x3100 and GeForce 8400

I've been looking back and forth between my options for 14.1/13.3 laptops and it seems like for most of the stuff out there, my graphics options are to get the X3100 or pay more for the geforce 8400. I've read the reviews on the x3100 here and I was wondering if i could get some additional feedback in my particular context:

What would be a realistic scenario in terms of gaming with the x3100? While I am not into any of the graphics-heavy shooters and don't plan at all on playing half life 2 or unreal tournament or the like, I do like to play casually with games on the range of civ4 or maybe even Mythos beta. Is the X3100 going to become sufficient for these types of games?

Also, one reason why i might want to go with a geforce 8400 is the potential that i might be able to play starcraft 2 on my laptop - is it unreasonable to make such judgments at this point? Much appreciated for any feedback!

 

Geforce 6400? What laptop are you looking at that has this outdated card? Are you sure you don't mean 8400?

 

oh, oops, i meant 8400. sorry!

 

The 8400m GS has a very good chance of being able to play SC2.

 

Well, the X3100 is really not meant for gaming, and I'd say that if you were planning on doing any gaming at all, even with older games, to go with a dedicated card like the 8400. Is it the 8400m G or GS?

 

8400 should play those games depends on res and setting though

 

GS - i'm mainly looking at the hp and dell 14.1" notebooks.

 

Civ4 runs terrible on the x3100. You can get about 25 fps early game (zoomed all the way in), BUT 12 or less fps zoomed out. And it becomes UNPLAYABLE mid-late game.

 

sorry to add another question to this - but how does the 7150M measure up to the gaming picture with sc2?


and thanks for all the super quick responses!

 

Civ 4 runs great on my Vaio with a 6400, so I'm sure the 8400 can handle it. The 6400 runs HF2 and CS:S great at high settings @ 1280x800 .
Not sure that the 7150M would measure up to SC2, I'm guessing that SC2 will run on the integrated card available at the time of its release, which would be the X4500 (Montevina) and that's supposedly 3 times faster than the X3100.
You'd be better off future-wise getting any sort of dedicated card.

 

Run FRAPS while playing civ4. What kind of frame rates are you getting zoomed in, and zoomed out (before the clouds kick in)?

 

Another thread about x3100.
I think there was another thread about this.

 

The x3100 threads will never end. Someone really needs to do some definitive benchmarks for the x3100. Right now all we have are people saying such and such game runs fine (usually this means it can achieve up to 10fps in a game).

Most of the people in these forums with the x3100 have no idea what a playable framerate means.

 

We have a benchmark thread.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=148045

No one bothers to search or read the stickies.

 

did YOU read that thread? It was closed because NO ONE was posting actual benchmarks. A bunch of people were posting misleading information about the x3100's capabilities though.

 

Yep, and thus it was replaced with this thread.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=173312

And the "sticky" line was not directed at you. It's meant for the people who keep asking about the performance of the x3100.