Dv8000z & Gaming Question

Hey guys!
I have been leaning on the Dv8000z with the ml-40, 128mb x200, 1GB Ram, 200GB HD w/ Media Center. I have seen most of the reviews state that this is not a 'gaming pc.' I want to run games like farcry, & most importantly 'Empire at War' the new star wars game.
I am not too well versed in vid cards so I guess I'm asking how the x200 would handle these games... Wouldn't they be able to run smooth and look incredible? The 128 is dedicated and expands to 256mb. Any help would be appreciable. Would it be possible to upgrade this video card in the way future?

Also I saw that the battery life for the Dv8000z is around 4 hours... Can anyone please confirm this or post the battery life that you get out of the system?? Much appreciated!

Thanks!

 

no i doubt it will run far cry on that kind of vid card. you can try but i think you wont even get 30 fps to enjoy the game. i suggest you look at this for more info http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=39568
about battery life i cant answer that but you try to look here
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2681

 

The x200M is an integrated part with only 2 pixel pipelines and lacks many hardware GPU features needed for full enjoyment of modern games. No, it will most definately not be enough for Far Cry or Empire at War "run smooth and look incredible" - even my 12-pipeline, full-hardware DX9.0c supporting, 256MB GDDR3 weilding Go6800 has problems doing that. And no, it is not possible to upgrade the graphics card in the future.

If you're looking fro a gaming rig with an MXM (eg, slightly upgradable) GPU, a low price, and plenty of media features, check out the Dell Inspiron e1705 + coupons. It'll be cheaper, have a more powerful GPU (about 10 times over more powerful), and has a dual-core processor, handy for physics and AI heavy games like Empire At War and Half-Life 2.

And 4 hours is very optimistic for an ML series Turion, dual HD, and a 17" screen on an 8-cell battery. You may be able to get a little over 3.

One final note, if you go the dv8000z route, drop down to the 160GB HD option...the difference between 4200 and 5400 RPM is worth the loss of a little bit of (likely excess) hard drive space and then some. You'll find 4200RPM painfully slow, I know that from experience.

 

i cant even get my dv8000 to play age of empires 3, after about 30 minutes of play the vid card freaks out and goes completely blury, i've tried every driver i can find with no luck.

 

"not a gaming notebook" means that nothing will "run smooth and look incredible" beyond Solitaire.

 

Note that the dv8000z's "8 cell" battery is reported by MobileMeter to have 71280mWh of capacity, which is more than you'd expect (a normal 12 cell is 88000mWh). partsurfer.hp.com lists the battery as being 4.4AHr, which is just plain wrong (that corresponds to a 6 cell battery). I've yet to do a proper battery test but I'm getting pretty decent life out of mine.

The GPU blows chunks though, as noted above. It's adequate for light gaming and does allow HP to get away with supplying a very small and lightweight 65W power brick (soooo nice for travelling), but if you want to seriously game I'd go for a MSI MS-1036 17" Turion notebook (256MB Radeon X700, see the MSI forum here) .

 

partsurfer.hp.com is not wrong. The DV8000 DOES come with 4.4AHr batteries. Part #403808-001 is a 4.4AHr 8 cell battery. The 6 cell batteries sold by HP to not fit the DV8000.

As for gaming, I really am not a hardcore gamer but I downloaded the demo version of Half Life 2 just for the heck of it and it was very smooth for the hour or so that I played it. There was zero lag in the actual gaming (it did lag at the main screen but that may not be related to the GPU).

 

Not a gamer here also, but I do have 2 games that came with video card that I bought.
If any of those games you're talking about is like Splinter Cell, you'll be watching a slide show.
But, if it's any thing like Prince of Persia, it plays great.

 

Hey brianstretch-
I looked up the MSI you talked about. I believe you offered me the perfect computer for what I want, except it doesn't come with Windows Media Center. Can I buy it separately or contact MSI to upgrade to it? Will I also have to buy the tv tuner card (does it exist?).

Thanks everyone for your replies... Much Appreciated!

 

hm, I managed to play AOE3 on l2000 for more than 30 min. I believe dv8000 is be able to cope with AOE3.

 

RawpowerPC offers WinXP MCE with their MS-1036's, and I bet XMeld would too if you asked.