Playing SHIV on a Laptop PC

[Rusty_S85]

I made this post over on the SHIV forums on UBI`s site and was directed to make a post here.

I am looking at getting a laptop pc after the holidays and I am unsure of the two or three different pc specs I was looking at within my price range if they would be able to play SHIV and SHIII both on either medium or high graphics settings.

The computers are Dell (figured I would give them a try since I am not too fond of the Compaq I have now).

I orignally thought about getting the follow since it was $600, but I am not sure if it would play these games.

Studio 15
Intel Pentium Dual Core T2390 1.86GHz
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1
3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2
160GB SATA Hard Drive 5400rpm
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
High Definition Audio 2.0

$649

I looked on the forums here in a search and saw one post stating "Nvidia card supporting DX9 / OpenGL 2.0 is needed to play SHIV" I am not sure about the OpenGL on the X3100 graphics card but I know its DX10 Shader 3.0.

If the above specs wouldnt play the game on atleast Medium settings I thought about these upgrades to that pc.

Studio 15
Intel Core 2 Duo T5850 2.16GHz
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1
3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2
160GB SATA Hard Drive 5400rpm
256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450
Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy Advance HD Software Edition.

$849

I know someone here was playng SHIV in one post I came across that had a T5800 processor but didnt state what graphics card (the graphics card is where I am concerned at).

The last laptop I was looking at that is literally at the max I would be ok with spending is as follows

Studio 17
Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 2.00GHz
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1
3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 800MHz
160GB SATA Hard Drive 5400rpm
256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650
High Definition Audio 2.0

$949



I am trying to spend as little as possible since this pc is being used for more than just games. It is mostly going to be used for internet surfing, watching dvd`s, listening to music, and viewing work related pdf files. I just would like it to play SHIV and SHIII on atleast Medium graphics settings.

If anyone has any recomendations on which one would be the best for playing the game for the lowest expense I would greatly appreciate it.

[FIREWALL]

Welcome Aboard Rusty :sunny:

Take alook at this and more :D

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4318118&CatId=3998

[Rusty_S85]

Welcome Aboard Rusty :sunny:

Thanks

[FIREWALL]

Welcome Aboard Rusty :sunny:

Take alook at this and more :D

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4318118&CatId=3998

:oops:

[Rusty_S85]

The laptop pc in the link looks good, only downside is I wouldnt buy a refurbished pc. Rather buy new to be honest, just know some people that got refurbished units from fry`s and they only worked for a few days before they wouldnt even power up anymore.

[Soundman]

You may want to check into the Dell XPS laptops. I've got a sweet deal on the M1530 and it runs the game beautifully. It has an Nvdia GE Force 8600 card (256 meg) and my FPS are as good as my tower at home.

[SteamWake]

You may want to check into the Dell XPS laptops. I've got a sweet deal on the M1530 and it runs the game beautifully. It has an Nvdia GE Force 8600 card (256 meg) and my FPS are as good as my tower at home.

Why do they gimp these laptop video devices with skimpy ram? Its not like theres not enough room to fit another 256 megs worth.

Power consumption an issue?

[Rusty_S85]

You may want to check into the Dell XPS laptops. I've got a sweet deal on the M1530 and it runs the game beautifully. It has an Nvdia GE Force 8600 card (256 meg) and my FPS are as good as my tower at home.

I just checked out the XPS M1530. It looks good, the base line one for $950 isnt too expensive

For $950 I get a T5800 2.0GHz processor, 3GB ram, 320GB harddrive, and a 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS.

I guess what I have to do is deside because honestly I am not sure how these graphic cards will play. I had someone tell me one game would play at medium graphics settings on the integrated graphics card on the Studio15 but yet I am playing at medium graphics settings on the same game on a GeForce4.

But I did add the XPS M1530 to my list though of possible laptops.

[FIREWALL]

Try this one http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4148876&CatId=3998

or http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4034086&CatId=3998

or this http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4034085&CatId=3998

[Soundman]

You may want to check into the Dell XPS laptops. I've got a sweet deal on the M1530 and it runs the game beautifully. It has an Nvdia GE Force 8600 card (256 meg) and my FPS are as good as my tower at home.

I just checked out the XPS M1530. It looks good, the base line one for $950 isnt too expensive

For $950 I get a T5800 2.0GHz processor, 3GB ram, 320GB harddrive, and a 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS.

I guess what I have to do is deside because honestly I am not sure how these graphic cards will play. I had someone tell me one game would play at medium graphics settings on the integrated graphics card on the Studio15 but yet I am playing at medium graphics settings on the same game on a GeForce4.


I would step it up to a 8600, I think your gonna want a 256 meg card. Go to the dell website and configure a setup and see what kind of price you can get. Also, I've dealt with Dell a few times and I've learned something. If you call them, and ask some questions, they will usually offer you a rebate or a freebee kind of upgrade. You just might get them to upgrade to the 8600 for no or little extra cost.

But I did add the XPS M1530 to my list though of possible laptops.

I would get the 8600. I think you will want the 256 meg card. I've dealt with Dell a few times and have learned something. Go to the website and configure a laptop and put it in your wishlist (save it) If you call them and ask them some questions, they will usually offer you an upgrade or a rebate. You just might get them to throw in that 8600 card for little or no extra cost to you.

[Soundman]

You may want to check into the Dell XPS laptops. I've got a sweet deal on the M1530 and it runs the game beautifully. It has an Nvdia GE Force 8600 card (256 meg) and my FPS are as good as my tower at home.

Why do they gimp these laptop video devices with skimpy ram? Its not like theres not enough room to fit another 256 megs worth.

Power consumption an issue?

The 256 meg I'm speaking of is the video card memory. It [the laptop] has 3 gig of ram. Like I said, the game runs great on it ! I would tend to think a 528 video card may well cause a power supply issue and probably a heat issue as well.

[Nisgeis]

Welcome aboard Rusty!

[SteamWake]

You may want to check into the Dell XPS laptops. I've got a sweet deal on the M1530 and it runs the game beautifully. It has an Nvdia GE Force 8600 card (256 meg) and my FPS are as good as my tower at home.

Why do they gimp these laptop video devices with skimpy ram? Its not like theres not enough room to fit another 256 megs worth.

Power consumption an issue?

The 256 meg I'm speaking of is the video card memory. It [the laptop] has 3 gig of ram. Like I said, the game runs great on it ! I would tend to think a 528 video card may well cause a power supply issue and probably a heat issue as well.

Yea I was talkin about the video memory. But I guess they feel the trade off of power consumption vs performance is the best way. Personally I would not consider any high end video card with less than 512 on it. But with laptops your kind of saddled with what is offered.

[Rusty_S85]

You may want to check into the Dell XPS laptops. I've got a sweet deal on the M1530 and it runs the game beautifully. It has an Nvdia GE Force 8600 card (256 meg) and my FPS are as good as my tower at home.

I just checked out the XPS M1530. It looks good, the base line one for $950 isnt too expensive

For $950 I get a T5800 2.0GHz processor, 3GB ram, 320GB harddrive, and a 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS.

I guess what I have to do is deside because honestly I am not sure how these graphic cards will play. I had someone tell me one game would play at medium graphics settings on the integrated graphics card on the Studio15 but yet I am playing at medium graphics settings on the same game on a GeForce4.


I would step it up to a 8600, I think your gonna want a 256 meg card. Go to the dell website and configure a setup and see what kind of price you can get. Also, I've dealt with Dell a few times and I've learned something. If you call them, and ask some questions, they will usually offer you a rebate or a freebee kind of upgrade. You just might get them to upgrade to the 8600 for no or little extra cost.

But I did add the XPS M1530 to my list though of possible laptops.

I would get the 8600. I think you will want the 256 meg card. I've dealt with Dell a few times and have learned something. Go to the website and configure a laptop and put it in your wishlist (save it) If you call them and ask them some questions, they will usually offer you an upgrade or a rebate. You just might get them to throw in that 8600 card for little or no extra cost to you.



Not sure what is wrong I was able to customize the studio 15 few weeks back but now I click on the processor and it just sits there with the cursor and hourglass icon and does nothing.

I will probably have to do all this customize stuff over the phone.

But if cost became an issue what about the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, the 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450, and the 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650. Would any of these three cards play SHIV even if the graphics were set low? Just want to cover all bases before I give dell a call incase I have to cheap out in some areas.

Another thing is the three cards I just listed if they wouldnt play SHIV would they atleast play SHIII? There are a few games I am trying to configure the laptop to play all of them but not spend as much a large sum of money. $1000 is a possibility but the $500 - $850 is more or less the range I am looking at. I can always upgrade my desktop to be able to play SHIV if need be.

[Soundman]

I would tend to believe any 256 meg card will do you good. 128 meg may be a little laggy, maybe someone else can chime in here. BTW, On my laptop, all graghics are set full with the possible exception of "Volumetric Fog" and I get a good steady 30 FPS while using the scopes or external views, sometimes more. It may slow slightly while viewing a massive explosion using the external camera, otherwise, rock solid.

[Rusty_S85]

I would tend to believe any 256 meg card will do you good. 128 meg may be a little laggy, maybe someone else can chime in here. BTW, On my laptop, all graghics are set full with the possible exception of "Volumetric Fog" and I get a good steady 30 FPS. It may slow slightly while viewing a massive explosion using the external camera, otherwise, rock solid.

I doubt I would have the fog turned on. Just being able to play SHIV where I can see the ocean and the enviroment simmilar to what I have seen in photos here would make me happy. Lag wouldnt be a problem to me, I still play SHIII on this computer and have serious lag around convoys.

I am not 100% sure how this works cause the way I currently understand it is the video card has 256MB of its own memory and it also uses memory from the pc so if that is the case then I figured going to a 3GB memory upgrade from the standard 2GB it should allow me to play with lower chances of lag.

I just dont know about video cards is all. After all I did my research and looked on ATI`s website both the HD 3400 series and the HD 3600 series video cards. To be honest the only things that are different is the HD3400 has 181 million transistors on 55nm fabrication where as the HD 3600 has 378. The other is the HD 3400 has 64 bit DDR2/GDDR3 memory interface and the HD 3600 has 128 bit DDR2/GDDR3/GDDR4 memory interface. But other than that both of them support DX10.1, OpenGL 2.0, and Shader 4.1.

But I just dont know, and I surely wouldnt trust asking a computer shop cause god knows they could tell me I need a very expensive graphics card when one of these would do the same thing.

[gimpy117]

your gonna want a new card in that thing and the best one you can find!!!
look at core speeds, mem speeds and don't forget memory bandwith!!! a card running at 1200mhz at 128 bandwith for example, is not as good as a card running at 1200mhz with a 256 or above bandwith!

oh ps. that's 900 posts!!! holy cow!! :know:

[Rusty_S85]

your gonna want a new card in that thing and the best one you can find!!!
look at core speeds, mem speeds and don't forget memory bandwith!!! a card running at 1200mhz at 128 bandwith for example, is not as good as a card running at 1200mhz with a 256 or above bandwith!

oh ps. that's 900 posts!!! holy cow!! :know:

I agree, I have seen in my searches on here that SHIV really taxes video cards graphically. Problem is I just cant justify spending $1000+ for a computer. I do love the photos I see of the game and the video and would love to play the game. Just cant justify spending that kind of money with the economy it is now.

But I will check into those cards on the memory bandwith.

I just checked and I am unsure if this means anything or not.

On the 256MB ATI HD 3450 card it says this

Core Speed 500 MHz
Shader Speed 500 MHz
Memory Speed 700 MHz
Memory Bus Width 64 Bit

On the 256MB ATI HD 3650 card it says this

Core Speed 600 MHz
Shader Speed 600 MHz
Memory Speed 700 MHz
Memory Bus Width 128 Bit



Personally I dont know what any of this means, my strong point is not computers. But I am open to learning more about this stuff before I go and make a buy so I know what I am looking at.

[Rockin Robbins]

I run an nVidia 7600GT card with 256k which has almost exactly the same performance as the 8600 card in that laptop. No problems with volumetric fog, etc. In fact, all my graphics settings are wide freakin' open at 1280x1024, probably what your laptop would be running.

[gimpy117]

if you were gonna get one get the 3650...but there are more pricey laptops that have more oomph...

like: http://www.alienware.com/ (http://www.alienware.com/products/notebook-computers.aspx#)

or (if your feeling flush with dough):http://www.falcon-nw.com/

but this is the high end...so I bet there's other stuff out there for less...

[Rusty_S85]

if you were gonna get one get the 3650...but there are more pricey laptops that have more oomph...

like: http://www.alienware.com/ (http://www.alienware.com/products/notebook-computers.aspx#)

or (if your feeling flush with dough):http://www.falcon-nw.com/

but this is the high end...so I bet there's other stuff out there for less...

I fully know what you mean. I looked at alienware a few years back and they had a laptop for $800 that I was looking at. Sadly something came up and I didnt have the money to spend. now that I got some money, I checked alienware and their all over $1000 for laptops. I am checking local sales though cause I have seen dell has been selling $1200 Studio 17`s fully punched out for $850 and $950. Just got to keep the XPS on my list of laptops to watch out for.

Sale is no longer good but they had a XPS M1530 T5800 processor 4GB memory, 320GB hard drive GeForce 8400 GS 128mb for $999 over the $1,287 regular price. Only problem is they dont offer the GeFroce graphics card in the Studio 15/Studio 17 from what I see. But I will never know till I get around to calling them, they might be able to install a GeForce card over what they have listed.

[gimpy117]

yeah...I know the feeling....

lol If only I had the money for one of those falcon northwest monsters!!!

[Rusty_S85]

yeah...I know the feeling....

lol If only I had the money for one of those falcon northwest monsters!!!

I had one ultimate pc desktop I built online but it was too expensive for me to justify getting.

It had a 500watt power source upgrade, a (Quad-Core)Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 @ 3.00GHz 1333FSB 12MB L2 Cache 64-bit, a Ultra ChillTec Thermo Electric CPU Cooler, 4GB (2x2GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory, two NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 16X PCI Express graphic cards, 320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD hard drive, Sony 20X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive, Creative Labs SB Audigy SE, 600Watts PMPO Subwoofer Stereo Speakers. I figured that would be a perfect desktop for me to play games on but then after I did that the next page showed the price tag and it was $1979.00 for just the CPU and speakers.

Thats when I desided I would just get a laptop for under a $1000 if I could that would be good enough to play the games I like to play or would like to play like SHIV, SHIII, and my whole collection of HL series of games including the in production EP3. But I am starting to wonder if I am asking for too much for so little.

[Rusty_S85]

Probably would get this answered if i posted another topic but didnt want to spam.

But I was wondering if anyone ever did business with www.cyberpower.com (http://www.cyberpower.com) before?

I had it bookmarked and I just checked and found this notebook pc for $799

*CyberPower X7 (NB-315-101) Notebook 17" WXGA 1440x900 Pixel w/ DDR2/667 Support, 1.3 Megapixel Webcam, Wireless 802.11a/b/g, Li-ion 6 Cell Battery, & Universal AC Adapter
*17" WXGA TFT Display 1440x900 Pixels
*Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Mobile T5800 Dual-Core Processor @ 2.0GHz 800FSB 2MB L2 Cache 64-bit
*Intel® I965PM + ICH8M Chipset LGA775 16X PCI-E Platform Mainboard
*2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 DDR2-667 SODIMM Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
*Built-in NVIDIA GeForce Go 8600M GS 512MB Video
*160GB 5400RPM

It looks like its better than the dell ones I was looking at when it comes to playing games and might not cost much more to upgrade it some.

[abclkhan]

Here's my contribution

notebook HP pavilion dv2475se
turion 2GHZ
3Gb ram
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce (http://www.mercadolivre.com.br/jm/pms?site=347515&word=GeForce&id=2021&as_opt=http://www.mercadolivre.com.br/jm/search?as_categ_id=1658$$as_display_type=G$$as_fil tro_id=PRECIO_FIJO$$as_order_id=MAS_OFERTADOS$$as_ price_min=25) Go 7150M (UMA)Video Memory Up to 1071MB

Specs here:
http://forum.clubedohardware.com.br/hp-dv2745se-x/509509

impression: not enough. Game runs laggy on vista. I cant use vol fog, sun glare etc and have to play with antialiasing off. Improved a little when I installed windows xp, but still getting low FPS on heavy seas. Im not satistied. So, Im looking to buy a new one with 256mb.:roll:

[CaptianT]

You may want to check into the Dell XPS laptops. I've got a sweet deal on the M1530 and it runs the game beautifully. It has an Nvdia GE Force 8600 card (256 meg) and my FPS are as good as my tower at home.


Soundman,

What screen resolution are you playing SH4 on your XPS 1530? Is this the native resolution of your screen?

I am seriously considering purchasing this laptop but want something that can play SH4. I am wondering if I should go with the 8600gt card or look for another brand that perhaps offers an 8800gs. I guess I want to make sure that whatever I get will be able to play the new SH5 (whenever it comes out hopefully in the next several years.) :)