Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: WWM on November 03, 2009, 11:52:32 AM

Title: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: WWM on November 03, 2009, 11:52:32 AM
ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300  128MG MEMORY

Its running over a 1.6 pent processor  in a Dell Inspiron 9300

Am I wasting my time?  Should I just look for a cheap tower just to run the game. I'm not real computer literate   I had to quit when the update came out a few months ago everyone was complaining about but now with the WW1 planes coming out I want back in the fun.

Thanks
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: Noir on November 03, 2009, 12:24:26 PM
You won't be able to upgrade that laptop.
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on November 03, 2009, 12:26:10 PM
ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300  128MG MEMORY

Its running over a 1.6 pent processor  in a Dell Inspiron 9300

Am I wasting my time?  Should I just look for a cheap tower just to run the game. I'm not real computer literate   I had to quit when the update came out a few months ago everyone was complaining about but now with the WW1 planes coming out I want back in the fun.

Thanks

Yeah get a cheap tower setup, only sensible solution for gaming.
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: WWM on November 03, 2009, 04:09:33 PM
alrighty then.....I'm on a new mission.

Thanks
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: bravoa8 on November 03, 2009, 04:32:12 PM
Yeah computers are almost always better than laptops.
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: skribetm on November 03, 2009, 04:59:43 PM
sell the laptop and build yourself this. will play AH2 like it's minesweeper.

highlights: you can make this a flat $500 build or even go cheaper if you get a DX10/DX10.1 card (GT200 series, HD4800), and swap blu-ray out for a cd-rom.

good luck!

(http://i664.photobucket.com/albums/vv4/wuttzi/CCIMG1.png)
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: WWM on November 03, 2009, 07:04:52 PM
WOW  Thanks for all the info :salute
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: Fulmar on November 03, 2009, 07:19:12 PM
Unless you have a real need for a blu-ray reader, you could save $30 and get a DVD-RW drive.
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: skribetm on November 03, 2009, 08:27:21 PM
lol i forgot about the DDR3! and win7 64-bit or winXP 64-bit recommended.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178238 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178238)
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: WWM on November 03, 2009, 09:48:28 PM
I've got XP pro I'll put on it.  I'm not putting anything on this other than what is needed for this game.  Hopefully that will cut down on some processes.

Thanks again for the responses....very helpful!
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on November 04, 2009, 12:31:15 AM
I've got XP pro I'll put on it.  I'm not putting anything on this other than what is needed for this game.  Hopefully that will cut down on some processes.

Thanks again for the responses....very helpful!

Make sure your motherboard has drivers for XP. It's not automatic to have them anymore. No drivers -> mucho problems.
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: AKDogg on November 04, 2009, 11:27:05 AM
lose the green series of the Western digital Hard drive.  Get at least the blue series or black.  The green drives are slow and u will see it in the game when cache loads or a plane comes in with a different skin. 

O btw, u are better off with a dual core system with a higher clock rate then a quad core.  The game is processor dependent as far as clock speed is concerned.  A 3ghz dual core will run the game better/ faster then a quad core running at 2.0 ghz.
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on November 04, 2009, 12:24:27 PM
lose the green series of the Western digital Hard drive.  Get at least the blue series or black.  The green drives are slow and u will see it in the game when cache loads or a plane comes in with a different skin. 

O btw, u are better off with a dual core system with a higher clock rate then a quad core.  The game is processor dependent as far as clock speed is concerned.  A 3ghz dual core will run the game better/ faster then a quad core running at 2.0 ghz.

While what you say is partly true, nowadays you can't tell anything from clock speed only. A good example is this review http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=384&Itemid=63 where a 3.4Ghz AMD quad core is pitted against 2.66Ghz Intel i5 and the 'slower' running processor beats the AMD counterpart in most of the tests. Without even thinking what would happen should the i5 get overclocked mildly.
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: skribetm on November 04, 2009, 12:38:11 PM
ahhh. lovely benchmarketing with icc-compiled software. effective for selling inferior architectures.  :rofl

(http://www.phoronix.com/data/img/results/intel_lynnfield/11.png)

Quote
The Core i7 870 more frequently came out ahead, but still the AMD Phenom II X3 710 had a number of strong finishes especially considering its only a triple-core processor and costs just over $100 USD. Even the Core i5 750 will cost more than the AMD Phenom II X3 710. What is important to keep in mind though is that Intel Turbo Boost Technology was disabled on the processors during testing, since this functionality had not worked under Linux for increasing the clock frequency but instead appeared to cause some sporadic performance problems.

(http://www.phoronix.com/data/img/results/intel_lynnfield/9.png)

Quote
Surprisingly, the Phenom II X3 710 actually outperformed the Core i7 920 when it came to the Blowfish performance within John The Ripper, where AMD processors have a strong upper-hand. The AMD processor was faster than the Core i7 920 by about 7% and about 75% faster than the Core i7 870.

imagine if it were that same 3.4GHz AMD processor in that review. only way for intel to sell is to pay-off oem's: http://www.pcworld.com/article/181401/ny_attorney_general_files_antitrust_lawsuit_against_intel.html (http://www.pcworld.com/article/181401/ny_attorney_general_files_antitrust_lawsuit_against_intel.html)

.. while publishing biased benchmarketing results with cheats enabled. http://techreport.com/articles.x/17732 (http://techreport.com/articles.x/17732)

got to say its effective. 

Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on November 04, 2009, 01:05:11 PM
ahhh. lovely benchmarketing with icc-compiled software. effective for selling inferior architectures.  :rofl

(http://www.phoronix.com/data/img/results/intel_lynnfield/11.png)

(http://www.phoronix.com/data/img/results/intel_lynnfield/9.png)

imagine if it were that same 3.4GHz AMD processor in that review. only way for intel to sell is to pay-off oem's: http://www.pcworld.com/article/181401/ny_attorney_general_files_antitrust_lawsuit_against_intel.html (http://www.pcworld.com/article/181401/ny_attorney_general_files_antitrust_lawsuit_against_intel.html)

.. while publishing biased benchmarketing results with cheats enabled. http://techreport.com/articles.x/17732 (http://techreport.com/articles.x/17732)

got to say its effective. 



If that 'cheat' means my whatever-compiled game gets better fps as a result I don't give a rats bellybutton about some linux benchmark.
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: Spikes on November 04, 2009, 05:32:48 PM
Might wanna up that 400w power supply as well...imho.
Title: Re: Upgrade a laptop?
Post by: AKDogg on November 04, 2009, 06:31:29 PM
This is what I use for CPU benchmarking.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/index.php