CULV Gaming

While waiting for my In Production status to switch to Shipped I had an idea. I'd like to make a list of CULV games with benchmarks specific to the m11x.

What is a CULV game?
To me a CULV game is one that supports the idea of a CULV. Battery life, and portability; among other things. If the game requires you to OC x15 and gives 20 FPS while killing the battery in 1.5 hours then it is not a CULV game.

Benchmarks?
Seeing as I do not have my unit yet I will need some assistance here. Also getting stats on various setups will be nice. Battery life, heat, and frame rate (if applicable) would be the major focus. Pointing out other niceties such as if the game will run on the IGC would also be useful.


The list of games that fit this criteria is enormous so in an attempt to slim it down I suggest the following rules.

1. Games released within the last couple years. Doom and Baldur's Gate are great and all, but this is not an exhaustive list of every game ever. Perhaps a spin-off thread focusing on GOG/Dosbox would be nice.
2. Scale wisely. Just because you can scale Fallout 3 down to look completely awful while getting 60 FPS doesn't make it a good candidate. Something like Torchlight is a good example of a game that scales down to very low requirements while maintaining playability.

 

I've tried to keep the sections as generic as possible and not get too tripped up if a game crosses multiple genres.


Action
Audiosurf Youtube
Microsoft® Windows® XP/Vista, 1.6 GHz Intel® Pentium® 4, 512 MB RAM, 32 MB NVIDIA GeForce® 2 (support for Pixel Shader 3.0 recommended), DirectX® 9.0 or higher

Torchlight Youtube
x86-compatible 800MHz processor, 512MB RAM, 400MB drive space, DirectX-compatible 64MB video card
It comes with a netbook mode setting. I think this shows the developer took a lot of care in making sure the game will scale down for portables. I am really curious to see how this game performs in various conditions. Netbook vs. non-netbook mode. IGP vs. GPU, so on.


Puzzle
Braid Youtube
Microsoft® Windows® XP / Vista / 7, 1.4GHz or faster, 768 MB RAM, 200 MB disk space, Dx 9.0c Pixel Shader 2.0 video card, Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller for Windows supported

Sam and Max Youtube
1.5 GHz processor, 256MB RAM, 32MB 3D-accelerated video card, 1.5GB hard disk space, DirectX 8.1 or newer

Strongbad's Cool Game for Attractive People Youtube


Strategic
Age of Empires III Youtube
Windows® XP, 1.4 GHz equivalent or higher processor, 256 MB RAM, 2 GB drive space, 64 MB video card with support for hardware transformation and lighting required

Dwarf Fortress Video Tutorial
Linux, Windows 98 or higher, Mac OS X 10.3+, 100 MB hard drive space, 512 MB RAM, 3D accelerator card with OpenGL support
If you are not already familiar with this game do not let the interface scare you off. At its heart it is a sim game, but with a depth that puts it in a league of very few games. You can get tile packs if you find ascii unbearable, but I would expect this game to benchmark very well for battery life and temp.

 

Diablo I & II?

For Diablo II

Age of Empires 3 (My favorite for YEARS)

 

The short version of this is any game not using the 335M will get 4-5 hours, any game using the 335M will get 2-3 hours. We could shorten this up and say any indie game that doesn't need discrete graphics or any older games should be fine on integrated. There are also some games like Starcraft 2 that will run on integrated. Any game running on discrete won't work, so even if it older, something like Half-Life 2 will never be good on integrated. On the other hand I can get around 3 hours of CS:S gaming using the 335M on the battery, so I don't think I would throw that out as a portable game.

I guess I don't really understand this thread, and it is made worse with the R2, since you can't control if it uses discrete anyway, you might as well play what you want because it may kick on the 335M even for really old games, or even if you turn everything down in torchlight, and once the 335M is running it uses roughly the same power to run something demanding or not.

 

5hrs 52mins Project64 and Perfect Dark/Majora's Mask/Ocarina of time - native rez 16x anisotropic filtering and triple buffer - PEEERfect inflight entertainment

 

Merk, Diablo 1 & 2 don't qualify the recent games rule in the OP, not sure if you missed that, but even though AOE III came out in 2005 I'd still consider that new enough.

Yoda, you can control per application on the R2 if the GPU kicks in or not by right-clicking on it/or adding it to the profile.

Sorry if my original post was not clear enough, but this is to focus on games that compliment a CULV. There are loads of current games, not just indie, that do not try to push systems to their absolute graphical limits, but finding these games are problematic as generally pushing systems to their graphical limits is what sells many games.

 

The Sam and Max games from Telltale play fine on intergrated. Strong Bad probably would too. Tales of Monkey Island really needs the Nvidia to be playable, but they do work on the intergrated.

 

Guild Wars.

Intel Pentium III 800 MHz CPU,
256MB RAM,
2GB Hard disk space,
32MB Radeon 8500 or GeForce 3 Series GPU,
internet connection,
Windows 98/ME/2000/XP

YouTube - Grenth's Grasp - AB Build Review, Gameplay (HD)



Mount and Blade Warband

Intel Pentium IV 2.0 GHz or AMD 2000+
1 GB or more of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 or ATI Radeon X600 video card

YouTube - Mount and Blade Warband - Over 120 PvP Multiplayer Battle Gameplay




Battlefield Heroes

Windows XP/Vista
1 GHz CPU
512 MB RAM for XP (1 GB RAM for Vista)
1 GB hard disk space
DirectX compatible 64 MB graphics card with Pixel Shader 2.0 or better
DirectX compatible sound card
Internet connection: 256kbit cable/DSL connection

YouTube - Battlefield Heroes Release Trailer




Braid

Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP / Vista / 7
Processor: 1.4GHz or faster
Memory: 768 MB or more
Hard Disk Space: 200 MB or more
Video Card: Pixel Shader 2.0
DirectX® Version: DirectX® 9.0c
Controller Support: Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller for Windows

YouTube - Braid HD - World 2



Audiosurf

OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP/Vista
Processor: 1.6 GHz Intel® Pentium® 4
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Graphics: 32 MB NVIDIA GeForce® 2 (support for Pixel Shader 3.0 recommended)
DirectX Version: DirectX® 9.0 or higher
Sound: DirectX® 9.0c-compatible sound card

YouTube - Song 2 - Blur - Audiosurf


Battlefield 2

OS: Windows XP 32-bit
Processor: 1.7GHz Intel or AMD Processor
Memory: 512Mb
Graphics: 128Mb (Pixel Shader 1.4 compatible)
DirectX®: 9.0c
Hard Drive: 3.9Gb
Sound: Sound Blaster compatible

YouTube - Battlefield 2 Intro



Devil May Cry 4

OS: Windows XP Service Pack 2
Processor: Intel 4 Pentium processor or better
Memory: 512 MB
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series or better
Hard Drive: 8GB of free space

YouTube - Devil May Cry 4 PC gameplay 1680x1050 8xAA Super High #3 (720p HD playback)



Dead Space

Supported OS: Microsoft Windows® XP SP2 or Vista
Processor: 2.8 GHz or faster
Memory: 1 GB RAM or more for Windows XP (2 GB for Vista)
Graphics: DirectX® 9.0c compatible video card, Shader Model 3.0 required, 256 MB or better, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 or better (7300, 7600 GS, and 8500 are below minimum system requirements), ATI X1600 Pro or better (X1300, X1300 Pro and HD2400 are below minimum system requirements)
Hard Drive: 7.5 GB free space
Sound: DirectX® 9.0c compatible sound card

YouTube - Dead Space - Launch (Game Trailer HD)

Aion

OS:Microsoft® Windows® XP SP2
Processor: 2.8GHz CPU or equivalent
Memory: 1GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA® 5900 Ultra with 128MB RAM / ATI Radeon™ x700 with 128MB RAM or higher
DirectX®: DirectX® 9.0c (6/2008 update)
Hard Drive: 15 GB hard disk space
Sound: Yes
Internet Connection: Broadband

YouTube - Aion 2.0 Trailer ?HD?


The Witcher

Supported OS: Microsoft® Windows® /XP/Vista
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (included) or higher
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or Athlon 64 +2800 (Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 +3000 recommended). Athlon XP series, such as the Athlon XP +2400, is not supported
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or ATI Radeon 9800 or better (NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX or ATI Radeon X1950 XT or better recommended)
Memory: 1 GB RAM (2 GB RAM recommended)
Sound: DirectX version 9.0c-compatible sound card
Hard Drive: 8.5 GB Free

YouTube - World of The Witcher




Others; Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Black and White 2, Mafia, Beyond good and Evil, Red Alert 3, Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2, Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy, Serious Sam 2, Painkiller, Hitman: Blood Money, LOTR 2: Battle for middle-earth, Jade Empire, Condemned, Prey, Doom 3, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Tom Clancy's HAWX, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, GTA Vice City & San Andreas....

 

Updated and cleaned up the list a bit. I only added a few of the suggestions because I am not familiar enough with all of them to make a clear call how they will perform. I'll check them out more in depth when I get a chance.

When my machine comes in I'll benchmark the games I have and see what sort of settings and performance I can get out of them. I've thought about Yoda's point that GPU games will fall all in around 2-3 hours and IGP may get around 4-5. I'm really curious if it is as clear cut as this or how well something like Torchlight or DF will perform even using the GPU.

Any other suggestions, or even better has anyone tried running these or any other games and can report what sort of battery life/temp they experience?

 

I'd like to do an N64 emulator, but how do you do controls? Keyboard + mouse isn't going to cut it now will it?

 

Project 64 automatically recognizes the x360 pad - just have to manually input the buttons at setup. full analogue recognition too

 

Indigo Prophesy, second sight, serious sam