graphics chip, and was wondering if it was actually any good, or if it would be like my last acer, where the hard drive keeps catching fire and the screen fell off...

linky:
[www.laptopsdirect.co.uk]

PS, sorry to Gene and Tonic for thread hijack. that laptop may (or may not) be good for you too though!

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2009 06:13PM by harjinator.

Well i'm going to be at uni soon and would like to still play racing games there, and taking a laptop would be a lot more practical.

I say stay away from nvidia mobility cards. The system blocks the install of drivers that aren't from the laptop manufacturer. With mobility ati cards I could install any driver I wanted. And laptop doesn't give an advantage at uni, speaking from experience.

and uni means learning, not gaming

---

used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

n00binio Wrote:
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> and uni means learning, not gaming


That!!!! Trust me my friend learn first play later, I should be graduating this semester but because of my horrible studying habits I have to go the next year to take just two fraking math clasess. It's my fault though I never study or practice the darned formulas. And if you really want to be slacking off do it hanging with friends or even better with as many beautifull ladies as you can, beats gaming every day of the week.

My dad is looking at this computer to replace our old one now. Would it be any good for gaming performance?

# Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 LGA775 Processor
# 250Gb SATA 7200rpm Hard Disk Drive
# 4096Mb (2x 2048Mb Dual Channel) DDR2 800 memory
# PCI Express x16 Graphics Slot
# 1Gb ATi Radeon HD 4650 PCI-Express VGA Card
# Samsung 22x Dual Layer DVD Writer
# 19 Inch Widescreen TFT Monitor
# MicroSoft Windows Vista Home Premium
# Integrated GigaBit Lan Network Card
# Matching Black Keyboard and Mouse
# 6 USB 2.0 Ports

[www.eclipsecomputers.com]

Looks quite good imo, but the thing about the memory is that vista will use ALOT of it to keep itself going and all the little tid-bits it has on it, it also doesn't show the processor specs as in ghz.mhz etc...

With the size of games on the the rise 250GB may not be enough so you may want to think about getting a slave drive for some of the smaller files

---

"Arguing on the internet is like taking part in the Special Olympics...Even if you win you're still retarded"

The weakest point of that system, gaming wise, is the graphics card. That said, it's a good value card, far better than most of the more budget options. It'll be adequate for most modern games, but you won't be pushing the highest graphics settings much - certainly not at a decent resolution anyway. 'Sufficient for most' I think best describes it.

There is a new card, the HD 4770, which is a great budget card choice now - faster than the HD 4850 in many cases. It and the good 'ol 9800GT can be had for £75-85 now. Perhaps see if you can get one of those in there if you can.

I'd normally argue against custom builds from such companies, and they'll just chuck in the cheapest parts they can lay their hands on (read: PSU), but I can't be bothered. :P

Push for a bigger monitor if you can too. A cheap 20" or 22" doesn't cost much more than an equivalent quality 19" now, and the resolution difference is not insignificant (1440x900 vs 1680x1050).


Naboo Wrote:
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> Looks quite good imo, but the thing about the
> memory is that vista will use ALOT of it to keep
> itself going and all the little tid-bits it has on
> it, it also doesn't show the processor specs as in
> ghz.mhz etc...

LOL, 4GB is by far more than enough 99% of the time.

Vista loves RAM, yes, but depending on how you use the OS, it's much faster than XP with 3GB or more due to SuperFetch. I've got 8gb on my system here at work, and according to Task Manager I have 37mb free right now, apparently. No point letting that RAM sit doing nothing now, is there?

A mature Vista install (a month or 2 old) is an excellent OS - far more usable and responsive than XP. If you need a bit more zip, turn off Windows Defender - it's the main hard drive hog. Indexing is a hog too of course, but it stops the moment more than token hard drive access is required.

n00binio Wrote:
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> and uni means learning, not gaming


Very wrong indeed.
Im in my second year studying CS, so perhaps it's a bit different.

Our student house of 5 people has 4 xbox's and 3 gaming desktops. There is lots of fun to be had gaming at uni, aswell as socialising of course, okay the gaming has to have quite a cutback but there's no need to cut it out completely atall!

And btw, we are all doing very well grade wise, so there's no argument there

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If 4gb is enough then 8gb might be pushing it a bit. Plus this thing about indexing, I want to speed up my laptop but i dont want to do the indexing thing wrong and %@#$ up my OS.

EDIT: Do you read PC Format by any chance?

---

"Arguing on the internet is like taking part in the Special Olympics...Even if you win you're still retarded"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/2009 12:06PM by Naboo.

Naboo Wrote:
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> If 4gb is enough then 8gb might be pushing it a
> bit. Plus this thing about indexing, I want to
> speed up my laptop but i dont want to do the
> indexing thing wrong and %@#$ up my OS.
>
> EDIT: Do you read PC Format by any chance?


Who was the last question directed at?

Anyway, You will not need 8gb of RAM, that is serious overkill for a general gaming machine at the moment.
Disabling indexing wont scre your OS up attall, all it will do it make the time you are waiting for when you search for files using longer. Indexing builds up a "catalogue" (the Index) of what files are where on your hard drive, but of course to do this windows neess to lok through all the files and folders on you're indexed drives to build the index in the first place.

What would be a good idea is to go into the Indexing options (enter "Index" in vistas start menu search and "Indexing Options" will appear. From this dialogue you can tell windows which types of file you want to index by specifiying the file extensions that you want to include inside the index. Myself, I very rarely use the search functionality anyway, but when i do it's normally for files that are either documents (like .doc, .docx, .pdf), spreadsheetes (.xls,xlsx or you're open office equivilents), pimages (.bmp,.jpg,png,psp,.psd mostly), and archives (.zip,.rar) and possibly music and videos too (.wmv,.avi,.mp3,.m4a,mv4,.mpg,.mpeg,.mkv) You could include applications too which may be sensible and keep you start menu search speed nice and zippy when you are esearching for programs.
Also, in vistas start menu settings you can specify whether you search for files as well as programs, or just programs (under the start menu tab->Customise). You can also choose if you want to search just your users docs or the entire index (which will obviously be slower), so if you rarely search for documents from the start menu, then disable searching for documents here, else make a choice between searching you're own files or the enitre index.)

It all depends on how you use your machine, and finding a nice balance between search speed, and general system perforamnce with reduced indexing, with how long you can wait for the search results. Most people will probably prefer a slightly quicker system overall and wait a few seconds longer when searching, but thats not for everyone.

And as gav said, Vistas indexing is pretty good anywya, even at the default settings, and if you start using you're machine it will calm down and pause the indexing process.

Hope this helps a bit,
Thanks.

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Naboo Wrote:
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> If 4gb is enough then 8gb might be pushing it a
> bit.

I explained why I had 8gb. Read up on SuperFetch. Caching isn't using RAM so much as not wasting it. Most things that I do won't result


Naboo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Plus this thing about indexing, I want to
> speed up my laptop but i dont want to do the
> indexing thing wrong and %@#$ up my OS.

If you're worried then just leave it. It's there for a reason - to speed up your file searches. But it only uses the hard drive to index the files when the drive is idle.


Naboo Wrote:
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> EDIT: Do you read PC Format by any chance?

LOL, no.

How about a MacBook Pro? I can quite happily run HL2 on full settings on mine...

*ducks*

ok I'll just leave it. I read up on superfetch and if it loads up most common programs my pc will start and go straight on to games

---

"Arguing on the internet is like taking part in the Special Olympics...Even if you win you're still retarded"

Willb schrieb:
-------------------------------------------------------
> n00binio Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > and uni means learning, not gaming
>
>
> Very wrong indeed.
> Im in my second year studying CS, so perhaps it's
> a bit different.
>
> Our student house of 5 people has 4 xbox's and 3
> gaming desktops. There is lots of fun to be had
> gaming at uni, aswell as socialising of course,
> okay the gaming has to have quite a cutback but
> there's no need to cut it out completely atall!
>
> And btw, we are all doing very well grade wise, so
> there's no argument there

hmm i already heard of cs students playing "worms" during lectures

you don't need to cut it out completely but you should know which things have to be done first. and my personal experience after almost 2 years of studying physics is that there's little time left for gaming when you have done the important things.

---

used to be GPGSL's Nick Heidfeld

Zcott Wrote:
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> How about a MacBook Pro? I can quite happily run
> HL2 on full settings on mine...
>
> *ducks*

I've no real issues with MacBooks, not now you can put XP or Vista (and presumably W7) on there and have the best of both worlds.

Not sure a half decent one will fit into his price bracket though.

n00binio Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Willb schrieb:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > n00binio Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------

> hmm i already heard of cs students playing "worms"
> during lectures

Omg, it's like you've been spying on me!!

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