Inspiron 6000 initial tests and x300M question

Hi all,

I'm abroad on work...and my new Dell Inspiron 6000 has been received by a friend of mine.

- What basic initial tests should I tell him to perform to make sure everything is fine...just to make sure that it neednt be returned immediately.
- No benchmarks or fancy tests...I want him to be able to test the laptop without the trouble of loading anything new.
- I also want to make sure that the adapter provided is correct

Another question out of curiosity...will my 64MB ATI x300m be able to run HL1, HL2, counter-strike, GTA-san andreas at playable levels (playable means smooth,non jerky)...I dont mind low/medium settings. How about doom3...will it be playable at all?

 

Just have him check the display for defects or stuck pixels. Everything else should be fine.

As to the games, you can check the gaming forum for more details there. The X300 is not a good gaming card. You can probably get away with playing the older games at good levels, but I think Doom 3 will be above your reach.

 

dont jump the bandwagon please..

The x300 is a good gaming card (not nearly as good as the 6800 in the i9300, so dont flame me.) But if CAN play games, depending on which ones the max you can go is medium settings. On Counterstrike source, i was able to play at max settings with the x300 128mb . the 64mb version is hypermemory, im not sure on the performance of that.

Doom 3: i was able to play medium/high settings
Battlefield 2: Low (i think because my system only has 512mb of ram)
Call of Duty 2: medium
The Sims 2: High.


Just for some reference

 

Thanks for your replies guys...

and spl. thanks to delvien for the kind words (at last) about the x300m everyone was trashing the x300m so badly...I had started to dislike it even though I havnt even seen it in action. I'm not an avid gamer...but would want my laptop to be able to at least run the games if I'm ever in the mood (low/medium settings are good enough)

 

what resolution are those quality settings at devlin. sound really low, unless you have the wxga screen so i guess 1024x768 wouldn't be to bad.

 

i have the x300 128 meg card and play HL2 at the game recommended settings in 1680 and 1920 with no problems.

 

I'm getting sick of the "don't get an x300 if you want to play games" argument.
Yeah - it might not be able to handle the latest games at high quality - so? Still leaves 10 years worth of great PC games which will run like lightning. And even for newer stuff, turning down the detail and fancy lighting effects still leaves the same game.
Since when did the term gamer become a synonym for graphics whore?
Make sure you install some decent drivers though. And Don't be afraid to up the settings if it autodetects and sets them low, some games underestimate the card (And more often detect your processor as being rubbish because it picks up the speedstepped value plus doesn't distinuish between Pentium M speeds and Desktop models)

 

Alot of people love seeing all of the special effects on the games that you play. So they are not necessarily graphics mongers. I for one can appreciate both sides of the spectrum. I used to play games that were graphics spectacular but I could raise the settings, but I appreciated the gameplay. Alot of people love the graphics nowadays though.

 

Thanks guys, I am going to buy the similar spec 6000 and I am happy to see that the x300 is a capable card.

Thank goodness.


BTW, brilliant forums you guys got here!!!

 

Recommendation though if you want to keep up with newer games get the 128MB card...at least then you can play newer games that require more video Ram...and you can just turn down the settings to play.

 

My desktop has built in video which is the x300 and ran things fine for me, however later on I did get a x700 Pro 256MB card for it....I dont remember why I bought that now? But I play CounterStrike a lot, not the Source though because its horrible, many CS veterns are returning back to CS from CSS because its that bad.

Sorry got a little off topic, but yeah definitely go for that x300 its much better than the Integrated intel ones as they cant display somethings right.