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Games Entertainment

Mobile vs. Desktop Gaming 182

Posted by michael from the don't-hold-it-in-your-lap dept.
Mr.Tweak writes "TweakTown has just posted an article investigating Mobile vs. Desktop gaming in their latest article entitled "New Age Computer Gaming - Mobile vs. Desktop Investigation". The article compares a Dell Inspiron 8200 with ATI Mobility 9000 graphics to a standard desktop system with nVidia GeForce4 Ti4200 graphics. Can notebook gaming really be taken seriously? We think so, and so should you!"
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Mobile vs. Desktop Gaming More

Mobile vs. Desktop Gaming

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  • Why a Dell Inspiron? Wouldnt they be better off with something more targeted towards gamers, such as the Alienware 51m Laptop [grnetwork.com]?

    • Re:Hardware choice.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tanveer1979 ( 530624 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @05:26AM (#4737881) Homepage Journal
      hmm.. most of the laptop sales are directed towards business users. I doubt a laptop geared for gaming will sell that much. So in a way the test is good. Take a mainstream laptop, the kind most people will buy and then see wether it performs. Moreover many people get laptops on a temporary basis from the place they work, now a company will by the latest dell, but wont buy a laptop for gaming, right?

    • Re:Hardware choice.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by avij ( 105924 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @06:50AM (#4737996) Homepage
      Why a Dell Inspiron?
      Because they seem to have a deal with Dell. From the last page:
      Dell Small Business department has 10% off all Notebook computers until the 26th of November through our TweakTown Deals section. If you choose to buy a new computer system from Dell, click this link, and you'll be supporting TweakTown!
    • Probably because the Alienware 51m laptop only has a Radeon 7500?

      Personally I can't wait till I finally get my Powerbook early next week with its Radeon 9000 :)

    • The Dell Ultrasharp display rules! It is fast
      and it looks gorgeous! (It also sucks a lot of power :) And yes, I play some of my 3D games at that resolution.

    • TweakTown = Dell promoter (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward


      Why a Dell Inspiron?

      The reason is simple: Dell has paid TweakTown to advertise on their site. TweakTown needs a boost in traffic to justify to Dell the ad spend so they can say 'See, Mr. Dell, we have lots of unique visitors so its a good idea to continue to advertise with us.' Thats why you should NOT click thru the link and help artificially boost his traffic numbers.

      There is a kick-back going to 'Mr.Tweak' for every Dell sold thru the TweakTown site:
      click this link, and you'll be supporting TweakTown! .

      How much 'investigating Mobile vs. Desktop' do you honestly think went on?

      This is the worst kind of whoring (karma-whoring or otherwise) I've ever seen here. And no this is not a troll - its very much a commentary on the problem of having self-proclaimed experts publish their supposedly objective 'investigations' and 'reviews' without clearly stating their obvious conflict of interest from the start.

      As many have pointed out below this really isnt an issue. Mobile hardware specs are always going to lag behind desktops and game developers have a tendency to create their best games for the high end (e.g. Unreal Tournament 2003), which means that laptops won't always be able to run the latest games. I'm surprised MrTweak/MrDellSalesman didnt call his Dell infomercial
      'Dude! Youre getting a Dell!'

    • Alienware's 51m is located Here [alienware.com]
      It comes with the Radeon 9000 pro standard now, and optionally you can get the new P-4 3.06 GHz With HyperThreading.
      Hyperthreading is worth it, and this laptop is ideal not just for gamers, but since adobe runs faster on a P-4 with H/T eanabled (see the Tom's video [tomshardware.com] for proof -- 3.06 H/T enabled beats a 3.6 noticably and visually in how long it takes for software to get back to you so you can actually start editing that video/image etc)
      I'm really glad to see the Gamer's PC vendors getting into the notebook market seriously though. It's about time serious PC users could get a laptop with Today's cutting edge technology, instead of last years technology from places like dell.

  • Mobile gaming? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by eggstasy ( 458692 )
    Uh-huh. Wake me up when your sissy laptops can provide the same gaming experience as a 21 inch CRT and 5.1 surround speakers...

  • There is one main problem with mobile gaming (Score:4, Insightful)

    by packeteer ( 566398 ) <packeteer@@@subdimension...com> on Saturday November 23, 2002 @05:11AM (#4737855)
    The biggest problem of mobile gaming is there is mainly one game in town, the radeon 9000. The gf4go is not bad but its not the best either. Mobile has caught up enough but its going to take a while for people to think of laptops as gaming machines.
    • That's certainly an issue at the moment - as is the deficiencies of LCDs in comparison to CRTs. Not just in size, but smoothness of the display and the ability to change resolutions/refresh rates if that becomes an issue in future games, or simply suits you better as a gamer.

      However, getting a laptop to work stunningly as a gaming machine requires several things to improve - graphics cards, displays, battery life... perhaps even keyboard quality/changes depending on the game. Nothing like that will happen all at once, hopefully this is just one step closer.

    • Re:There is one main problem with mobile gaming (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, the latest PB G4 has 64MB DDR Radeon 9000 (on the 1GHz model)

      http://www.apple.com/powerbook/specs.html
      • Yeah, but though I'm an Apple user, Apples are still not a great solution for gamers. This kind of thing in the laptop is probably more for the 3-D development end that Apple likes (Maya, for instance). Getting game companies to develop for Apple can only help Apple, though, so a top-of-the-line mobile graphics chip is doubly important.

        As a Powerbook (g4) owner, though, I have to agree with the person who said that the LCD is a larger issue than the chip. LCDs (at least on laptops) are not optimal for gaming, yet.

  • power consumption (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Of course power is going to be the signigicant factor in mobile gaming. With the newest generation of video cards pushing the limits [yahoo.com] of even 300 watt power supplies, there's no way the meager 30 to 40 watts of today's high end mobile systems could be ample to power anything even remotely competitive.

    • Re:power consumption (Score:3, Informative)

      by dago ( 25724 )
      today's high end mobile systems (or not so high-end) pump up 90 W, or at least this inspiron does .
    • This is a goatse.cx redirect, with a url long enough you have to copy/paste to notice it.
      second of all, it's not even right.
      ATI has focused on keeping power consumption low, to reduce the problem with heat dissipation. True, Nvidia is throwing out blast furnace cards that Require an air-intake... but ATI is managing to keep ahead of nvidia, while still sticking to low form factor heatsinkfans instead of 5 lbs monster copper heatsinks that could easily snap the AGP port right off the motherboard, if transported installed.

  • seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tanveer1979 ( 530624 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @05:12AM (#4737858) Homepage Journal
    Well not yet, but when WLAN picks up is would be nice. Imaging waiting for a flight, you scan and find 3 other people running a QUAKE3 on WLAN, and join in.

    But only one problem battery. Yea unless we have long battery lives this wont really do. Most laptop owners will use it for gaming when they have spare battery life. So if we have 20 hour battery backup, which dosent burn you [cnn.com] then maybe yes!

  • 1984 anyone ? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Virus1984 ( 624552 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @05:15AM (#4737862) Homepage Journal
    Can notebook gaming really be taken seriously? We think so, and so should you!

    Now this is freedom of thought.
  • with power consumption going up on these video cards, watch out for hot laptops: they might burn you [yahoo.com].

  • ummmmm (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    fix ghosting on LCD's and I'll ditch my CRT. Make the labtop keyboard bigger, and I'll ditch my keyboard+CPU....wait....then all I have is a small form factor desktop w/ a built in monitor...hmmmmm

  • Doom III (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jericho4.0 ( 565125 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @05:23AM (#4737876)
    I don't want to sound too preachy here, but TweakTown shows some poor judgment in useing the leaked Doom III Alpha as a test subject.

    We all know that ID didn't want it out because they don't want people to judge the final product on it. I also belive that most people who would download and install it are big fans, and be quite aware that it wasn't representitive of the final product. But when TweakTown publishes frame rates, without even an attempt at a dislaimer, they're not doing anyone any favours.

    • Re:Doom III (Score:3, Interesting)

      by timeOday ( 582209 )
      I totally disagree. Performance on Doom III *ought* to be the #1 criteria for any gamer buying hardware, it's going to set the new standard and a lot of games will be based on that engine.

      There is the argument that the leak's performance is not representative of the final product. This is somewhat valid, but then again developers always use this response to performance complaints about demos, and how often are the released games *that* much different?

      • i have to disagree with you.. doom 3 alpha was leaked way too soon.. They had extra code to help with debugging, very few, if any, hardware optimization. This game does not provide the standard. It merely helps win a penis contest. ID never planned for anyone to play this because it wasn't even close to ready as far as optimized. Yes, it shows the nice graphics, but as far as framerates.. That is a bad comparison. but I could see them running this demo on there just to show the kind of power it is capable, but I believe they should have put a small disclaimer telling that it was an alpha copy and the framerates will possibly change drastically with the released version.
      • Alpha codes performance has nothing to do with real world performance. Any coder knows that.


    • It's an Alpha, which means its full of buggy code and hasnt been optimized to the point where the final product will eventually perform. That also means that any benchmarks run using something as unstable, sloppy and chunky as an alpha are a false measure and therefore are completely unreliable.

      The cool factor or street cred he thinks he might gain by using a leaked bit of unstable software as part of the testbed are completely worthless when trying to establish some reliable manner of measuring performance.

      As Jericho pointed out, using the alpha demonstrates poor judgement, not only because it's technically unsound (or even for the legal risks), but just as a matter of common sense.

  • Is it just me or... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anik315 ( 585913 ) <anik@alphaco r . n et> on Saturday November 23, 2002 @05:31AM (#4737887)
    do laptop's always seem to be "on the brink" of desktop performance? Do sites just repeat this news item everytime a more powerful laptops come out? The Geforce2go was a major step; this is a normal business cycle advance. The performance of laptops is never anywhere near the performance level of a similarly priced desktop, and that has been static for 15 years, yet over and over again we get reports about how laptops are becoming more and more like desktops... please.

    • It's not just you... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Goonie ( 8651 )
      Yep, as long as I can recall the gap has remained remarkably stable, both in terms of absolute performance and price-performance.

      As long as high-performance chips chew lots of electricity and turn it in to lots of heat, desktops are modular, and laptops remain branded items rather than generic I can't see this situation changing.

    • No, actually they aren't just on the brink... Right now they are almost cought up, but there hasn't been a major card released in a while, the latest being radeon 9700 a few months ago. And, they really should have tested systems more on par with cost. You could easily get a desktop with a radeon 9700, or at least a Geforce Ti 4600! for the cost of a insperion 8200. I agree with the obvious you state here, they do keep writing the same articles, but then the following distance does go up and down. It doesn't really come up more than it goes down though. Back in the 486 days, you could get a laptop that really was like a desktop, but it would cost you like $4000.

  • Input devices (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bezza ( 590194 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @05:42AM (#4737901)
    I agree that laptops have come close to (above average) desktops in terms of performance there is one thing that a mobile device in a mobile environment will never have...proper input devices.

    When I am on the road there is no space to pull out my little baby optical mouse and a hard surface to use it on. Tried playing Medal of Honor with the trackpad? Entertaining to say the least.

    The keyboard as well leaves a lot to be desired. My Compaq Evo N160 (P3 1.2GHz, 512MB, Radeon Mobility M7) has rediculously sized and placed Ctrl keys. How the hell am I meant to crouch! The test bed for this article however uses a Dell, and I notice that their keyboards are normal in their key placement.

    For this reason, gaming is not quite as good as a desktop. Even if the hardware is, (my laptop was quite quicker than my desktop up until recently) the interface is not up to scratch. This sort of includes the LCD monitor, too.

    • So if you took your desktop machine in the car with you, would that be a more appropriate solution?
    • all nice and well having a tiny notebook on my laps but what about my sidewinder tre-force attack joystick? I am not running around with that one,people thinking I am holding the trigger to the bomb I might have strapped around me, no thank you I rather play at home.
    • >When I am on the road there is no space to pull out my little baby optical mouse and a hard surface to use it on. Tried playing Medal of Honor with the trackpad? Entertaining to say the least.

      Solution. [kensington.com]

      >The keyboard as well leaves a lot to be desired.

      1 [surplus-sales.cc] + 2 [trianglecables.com] = Solution.

      >This sort of includes the LCD monitor, too.

      I agreed. But now I'm staring at the UXGA LCD on my laptop, and I think I've finally found something in an LCD that looks as good as my Mitsubishi DiamondScan 20H CRT. It'll be a long while before they integrate anything into a PC laptop that beats out a modern CRT, though.

  • It's the LCD (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ancil ( 622971 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @05:43AM (#4737902)
    The real problem with gaming on laptops isn't the frame rate. These days, the type of one-generation-back video chips in portable computers can stil give you a good frame rate, even in modern games.

    The rub is the display. LCD's just aren't very good at fast action. The switching times are too long, even on pricy units. Even screensavers tend to ghost and blur on an LCD.

    BF1942 is easier to play on a CRT, and will be for the forseeable future. Maybe when new technologies like organic LED's come online, gaming on laptops really will be an option.
    • but my eye tests don't indicate so.
      My vision is actually quite sensitive.

      I don't think you've actually used a modern LCD, or you wouldn't be saying this. This used to be very true; however, I can attest that the screen on my Toshiba Satellite 4200 definately has no noticeable ghosting, and is *just fine* for playing any video game I've put on it. Never ONCE Have I said "Boy, I wish I had a crt, because this looks crappy"

      I went from using a 21" monitor to this LCD, because the LCD looks better, including running video games.

      Gaming on laptops is really an option, believe it.
    • This is absolute rubbish. My Sony Vaio LCD has a fine update speed, and not a ghost of a ghost when running at 60fps (the screen hz) or better.

      Well, unless you stare at it for 8 hours plus. After that your eyes start to ghost and blur. That's the real problem.... sometimes its also a useful indication that it's time to go to bed too though...

  • Don't be sane or anything.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Large Green Mallard ( 31462 ) <lgm@theducks.org> on Saturday November 23, 2002 @05:55AM (#4737924) Homepage
    Why compare a laptop with a Radeon 9000 to a Desktop with a Radeon 9000 when you can compare it to something totally different and draw your conlusion about laptop gaming from that!

    If you're looking at the performance of laptops for gaming, you make your desktop as similar as possible.. same RAM, same CPU speed, SAME VIDEO CARD. Otherwise, it's not truely useful stats.
    • Not in this case. We're looking for "Bang for buck". So it's best to compare two systems of similar price.

      After all, price is a big factor in choosing desktop over laptop.
      • If by "we" you mean that you are one of the authors of this article, or indeed if you're not...

        This article is alledgedly comparing how good laptops are for gaming, versus desktop machines. Not "how good is an $X000 laptop versus an $X000 desktop, where X == X". Yes laptops cost more. That's obvious. By not comparing like systems, this article fails to answer its question. Cost comparisons are only useful if it's of similar types of systems. If say this was comparing systems that are $X000, having different cards/mobos/processors would be expected, but by not having the same video card in the desktop PC, it's little more than a "I played with these computers and found this" article.

        Was good to see they were both based on i845 chipsets, but I have this feeling it was co-incidental.

    • Re:Don't be sane or anything.. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Absolutely! This benchmark is B.S. ... check out this quote:

      "To level out the playing field somewhat, we choose to remove one 256mb stick of memory from the desktop computer, giving the notebook a 128mb advantage over the desktop computer - not that it will make a great deal of difference. We did this since the notebook only uses DDR-266 memory while was the desktop computer uses DDR-333 memory. We thought this might help in evening things out nicely for us for our comparison."



      This is complete bollocks - DDR-333 doesn't make that much difference to performance over DDR-266 (maybe 10-15%), but having 256MB RAM in the desktop instead of the 384MB in the notebook could cause quite a big difference.



      So this "review" really is worthless for its comparison between the desktop+notebook - although the stats are interesting individually.

  • ther is no way laptops can provide the gaming experience provided by desktop pc . well.... it may be able to run those games but desktop rawks and rules with a sound blaster 5.1 and Radeon 9700 Pro and 19 inch flat ... man my pc rawks waiting for doom III

  • nVidia's new NV28M GF4 4200 Go chip (Score:3, Insightful)

    by huntdwumpus ( 534558 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @06:05AM (#4737940)
    Too bad they couldn't have tested this one too...

    Bringing mobile gaming to new heights [anandtech.com]
    nVidia GPU Delivers Fastest Mobile 3D Performance [extremetech.com]
    Nvidia to launch NV28M at Comdex [theinquirer.net] - The first known notebook design is slated for Q1 next year, from long time Nvidia partner Dell
  • Or did you go out and buy some Dell stock.

  • Price Matters (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The only comparison test I want to see is a true bang for the buck test. Let the testers build the best system they can for say $2000 and let them go at it. This is the only comparison that makes sense, as anyone going for ultimate performance will no doubt be building a desktop anyway. Whatever, the article is poorly written anyway.

  • AlienWare is the way to go... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by terkozer ( 521819 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @06:16AM (#4737960)
    I just picked up a AlienWare laptop 2 weeks ago, and am getting mad fps on Quake3 arena, & Wolfenstien3d.
    It sure sucks down on batteries, but for a portable gaming machine, it's the shit. A few specs...
    • Pentium® 4 @ 2.8GHz
    • 512MB DDR SDRAM
    • ATI Mobility RADEON 9000
    It's dope as shit, plus, you can get the trick (chameleon) paint job [alienware.com]that alone, in my humble opinion, is worth the price..., but after all, I'm all about the looks (& FPS!!)

    • Re:AlienWare is the way to go... (Score:5, Informative)

      by SaltLord ( 216029 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @07:49AM (#4738060) Homepage
      Why buy the AlienWare laptop when you can have the exactly same laptop [powernotebooks.com] for much much lower price??
      It's even assembled at the same factory!

      • Re:AlienWare is the way to go... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        No doubt! Alienware is such a rip. How about this for comparison shopping:
        • Alienware [alienware.com]: Nice rig, about $2853.00
        • Power Notebooks [powernotebooks.com]: Same damn thing, $2110.00. You can double the RAM to 1GB, add another 20GB to the HD, and it is still 300 less than the alienware jive.
        Thanks for the Power Notebooks link, I had never seen been there and it almost time for a new laptop.
      • Oh yea, the sound of thousands of geeks realizing that got ripped off. Although a true geek would have done his research and found out the supplier before buying.
        My impression of my Alienware owners is that they are mostly Posers with lots of money to spend(read:waste) and are the same type of people who ask "what the best speaker I can buy at Bestbuy?"

  • Not always about the power... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lasalas ( 628720 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @06:21AM (#4737964)

    First things first, let me get this straight. I'm all for frame rates. But i don't like to be elitist about it. 40 plus is fine for me, or anything where it doesn't realistically affect my frame rate.

    Laptops do contain some awful video cards sometimes, and that's usually the decision made by the company at the time of specification. Way before actual production. But there are a few that are pretty good. Namely the high range of dells running 9700s and i believe there is a dell with a gf4 chipset in it also.

    Say if you are thinking primarily of frame rates, i'm sure you could find something worth buying which wont be an embarrassment at the next LAN party. (I myself have a Dell 250n, and it's wonderful for me).

    The main aim with a laptop is portability. If you remember the last BYOC LAN you went to, i'm sure you can also remember the annoying part of getting your pride and joy unplugged from the desk, all into the vehicle of your choice, and then unpacked at the actual location. With a laptop, it goes without saying this kind of affair is an absolute breeze.

    That's why i chose my laptop over upgrading my desktop, which now stays at home. Yes, there are some games that take a while to load (namely Battlefield 1942, but i'm sure i'm not the only one facing *that* particular problem), but overall, the tried and tested LAN games (quake 3, UT, CS...) are all perfect for this machine, and many like it.

    I noticed a comment about a 5.1 system being unavailable to a laptop. This is untrue, especially with the Creative Audigy external USB soundcard. And anyway, who's prepared to take 6 speakers to a LAN party? Chances are you'd use headphones anyway, and with many laptops carrying virtual surround sound in their chipsets, you could be better off with most desktop owners.

    A note on the Alienware a51: i was actually going to buy this machine, but after shopping around (something i normally don't bother doing), i found that there are many better machines, at much lower prices. Realistically, You're paying for a brand.

  • Yay (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ihowson ( 601821 )
    The story, in a few words: we compare two different computers and find that they both run games.

    Woo-hoo. What, were they expecting the laptop hardware to be magically unable to run games or something?

    What might have been useful would be to time how long the Inspiron lasts running games off a battery, just for interest's sake. I'm an occasional laptop gamer myself (Inspiron 4100, though), and my battery life drops from 4 hours (per battery - I have two) to about 1.5 hours, when playing games.
    • Interesting you mention battery life. Could you really get stuck into a game in a situation where you'd need a battery to play it? Don't kid yourself, it's always something you'd love to do, like playing the latest FPS in a canal boat on the rivers of venice, but there are better things to do..

      Serious gamers use serious locations to play. This is why most of them prefer desktops anyway, because they know a desktop is adequately catered for in terms of power.

      In these same situations, a laptop would probably be plugged in as well.

    • Yes, actually, that's the perception they are trying to smash.
      Laptops have sucked for games for quite a while, mianly due to the lack of proper 3d support compared to desktops. Only in the last 18 months or so have laptops that contain geforce or other higher-end 3d video cards been available.

      Plus, people like to bitch (wrongly) about LCDs being no good.

  • Heh. (Score:1, Funny)

    by BJH ( 11355 )
    ...since both the ATI Mobility 9000 and nVidia GeForce4 Ti4200 are no longer considered high end...

    Geez, since when? Last Wednesday?
    I still play with a Voodoo2. and except for Tribes2, every game I've tried has been at least reasonably playable (although it'd never win any framerate competitions).

  • Inspiron 8200: OK for gaming... (Score:3, Informative)

    by mseeger ( 40923 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @07:24AM (#4738030)
    Hi,

    i recently bought myself a Dell Inspiron 8200. The Inspiron made it because i wanted to have a notebook to play contemporary games with. For Online-Battles against my friends i didn't want to carry my PC even though it's only a Minitower. Surely it won't be the perfect hardware for Doom III, but HalfLife, Civ3, Anno1503 or Mafia all work fine. I'm completely satisfied.

    Yours, Martin

  • The Slashdot effect, or Activision (distributors of id's stuff these days) lawyers?

  • If the Dell doesn't fall apart before you finish! (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I had 2 and know 5 people with Dell I8xxx series, they are flimsy and 3 of them have had problems with display hinges becoming lose and all of them with ribbon cables and video connectors coming lose.
  • I can match my friend playing against me in Quake III. He takes my PC, with a Geforce 2 and a 17" CRT and I have my humble 600MHz iBook (and optical mouse thank god - Q3 with the trackpad is a joke).

    OK, so I have to throttle down the textures to 16 bit and reduce the resolution slightly (less than you might think) but it still gives a very playable game with no slowdown (only on truly giant maps when I get out into large open spaces).

    I just have to work out a way to counter him when he has the railgun. He is unnaturally accurate with that thing, even on the move. Perhaps I need a graphics tablet with a built in screen... pixel point accuracy... you'd never miss!
  • perhaps as interesting as the article itself is that the site offers a referral link to 10% off dell notebooks. imagine if this could be stocked with other coupons from consumer deals sites -- you might save a couple hundred bucks if you're looking for a new laptop.

    TweakTown Deal on Dell Computers!


    Dell Small Business department has 10% off all Notebook computers until the 26th of November through our TweakTown Deals section. If you choose to buy a new computer system from Dell, click this link [tweaktown.com], and you'll be supporting TweakTown!


    n.b. i just clicked the link and it is indeed stackable, damn. nice

    -fren
  • Mobile gamings is fine.
    No, you can't get the top, top, top of the line video card in your laptop; but gone are the days when the laptop sucks compared to the desktop.

    I play quake3, warcraft 3, neverwinter nights, etctera, on my laptop with no problems or complaints whatsoever. No, I don't get 300 fps at 1600x1200 in quake3, nor do I really care.

  • Not Doom3 though (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kragg ( 300602 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @08:26AM (#4738104) Journal
    Testimony of a Sony Vaio user.

    I got myself a Vaio gr314mp nearly a year ago. It comes with a 1200MhZ p3 and the 16meg version of the mobility radeon 7500 and runs a lot of games fine. Multiplayer Quake 3 and Medal of Honour in 1024x768 run at a perfectly playable 30-odd fps (with some smoke effects and alpha-blending off... the card OpenGL drivers need careful tweaking to get good performance.)

    My main reason for going laptop was I am on the road a lot, so a desktop isn't feasible for me. I have to say, I'm very chuffed with the results.

    I love being able to lie in bed and play computer games. I spent about 2 months playing neverwinter nights on the train into work, and that made the time fly. I've even once or twice played mohaa over wireless while cooking dinner. This shit is great.

    But... I don't ever expect to be playing doom 3 on this baby. The big thing is always the graphics card (lower processor speed and ram tend to be acceptable a lot longer), and I don't think I'll be wanting another laptop for games once this one loses its edge, unless I know I can plug in an external graphics card. A year of gaming for about $800 of depreciation isn't quite good enough.

    Can anyone tell me why external pci-cards haven't caught on yet? Bus bandwidth wouldn't seem to be an issue if the architecture was right...
    As soon as this becomes the norm, or I can swap in a new card when I want to, I will be happy to play on a laptop and pay slightly over the odds for improving game performance. But as it is, the computer I have now will soon be utterly useless in the face of new games.

    The mobile gaming idea is superb, and the reality of it is great. Throw longevity in the mix and I'll never go back.
    • Dell offer the C/Dock II docking station which includes full PCI capability. Although you need a Latitude notebook (or an Inspiron flashed with the Latitude bios - The 8200 is the same system board as the Latitude C840 although the Latitude is marketed towards businesses), it goes to show that the capability is there if you really need it, say, for audio or SCSI. The C/dock II includes SCSI as well.
  • While CPU and graphic cards are important, they are not all you need. Keyboards, mice, and joysticks are an IMPORTANT issue here, until of course you are talking tetris. :)

    If in doubt, visit sometime one of those gaming forums sites, like EsReallity.com [esreality.com]. Discussions of input devices do appear there more then often.

    Not to mention the fact that I yet have to see at least one gamer (pro prefferably) which uses LCD (or similar technology) monitor. :)

  • I considered this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Wind_Walker ( 83965 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @09:03AM (#4738160) Homepage Journal
    I was considering moving to a completely mobile platform for my computing. I needed an upgrade of my desktop badly, and briefly considered simply buying a hella-powerful notebook that could do the same thing as my desktop and be portable for LAN parties or business trips.

    Then I thought about upgrades.

    With a laptop, you're practically stuck with your video card and processor, not to mention CD/DVD drives or sound. Yes, I know it's possible to upgrade these parts, but the cost of them far outweigh the convenience of their desktop counterparts.

    A laptop would be great for gaming if, for example, Doom III were never made and the technology required to play games plateaued. I don't see that happening, which is why I'm still using a mini-tower for my gaming needs.

  • Desktop vs. Laptop (Score:3, Informative)

    by Gary Franczyk ( 7387 ) on Saturday November 23, 2002 @09:10AM (#4738165)
    In areas where obtaining top performance is critical, the desktop will always win. This is one of those cases. The designers of laptops almost always need to make concessions, reducing performance, flexibility or other features of the laptop in order to meet the key design goals:

    small size
    low power consumption

    When your goal is to maximize performance, you are not going to give size and power consumption any consideration. The same exact idea applies to wireless networking. Because of FCC limitations and other factors, it will probably always lag behind wired networking.

    A laptop is probably adequate for gaming, but many gamers are out for total frames-per-second. And this at any cost...

    • I totally agree - no-one cares how big their gaming laptop is, or how much battery power it takes. This is because for one thing, gaming laptops are primarily used for their power, not their looks. And usually when you're in a situation which calls for a quick round of your FPS of choice, there are power sockets.

      When i chose my laptop the only consideration was to make sure the weight stayed under 4kgs (incidentally, the a51 from alienware is 6kgs. that's one heavy machine!)

      Although i do agree with your last statement, it's saddening to think that even us geeks have "macho" needs. ("My framerates bigger than yours!")

  • High End Laptops are performant enough for gaming but simply not modifyable enough for top of the line gaming. Ut2k3 runs only on very recent hardware and matching up to every new gaming with laptops is simply to expensive.
    150 Dollars will upgrade my geforce 2 gts to a card that has enough oomph for a 5-people-shooting-at-once-on-CTF-Magma-map-lag-fre e UT2k3 performance. I doupt a laptop could do that just now. Ironically, people who need top-of-the-line boxes are usually the ones that travel around to LAN partys and Clanwars.
    So, no, buying a laptop for gaming is pointless.
    • >> So, no, buying a laptop for gaming is pointless.

      While I do agree, buying a laptop specifically for gaming, ie; lugging it to LAN parties, is still pointless. You're better off with a flex atx form factor box and a light monitor, be it LCD or whatever.

      But embedded video chipsets have evolved to the point that they can play a game, although it's nothing to write home about - there actually is true 3D accelleration from the Radeon Mobiles, nForce, and intel 845G chipsets.

      I guess the advantage is that you can pass the business flights playing NOLF instead of Solitaire. Provided the flight isn't much longer than an hour or two.
    • Really? That's funny.... I could have sworn I made some jaws drop at my school's LUG meeting running UT2003 in linux on my Toshiba Satellite notebook....

      Flight Simulator 2002, Black and White, Battlefield 1942 all run without any difficulty. Sure, I could have had a somewhat faster desktop than my laptop (1.7 GHz, gf4go) for the same price, but it works adequately for all demands I have placed on it.

      Most importantly, there is a nice wireless hookup in my chem lecture, so I can game away instead of falling asleep. :)

  • The usual Framerate bullshitting going on here... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Saturday November 23, 2002 @09:33AM (#4738239)
    Just for the information of the ones that like to flame on people who claim to need 80 fps or more.

    FPS isn't the same all the time! When you test FPS in a quick singleplayer it can be as high as 60 and still break in to a useless 10 when you're in a hot pursuit of 3 enemys along with 4 teammates, with everyone firing at maxrate. A max of roundabouts 80FPS minimum is needed if you don't want to notice a performance break when everyone meets for the big showdown in the center of a map. FPS break-in is noticed once it goes below 20 and that will allways happen eventually on a laptop.
    • I'd like to add to that.. For all the people who think 300+ FPS is a waste, since your monitor only refreshes at 60-125hz.

      They don't think about minimizing the effects of tearing, when you're turning or strafing in a game. With vsync off, there will always be tearing, but with the extra horsepower, it'll be less noticable.

      At 300 fps, there will be 5 tears as your turning, each stepped a little behind the other. This is much less noticable than the one wide tear you'd see at 60fps.

      People always slam new tech. Hell, I remember people bitching that 16 bit color was a waste, the 256 colors they got in MCGA mode was all that was needed.
  • I have to admit, I've been lusting after the new Tibooks, which come with the Radeon 9000 mobility video cards. I know that they don't get -all- of the new games right away, but how do they perform on those games they do get?

    -Pete
  • Dear TweakTown (and all web developers (are you listening Tom's Hardware)),

    I REALLY don't like having to click through 6 pages to read an article (when it's really slow, it makes me just close the browser). I understand that you like to call it 6 hits, and you get to charge 6 times for the ads, but really. Unfortunately, I got the first page, and left your site because I was not going to keep going through this, even though I wanted to read the article. Could you please stop this.

    Love, Spackler
  • FWIW, Everquest, with all the expansions up to Planes of Power (I gave up on EQ about a month before the buggers released it) ran alright on my laptop, even with all the newer models on. NeverWinter Nights plays great, as does No One Lives Forever and NOLF2. I ran all of these games at 1024x768 resolution, and the only concession I had to make was reducing the effects on NOLF2.

    The only reason I'm saying this is that my laptop is a Compaq EVO N115. It was absolute entry level when I bought it in September: 1.2GHz Athlon 4, 256MB RAM, 20GB HDD, 16MB Shared video (up to 32MB, S3 Twister K).

    I didn't buy it specifically for gaming, and I scoff at anybody who does buy it specifically for gaming, as the framerate on the LCD is the limiting factor: you'll never get as high a framerate on an LCD as you can currently get on a CRT, because the LCD technology relies on moving of crystals in suspension to draw a pixel.

    What I found, though, was that most games are playable if I made a few concessions. They're nowhere near as good as they are on my desktop, with a GF3 Ti500 64MB video card, and I don't expect them to be. But if I'm on the road, or at school, and I get bitten by the desire to play NOLF, I can. And I got that ability without having to shell out $6,000 for a high end laptop. In the end, I paid $2,000 CDN.
  • Mobile Gaming == GameBoy Advance OR Any damn cell phone
  • The only problem with laptops is that they are difficult to upgrade. How long will a laptop be fast for the newest games? Not every long.

    • The Dell Inspiron 8000, 8100 and 8200 have interchangable parts. You can get the M9000 graphics module and stick it on a P3 850 Inspiron 8000, for example. Dell spare parts don't sell their parts for much, either.
  • and a notebook mouse, but both are easily remedied. What I wonder is by the time a notebook gets to be capable won't Ultra Uber Mega Small Form Factor PC's fit in my shirt pocket ? With serial ATA coming, and thinner wafers how long before the concept of a laptop is outdated ?
  • I have a friend that bought a laptop like 9 months ago to use for LAN parties. It's like a 1.6, with a GF2 Go, pretty decent size hard drive, and 256mb of ram. At the time the machine was fine, but already the machine is going to be on the lower end of the performance spectrum. The major problem with laptops as gaming rigs is that there is no upgrading the video processor! Had my friend bought a pc, not only would it have been cheaper, but with the money he saved he could have upgraded the video card two or three times! The proprietary design of laptops is what keeps them out of any sensible gamer's top pick for gaming devices. Wouldn't you agree?
  • Sure, I don't have the $'s to blow on a hot new laptop with the latest graphics card, but I've found that a Toshiba Satellite Pro laptop with a fast PIII processor and Trident 3D chipset is good enough for usable gaming with most of the 1st. person shooters.

    I used to take it to LAN parties simply because it spared me a need to lug around a bunch of parts including big monitor. I could get their later than most of the other people and still be up and running faster than they were. When it was time to go, it only took minutes to put it all away too.

    I can't say for sure if UT2003 will still run ok on it - but games like Age of Mythology do. It ran the old UT just fine, as well as all the Quake games, Half-Life, and others. Frame rates weren't impressive, of course - but playable. To me, that's the main thing.
  • Fantastic.

    I bought the Inspiron 8200 about five months ago when the P4-M 2GHz processor first made it to market - it's a 2Ghz machine with 512MB RAM, 60GB HDD, 15" 1600x1200 screen, two batteries, geforce4go 440 64MB, 24x10x24x/8x combo drive and integrated 802.11b Orinoco wireless (they call it a Dell TrueMobile 1150).

    I take it everywhere, especially to LANs. It's a heavyweight machine, around 4KG with both batteries inserted. But it's essentially a desktop machine - I use it as my desktop machine for everything including games.

    It was a logical choice for me as I run large LAN events such as the Shafted Big Day In and attend LAN events on a weekly basis. It's really, really handy to pick up the unit and head off to a LAN, no lugging large PCs/monitors around which simply aren't designed for it.

    It's fast, even at 1600x1200. Quake III Arena, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Halflife (and its mods) run smooth (and I would guess the R9000 would outperform it based on the benchmarks at Tom's Hardware Guide vs. the Geforce4Go 440). UT2003 is a little more demanding without the vertex and pixel shaders of the R9000 so I usually stick to 1024x768 - quite acceptable.

    The screen is a nice size. I've decided that anything bigger than a 17" CRT is too big for gaming as your eyes have to move across large areas of the screen too frequently, so in a notebook, a 15" screen is about as big as you would want. The image scaling, as I run my Windows desktop at 1152x864, is very decent and readable on the Geforce4Go 440 although I have read that the R9000 does a FAR better job. Those who are sensitive to high frame rates and refresh rates on CRT screens may find the LCD a bit annoying - it's not the blur effect that one would expect - the Dell UltraSharp(R)(TM)(C) screen has a 9ms rise/16ms fall response time, so as the screen is only statically updated at 60Hz (vs. the 120hz of my 17" display at home), you notice the difference in frames a lot more than a CRT - remember with a CRT, it blurs a lot more so you don't see the frame transitions. So you don't get blur, but it's like watching a movie. Most people don't notice it, in fact, only one other has to my knowledge

    It runs Linux. The nVidia drivers work like a charm. It plays games under Linux. I haven't tried FreeBSD yet with the nVidia drivers. While the nVidia site says that the mobile chips are not supported, they are - this is purely a "support" issue, not a driver compatibility one. Oh, and I run at 1600x1200 under Linux - X on a notebook with generous desktop realestate is just way too nice.

    For audio, me being a bit of an audio buff, is Dell's major letdown here. They use the Crystal Semiconductor CS4205 AC'97 system which is hardly nice. I do use headphones but the lack of accelerated audio really gives some games a good 5%-10% framerate penalty, even more if the game is badly coded (eg, Battlefield 1942). You don't get directsound 3D or any funky multichannel audio. You do get SPDIF digital out so you can run it to your receiver or 5.1 channel speaker system and do AC-3/DTS passthrough when playing DVDs.

    Battery life is nice, realistically, I get around 4.5 hours off a pair of batteries compared to the spec-sheet times of 1.5 hours for Toshiba's equiv model at the time (the Satellite 5100, the current being the 5200 claiming 3 hours but could be a result of a second battery as they added this ability in the 5200). My reasons for going Dell were based on battery life and support more than anything else.

    So in short, a great machine that offers pretty much all the basic features of a desktop machine and is an excellent choice for LANners.

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