Medieval 2 Total war on laptops...

I'm planning on buying a laptop that can run Medieval 2: total war. The game is pretty popular and I was wondering whether there are people here that play this game on their laptops. If you are one of those people, please right down your laptop specs and tell a little about how the game runs. I'm trying to figure out which kind of laptops run the game best. Thanks in advance.

 

I can play it, but I can't run battles, heres a tip, don't get anything integrated. I have a GMA 900.

 

Get something like my computer if that is the only type of gaming that you want to do. I can run it fine, 1280X800 Res, max graphics. FPS will drop to like 20 at times, but not offten.

 

Or get a Dell 1520, and have at least twice what he has

 

You mean 4 times.

 

Runs great for me. I don't have any fps numbers to give you because I never bothered to check when it runs silky smooth on native resolution and everything on high.

 

im running it on a 1720 with 8600GT card, can run everything max at 1440x900, but it starts to stutter in bigger battles

 

i have an asus g1, 7200 core 2, 2 gb ram, go7700.

i can run it at mid settings no problem.

 

Thank for all the input from everyone. I have a pretty good idea of what I need. I'm thinking of getting the Asus c90... with a Nvidia geforce 8600M GT 512MB graphics card ... it sounds like it would be more than enough for M2 and future games to follow. I do need a place to buy it though... does anyone know which companies sell the Asus C90 in Canada?

 

I thought the 8600M GT was 256 :S

 

ncix.com
milestonepc.com

 

What size battles are you running?

 

The X1400 can display <2500 soldiers smoothly(20-30 fps) 8600 gt <5000 if you can take the last one...

 

Without resolution and settings, those numbers are rather useless by their lonesome.

 

If you're planning on getting the C90s, I'd highly recommend you get the 256mb GDDR3 card rather than the 512mb DDR2 card. I don't know if any canadian resellers have picked up the newer card yet, but they should shortly.

 

You can't play <5000 men on a laptop even at 640x480.

I have the MBP with 256MB GDDR3 version and it won't let me play with any more men than 2 full stacks (about 4800 men). The reason is not the graphics card but the game is actually pretty CPU intensive. Shame that the game does not support multi-threading and it suggests that I should update my CPU (even though the T7700 is the top mobile CPU available right now).

In general, I play at max details at 1440x900 with no AA with updated graphics driver and it stutters quite a lot in the city sieges (again due to CPU constraint).

 

What OS is this in?

 

Windows XP SP2

 

And you've applied the multi-thread hotfix?

 

That would be great but there is no multi-thread patch that I am aware of. Or is there?

 

I meant the XP hotfix.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=60416
You should also make sure you have all the M2TW patches installed:
http://www.totalwar.com/index.html?page=/us/support/supportmedievalii.html&nav=/us/7/1/

 

ooh, i like that one, ill have to use that for my computer

 

Ehm...i haven't said it does 60 fps but 20-30 = smooth with some lag near max limit of soldiers...
I hope it's clear now...
Anyway settings are : 1024 x 768 maximum detail SHADOWS OFF (increase a lot performance) VSYNC OFF AA OFF

 

for which card?

 

VAIO - Everything except shadows maxed, 8×AF, Large armies, Native Res, 20-30 fps, slows down to 15 in 3000+ men battles.

m9750 - Maxed Settings, 4×AA, 16×AF, Large Armies, Native Res, runs smoothly except during 4 stacks of armies battles.

 

Medieval doesn't support multi-threading. It makes no difference.

 

The hotfix does indeed make a difference, as without it XP can not properly optimize tasks for a dual core processor. Even if the Medieval program is single threaded, it's not the only process running.

 

And what's wrong with the DDR2 512mb ??.. i think it can handle very good that game too ... the difference is not much ...

a good store in canada is
Lu Computers

I recommend it a lot..

 

There's nothing wrong with it, the GDDR3 card is simply better and more powerful. It's not a huge difference, but it's a noticeable one. MileStonePC.com is also a good reseller to look at.

 

That would run it great. Good luck.

 

Try to find the GDDR3 RAM, Its faster than the 512mb card.