gaming on GMA950 netbook

Hi,

I have a friend who wants to get a netbook for his son, who is failing university. As such, my friend does not want his son gaming anymore, and is considering getting a MSI Wind U100 Plus which has the GMA 950 graphics on board.

Is it safe to assume it wont be able to run any 3d or MMORPG games?

cheers

 

Nah he probably won't be able to play comfortably, but some older games(like 4+ year older) games might run(ex: Diablo 2, Starcraft, Warcraft 3, the Sims 1-2).

 

Have a look at the link below it`s for a samsung nc10 , but it uses an gma950 and an atom cpu, it should work fine on your friends.

But i think it`s better to get a cheap notebook with an amd hd3200 or nvidia 9200m or greater.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=329518&highlight=games+nc10

 

the point is we dont want it to be able to run games, if possible

 

he MIGHT be able to run really old games but he wont find it an enjoyable experience

 

Many old games a can run well on that card, many of them are quite good and I'm still playing (like star craft, counter strike, Wolfenstein:ET...)

 

The Asus EEE 901 is capable to run WoW and GTA San Andreas smoothly enough once the CPU is overclocked to 1.8GHz with EEEclock program and GMA 950 overclocked with a GMAbooster program.
I managed to play WoW on low settings while having fps on acceptable level (around 20-40fps) and GTA San Andreas aswell. So, It can run some a bit older games, but not very well. Though they will run somehow.

 

that actually sounds fairly impressive lol. i thought the X3100 was the first decent integrated gfx but the 950 sounds pretty capable too.

should i hunt around for a netbook that has the GMA500 instead?

 

poor kid
well, you could try getting one with those GPU's, since some of the old games are really non-entertaining for a guy who's used with eye-candy ones, you could also underclock it a bit, to make sure even warcraft III will not be decent played
or, you can get a second hand old notebook, really old, wich be able to only run browsers and some similar aplications on it, ofc there are still some games that could work on it but will be very hard to get and very boring

 

I am sure GMA500 is capable to run these games aswell, although there is no overclocking program out there to give more frames. And most of the netbooks are equipped with a GMA950 card. I would suggest you simply to buy the cheapest netbook out there which has a 4GB SSD drive which is enough to store the OS and other programs like a browser and a text editor, though it is way too small to store a game like WoW and GTA SA. And also, there is no way to install such a game via CD/DVD drive since it does not exist. Although you can download the game. However, if there is no space, that would make it impossible.

 

If you are going to run Xp go for the GMA950 as it is faster , if you are going for Vista or W7 get the GMA500 , I would not touch either with a barge pole, The minimum i would get is an 4500MHD

 

thing is i think he's more into MMORPG's and other internet based games. hence the addiction. he missed more than half of his classes, and failed. his inspiron 1520 also died (i think he probably overclocked the heck out of it), it had an X3100 on it.

 

this is a good suggestion, but i reckon he'd just buy an external hard drive to get around that lol.

 

It all depends on what games he plays.

Heck, I played Dawn Of War on a GMA950.

How about this: buy the kid a college ruled notebook and a box of ink pens, like we had back in the day.

 

Another way is just to simply set there an Administrator user and one with a limited usablity, and block installing new softwares without the admin password. This would work out.

 

this is a good idea. would it stop him from attempting to reformat the system and reinstall the OS to get around these? I ask because he does have a slightly above average knowledge of computers, so it would have to be a solution he wouldnt be able to get around easily by looking for a solution online or anything like that.

although i suppose since he's away from home, he could just swap out the hard drive lol, or is there something that can be set in the BIOS to stop that?


thanks!

p.s i know this is getting a little OT, so if someone confirms this is possible i'll start a thread on how to implement it in a more appropriate subforum.

 

Yeah, you can set a BIOS password via the bios security settings.
And an SSD drive is a 1,8" which cannot be replaced with a normal 2,5" laptop disk. Therefore the only chance is to take the drive out of the laptop, put it to friends minilaptop and format it. But personally I doubt that he will

 

isnt it easier to just buy another 1.8" drive and install it? then install windows from scratch? or take out the 1.8" drive and connect it via cable to a friend's computer and format it

 

No, as the 1,8" SSD drives are very expensive, and he could just buy another laptop and there is no way to prevent him from doing that
And you simply cannot install a windows to your SSD drive throught the mini laptop as it does not have a optical drive at all.

 

the Wind U100 has a normal hdd, not an SSD. He dosent have enough money to buy a new computer but he has enough to just replace the hard drive.

the two cheapest netbooks available in this part of the world are the wind and the acer aspire one.

so its between the Wind U100 plus and the aspire one D250, both have same graphics IIRC.

 

I would suggest to get the Aspire One with an SSD drive in that case

 

Get him a laptop with a CELERON cpu with the lowest amount of cache possible, playing games on it will be frustrating.

This ^ While he has no need to have a laptop in the class (not need or there are computers already in the classrom), he'll need to write papers and access the internet. Or he could persuade his teachers to accept hand-written papers and do the research at the library.

 

the D250 comes with a 160gb hard drive, i believe its not an SSD either. i cant seem to find any current netbooks using a small SSD?

 

You can allways buy a cheap used one from ebay
I would suggest you to get the Asus EEE 701. It sucks.

 

EEE701 was what came to my mind. unfortunately i dont think they want to get a used/refurbished unit.

guess its gonna have to be the wind and try to lock it down as much as possible.

its a pity there is no way to "tie" the hard drive to the bios, so the computer wont boot unless you provide a password if the HDD was replaced with another one

thanks for all the suggestions!

 

You can allways put some nice metal locks to the laptop so you can't open the case

 

well if it has the "warranty void if removed" stickers, then there is no problem, because i think he knows his dad would be really really pissed if he voided the warranty lol.

i think tamper evident stickers would work better than locks

 

The best choice will be the samsung nc20

It has a via cpu (good) and a via gpu (bad, with really bad drivers) so games will almost never work

 

yup he can play only old games so don't worry... get this notebook...

 

if they find a used laptop with agp graphics that doesn't have onboard memory, set agp aperture size to 1MB..4MB..8MB..whatever the lowest size is and password protect the bios, not the laptop. He wouldn't know the password, but the laptop will boot. There will be enough memory for windows, but most games will crash lol even non-3d ones

 

The truth is, if he has gamer friends, your efforts are for naught, unless he still lives at home.

The responsibility is the students, and I recommend you get hm into mentoring/counseling, if the addiction is this bad. He will find ways to get his gaming fix.

 

is it possible to do this with the GMA950? It shares the system memory .

 

That's the point... That you can set how much memory the GMA950 can access. Whether it can run windows, however... It would be hard to tell.

 

Use GMAbooster to lower the clock speed of the GPU from 400mhz to 133mhz.
Would mean no gaming and also more battery life and a cooler netbook.

I dont think anyone could game on a netbook anyway.

And how about making a deal with the kid.
Tell him that if he does good at school, he will get a good notebook.

Also get him more involved with sports. Get him on a basketball team or something and he wont want to play games.

 

I don't think forcefully cutting his gaming source will make him good at school... -_- The only thing which will do that is if he understand the priority that school has in his life. Even if he stopped gaming tomorrow, he could easily pick up something else which would distract him from his studies. Basically, he needs to be convinced of the importance of his studies and how they'll affect his future. Unless the situation is that he's a genius who's distracted, I can't believe that removing the distraction will suddenly get him motivated to do good at school.

That aside, a netbook would prove useful so that he can maintain a machine for schoolwork, but as said, having it locked in one way or another probably would be best.

 

he has been offered a machine of his choice if he does well next year. locking down the machine is his dad's way of trying to let him know that things dont come easily in life unless you work for it.

personally it kind of disgusts me, but he's the type of immature kid who leeches off his parents and they're not tough enough to take a stand. he seems to behave as though he's at uni because he's forced to go there, and i have a feeling even if he does finish uni he's not gonna be bothered to look for a job, he'll probably just stay at home and leech off his parents until perhaps one day they kick him out.

anyway, back on topic, how do i go about limiting the clock speed of the GPU and its memory? If possible low enough so playing videos will be choppy. If this can be done in BIOS, swapping the hard drive wont be a workaround for him, so its an ideal method.

The netbook will run windows XP, so dont really need much power for "eye candy".

 

Depending on what GPU he gets, you may be able to flash the vBIOS to lower the clock speeds and disable features.

But with the GMA950, you would have to find the right netbook.
Some netbooks may not give you control over the amount of memory used in the BIOS. Means you would have to do it in windows (so would be easy to get around).

Also GMAbooster has to be run every time you boot up, so it would also be easy to get around.

Basically you should help him get a netbook that has lots of control in the BIOS.
There should be some power saving features that you could enable in the BIOS, that would slow the netbook down.

 

do u think an MSI laptop would have the ability to control all this? after all, they are known for gaming and i think the original Wind had official overclocking support up to 1.8ghz

 

There must be someone here that has an MSI wind, maybe they can tell us what it has in the BIOS.

I would expect the MSI to have more options than an acer or most other netbooks (toshiba is really bad with BIOS options, so I would not get their netbook).

 

One thing that would slow it down is if you pin mod the PLL to lower the FSB.
This would be one thing that his son couldn't fix (unless he is smart enough to figure out how to do it).

But the atom is already so slow that it would make it bad for just doing basic things (internet and word...).

Anyway, if you do want to try the PLL mod, here is a link:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4998927#post4998927

Method 2 is the part of the guide to follow.

 

I think that this would be extremely difficult...

 

That's true, and it's probably not worth doing.

I hope the OP can find a netbook with lots of BIOS options.

 

I don't think getting a netbook would make him study more. Even if he can't play games on his netbook, he will find something else to do other than studying. Your friend's son need to realized why studying is important.
My advice: get him out of school for one semester and let him work full time to experience life and learn how difficult it is to make money without a college degree....

 

Even if you got him a Intel Atom with a Intel GMA 950 i dont really think you could stop him from gaming.

I know i would find a way. xD
Ah, i remember the days when i took the school computer lab and got games running on it.
Good times!

But what if you got a netbook and installed Ubuntu on it?
You can even buy netbooks from Dell with Ubuntu preinstalled.
If hes good with windows doesent mean hes good with linux. xD
If hes addicted to WoW or something similar he would get quite the challenge to tweak for example wine to get decent performance in that game.

 

if it was my son, thats what i'd do. but its not the case.

if it has linux on it he'd just reformat. i think im just gonna lock it down as much as i can.

 

Hmm, we always have the WoW - Catalyst expansion pack with higher system requirements.
And a netbook with a 8gb ssd would not have any space for games, and maybe tweak the usb speeds so that playing games from a external hdd would be a no go?

So glad i could "barely" control my gaming when i was in my last years at school.
Maybe because i did not play any MMO games.

 

LOL, or just sit at home unemployed like me WITH a college degree and IT certs....

 

I'm going with "give it up". If he wants to play, he'll play. If not on his netbook, then on something else. A console at a friend's. Whatever. Trying to stop him from playing by giving him a crappy netbook is like... well, like those parents who attempt to stop their daughters from having by forbidding them from going out from boys.

It's not going to work, you guys. Your friend's son is going to just sneak out with his darling netbook and do it in the back seat of a friend's car.

Uhhhhhh. Well, you get what I mean.

 

his college is in the middle of nowhere, and his friends arnt that generous

 

ultimately, doing this is not going to help there is always a work around.You just have to find a way to explain to him that studies are more important than games, but by doing this your almost asking him to rebel

try reasoning again and if the kid doesnt wanna goto UNI sometimes school isnt for everybody, and sometimes it takes the person to realize what is truly important to them. Let him apply for loans tell his dad to not support him, and let him taste the real world. anyway, this cat and mouse game is not going to achieve the results you want. Like i said there is always a workaround, and if he likes games as much as you say then he will find one.