zv5000z gaming

I am veryin interested in the hp zv5000z amd 64. i read throught the thread on this laptop already and i dont recall anyone directly addressing this. I am curious how well this laptop compares in non-directx 9 gaming. if it performs as well as laptops with faster gpus, im thinking of like a pentium-m with a radeon 9600 or so. would it do just as well. or will the zv5000z's old gpu still cause lag in games that dont require direct x9. thanks[ ]

 

It'll lag in any modern 3D-heavy game, regardless of DirectX or OpenGL API usage. It's roughly equivalent to the 3-year-old GeForce 440MX desktop graphics card. Older games like Quake 3 and Counterstrike will look great, UT2004 is somewhat tolerable (overclocking the GPU to 250/500 from 190/400 core/memory helps), but no CPU can make up for a weak GPU. It's a big step up from shared memory video and fine for 2D work, that's about all I can say for it.

If you need a proper gaming notebook, check out the Acer Ferarri 3200/3400 and the Clevo D470K 17" widescreen notebooks (sold by various vendors, including Sager). See the relevant forums on this site. Those have 128MB Radeon 9700 video cards. Check the eMachines M6810/11 if you want something affordable (Radeon 9600 64MB). Hopefully HP will refresh their notebook line this year, and hopefully they've been flamed hard enough that they won't make the same GPU mistake twice.