Looking for a neutral voice.

[georgedv]

I am ready to buy a laptop, and am unable to decipher between all the sales pitches I get. I am hopping to find a neutral voice or a "been there done that" voice in this forum.

I have read other threads, but I guess i need these specific questions answered to help me get that finall push....

I checked out the new Dell E1???? Inspirion with what they call Intels Solo processor. Sales person says although it is 1.66 it has a faster "back screen" (or something like that) speed thus making it faster then a Pentium 1.75 or 2.00...anyone know anything about this. or should I get a dual core?

Also some of the manuf. (HP Toshiba...etc) have ATI mobility Rabeon X600 or similar...does civ IV still have problems with ATI cards. IS IT SAFE TO GET BACK IN THE WATER WITH THIS MANUF.

Another question I am concerned about is the heating up of the laptop, motherboard, processor...all those things. How much of a problem is that, can you play 8-10 hrs...or do you need to turn it off for a few hrs.

What kind of battery should I get 6, 8 or 9 cell? I would like one that can play 5-6 hrs?

I had problems with my desktop at first. So I upgraded to 2gigs RAM and a new nvidea card with 256. The game is now killer. The problem is I do not know which of the two upgrades had the most effect. My question is, due to budget limitations, what should I put the money in, processor speed, RAM or video RAM.

I play huge maps with 6-8 civs...and I love those graphics maxed out.

And finally any other suggestions are welcome.

Cheers

 

[BirraImperial]

-DELL is crap. period.

-ATI Radeon cards like the x200 work very well, so the x600 should do the trick too

-I can only tell you about my experience, I can playwith my laptop like 4hrs straight with no problems.

-That depends on how often you are on the road. I have an 8-cell battery but run on ac power most of the time.

-System RAM is the best upgrade. Civ4 needs at least 1GB to run properly. That is without shared video card.

-Get a laptop with a dedicated graphics card. At least 128MB. Shared video memory will kill your performance. ATI is good if you use Omega drivers.

 

[georgedv]

Thanks for the input.

I don't mean to bring back old memories, but why do you not like Dell?

I plan on getting atleast 1gig RAM. Would it be better to get 2gigs or get a video card with 256M?

Is 1.7 plenty of speed for the processor or should I go for higher...above 2.

Again thanks for the input.

cheers

 

[Dudy80]

Dell cuts way to many corners. Why else do you think they can give free LCD Monitors and printes away with every computer. If you want to play games on a laptop id try ibuypower.com they have some nice deals and most if not all of there computers are customizable. Heres one for uner 1300 with 1 gig of ram, x700 radeon graphics, PCI Express and a dual core 1.6 turion. Cant beat that with a stick.

Heres the link

http://www.ibuypower.com/ibp/store/configurator.aspx?mid=158

 

[georgedv]

Hey Dudy80, that is a great link...thanks.

Can anyone tell me if a 17" screen is worth getting for a laptop or does it distort the graphics?

thanks

cheers

 

[baasacJak]

Here's a good one though:

anandtech laptop forums

A lot of people from the computing industry visit these forums so you will get a good opinion based on massive user experience.

Good luck.

 

[Captain Pugwash]

After much research, I bought a new laptop for Civ4. Actually I found the research itself was a load of fun. I bought the Acer Aspire 9502. Go to the Acer website to check out the spec.

It plays Civ4 like a dream at 1440x900 17" widescreen. I just finished a huge map on Noble level, max settings. Late game delay between turns max about 5 seconds which is fine by me. No problems of any kind. Hope this helps.

There are no problems with overheating, the 256Mb ATI Radeon X700 eats the graphics task and I play 8hr sessions no problem.