The curve of progress

Lets say I have the following laptop with these specs: 15.4" WXGA, Geforce Go 7600 256Mb, Core 2 Duo T5500 1.6Ghz, 1 GB Ram, 100GB 5400 RPM HD.

Take the progression curve of gaming in the last year or two and say that the curve continues at the same rate (taking DirectX10 into consideration). How long would one guess before the above computer would be obselete and needed to be replaced?

Many IFs I know but laptops are new to me and i want to know a ball park estimate on the performance span of one, considering they aren't that easy to update.

 

About 2yrs......

 

All depends on the type of gaming you are trying to do. RTS, puzzle, and some RPG'S can probably be strectched to three on that machine (at lower settings of course.) If your an FPS man it was obsolete a year ago

 

LOL well I play FPS sometimes....mostly for sports games and some car racing.

 

As I said before the X1600 and 7600 should be decent for around 2yrs from now. After that if you want to play anything it will probably have to be on the lowest settings and res.

I plan on keeping my laptop for about 2 1/2yrs so that will be fine for me...

My next rig will be 64-bit with Vista.

 

i would say the only things that make it obsolete are the things that limit its expandability. anything that can be removed will not make your pc obsolete. well it will but what i mean is you can easily remove that part for a newer part. that merom you have in there should be good for 2 years "before you have to replace it" for something newer, but once replaced your system is good. the thing with this is i think it comes down to the gfx card you have in there. the thing to note is most gfx come standard in the notebook so removing them is hard... if yours is removable you can always upgrade it down the road (not so easily, but it can be done) like lets say 2 years from now, after the nvidia 1950 is out for notebooks, **maybe** you can replace your 7600 for one or a 7600 now, for something equivalent in the future. anything that can be replaced you shouldn't worry about (such as cpu, possibly gpu (it depends), ram, hd, optical drive (bluray), etc.). The things that you should worry about are irreplaceable parts (motherboard, intel's chipset (decides what cpus are compatible), casing chassis (design looks), wireless, etc.)

 

ok thanks for the input.

Judging from the last 5 years, would it be said that the curve of progressive (especially in gaming) is getting steeper or shallower?

I feel steeper, with the likes of Oblivion and F.E.A.R and I don't see it slowing down with Direct X10 coming....but that's just what I think.

 

I would agree with the "steeper" thought. It will continue at a rapid pace until the consumer finally decides it is no longer worth the constant upgrading and moves to the console world.

 

Totally agree with that.

Things are going to be the best they've ever been for a few years, then I see things maybe slowing down, as gaming prices rise, and incomes drop, people will run out of money, and companies wont be making as much profit, but there will ALWAYS be advancements, dont count on a standstill.

 

the thing i have noticed is that right at that point when everyone thinks a slowdown will occur, some new technology arrives and in a flash companies pour money down this new avenue and progress maintains its exponential increase in rapidity.

 

How do you define "obsolete"? You can play most games for the next 5 years probably, but it won't be more than a couple of years before you have to lower image quality drastically.

 

I just bought a dell 9400 (2.0ghz CD, 2gb ram, 7900GS) and i'm planning on doing at least 3 years with my laptop... (i know in about 2 years gaming will become difficult at a decent resolution )...

but the thing is, 5-6 years ago, the highest res was like 1280*1024 with all max... and now people want to play at like 1920*1200 @ max... you can't do that for 5 years...

I suppose after 3 years you could play at about 1024*800 @ medium/low settings i think... Unless the games will require DX10 as a minimum...

 

Perhaps "obsolete" was a poor choice of words.

I like to play games and usually play on medium settings. I don't need maximum graphics but I don't want the minimum either.

Right now I am using an AMD 1800+ with 512 ram 80 Gig HD and Radeon 9600XTt GPU. The low ram and the 1800+ just aren't cutting it anymore. I've had the computer for about 4 years. What I want is to buy a laptop and not have to think about dishing out any more money for another 4 at least.

So take a computer like HP Pavilion dv9005 17"WXGA+, GeForce Go7600 256, Turion X2 1.6, 1 GB Ram, 100GB or something similar, will it be able to cut it for the next 4 years?

 

i think DirectX10 is the make or break in your question

 

Yeah me too. Sometimes technology is a pain.

 

You will still be able to run DX10 applications on your current hardware. The parts of DX10 that aren't supported will either be neglected (just some shiny water effects and such), or emulated in the CPU instead of on the card. If you get a first-generation DX10 card, it won't perform that well. Think about the GeForce FX's and such. First gen support of new DX, and they were crap.
And razoebe, gaming won't necessarily be difficult at high resolutions. Or do you only play the newest games? I still play a lot of C&C:Generals Zero Hour and Quake 3. They look even better on the latest hardware

 

I disagree with the vast majority here.

Trying to measure the curve is futile but for what it's worth, note that a Mobility Radeon X600, based on technology that's three years old, still plays most games, including Oblivion. Even the old Radeon 9800 Pro still games very well.

The GeForce Go 7600 is a very powerful card, certainly stronger comparably to the midrange from the 9600 era. I'd say it has at least three years left in it, probably closer to four or even five.

Games may scale up pretty rapidly, but they also scale down well.

 

To be honest the only thing I am playing at the moment is Counter Strike 1.6 but then again new games like BF2 require to much for my current computer. I would like to keep my options open for new software though.

Thing is, I think I am going through a maturing process. I AM GETTING OLD. I'm not playing as many games that I used to. I have a family that I can't neglect as much

So buying a new desktop seems like a bit of a waste unless I am JUST doing gaming. I want to buy a new laptop but I want to keep my options for playing games. Then with computing going into the next gen with 64 bit, Vista and direct x10 it makes buying a new laptop more complitcated. I am not just thinking about the NOW but thinking about "future proofing" also.

 

You know I think about that. I think if developers continue to push the graphics to the limit of the hardware that they will kill the PC gaming for the average PC gamer who just want a good gaming experience with out thinking too much about the realism outlook. You want realism drive fast the wrong way on a one way street!!! (j/k). Well anyways something is going to have to give.

 

I agree with what Pulp said completely. I'm running on a X800XT PE and I can run the newer, hardware heavy games quite well. I guess the bigger issue would about DX10. It's not like it's going to happen overnight, so if you have a mid to high range system right now, it still has a good couple years left IMO.

But yeah Nud, the system you listed is pretty old school. It's almost the exact same specs of the first computer I built from scratch. Man, those XPcores back in the days were a fine piece of machinery. I would've upgraded to a AMD XP 2500+, 9800XT and 1gig RAM a year or two ago if I had your system. Those parts were dirt cheap around then and that set up would be able to let you play all right on todays game.

Sorry if that sounds like a rant or lecture, it's not, really. Sometimes when I suggest something to people they take it the wrong way :'( .

 

Yeah a two years ago I would have done the same. However I jumped ship to console, and found out that Microsoft and Sony milk you for money in another way. I was never as happy with the console than I was with the PC. So I am back on the PC ship again.

THe XP cores were great, problem with PCs are one moment they are great the next they are ancient....almost not enought time to appretiate it.

 

The advancements in graphics do appear to be getting somewhat steeper in recent years--but to be fair, the advancements are more in effects/shadows/shading/eye candy that don't need to be enabled.

That said, older cards are still able to play current games. They just can't support some of the crazy water effects or textures.

So it depends on what side of the spectrum you are on. If you are the type that wants maximum settings, you will need to upgrade probably sooner than 2 years from now. But if you're OK with medium settings and less "eye candy" enabled (like it seems you are), I would say you have more time than that.

But of course, predicting future developments is a dicey proposal. You just never know what's going to come out in 2+ years.

 

but for the Higher resolutions, i meant, that 1920*1200 and the otyher high reso's, require a lot from your GPU... and that's why people complain that your GPU doesn't have a long life anymore...

All i'm saying is, that you can't play in high resolutions for ever..., but i think with a 7900GS on 1024*768 or 1280*800, you schould be able to game for at least a few years