Question is my laptop can run 2 huge games

I've been looking, and looking and can't find a specific thing, telling me my laptop can or can't, run supreme commander or STALKER.
I just ordered this from Dell. I just don't wanna buy two games that wont run very well. I just got this to last me a whille, since im starting college soon.

If i can get them on medium settings then yeah thats great. Like i said, i just wan't to know if it will or not.

Thanks alot guys.




Dell Inspiron E1705
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB)
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
17 inch Wide Screen XGA+ TFT Display with TrueLife™(glossy)
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS
120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
Windows Vista™ Home Premium

 

Go. Now. And buy the games... That system is Highend for god's sake..

 

It will perform fine on medium-high settings in STALKER and high settings in Supreme Commander. You will notice a slowdown on the largest maps in Supreme Commander however, due to the CPU.

 

Well, thanks for giving me the lowdown..basically. Glad to know its highend.

 

If you already own this computer, there's always the System Requirements Lab. I've found it to be about 95% accurate in predicting what I can run and use it quite a bit - Even though I hate IE and ActiveX controls...

 

you'r wrong man, you can actually run stalker on a decent 1280x800 resolution with everthing on max, and you should have no issues with that, as for supreme commander, i don't really know, i guess you'll be just fine on medium settings

 

impossible man. there is absolutely no way a 7900gs can handle supreme commander on high settings, he'd still experience some slowdown even on medium settings, and BTW, supreme commander is much more graphic intensive game than stalker.

 

Erm you are wrong. Supreme commander is not or just as graphic intensive as Stalker.. just look at the system requirements!

Stalker recommended: AMD Athlon 64x2 4800+ or Intel Core 2 Duo, 1Gb RAM, 3D Hardware Accelerator Card Required - 100% DirectXR 9.0c compatible 256MB (Geforce 7800, for example).

Supreme Commander recommended: 3.0 GHz Intel or equivalent AMD processor or better
• 1 GB RAM or better
• 10 GB available hard drive space
• 256 MB video RAM,
with DirectX 9 Vertex Shader / Pixel Shader 2.0 support (Nvidia 6800 or better)

Supreme Commander is very CPU intensive.. rendering hundreds of units on such a large scale with multiple AI..

Stalker is newer and there are reports of people with even decent gfx like 7600s getting some slowdown...

I have a 7600 and I run Supreme commander on Medium settings at 1024Xwhatever resolution at a good clip... a 7900 is about twice as powerful so at 1280x800 he should be able to run at high settings perfectly.. depending on the CPU he has.

Even on high settings Supreme Commander doesn't look great... STALKER is a much better looking game and logic would infer that it must tax your system more if it looks better unless one is more poorly coded. even then...

 

you can't judge weather a game is demanding or not by only looking at the system requirements, on paper it might look like stalker is a more demanding title, but it's not true. stalker is based on a rather dated graphics engine, and if you disable the dynamic lighting option, and the game turns playable on most mid-end systems, even on high settings.

well, then which do you think is more demanding!, F.E.A.R or stalker?
i have both, and when i run them on 1440x900 resolution, with everything maxed out, i get slightly better performance in stalker than what i get in f.e.a.r, actually i would consider stalker very playable on these settings, but the same can't be said about fear.
you see, stalker is actually on par with fear, and less demanding if you ask me, and supreme commander is far more demanding, actually i believe it's the most demanding pc title right now. in fact i heard it can be laggy even on 8800gts. i think most people on this forum agree with me about that.

you can't judge weather a game is demanding or not by only looking at the system requirements, on paper it might looks like stalker is a more demanding title, but it's not true. stalker is based on a rather dated graphics engine, and if you disable the dynamic lighting option, and the game turns playable on most mid-end systems, even on high settings.

notice that i havn't played supreme commander, i was thinking about buying it, but skipped the idea following what i heard about how much demanding the game is, even though, i'd love to give it try some day.

 

Actually I think the engine for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was updated before the release of the game.. I remember reading a gamepro article that it was looking dated, but I doubt that holds true anymore. According to firingsquad.com
I definitely got my information confused there.

Now look at this:

From Firing Squad.com

The 7900GS (desktop version mind you) got 26.8 FPS on high settings 1600x1200 0xAA with dynamic lighting. With 2.4 ghz core 2 duo.

According to gamespot for Supreme commander:
the 7900 GT (slightly overclocked gs) got 15 (more like 14 or 13 for GS) on 1600x1200 4xAA high settings. With a core 2 duo extreme 2.93 ghz... and remember that Supreme commander is cpu intensive...

Going from 2.93 to 1.83 will result in 10fps drop for supreme commander.. so you could imagine that going from 2.93 to 2.4 would probably drop 5 fps...

Wow this is confusing, but if you consider all the different variables in the test, and also considering how many units are onscreen at a time (rendered), S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Supreme commander are both quite demanding games, though Supreme commander may just edge it out a bit. So I was wrong first time..

But this doesn't really matter anyways, a 7900 GS will easily play both games at decent settings.

 

fadi, being that you haven't played Supreme Commander, I dont think you know what you are talking about. It is not a game that is that graphically intense. It is very cpu intensive. Hence the reason a 8800gts will stutter, 8800's at this moment are cpu limited. I play Supreme Commander at max settings at 1440*900 res and as long as it is not a huge map with ridiculous amounts of units there is no problem. He can play both games full out with his card. Mine equates to a 7900gtx which is alittle better then the one he has. Oh and by the way the most demanding PC title out right now would most likely be Oblivion which he could also run just fine.

 

www.systemrequirementslab.com

this will tell you what games you can run
its a great site

i run supreme commander on 1920 x 1200 and medium high settings on my rig in sig with not too many slowdowns
so he should run it fine

 

Heh, yeah point is go and buy that laptop! It's a mirror image of my lappy at the minute, and I sure as hell haven't had a problem with most games, only the more recent and demanding ones persuade me to turn down resolutions and high-end effects and details. Go for it, you will not be disappointed, and I know I might be stirring things up a little by saying this, but it should even run Crysis...it's low-end video settings will probably be the equivalent of Oblivion's or Vegas' high-end settings!

 

that's exactly what i'm talking about, i know that a 7900gs can run stalker without a hitch, because i have the game, and i'm running it on my notebook(inspiron 9400, t7200 C2D, 2gb, 7900gs). sure both games are demanding, and maybe i was wrong when i said that that supreme commander is far more demanding than stalker, but still, according to these performance guides(on gamespot and firingsquad), supreme commander actually is the most demanding title out there, and it's not stalker or oblivion, though they don't fall far behind. for anyone who can't believe this, check gamespot.com

 

wow. i was expecting a few answers but overnight it wen't crazy. Thanks guys, you really help me out alot. This is the only forum i didn't get instantly flamed by just cause i didn't know about how far or low my specs we're. I will definetly be back if i have another question. Ill stay with this laptop.

I may skip out on supreme cammnder just to avoid the frustrating. I may try command and conqueror 3. I'll take some of your advice and go for the system requirements lab. Never knew there was such a thing.

Later