Help with laptop please!! much obliged!

Hey all, hope everyone had a merry xmas and a good start to the new year.

Basically, i am getting a laptop/notebook whatever it is we call them at the mo, as i need oen for work mainly, running some pretty demanding programs, autocad and suchlikes... The thing is i want one that is going ot be able to run warcraft 3 on aswell as im partial to a spot of dota in the nighttimes :D

I have been looking all over the internet shops and ebay, and even the higher end of the market seem to not mention graphics cards and the majority just show "Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator" and i dont know what to make of it. Im looking at a sony vaio brand new, intel core duo cpu, plenty of memory, but once more i am faced with "Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 950" How do these 'cards?' deal with such games, i mean obviously warcraft3 isnt exactly troubling for modern day pcs but i just owuld like to hear some of your more experienced points of view. I feel a bit of an idiot posting for help as i am pretty clued up (i use this term loosely) with PC's i use to spend a lot of time in competitive cs up until late where work is taking over. end of rant.

Thanks for reading hope you guys can help me out!

Regards,
Matt P.

What would be your operating budget here? Just to get some idea what ballpark we are playing in here.

erm i guess im looking at spending roughly 500-600 pounds, but not being rude and i do thank you for your feedback, its just i need to see how well these graphics accellerators can cope with some games. Ive been looking at laptops from about 300, to like 1200 quid, im really after a middle of the road laptop!

Thanks again,
Matt P.

Ahh, sorry, getting ahead of myself. I was already trying to look for a "solution" for a problem that I had not yet identified. I have used a laptop with such a card before and found that with a lot of games and cad studio's they can be painful. To that end I was already looking to shop you out a better solution! :D

I must admit though, that personally I can be a bit fussy about performance in games. From that point of view, you can take that the game you mention will run, albeit at a low to jittery FPS.


Personally, if it was myself, I would be looking for a red or green sticker on the box.

The 2D version of autocad runs fine on intels integrated solution on desktops (Intel Extreme Graphics), but I've never tried it on a laptop personally.

As for gaming- pretty much all laptops are poor for gaming, so if this is a priority you may need to rethink if a laptop is what you really need.

In the £500-£600 range, you're not going to find many laptops with decent discrete graphics. If you're serious about gaming on it, I'd be looking for a 7600Go / X1600 Mobility or above.
Intel's integrated graphics are ok for 2D work, but they're not going to be terribly great for any 3D CAD or gaming.

Intel's next line of integrated graphics, the GMA3000 and the X3000 should be slightly better, but a discrete solution is still the way to go if you're serious about these things.

I have found in my laptop the intel graphics are ok, I personally do not know the demands of Warcraft 3 but I can run GTA Vice City at decent Quality and a decent frame rate. Try having a look at notebookreview.com [or something like that] as they have lots of very detailed reviews and you could probably find out what sort of performance the different mobile chips will give you from reviews specific to certain laptops.

Thanks for the help guys, ill check that site out, yeah guys i dont need anything for die hard gaming... i have a pc still.. which i use for games, amd 64 / gf 6800gt / 1gig mem i only play cs and warcraft 3. i wont be playiung any cs on the laptop, literally all its used for is CAD and the odd wc3 game. I have seen an Acer laptop 600 pounds, it has the geforce go7300, has dedicated 128mb memory, im guewssing that will run wc3 fine.

what do u guys think?

mattp.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by figglez

Thanks for the help guys, ill check that site out, yeah guys i dont need anything for die hard gaming... i have a pc still.. which i use for games, amd 64 / gf 6800gt / 1gig mem i only play cs and warcraft 3. i wont be playiung any cs on the laptop, literally all its used for is CAD and the odd wc3 game. I have seen an Acer laptop 600 pounds, it has the geforce go7300, has dedicated 128mb memory, im guewssing that will run wc3 fine.

what do u guys think?

mattp.

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That should do you good. :)

I played quite a bit of CS:S on my sisters VAIO which has a Go 7400 and it played fine at fullres as long as HDR wasnt on lol!!

cheers then people i guess its problem solved! ACER it is!! thanks again i really appreciate the help.

all the best in the new year,

Matt P.

Hey, I'm looking for something along the same lines.

..Any chance you could let me know which acer it was and where you found it?

Many thanks in advance!