I hate to do it - "What games will this system handle?"

Hey guys, I know some of you get irritated with posts like this, but I'd really appreciate a brief run-down of what games I will and will not be able to play using the following specs:

DELL E1505
Core Duo T2400 (1.83GHz/667MHz/2 X 1MB L2 Cache)
1 GB DDR2 SDRAM@ 533MHz
5400 RPM SATA HD
128MB ATI MOBILITY RADEON X1300 HyperMemory

Okay, so... that should be all the info needed to ascertain this system's gaming power. It's coming in the mail in a few days, and I'd just like to know what it'll handle. For example, will it run Doom3? Half-Life 2? What about Quake 4 (which I hear is made dual-core capable)? For that matter, how long until this laptop becomes useless, gaming-wise?

Keep in mind I'm not talking max res here. Just playable, with minimal chop. Oh, also...that graphics card apparently lifts memory from the RAM. From what I hear it's not TOTALLY a dedicated graphics card, although it's billed as one.

Thanks in advance, people.

-Josh

 

i'm gonna move this to the gaming forum... i think you'll get more answers there.

 

The ATI x1300 isn't a very powerful graphics card. However, you will still be able to play some games at medium-ish setting on your system.

For example - Half life 2 isn't a very graphics intensive game, even though the graphics are great! I've hear some people have even got it to run on an integrated card (albeit with ****ty results).

For most games, you'll find yourself being forced to turn the settings down pretty low, but you get what you pay for.

 

I would say modern games on low res and low settings. With a card like the x1300 you should be worried about gameplay and not graphics, so turn things low and you may get by. Dont expect to play anything next gen, but youll get by with games like bf2 and such. Id get 2gb as that will help you a bit, also have you ordered it? or do you already own this lappy? If you havent ordered it I would say get the x1400 as its worth every penny over the x1300

 

Yeah, I already bought it. The thing was, I couldn't be as picky as I would have been otherwise, because I bought it from eBay. Only $770, including shipping, and it's brand new. Gotta love eBay.

Anyway, yeah, I really wanted to buy the x1400, but I just couldn't find one with that card for less than $900.

All I know is that right now, Unreal Tournament is the best thing I can run smoothly, and that's on my DESKTOP. When I tried to play BF2 on my desktop, it was too choppy.

So all I'm looking for is something that'll let me enjoy all the great games I've missed out on for the last two years, like Doom3, Half Life 2, BF2, etc... And maybe even play a few new ones like Spore when they come out, on low settings.

Eventually I'll upgrade and get a new desktop with twin cores and twin graphic cards, but that'll have to wait another year at least (to tell ya the truth, I'm trying to coincide it with the release of Unreal 2007).

So yeah...the x1300 will run Doom3, BF2 and the like? Without chop?

 

You'll be able to play anything out there. New stuff on low-medium settings. Little bit dated stuff on mediumish. Old stuff on high settings.

 

sweeeeet. thanks.

 

Keep in mind that different people have different opinions of what is "playable" and what is not. To one person, 30fps in UT2k4 with everything set to high at the highest resolution is perfectly playable. While to another person that might be too low of a frame-rate for their taste.

Another person might be perfectly happy with 25-30fps in Half-Life 2 all set to high at the highest resolution, while another person "needs" 60fps so they will only say that particular system can play it at "low" settings. It's all subjective.

Me? Well, modern PC gaming has gone down hill quick since the end of the century. But I'm perfectly fine with UT2k4 at 30fps at 1280x800x32 everything set to highest on an ATI Xpress 200M. I still need to get this system replaced though.

 

Yeah, I don't need 60fps. 30 is fine for me.

Basically I was just wondering if games like Unreal, Quake 4, Doom 3, Half Life 2, etc. were PLAYABLE on this system, which to me means low to mid graphics settings and no chop or glitching.... I HATE CHOP!

 

Half life 2 should be fine but i tried playing Quake 4 on my laptop yesterday and i could only get 30+ fps on low res and low quality and it looked like a pile of crap. Ive played it on my desktop on 800x600 with medium quality and its playeble but on my laptop it looked horrid.

When you have to lower the details so much that the games looks like lego people in rooms with plain walls the game is no fun. Wait til you upgrade your desktop before playing these quality games - the experience will be far more enjoyable.

 

Did you install the dual-core patch? Gives a nice performance boost:
http://www.mofunzone.com/game_patch_downloads/quake_4_1_05_beta.shtml#

 

yeah anything UT will run like a champ on what you have. Even UT2004, as always ram will help ALOT. But unlike alot of other games the UT series is coded really well, I was able to play UT2003 and UT2004 with full res and all the eye candy on my ati200m(integrated 128mb of VRAM) with 512mb system ram and I was perfectly fine(2gb helped).

 

Lego people....that made me laugh.

 

Yea i downloaded the beast of a patch that is 1.3 that was 200+ MB. My laptop just doesnt cut it though.

@ chris, thats what happened in Q4 the people looked so wierd on low settings it remined me of little lego people, not that im knocking Lego Star wars or anything...

 

Did you notice any performance increase? Enable SMP manually:
http://www.tweakguides.com/Quake4_8.html
Further down the page under Performance Commands.

 

How would a 2.0 GHZ Core Duo, 2GB ram, x1600 run games? Could I get high settings?

 

Is this a patch just for Quake 4, or does it help all games when running on a dual-core? Any other tweaks or patches? I'm gonna wipe this thing when I get it and start with a fresh WinXP install, so I'd like to get all the tweaking out of the way when I first get it.

Oh, also, what would you guys reccomend I set the paging file as?

 

Quake 4 only. Call of Duty 2 has a similar patch.

 

Chaz gimme some credit lol!! I enabled it in the options from within the game but I installed the patch before playing so couldnt compare before/after performance.

 

Well, Quake 4 does use the Doom 3 engine. The Doom 3 engine wasn't known for being well programmed or optimized very well. It's probably the most poorly written engine to come out.. maybe ever? haha. Even the original Unreal engine scaled better than the Doom 3 engine, and looked better (proportionally) while it was doing it. The Doom 3 engine just plain sucks.