Almost done asking questions for my perfect gaming laptop

Alright here is what i'm getting for counter strike source:
Dell XPS M1530
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T9300 2.5GHz
3GB RAM
250GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
High Resolution, glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LED LCD (1440x900) & 2.0 M

Is there anything else I need to know or get so I don't have probs with my fps droping below 100 fps or staying at 60 fps? I'd also like to know what AA and AF is because some people are getting probs with cs source because of it

 

I have the sam laptop as you and get between 70 and 120 FPS with AA and AF. Just have vsync of imo its useless, all it does it prevent image tearing and tbh once your playing thats not something that really hinders gameplay. If you do want it on it will half your FPS though. Also AA and AF are really just eye candy and they are major FPS killers, i have them on cause good graphics turn me on haha. Enjoy the lapto when you get it

 

Thanks so AA and AF is nothing to worry about just order my laptop with the specs I posted?

 

The 8600m GT will do fine on CSS

AA (Anti Aliasing) - gets rid of the jagged edges on objects.
AF (Antiscopic Filtering) - how textures look at an angle/distance. Highest is nicest but most resource intentsive.

 

You will not see any difference with anything more than 60fps in a notebook lcd, cause the display only updates itself at 60hz. vsync was said to reduce the heat also.

 

yep, youre good

 

AA is Anti Aliasing or something rather... it smooths the jagged edges of objects so that like, a staircase looking edge becomes a smooth surface.

It uses a lot of power and slow down your frame rate alot, it's not really necessary but you can turn it on if you can afford the performance decrease.

 

AF doesn't really affect performances. I used to crank it up to 16x on my FX5200 so lol

 

Thanks guys you helped me alot ^^ i'll be ordering my lappy on july 10

 

vsync will not "halve your FPS". It will cap it at the high end at 60, but since your screen only updates at 60Hz, any FPS higher than that just means you get tearing (usually, otherwise it has no effect at all).

 

Could you turn off AF AND AA?

 

yes, most games will allow you to turn off AF and AA

 

yes you can turn it off, or in the case of css, just not turn it on.

all the graphics settings are clear in the menu.

about vsync:

someone mentioned that vsync will half your fps, someone else mentioned that it wont.

if you are running at 59 fps, it WILL half your fps (to 30)...

if you are running at 60+ fps, it WILL cap your fps at 60.

its a good thing, especially if you can keep your frame rate above 60. with modest settings, this is possible. (ie. don't do 8x high quality aa and 16x high quality af) just do like 2x aa and 8x af or so... its plenty.

 

It's incorrect to say that at 59 FPS it will crimp you to 30. It will limit your INSTANTANEOUS FPS to your screen refresh rate or a factor of it, but SUSTAINED FPS is a completely different story. It will cap you at 60 no matter how high above 60 your card can push the frames out though. If you want more info, I can link you to the thread where we went over all of this before.

 

seems like an overkill for CS:S but it's a sweet setup.