Curse

Jumping Is Uselss · Aug 06, 2007, 03:15 PM // 15:15

Hello, im not much of a computer person can someone tell me what's the difference between a "home & home office" laptop and "small business" laptop. Because the laptop I want is a Vostro 1500 and its a "small business". Is it possible to run GW with these specs

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7100 (1.8GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)

OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Home

LCD PANEL 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA LCD Display with TrueLife™

MEMORY 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 DIMM

HARD DRIVE 160G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

OPTICAL DRIVE 8X CD/DVD Burner w/ double-layer DVD+R write capability

VIDEO CARD 128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS

WI-FI WIRELESS CARD Dell Wireless 1490 802.11a/g Wi-Fi Mini Card

SOUND OPTION High Definition Audio 2.0

Final question is it better to get Vistas, XP, or Linux; I keep hearing XP and Linux are better for gaming.

Etta · Aug 06, 2007, 03:40 PM // 15:40

Well I guess the different between them would be the speed of the cpu, memory, HD size, graphic card and other garget like dvd burner and such. Basically they're just code names so people would pick them out easily. The spec of that "small business" is fine and more than enough to run GW at a high setting and good resolution.

G-force 8400M GS is a good card for laptop. Overall a very good spec for laptop. On the other hand keep an eye out for the heat. And I wonder how heavy is it gonna be?

As for the OS, get Vista if you wish, there's GW Vista thread here as well so check that out first. I'm still on XP pro atm because of a certain config on my pc work better on XP than Vista. GW run just fine on Vista as well as XP.

Yanman.be · Aug 06, 2007, 04:17 PM // 16:17

Linux doesn't run GW that well. Better use Vista then. Or XP to be sure of anything.

iridescentfyre · Aug 06, 2007, 05:13 PM // 17:13

I've run GW on Vista and XP. It runs fine on Vista but there was a definite boost in framerate when I went back to XP. If you're relying on your laptop to run games the best they can be run, XP is still the better choice. Vista works fine though for most people.

When you see them call a PC "Home" vs. "Small Business" vs. "Media Center" vs. whatever else, all that means is that the "Home" model is the base, and the others just have extra power in one area or another. There's no such thing as a computer that can do one specific thing (i.e. business tasks) and nothing else.

Malice Black · Aug 06, 2007, 11:42 PM // 23:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Etta

Well I guess the different between them would be the speed of the cpu, memory, HD size, graphic card and other garget like dvd burner and such. Basically they're just code names so people would pick them out easily. The spec of that "small business" is fine and more than enough to run GW at a high setting and good resolution.

G-force 8400M GS is a good card for laptop. Overall a very good spec for laptop. On the other hand keep an eye out for the heat. And I wonder how heavy is it gonna be?

As for the OS, get Vista if you wish, there's GW Vista thread here as well so check that out first. I'm still on XP pro atm because of a certain config on my pc work better on XP than Vista. GW run just fine on Vista as well as XP.

The 8400 sucks and badly at that. The minimum you should get if you plan on keeping and gaming on the laptop is a 7600. The 7600 is a mid range card and even though it's starting to look dated now it still beats the hell out of the mid range 88xx series cards and will still run GW on max settings.

The only 88xx card for laptops that is worth buying will be the 8800m which should bedue out Q4 this year.

I run GW on my laptop, but mine was built for playing games.

However, need a price range to work with...

I've been a member here since I got my laptop http://www.notebookreview.com/ good group of people, will answer any question you have. Very knowledgeable as well.

Silph · Aug 08, 2007, 11:07 PM // 23:07

if your looking for top preformance for gaming AND mobility, look at "desktop replacement" computers. its basically an oversized laptop. bit heavier, but has better specs than a tiny lil laptop IMHO

Dex · Aug 08, 2007, 11:39 PM // 23:39

When you're looking at nVidia GPUs look at the second number instead of the first. If the second number is below "6" then you're looking at a GPU that is NOT made for gaming. The 6600 and 7600 both have more power under the hood than the 8400. The first number tells you which series the GPU is from, which can tell you a lot about the GPU features and shader support, but only a little about speed. I mean the 7800 is faster than the 6800, and the 8800 is faster than the 7800, but the 8400 is slower than the 6600.

akatookey · Aug 09, 2007, 01:14 AM // 01:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dex

When you're looking at nVidia GPUs look at the second number instead of the first. If the second number is below "6" then you're looking at a GPU that is NOT made for gaming. The 6600 and 7600 both have more power under the hood than the 8400. The first number tells you which series the GPU is from, which can tell you a lot about the GPU features and shader support, but only a little about speed. I mean the 7800 is faster than the 6800, and the 8800 is faster than the 7800, but the 8400 is slower than the 6600.

QFT

the reason things are billed as "small business", is because that's usually their purpose. Find a laptop with a 7800+ or wait for the 8800m to come out. You'll get bad frames with anything less. Also don't use vista, its a performance hog and I find it to be harder to deal with than XP pro.