Trying to meet specifications with a new laptop

[colinknapp]

merry christmas everyone...

just wanted to ask a quick question regarding system requirements

i'm planning on a buying a new laptop, because my current one is unable to cope with the high graphical requirements of certain pieces of software (including Trainz)

my current laptop specs:
intel core 2 duo T5550
(1.83Ghz 667Mhz 2MB)
2GB DDR2 Ram
120GB HDD
Vista

with this i can run Trainz, but my viewing distance is limited, as is the size of map i'm able to load and operate without lag, Modula city is the largest i've been able to load to date

i have similar issues with other games, which is not suprising since most of the time i either barely meet or am under the system requirements

but i've had enough, its time for an upgrade

using a selection of my higest spec games as a reference, i can see that the main area i'm lacking in is clock speed (either that or the specs on the box are incorrect)

so i went out to look on the net for a laptop with a higher clock speed, but i havant been able to track down much more than 2.16Ghz (Intel Pentium Dual-Core processor T4300) that fits within my kinda price range £500 ish

having checked the specs on TS09 it needs 2.2ghz pentium 4

so bascially what i want to ask is... with a laptop like this:
* Intel Pentium Dual-Core processor T4300
* (2.10Ghz, 800Mhz, 1MB Cache)
* Genuine Windows(R) 7 Home Premium
* 4GB Memory
* 500GB Hard drive
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/590597#productInformationSection

or like this
* Intel Pentium Dual-Core processor T4300
* (2.16Ghz, 667Mhz, 1MB Cache)
* Genuine Windows(R) 7 Home Premium
* 4GB Memory
* 320GB Hard drive
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/st...22766&category_oid=#productInformationSection

would i be able to run Trainz and other games of similar quality, at a resonable level of detail, ie with no lag, lots of view distance, high detail etc or do i need to spend more?

any help would be appreciated

many thanks
colinknapp

 

[johnwhelan]

Lap tops are built to conserve power not for performance. A desk top will give you better performance for the same cash.

Cheerio John

 

[colinknapp]

well thats true... but desktops are really heavy, i still want to be able to carry my computer around with me

 

[saintjimmy]

Well, your price range is going to leave you with a basic laptop that will struggle with Trainz at times, but you will be able to play nonetheless. Heck, my $1000 laptop (about £625) still struggles with Trainz 2006 at times (with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 graphics card!). But, if I were to recommend a laptop within $800 (£500), then I could recommend this ASUS.

But, you would have to find it at a store that is in the UK or will ship it to you. If you are willing to go a few pounds over your budget, then you could get an HP dv6-2144nr with very similar specs to my laptop (but mine has a 500 GB hard drive vs. 320 GB with this one).

 

[JCitron]

Colin,

Check out the workstation-class laptops. These have CAD-capable graphics chips and processor sets in them. The machines are made by HP and Dell seem pretty good in this respect.

You'll pay a lot more than a few hundred pounds or dollars for this level of machine though.

John

 

[clam1952]

well thats true... but desktops are really heavy, i still want to be able to carry my computer around with me

Clock speed won't make a lot of difference with a duff graphics chip and shared memory, which is where the bottleneck will occur.

You are probably looking at around £1500 to £2000 for a laptop that is any good has dedicated graphics with it's own memory and will give equivalent performance game wise to an £800 or probably less desktop, then of course it will out of date next year and not upgradable.

Neither of those are any good as they have integrated graphics and even worse the Dell is Intel which are about the lowest quality graphics you can get excepting maybe SiS, if they still exist.
Intel might make reasonable processors but they can't make graphics cards. The Sony doesn't even quote the make of graphics so I would avoid. Laptop graphics are fine for pictures and video but not anything more demanding unless you pay the extra.

 

[colinknapp]

well if a desktop is the only option i guess it'll have to do...

how do these specs sound?

• AMD Phenom X4 9650 Quad-Core processor
• (2.3GHz, 2MB Cache)
• Genuine Windows(R) 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 4GB DDR2 memory
• 640GB hard drive
• 512MB ATI Radeon HD4350 graphics
• DVD Rewriter
• Built-in wireless (802.11b/g)

 

[saintjimmy]

It sounds good, but the processor and video card are going to be a bottleneck. You should go for an AMD Phenom II 8x5 or 9x5 series and probably an ATI 5700 series card, which are very similar in performance to the 4800 series (5750 = 4850, and 5770 = 4870).

My thoughts.

 

[colinknapp]

tbh i don't have the money for a custom build i was hoping for one under the £500 mark, apprentices don't even get minimum wage, i might just have to make do for a few more years till i can afford top of the line

 

[johnwhelan]

well if a desktop is the only option i guess it'll have to do...

how do these specs sound?

• AMD Phenom X4 9650 Quad-Core processor
• (2.3GHz, 2MB Cache)
• Genuine Windows(R) 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 4GB DDR2 memory
• 640GB hard drive
• 512MB ATI Radeon HD4350 graphics
• DVD Rewriter
• Built-in wireless (802.11b/g)

Let's start from the 500 quid and see what fits best. To make the money stretch further I suggest looking at ebuyer.com.

Cpu well that's pretty basic ad tomshardware works well here. American prices but the information is fairly good.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu,2492.html

What we really want is a comparison of AMD and Intel which is found here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu,2492-6.html

I'd go with a 1440 by 900 19 inch LCD monitor

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/168171 ebuyer has a samsung for about the same price.

That leaves 400 quid so something like a http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176496
"Zoostorm Gaming Desktop PC, Quad Core Q8300 2.5GHz, 4GB RAM, 750GB HDD, DVDRW, NVIDIA GTS250, 500W PSU, Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit"

no name but I wouldn't worry too much on that. Note the cpu is rated much higher than the PCworld machine, the number of reviews,the number of machines they have in stock, fast moving items have more stock. If you are using it with TS2009/10 the 64 bit operating system will allow TS2009/10 to use up to 4 gigs of memory. You'll need TS2009 or 10 to make use of a dual or quad core cpu anyway.

Comparison chart for graphics cards is here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-310-5970,2491-7.html

That should give you quite a respectable system for Trainz. Trainz TS2010 seems to prefer nVidia over ATI.

Cheerio John

 

[Wessex_Electric_Nutter]

Let's start from the 500 quid and see what fits best. To make the money stretch further I suggest looking at ebuyer.com.

And really, you are best going for a desktop, as those laptops, although will run it, will run 09 very badly, because I am assuming they have IGPs, not GPUs. And also, the CPUs are the worst type for performance as well, they are basically "crippled" higher end centrinos, like my Intel C2D, which is a 2.5GHz chip with 6mb of cache.


EDIT: Seaching, these might do it, just:
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_6930G_Laptop_LX.AUU0X.273/version.asp
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Asus_X5DAB-SX028V_Windows_7_Laptop_X5DAB-SX028V/version.asp


I wouldn't worry about RAM and Hard drive space, you can upgrade these really easily later and for not much cash.

 

[ccordes]

John - Nice machine you put together there.

My $600 laptop is a Toshiba A205.
T5550 processor 1.8 GHZ, 2GB RAM and Mobile Intel 965 Express graphics w/ 358 M of shared memory. Vista Home Premium SP2

This won't run 2006 worth anything. BUT it does run 2009 very nicely except for the larger routes like Robe River or Toronto but even then after the load time it runs.

I'm sure that 2010 will not run at all.

I would not use anything less than the T5550 processor, but the big difference is the graphics system that's where laptops really cheap out.

Hope this helps

 

[saintjimmy]

The second laptop that Wessex_Electric_Nutter listed would play Trainz better than the one he listed before it, but neither will play decently. If you really want a laptop, look for one with an AMD Turion X2, Turion II, Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, or Intel Core i7 processor. Look for DDR3 memory (although DDR2 is still fast enough), a large 7200 RPM hard drive (not 5400 RPM), and a good dedicated graphics card.

Here is a list of types of laptops that could play Trainz decently and their respective prices in US dollars, along with links to Newegg, who ships to America, Canada, & China.

An example of a decent laptop for playing Trainz (actually is a HP dv6-2144nr):
$850 US dollars
AMD Turion II 2.3 GHz
4 GB DDR2 800 MHz memory
320 GB 7200 RPM hard drive
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 w/ 1 GB GDDR3 memory
15.6" 1366 x 768 screen
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

A good mid-range laptop (ASUS N81Vp-D2):
$1100 US dollars
Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 2.8 GHz
4 GB DDR2
320 GB 7200 RPM hard drive
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670 1 GB GDDR3 (people say 4670, specs say 4650, so...)
14" 1366 x 768 screen
Windows 7 Home Premium (specs don't say 32 or 64 bit)

An example of a high-end laptop for Trainz (an ASUS G51J-A1):
$1500 US dollars
Intel Core i7 720QM 1.6 GHz (amazingly fast for 1.6 GHz)
4 GB DDR3 memory
640 GB 7200 RPM hard drives (2 x 320 GB)
nVidia GeForce GTX 260M graphics w/1 GB DDR3
15.6" 1920 x 1080 screen
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Hope this gives you an idea on the kind of money needing to be spent on a laptop that can play Trainz decently. Yes, it is quite expensive, but these are meant more to be a desktop replacement, unless you have gobbs of money to spend on computers.

 

[johnwhelan]

The second laptop that Wessex_Electric_Nutter listed would play Trainz better than the one he listed before it, but neither will play decently. If you really want a laptop, look for one with an AMD Turion X2, Turion II, Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, or Intel Core i7 processor. Look for DDR3 memory (although DDR2 is still fast enough), a large 7200 RPM hard drive (not 5400 RPM), and a good dedicated graphics card.

Here is a list of types of laptops that could play Trainz decently and their respective prices in US dollars, along with links to Newegg, who ships to America, Canada, & China.

An example of a decent laptop for playing Trainz (actually is a HP dv6-2144nr):
$850 US dollars
AMD Turion II 2.3 GHz
4 GB DDR2 800 MHz memory
320 GB 7200 RPM hard drive
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 w/ 1 GB GDDR3 memory
15.6" 1366 x 768 screen
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

A good mid-range laptop (ASUS N81Vp-D2):
$1100 US dollars
Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 2.8 GHz
4 GB DDR2
320 GB 7200 RPM hard drive
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670 1 GB GDDR3 (people say 4670, specs say 4650, so...)
14" 1366 x 768 screen
Windows 7 Home Premium (specs don't say 32 or 64 bit)

An example of a high-end laptop for Trainz (an ASUS G51J-A1):
$1500 US dollars
Intel Core i7 720QM 1.6 GHz (amazingly fast for 1.6 GHz)
4 GB DDR3 memory
640 GB 7200 RPM hard drives (2 x 320 GB)
nVidia GeForce GTX 260M graphics w/1 GB DDR3
15.6" 1920 x 1080 screen
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

Hope this gives you an idea on the kind of money needing to be spent on a laptop that can play Trainz decently. Yes, it is quite expensive, but these are meant more to be a desktop replacement, unless you have gobbs of money to spend on computers.

Unfortunately UK prices tend to be much higher than the US especially newegg prices, they have VAT at nearly 20% plus the pound has fallen which makes life even worse.

You can still buy more performance in a desktop than you can in a laptop for the same cash.

Cheerio John

 

[novastorm2000]

2 Cents

Believe it or not, looking at the windows experience ratings if you are shopping in a store are very telling. Laptops with seemingly similar specs and price tags can have vastly difference performance. People tend to go for the AMD chips now days based off cost and reviews but after years of using both AMD and Intel Chips I truly believe windows likes genuine Intel better. Some manufactures have more problems than others as well.

Here are some things I think you want to look for. A windows experience rating of 5.0 or higher. 512MB of Dedicated Video RAM. 64 Bit Win 7 OS and 4GB ram. The QOSIMO by toshiba was a really nice laptop for me and it has a win/exp rating of 5.3 and my MacBook Pro has a rating of 5.6, the super nice thing about Macs, even running windows is the battery life! RPMs on the drives would be the next performance facto to look for after CPU and Video card. Don't cheap out on your video card and be careful if you put a desktop together to ensure you get a beefy Power Supply as I have found that is huge as far as stability goes.

Have fun and you'll be amazed as you go through a store like best buy or others and look at the Win/Exp ratings. A 2.4 Ghz Core Duo, 4GB, and NVIDIA GT Turbo with 512MB or more will surely do you well, add a 7200 RPM drive in and run 64 biot so you can use the extra RAM and life will be good as a rule of thumb, Shared video RAM and or Low RAM will cause SWAP to be used and that will really slow you down.

E