Even slower, old laptops can play games perfectly.....

I was playing halo today on my rather old inspiron 8100 (see my signature). Although it really lacks processing power with 1.3Ghz.....the game run perfectly on the highest detail setting! My graphics card is quite good, but nothing amazing. So you don't really have to get carried away with CPU speed and the latest graphics cards. An average laptop is quite good to play games...

 

Hm, interesting. Well, Halo only requires a 700MHz processor too, so you exceed that.

About the graphics - your GPU is DirectX7 -the game uses DX9 shaders, but since your graphics card doesn't have those, I don't think it has to process them - much lighter workload.

Is there any way you could post a screenshot?

 

I meant a real screenshot . . from Lil Mayz.

 

hmm... how would I do that chaz??
I will post a screenshot if I you tell me how to....

 

Sure

Download and install a program called "FRAPS" - google it. Once you have that installed, you can change one of your keys to, when you press it during a game, take a screenshot.

Cheers

 

Do you have a print screen button? if you do... press it, then it will take a picture of the screen exactly as it appears.

Then all you have to do is to paste the image onto a photo editing software (photoshop)

 

thanks will do soon chazMan...I'll try and capture a shot while in action (when I'm shooting an enemy or during an explosion). Should be fun!

 

All you do is just assign a key to take a screenshot [I have mine as one of the F keys, since you don't really use those in a game]. Then, you specify where you want it to put the screenshots - I created a folder in My Pictures called "Screenshots", it puts them all in there.

Cheers

 

Lol Cool Chaz, however the F button is a melee attack in Halo. I configured mine to F5 for some reason, anyway I'll be posting soon enough...I'm sure you can't wait to see the shots Chaz!

 

Yeah, that's what I mean - "One of the 'F' keys" refers to F2, F3, etc.

 

ah okay...lol

 

FRAPS is good. Just to mention that if you are using Ati Tray tools you can do it from there. Similar procedure like in fraps.

Cheers,

 

Sometimes just PrintScreen works. I took lots of screenshots like that.

 

I simply cannot get Fraps to work. I configured my screenshot capture key to F1 and I'm sure I've configured everything perfectly. But even when I have the program minimised in the system tray and I press F1 it simply opens the help and support window. Maybe I should just take a picture of the actual screen with my digital camera. It's not as accurate but it does work....

 

Don't use F1. Try some other.

 

I would use F11 or something like that. Yeah, F1 won't work as you have already found out.

 

A simple solution to all of this:

When you want to take the screenshot, press your print screen button. Then after you exit or tab or whatever... go to some photo editing software (even paint) and paste. The picture will be your screen. Save it and voila!

 

This doesn't work if the thing you are trying to take a screenshot of is on a video overlay, i.e. directx game or video playback etc.. for that you need a specialised program like Fraps.

 

I took screenshopts of Rayman 3 and Sands of Time using Printscreen.

 

sorry about the delay people and Chaz, but I've finally done the screenshots from Halo. I used Fraps while opening Halo and during gameplay the framerate never dropped below 30 frames per second which is quite good considering my rather slow processor. The screenshots were taken from the very beginning of the game, in a bit of a rush.

 

Nice, good that you got it up.

Now of course, since you are using a DX7 GPU, you aren't going to get all the cool shading effects, but at least you can play it. I have to say that looks pretty good judging from that.

Above 30FPS is what to shoot for. Nice job.

Cheers

 

It's okay Chaz, it's an amazing game even without the shadow effects, you could get stuck on it for hours and forget to do work!

 

This isnpired me to test out my 12" PowerBook's abilities. It's a couple years old with...

1ghz G4
512mb RAM
GeForce FX Go5200 32mb

I downloaded the Halo demo and it ran perfectly! ... with all seetings on low at 640 x 480.

Warcraft 3 on the other hand, runs smooth as butter at all high settings on max resolution.

 

I had halo running on the max resolution with the highest detail settings.