I was considering buying a laptop purely for games, just so I can feed my addiction when I'm away from home and not have to be counting the minutes till I can once agin try solving that slider puzzle or guide a robot through lasers. What laptop spec would be good enough to just play games like still life, voyage, fahrenheit, but not worrying about fps games like quake 4 or doom3? I wanna be able to sit in my car, plug it into the cigarette lighter and kill an hour or two sometimes. My current desktop is athlon XP2000+, 9800pro 128mb and 768mb ram. I have no idea how much of that is used for these type of games. If I spent a minimal amount of money on even a second hand laptop which had 1ghz processor, 256ram, and whatever graphics processor it comes with, will it be good enough? I wouldn't have thought a game like still life or voyage would be overly processor or graphics card intensive? Or maybe they are?

[bysmitty]

Click here and pick the one that best fits your budget. The tricky thing with notebooks is most are very lacking in the graphics department... the most important part of gaming. 3d games like Fahrenheit or dreamfall will likely not run properly on any off the shell dell or HP laptop. I recommend picking one up from the budget gaming boutique like ibuypower.com or cyberpowerinc.com as they design their laptops with gaming in mind. Even the x700 on their cheapest laptops will be strong enough for nearly all games for a while.

Last year I picked up an amd 3700+ laptop that had a 9600 mobility in there from cyberpower.com and even on newer games, it still games pretty well.

Give me a budget to work with and I can let you know what would get you the most bang for your buck.

Something like that 1ghz laptop you mentioned will work okay for certain adventure games. Older 2d games like curse of monkey island or longest journey are more processor heavy than GPU so as long as your laptop meats the min requirments you will be okay. When you start talking 3d adventure games like Broken Sword 4 or even newer 2d adventures, it will not be up to snuff.

...bysmitty

[Terramax]

Those ones should be fine, but think of the more recent or upcoming games like Dreamfall and the likes. Also, unlike a PC you can't upgrade em. I bought a Laptop for quite a serious amount of money and it's doing the job for the games out now, but I know, with AGs getting increasingly more about graphics (unfortunatly) this won't be the case for long. If it's just for games, I'd say stick to a PC.

Thanks for the info guys. Well, my budget is way lower than the cheapest ones at that site. I was thinking more like $600. You can buy laptops here for around that, at least, second hand anyway. I think you're right Terramax about sticking to the pc for gaming, certainly if it's gonna cost me a lot. But for around $600 ( £320) I think that would be worth it. bysmitty, what would be min spec cpu and gpu for still life for it to run smoothly?

[bysmitty]

The recommended specs on the box are 1ghz CPU, 256mb mem, and a 128mb Directx 9 compatiable video card. So basically, still life will run fine on just about any PC that has a geforce fx or higher vid card. Nothing tough there for a desktop but a 128mb of dedicated video memory and a newish GPU on a laptop will cost you. I'm not sure you will find a laptop that packs enough of a wallop for current and future gaming in your price range. On the other hand, if you just want to play some of the older classics then a $600 lappy should handle them fine.

On the desktop end, $600 will get you a descent gaming setup. AMD 3200+ ($150), ATI x1600xt or Nvidia 7600gt ($175), 1gig memory ($75), case ($50), Power supply ($50), 80gig drive ($50), DVD-burner ($50). Plus, cannibalizing your current system for parts for you new rig and eBaying what you don’t need will drastically help you afford more power.

It all depends on how much you want to spend, how mobile you want it to be, and how future proof you want to be.

*edit: as for sitting in your car and killing an hour... I recommend getting a DS. *

...bysmitty

[SirDave]

I play all my AGs on laptops. Just remember that if you buy a laptop in the 1gHz CPU range, there are some games that you won't be able to play eg. Sentinel etc. The minimum CPU power to be able to play pretty much any AG is 1.7gHz.

Also, many games are assuming that the video can handle things like T&L (transform & lighting) capability so stay away from graphic chips such as Intel Extreme Graphics (which is still on some popular Dell Inspirons and some other models).

Originally Posted by bysmitty

The recommended specs on the box are 1ghz CPU, 256mb mem, and a 128mb Directx 9 compatiable video card. So basically, still life will run fine on just about any PC that has a geforce fx or higher vid card. Nothing tough there for a desktop but a 128mb of dedicated video memory and a newish GPU on a laptop will cost you. I'm not sure you will find a laptop that packs enough of a wallop for current and future gaming in your price range. On the other hand, if you just want to play some of the older classics then a $600 lappy should handle them fine.

On the desktop end, $600 will get you a descent gaming setup. AMD 3200+ ($150), ATI x1600xt or Nvidia 7600gt ($175), 1gig memory ($75), case ($50), Power supply ($50), 80gig drive ($50), DVD-burner ($50). Plus, cannibalizing your current system for parts for you new rig and eBaying what you don’t need will drastically help you afford more power.

It all depends on how much you want to spend, how mobile you want it to be, and how future proof you want to be.

*edit: as for sitting in your car and killing an hour... I recommend getting a DS. *

...bysmitty

Cheers for the info. As far as a DS, I would but, aren't they all sort of kiddy action games? I so wish handhelds produced or ported the likes of the games we discuss in this forum. There is one I read about at AG for the DS called 'Another Code'. Any good?

Originally Posted by SirDave

I play all my AGs on laptops. Just remember that if you buy a laptop in the 1gHz CPU range, there are some games that you won't be able to play eg. Sentinel etc. The minimum CPU power to be able to play pretty much any AG is 1.7gHz.

Also, many games are assuming that the video can handle things like T&L (transform & lighting) capability so stay away from graphic chips such as Intel Extreme Graphics (which is still on some popular Dell Inspirons and some other models).

I take your point and it looks like I'll have to buy something with those specs then. Especially after looking at screenshots of sentinel, it looks really, really nice. Is that a good game btw?

[Toefur]

Entry level budget laptops these days will play any adventure game currently out. Can't say much for future ones, even shared video will play pretty much any adventure game.

[Panthera]

DS has a lot of adventuregames, I think it's the handheld that has the most AG's of all, but I'm not sure..

[SirDave]

Originally Posted by Roman5

I take your point and it looks like I'll have to buy something with those specs then. Especially after looking at screenshots of sentinel, it looks really, really nice. Is that a good game btw?

I liked it, but to some extent whether you like it or not depends on your taste. It's more in the 'Myst-like' category and is from the author/developer of Schizm 1&2 so if you like that type of game, you should like Sentinel. BTW, the graphics are beautiful!

Well, I'm currently playing keepsake which I love. However, the logic side of my brain does tend to struggle with some of the puzzles and I'm often finding myself getting ingame hints. What's the difficulty level of sentinel like? If the puzzles are harder or more convoluted than keepsake, then it may be out of my league.