Comments on: Travels Without A GeForce

By: sean

sean — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:04:35 +0000

surely the lesson here is obvious to all PC gamers: don’t use a Mac for gaming. and i speak as an old-school Mac fanboi.

my PC gaming is done exclusively via laptop (and i’m a 40+ hours per week PC gamer; the console gets around 10 hours a week, concurrent with the PC play); the laptop was purchased with game use in mind. it won’t ever play Crysis or Vanguard – but then again, who will? – but it has a dedicated GeForce 7400 with 512MB and a Core2duo, and it suits my needs perfectly. admittedly, battery life is woeful, particularly when i’m playing my current MMO-of-choice, but you can’t have everything.

the larger point of the article, however – that laptop manufacturers skimp on proper video cards, Apple in particular – is valid. when i was purchasing my particular laptop, it took much searching to find one that suited my criteria, and they were only two: xp pre-installed and a half-decent video card.

By: LilBlackDemon

LilBlackDemon — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 02:51:22 +0000

Deus Ex (the original, not IW) should work splendidly. I’m considering bringing my laptop on my commute, and I’m certain DX1 will be perfect.

Also, it doesn’t hurt that the gameplay stands up 5+ years later.

By: Nallen

Nallen — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:51:59 +0000

Eve works well on crappy laptops, if you can sort your net connection out :)

By: Initialised

Initialised — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:52:24 +0000

Windows gaming seems to be split in two, there are the games aimed at high end PCs and those aimed at office type PCs and laptops. Trouble with laptops is that getting decent video means splashing the cash and little chance of upgrading. Hopefully this will change. Modern game engines are pretty good at detecting and setting image quality settings based on system specs. Surely there is a simple algorithm that could dynamically increase or decrease the image quality settings based on the distance from a target framerate. I believe that Giants (beautiful neglected classic btw) and possibly Sacrifice did this to a 30fps target. And finally a top tip for boosting gaming performance is to make a pair of batch files to kill unnecessary apps and services before and restart them after. On XP switching of windows explorer before benching/gaming gives a decent boost.

By: Scandalon

Scandalon — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:59:12 +0000

RE: XP on the macbook. Don’t forget to upgrade the windows video drivers! The ones that come with Bootcamp tend to be older anyway, so go visit http://downloadcenter.intel.com/ and have a looksee for your card. (And double-check your version of Bootcamp is updated too!)

For getting newer games to run on older hardware, don’t forget to find someone that’s already gone through the pain and created a tweak guide! My favorite is/was http://www.tweakguides.com/. (Though he apparently isn’t doing any new ones.)

Matthew – finding the best bang for the buck video card isn’t that difficult, go give ArsTechnica or Tomshardware a looksee at their systemguides… $50-$100 can get you a pretty decent vidcard these days, esp. if you keep an eye out on sites like dealnews or slickdeals. If your machine is older, $30 can make a huge difference. Just be sure you know your budget limit and stick to it, it gets really tempting to spend “just a little bit more”…

By: Matthew Blake

Matthew Blake — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:54:43 +0000

Perfect timing on this article; the last three days I’ve been trying to find a half-decent graphics card for my five-year-old PC. The search was absolutely maddening- what do all of these numbers mean?!- and in the end I just went with a card some Dell Tech Support guy recommended, just so I have someone to blame if it doesn’t run Portal.

To be honest, that Doom 3 pic didn’t look that bad to me- you can tell how long it’s been since I’ve upgraded, and I know I’m not the only one. Even the process of finding a graphics card that works is an absolute nightmare, since I don’t have the latest computer or 500 bucks to blow. I’m fine with okay graphics. You hear that? I don’t need Crysis-level graphics! I really don’t; all I care is that I can play the game. Then I’ll worry about how good the actual game is.

By: DosFreak

DosFreak — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:32:47 +0000

I did some looking into BG&E last night. It looks like right after the install gets done combining a 2gb file in the BG&E directory then the installer errors out and deletes everything.

Most likely the installer errors out and it’s set to delete everything on an error instead of continuing. I tried using my Altiris SVS installed BG&E but Altiris SVS isn’t supported in 64bit Windows.

A also tried copying over BG&E from another install along with some registry entries but it keeps on erroring out with BG&E not being installed…..(I’m using the NOCD patch too BTW)

I’ll have to look into other software virtualization products….preferabbly free. Unfortunately SandboxIE 64bit support stopped with Windows 2003.

It may be possible to use BG&E with Vmware Workstation 6.5. Haven’t tried out the beta though.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:36:08 +0000

When I play Civ IV on my laptop, it maxes out one of the cores which leads to quick battery death. AFAIK I have the latest patches to it, I would love to find that there is a fix for this as it makes long trips go by in a flash as long as the battery lasts.

By: itsallcrap

itsallcrap — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:11:22 +0000

Once you’re into the realms of DOSBox, there are just too many to mention.

Trawl abandonia.com before you start your trip and you’ll be able to fill enough hours to fly to the sun.

By: Talorc

Talorc — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:40:18 +0000

My work laptop has always invariably been some flavour of low end crap with integrated graphics. Woo Hoo 1024×768!!

That hasn’t stop me having fun for ages when away on business trips. My essential laptop gaming list:

Jagged Alliance 2
X-com (dosbox)
Master of Magic
Stronghold crusader
LOTRO (mostly for checking auctions at lunch time :-)

I am sure there has been may more. Integrated graphics are no impediment to a great PC gaming time.

By: Frans Coehoorn

Frans Coehoorn — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:41:39 +0000

Nice list Alec, but… you forgot Warcraft III, one of the best strategy games. Ever. How could you! :P Works like a charm on a laptop (and Mac!). But seriously, when on a (press) trip, go get drunk – you never get bored then! I do it all the time. ;)

By: RichPowers

RichPowers — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:26:22 +0000

Alec, you’ve inspired me to give Doom 3 another try using those settings; I might’ve enjoyed it the first time around had my graphics looked that hilariously awesome.

Doom with Play-doh people? HELL YEAH!