Hey. I recently purchased a new laptop to replace my desktop P.C. My P.C. had roughly the following specifications including 2.0GHz Athlon (if not that, a little less), 1.5GB RAM, nVidia Geforce 7600GS 250MB graphics card. I bought a laptop in mind to play better games and replace that 4 year old bit of kit. I upgraded to the following specifications including Intel Core 2 Duo processor T6400 (2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2 cache), up to 1791MB nVidia Geforce 9300M GS TurboCache graphics card, 3GB DDR2 RAM. Basically it's a much better machine. My old desktop ran games like World of Warcraft and Call of Duty 4 effortlessly. My laptop just about copes with WoW but when I installed CoD4 it was sluggish at best, I tried Call of Duty 5 and it was running though unplayable as though the machine isn't getting enough power. My question is this: why is my machine seemingly not utilising it's power (or is it?) and do any experienced laptop gamers have any tips? My machine seems pretty powerful and I feel i'm just not getting my moneys worth. Many thanks. Dathjo90.
Sorry mate, but your old PC was a more powerful gaming machine. A 9300GS is absolutely horrible in terms of gaming power. Everything else is better, but the card you have is more better suited to watching movies. You have a multimedia laptop, not a gaming laptop. You should have stuck to desktop PC's if you wanted a cheap and effective gaming machine.
I suppose you could ask your laptop manufacturer if its possible to put a more powerful card into it, but such an outcome is unlikely, and even if they do it it'll likely be expensive.
I agree the the biggest problem is your graphic card. The M designation means mobile and its a huge downgrade from a standard 9300 which wasn't great to begin with. You will gain better performance by lowering your graphically settings and resolution but this is why many of us stress that laptops are not made for gaming. Any laptop that costs less than $1500-$2000 will not game well, especially going into the future. A desktop can get the same performance for $700.
The Graphics card is one of the most important factors when it comes to gaming performance, and typically laptops do not have good video cards installed. Also typically when comparing a desktop vs. a laptop, the desktop will destroy a laptop and probably cost the same if not less.
I have a notebook with a 8400 m gs and after I installed the latest drivers I got running it very well. But I can't say the same thing for cod 5. It ruined the first game's engine and if you are playing it slowly it's game's fault. But you should play cod4 singleplayer well. Try selecting automatic texture settings for texture.
I have a notebook with a 8400 m gs and after I installed the latest drivers I got running it very well. But I can't say the same thing for cod 5. It ruined the first game's engine and if you are playing it slowly it's game's fault. But you should play cod4 singleplayer well. Try selecting automatic texture settings for texture.
umutthejedi
COD 5 is horribly optimized. On the contrary COD 4 is brilliantly optimized and is a much better game. And yes, laptops are not ideal for gaming, but you may play more casual games like The Sims 2, Braid, World of Goo, which are not so hardware intesive. But in no case you'll have a good time playing Crysis.
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