x1600+ 2gb Ram Futureproof?

OK i want to play all the modern gameas and prob for the next couple of years some new releases will x1600 and 2gb do ok even say in 2yr a new game comes out i may be able to play like low settings wat do u thinkhow future proof is this?

 

For graphic intensive games i see it like this:
Games that come out 2007 -- medium settings or low if you want a lot of frames
Games that come out 2008 -- mostly low settings
Games that come out 2009 -- low and some not playable unless you can tolarate low frame rates of less than 10.

 

No, it is not. Because, the X1600 is not able to keep up with maximum detail settings and high resolutions even with currently available games. If you want a gaming notebook that'll give you acceptable gaming performance for the next couple of years then get a DX10 based one when they come out.

They will be out in a couple of months.

 

I think the x1600 would run good enough for about a couple of years max. On a few games at least.

 

Yeh I think X1600 will last for some time.
HeY!! you even see GeForce 5700 cards till now and they can still play the modern games but will low settings

 

It should run UT2007 on medium settings. Atleast I think so since no one really knows. The old UT can scale down the requirments pretty. Many games in the next few years will be based on the UT engine and it should run most fine.

 

Something like the 7900GTX might be future proof for acouple of years, but its hard to say about the X1600...

 

I will also suggest to wait for Santa Rose, it only 2-3 months away.

 

wait for santa rosa and whatever the dx10 equivilent of x1600 is from either ati/nvidia (whichever comes out first i can guess which though )

 

You should be able to play most games for the next couple years with the X1600 and 2gb. I have a 4-year-old nVIDIA 5 series (see signature) and it still plays games like CS:S on low settings

 

I'm sure it will be fine for the next couple of years. It is not a top end card, but will play most things at close to highest setting with mild anti-aliasing right now. It depends more on the game than anything, and don;'t worry too much about DX10 cards, they won't become necessary for at least 2 to 3 years. Too many people have invested money in high-end dx9 cards for that to happen.

 

I bought this laptop in August of last year. Right now, as I type this, it is still top of the line in 15.4" notebooks in terms of graphics power and specs. I can play any game out there with minor tweaking, the most important of which is to turn down shadows.

For future game releases, it all depends on how well it's coded graphically. If there's a successor to Oblivion for example, I highly doubt you would want to play it on an X1600. I can see myself playing all game releases a year and a half from now on progressively lower settings.

 

I would wait for Santa Rosa laptops to come out in May. Nvidia says it will release its DX10 compatible cards, such as 8300, 8400, or 8600, with the Santa Rosa release. You can expect widespread availability by late May.

Buying a DX10 laptop will mean your system won't be as outdated. Since DX10 is designed to work with Vista, you'll be getting the very first glimpse of new mobile technology. Cards like the X1600 and 7600 have been out for a long time, in technology terms (at least a year). Getting a new card like the 8600 makes your computer a year less outdated, and that ends up meaning a lot, since most components double in power every two years.

 

No, the x1600 is already outdated. It doesn't support DX10 and it won't even come close to being able to handle new games (I'm looking at Bioshock and UT2k7 for this year). It can play them, but won't... look gorgeous.
I doubt it can really do much with Oblivion. Sure, it can play it at decent settings, but no where near top end settings.

 

Wait for the DX10 mobile cards, then with 2gb of RAM and a decent DX10 you should be future proof for two years easily.

 

Btw i hate oblivion as a game

 

As long as you aren't expecting top-end performance, the X1600 should still be able to play new games in 2-3 years time. Performance isn't really growing in leaps and bounds since even the Mobility Radeon X1300 today isn't faster than the Mobility Radeon 9700, which is more than 3 years old now. Admittedly, the MR 9700 was a "high-end" card, but that's kind of disputable since it was really just an overclocked MR 9600, being based on the same core. The MR X1300 is faster than the MR 9600, but I don't think it's that drastic.

Anyways, the performance of the X1600 should be comparable to the Go 8400 if not faster depending on clock speeds and presumably in another year's time the X1600 will still be comparable in performance to a low-end GPU like a Go 9300, which should give it at least a 2 year lifespan. Obviously, in two years, Go 9300-like performance doesn't sound that impressive, but game developers would still be developing for that type of speed since the low-end is a large market of casual gamers. Hardcore gamers are good for marketing purposes, but on a balance sheet, a casual gamer still pays the same amount of money for a title and there are a lot more of them so they wouldn't exclude lower-end hardware.

And if the question is lack of DX10 support, I don't see how having a Go 9700GTX would be of any help. I don't see DX10 catching on in a huge way for at least another year and I certainly don't see game developers completely cutting off DX9 and Windows XP for a while. There's just too large an installed base, and these delays with DX10 hardware would have set back any DX10 only schedules. Only the GeForce 8800 has DX10 support right now and it's drivers aren't fully functional yet. ATI is trying to push for a better product by going 65nm, but that means their launch is constantly being pushed back, and even if they launch, availability is unclear, because the process is immature and the yields low. Even nVidia have stated that they don't really plan on pushing DX10 hardware into fully replacing DX9 in their product lineup until Q4 2007. These events should buy DX9 another year of useful life versus if Vista and DX10 GPUs were both hard-launched and available in quantity in January as originally intended.

 

Man I would be blown away if R600 was 65nm and ati finally had good pre-launch/initial drivers. That would be worth the wait.

 

Others above me have articulated much better than I could ever the "intelligent" guestimation (not a word I know!) of the X1600's abilities in a few years, so I'll leave that aside

I will say, I myself am looking to upgrade in 2009/10. I know full well by then it could be low settings + a lot of compromising, but again, by then it will be perfect as I'll be upgrading any way. Point is you are saying for "...for next 2 years", so perhaps you are doing what I am going to do?

 

Yer i really want this laptop to last 2-3yrs and then ill upgrade to a new one prob when next os comes out?Vienna?

 

What about the Geforece Go 7700(see signature)?

 

Everything said in this thread about DX10 and Santa Rosa applies to you, as well.

 

If you really want a futureproof computer, get a desktop. Laptops can't compete in that respect, seeing as it is extremely difficult to upgrade most laptops graphics cards, while if you get a desktop you can keep the same mobo for a while and just keep on upgrading the graphics card as much as you want until it isn't supported anymore.