Curse

Sluggs · Feb 15, 2006, 02:52 AM // 02:52

Im looking into buying a new laptop, and after looking around, I found a Sony Vaio laptop that im interested in:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1134702110773

Everything looks good on it, but the one thing that worries me as far as gaming is the vid card. Ive read, and somehwat expierenced that the Intel cards arent great for games, but im curious as to how the GMA 950 would run Guild Wars. Any other recommendations would be welcome.

Narada · Feb 15, 2006, 03:43 AM // 03:43

I found a review here, but I took an excerpt of what's probably the most important for you:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vince Freeman, Sharky Extreme

Where things changed drastically is in the area of high-end 3D games, especially as the GMA 950 core is not even a mainstream 3D gaming solution, and is designed to support the Longhorn operating system and its base 3D requirements. Since many of the game benchmark results were so low, and others games like Half-Life 2 and Halo refused to run due to video requirements, there was really no reason to include these scores in the benchmark section.

Older games like Quake 3 (140+ fps) and UT 2003 (100+ fps) ran very well, and we even played a few rounds of each with no framerate issues. But once we moved to newer games like DOOM 3 (9 fps) and FarCry (11 fps), this brought the GMA 950 to its knees and real-world gameplay was not remotely in the playability range. This is still not a bad solution for general PC gaming, as long as you stay away from the cutting edge, fast action games.

Sluggs · Feb 15, 2006, 04:19 AM // 04:19

Yea, I read that article. One of my problems is that my new laptop is coming from Best Buy credit I got off of a defective laptop, and most of the laptops they are selling these days have the intel graphics unless I go up to the bigger 17 inch versons. I did happen to find this though

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1134699629328

My only concern there is that my last laptop was an HP and I had all sorts of trouble with it. Any comments?

Pharoke · Feb 15, 2006, 05:57 AM // 05:57

See if you can get a new Sony BX through best buy with the X700. THat will run GW perfectly.

Lerxst_of_Syrinx · Feb 15, 2006, 06:01 AM // 06:01

Do you have any idea what you can get from Dell with that much money?

I bought a 17" Inspiron 9300 notebook with a GeForce 6800 Go for $1600. And I've heard of people that watch for the coupons who got 'em for MUCH less.

And I absolutely LOVE my laptop! Widescreen GW at its best!

Sluggs · Feb 15, 2006, 06:26 AM // 06:26

Like I said though, im working off of Best Buy credit, so my options are somewhat limited.

Old Dood · Feb 15, 2006, 12:19 PM // 12:19

The Sony laptops seem over price to me. Toshiba has good deals if you look for the close out model year. Dell has some good deals..however, I have read complaints on the shoddyness of the cases.

Uzul · Feb 15, 2006, 04:05 PM // 16:05

about the grafics chip: a mobility 9700 (based on the 9600chip) will run gw in high details...
agp-solutions are cheaper and produce less heat / eat up less battery.

also take a look at the displays - if possible get one with high resolution, your eyes will thank you... (and you can see way more in gw)
some sony displays have this gloss-finish: if there is a bit of bright light you will hardly see a thing due to reflections.

my asus was 1300euro last summer - and i got 2ghz pentium m, 1gig ram, radeon 9700mobility, 1400x1280 display, dvd burner, 80gig hd, infrared, wlan, etc...

like others already said: dont blow 1600 bucks on that vaio, not worth it. you can get more for less...

(since i am living in europe i am not familiar with your shops)

rollntider · Feb 15, 2006, 07:32 PM // 19:32

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1130986703579

I bought the one similar to this one last week they had on sale for 449. The main difference between the 2 laptops was the one I have doesnt have the widescreen and has a 40 gig hard drive. I added a 512 stick of ram and now I can play GW no problem. The ati 200m plays games fine. I have tried other games Dungeon siege 2 and it plays fine also. Just an FYI in case you were curious. I recommend getting one with an ATI or geforce card, saty away from the SIS mirage 2 and the intel graphics, I heard they struggle with games.