HP HDX Gaming

How well would the new HDX play current and future next-gen games, on moderately High settings and good res (1280 x 800+), equipped: 2.8Ghz X7900, 8800M GTS, 4GB RAM. Although the HDX is very much a multimedia notebook, I've been told that it is also a potent gaming machine, able to take on the HD games, even Crysis (even though it only has a single 8800M GTS). Is this true? If so, will it still be phased out very quickly with the release of the new Intel processors (Montevina and Quad-core), and the high-end cards in the Nvidia 9 series?

All opinion are appreciated. Thank You

 

Firstly, the X7900, largely pointless.

And to answer your question, it can play Crysis quite well on lower resolutions, but don't expect it to do so at High settings on 1900 x 1200.

No news about the 9 series yet, and since the 8800s just came out, it's likely that the 98XX series won't be out for at least half a year more.

 

Well it will be able to run all modern games great on that res. I run UT3 on very high with the set up in my sig on 1440x900 res with decent FPS. You should be fine with that setup. If i where you go look at newly realesed games and see what there recommended secs are to run and see if your in that range. And about it being phased out, things are constantly being phased out. Just buy what you need and then some and you will have a great setup for a while. HP makes great laptops and i think you'll really like the HDX.

 

How well will it play Crysis at 1440 x 900, and all High settings? FPS?
Has anyone benched it in any games?

 

There's an excellent thread by narsail in the gaming section labeled "8800M GTS." the test notebook is Gateway's new 17" lappy. Nice system BTW. But that should give you a good indication. Plenty of benchmarks.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=217805

You have to go through as much of the thread as possible because there is a lot of good info in there that shouldn't be missed.

Also see this thread. There's one of the Gateway's with a T9300 CPU running Crysis.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=224703

 

So the HDX is a viable gaming option, and will last for a bit?

 

It'll last for a good bit. Most companies do not program like Crysis's programming team. They actually program their games to run on as many systems as possible. That's where the money is.

But while the HDX can play all games currently on the market at acceptable frame rates (>24FPS avg) and medium resolutions(1024x768, 1280x1024, 1440x900, 1680x1050), it is not a gaming laptop.

If you're serious about gaming, look into either SAGER's line, Alienware's, or Dell's XPS. If you're a casual to moderate gamer, then the HDX is fine. And will be for about two years regardless of how fast GPU technology is advancing of late. Developers and game distributors always consider the installed base of hardware. With more and more notebooks being sold (currently more than desktops) that's a fertile market for them to consider.

 

I have a question about the backward compatability of the HDX and Vista. Say i want to play a game as old as say Total Annihilation(my cousin was one of the original testers for this game), or games around that time. They still work on my XP pro but i dont know if they would work on Vista. One of the main reasons for getting this notebook would be gaming.

 

If one of the main reasons you are purchasing a laptop is for gaming I would also look at Sagers. Go to www.xoticpc.com and check out their NP9262 model.

Anyways, the HDX definitely has looks over the Sager line, but as far as performance, Sager just crushes every HP laptop.

I would say that if it runs on XP it will run on Vista. Now mind you there are alway exceptions where some programs and games don't play well with different OS's, but Microsoft did a good job on making Vista compatible with the previous OS's.

 

How is the video quality on the HDX's 20.1" screen, playing movies, with the TV tuner? How is it compared to the NP9262's screen, don't compare with gaming - because then you have to take into account video cards, processors, etc. I just want to know how good the screen itself is.

 

The HDX has dual lamps in its display. Reviews of the unit claim that it's one of the best displays of any notebook. In a word, "gorgeous."

But reviews of the 9260(same as 9262) claim that it is above average.

Google reviews. Lots of good ones out there for the HDX. Also consider that the sager NP9260/62 goes by other names. It's a Clevo 901c. So look up reviews based on that name.

If you're mostly looking to game, you're not going to beat the performance of the Clevo 901C (sager NP9260) series. The HDX is NOT a gaming rig. It's a multimedia rig.

Also take note of what's coming out this summer. At this point, unless you must buy a system now, prudence dictates that you wait 3 months to buy as new units made by all manufacturers, including Clevo/Sager will be out offering increased performance and features. See the news on the from page of this site.

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4290

 

A cursory search says it will run Total Annihilation. I saw one post in a gaming forum where someone couldn't get the game to install on Vista. There was nothing further concerning his situation. The solution might have been to install the game in XP compatibility mode.

TA: Kindoms works if patching to 3.0 under Vista. http://www.ntcompatible.com/Total_Annihilation_Kingdoms_c1584.html

By the way, that's last link is a great site to use to find out if a game is vista compatible.