Playing MII:TW on a notebook

[a_swiss_pikeman]

I was thinking of getting a labtop for college this year and i was wondering, do you guys think that if a get one that a 256 7600 GO w/ Core Duo 1.6 and 1G of DDR2 i would at least be able to play at medium to a little above medium settings. Also do any of you know any good customizable labtops that dont cost a arm and a leg to buy. I dont want a labtop that cost more then my 3700 dollar car or even close to it.

[Zuwxiv]

Well, laptop's really aren't meant for cutting edge gaming. What's your budget? What's important to you? Size? Mobility? Preformance? Battery life?

Remember that a laptop that could handle M2TW will have a battery life of about three seconds. (Well, not literally - maybe 1 and a half hours, but the point is preformance = low battery life).

So do you just want it to play games on? It would be cheaper to get a desktop. If you want it for a laptop, but want to make sure you can play M2TW on it, then you are going to have to suffer in battery life, size, weight, and cost.

[DavidtheDuke]

If you are going to get M2TW for a laptop I'd hold out for a laptop AFTER M2TW comes out, that way you'd get maybe better than satisfying FPS and graphics settings.

[Titus]

No you do not want a laptop to play medieval 2 total war, on unless of course its a www.alienware.com then maybe but I dont think u wanna spend that much. Go with a desktop like every one else says! :wink:

[DavidtheDuke]

If we're going to start referring l33t laptop sites, pctorque.com and powernotebooks.com sell affordable high-end laptops (dual nvidia 7900 SLIs..), with good reliable warranties. I've bought from them and both have quick and fast support.

[a_swiss_pikeman]

I dont care about battery life or anything, i just want to know if you think it could handle it with the specs i showd you. I will be using it for MII:TW and college. I will have it plugged in when i am at college and home. I know that notebooks arent made for gaming, but i want to do it.

[westy159]

Whatever Laptop you get, there will be a good chance something wont work right when attempting to game on it.

[Lee1026]

Well, no one knows how it will do until the bloody game is actually released. Anyone who claims to know is pulling those numbers out of the sky. But I suggest that you get one of those really small desktops. They are cheaper then lappys and a more powerful.

[Zuwxiv]

If it is always going to be plugged in, you might as well get a desktop and save lots of money. If you are getting the laptop for college, then you could get just something that works.

I would reccommend a Mac, for reasons that are in other threads. They are more dependable and have all the software pre-installed, and all the new ones can run Windows as well.

But the problem is a gaming laptop will be huge and have horrible battery life - you could always get a small desktop (Mac mini is the smallest I know, including PC's).

It will probably be cheaper to get a non-mac desktop - if you want a laptop with a good video card, you are going to pay more than 2 thousand for a Mac, so for your needs I'm guessing a Mac is not for you. Check http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/Su...SubCategory=32 for some good laptop deals.

Also, never, ever buy Alienware. They have good specs, but their hardware is run hard and will fail. It is cheap quality stuff that can preform well - for maybe 6 months. Stay away from Alienware.

[Ryder65]

So I'm guessing a new Toshiba Satellite won't be able to handle this game? Damn. What should I do?

[Sarkiss]

So I'm guessing a new Toshiba Satellite won't be able to handle this game? Damn. What should I do?

you should give it a try first. i know i will. my Toshiba Satelite 30mx handles RTW perfectly. i play on huge unit scale only. though some graffics, for smoother performance, have to be turned to medium. but it aint that much of a deal for me as long as i can field huge sized armies.

[Ryder65]

Well I can play RTW on high/very high settings and huge unit scales with no problem. I don't really have anything else on my computer, save Norton, Firefox, and Word. That is why I thought I would be able to handle M2TW, especially if I remove Rome. But now you people have me worried...

[Last Roman]

Well I can play RTW on high/very high settings and huge unit scales with no problem. I don't really have anything else on my computer, save Norton, Firefox, and Word. That is why I thought I would be able to handle M2TW, especially if I remove Rome. But now you people have me worried...

Well, I have heard from many here that if you can play RTW on high settings, then you should have little (if any) trouble running M2:TW on medium settings (and this apparently from CA). But like others have said, battery life (I'm assuming you are using a notebook?) will be a problem. Which also sucks for me, as in a few months I was planning to get a notebook about the same time M2 came out. I need a notebook for school (college) and want to get M2. A bit of a pickle I'm afraid.

[Legione]

I'd recommend the guy to wait for Windows Vista to come out, then get a laptop. By then it would be able to handle just about anything easier.

[the Eternal Cocoon]

I was thinking of getting a labtop for college this year and i was wondering, do you guys think that if a get one that a 256 7600 GO w/ Core Duo 1.6 and 1G of DDR2 i would at least be able to play at medium to a little above medium settings. Also do any of you know any good customizable labtops that dont cost a arm and a leg to buy. I dont want a labtop that cost more then my 3700 dollar car or even close to it.

like others said laptops arent made for cutting edge gaming nor very powerfull hardware. I Have a very powerful laptop, but the problem is that is constantly over heats. If I want to play RTW on any normal standerds ( I actually play it at 1600x1200 with everything but unit size turned up) I have to eaither underclock my vedeocard or add ventilation; i have a fan right next to my laptop to keep it cool. Without the fan my laptop, even raised from the ground, has only a 2 minute life before it overheats and shuts itself down.

[DougyM]

The 7600 card is whats going to be the bottleneck.

That basicly dictates low settings in mtw2, (seeing as CA said comps that run rtw on high will run mtw2 on medium)

And the 1gb of memory is a tad low, games need 2gb these days if you want full settings.

[AMERICARULES]

I just got a Dell notebook with 2GB of RAM, and Civ4 seems to be running really well on it. I only experience some slowdown at the very late stages of bigger games. Thus, I would suggest 2GB to be sure that you will be able to play M2TW without too much lag.

[Lee1026]

I will repeat - no one knows how well MII:TW is going to do on any spec. I doubt anyone, including programmers, know about it, as they would most likely be optimizing and tuning the program as we speak.

[a_swiss_pikeman]

Ok, you guys talked me into it. I bought a Dell XPS, with 2Gs of memory, 80G 7200RPM hdd, Intel Core Duo (2GHz/667MHz/2 X 1MB L2 Cache), and a 512MB NVIDIA Go 7900 GTX. Should be pretty good, it cost me 3090.

[Boudicca]

hm...I assume this might suffice for playing RTW.... But spending that much money on a notebook pc...wow. You seem to have it...