Good Options for a 15.4 in Laptop

I was sure that I was going to get the Dell Inspiron 1705 with a GeForce 7900 GS. However, I recently saw the size of it in real life and it was way too big. I've settled for a 15.4 inch laptop. However, I wanted to know which type of graphics card would be right for me. I want to be able to play most games on medium to high settings but I usually do not play the most cpu-intensive games. However, I want to have the ability to play games in the future.

 

All this info is in the sticky. You have a choice of the X1600/Go7600 or newer X1700/Go7700

The Asus G1 is getting a lot of forum love due to its Go7700. Note the X1600 vs 7600 thread.

Atm, the Go770 is the best in a 15.4" this side of DX10. Which leads me to say you'll be able to play DX10 games, but without the DX10 eye candy turned on

 

You'll want to go for a Go7600/X1600 as posted or better, but you can't get the Go7900/X1800 and related video cards in a 15.4" size.

No video card that is not DirectX 10 (no laptop has a DX10 video card right now, you'll need to wait a few months) can run DX10 games. DirectX10 is not backwards compatible with other versions of DirectX. I honestly would not worry about DirectX 10 at this time though . . . it will be a few years before it settles in.

 

The Asus G1 has a 7700.

http://proportable.com/detail.aspx?ID=196

 

The also recommend the Asus G1 or you can take a look at some of the A8J's series some of which also carry the 7700.

It is the best card right now in a 15.4" notebook.

 

Direct X is compatible by it's very design. If you do not have a DX10 graphics card you Can still play DX10 games. However you will not benefit from the extra effects that are built in to a DX10 video card.

Currently there are no DX10 video cards available for laptops, but that is suppose to change around April or May (my guess is by summer).

 

A Geforce 7600/Radeon X1600 will be sufficient to play games like Half-Life 2 at maxed out settings (I assume that's what you mean by "not really CPU intensive games). I'd say a 7600/X1600 is right for you.

If you want to be able to play games in the future, consider waiting until Santa Rosa comes out in May. Nvidia is releasing their first mobile DX10 graphics cards, such as the Geforce Go 8600, which will be replacing the 7600 and will have roughly the same power as a 7900GS.

 

try and find a 7700 or an x1700. 7600 and x1600s aren't always as good as they should be.

 

Techically that is not true. DX10 is a completely new and separate API and has no backwards compatibility with DX9. That is why Vista has both the DX10 API and a whole completely separate DX9 API.

While it is true that games for the next little while will run on both DX10 and DX9 GPUs it is not because DX10 is backwards compatible, but because game developers are basically writing 2 versions of their code, one for DX10 and one for DX9. It isn't as bad as writing 2 games since they are mainly compiling differently, but they should be spending time optimizing the 2 codebases separately. Clearly, this isn't an ideal solution because of the extra work and developers would like to switch to DX10 only as soon as possible. On the flip side, developers could just as likely avoid DX10 as long as possible and stick to DX9.0c which still has more room to grow although they may need to be a little bit more creative in order to achieve "more advanced" DX10 effects with reasonable performance. The slow introduction of DX10 GPUs isn't helping the transition either so DX9 certainly is being given a lot more breathing room.

The hopes are that DX10 GPUs will be available by May and probably available en mass by June so if you can wait until then that would be nice. Regardless of DX10 gaming, the newer GPUs will run DX9 games faster so it's a win-win.

 

there will eventually be software that is compatible with dx10 and cant run on dx 9 hardware.

also immediately software will have added effects for dx 10.

Im a gamer and i dont think its going to bother me. When I finaly got to see the dx 9 effects, I mean its just so funky lights and they hurt your eyes really. The game itself isnt any different its just extra effects.

Im really not sure the 8600 is going to replace the 7600. Im not really sure you are going to find it in many 15.4 inch notebooks. I think it is actually going to replace the 7900 gs that is in the lower end gaming 17 inchers. and the 8700 or 8800 is whats going to go in the upper end xps 1710 sager 5760 type.

This is because its still going to be hot and use a lot of juice. I could see it in the g1 actually but not like, the acer 8200 or hp 8430 etc becuase this would make the machine too hot and have too low of battery life for the average user.

 

Just want to ask which DX 10 card are you prefering to on the above statement? Did you mean 8600 or or is it the 8700 & 8800 in the g1?

 

Direct X 10 contains three versions of Direct3D: Direct3D 9, Direct3D 9Ex, and Direct3D 10. Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX

Unless they've decided to do away with the dreaded COM interfaces, then yes it is backwards compatible. Unless Microsoft radically changed the interfaces on all DX10 calls they shouldn't have to maintain 2 totally different code bases.

I think the thing that is hurts DX10 the most right now is that it is only available on Vista.

 

Has anyone gotten a hold of one of the new G8 mobile cards yet to see if they really run hot and suck a lot of juice, or is this just hearsay at the moment?

I know the desktop G8 runs hot and sucks the juice. That is one reason report to be why we haven't seen them in laptops yet, but I would hope they would work that out before the chip went mobile.

 

just hearsay based on the specs and comparing it to the cards that have the same specs in this generation.

Also I havent seen a 15.4 inch notebook with a 8600 in any of the consumer electronics shows.

 

Is not that u havent seen it, it's just not stated there yet. All the company always put the label of Nvidia GF 8000M 512TB, maybe it is a 8600, u ll never know... Anyway, if ur not in a hurry, might as well wait for a 8600.. the performance should not be too far away from a 7900GS...

 

Did you read your Wikipedia link?

As I said, DX10 is not backwards compatible, and DX9 and older compatibility is only maintained by completely replicating a DX9 API and is separate from DX10.

 

I read the Wikipedia link. Since this is really off subject, I'll explain it to you one more time. Since Direct X 10 includes support for DX9 it is backwards compatible. If it wasn't then you couldn't run DX9 games. Who cares how it is actually implemented, all that matters is that it is there. Direct X 10 is NOT the Direct X 10 API, it is the whole package, which includes backwards DX9 compatibility. You are correct that the Direct X 10 API is not backwards compatible but DX10 is.