Light Laptop gaming?

[drpootums]

My friend found this Compaq 2223 at Office Max and he wants it mainly for watching DVD's on the go and internet, but he said he really want to be able to play games like CoD and UT2k3 or 2k4 on low to medium details. He knows he wont be able to play Doom3 and HL2, but you think this would be okay for those games right?

BTW, i would be replacing one of the ram sticks with a 512mb piece of Crucial pc2700 ram that we found...so that should help a lot too!

Thanks for helping us out, he really wants it, and i think it will be ok for what he uses it for.

 

[fbrdphreak]

In one word, no.
That uses very basic ATI graphics (altho it is AGP I believe). You will be lucky to play CoD at minimum resolution, forget the UT's.
If you want basic gaming, you need something along the lines of a Gateway 72xx model. These are 15.4", Athlon 64, with Radeon 9550 (underclocked 9600) and go for about $1200.
You won't be able to game on a laptop under that price in most cases.
A used eMachines M6805 is a good option also, the predecessor to the 72xx series; A64 & Radeon 9600; $800-$1000 used

 

[drpootums]

So even playing CoD or UT2k4 at 800x600 res at low details wont go fast enough?

I know my old HP Pavilion had a 700mhz Celeron, 320mb's of SDRAM, and a PCI GeForce 4 MX420 and it played CoD choppy, but still playable and UT2k3 smoothly at very low/low details

 

[fbrdphreak]

Actually, I'm mistaken. It uses the Intel Extreme 2 Graphics. That's even worse.
Link
It gets 17fps @ 640x480 on UT2K3 with a desktop system. Yeah.......no gaming 4 u

 

[diabloII]

try to get at least a 9700/pro, the best ones that will work even at high settings is the go6800 and mobile x800 and that'll cost a good amoutn of money

 

[Connoisseur]

lightweight, cheap, gaming. Pick any 2. Basically, if you want a lightweight lappie that can run those games at med. res you're gonna have to pay a bit. But if your friend is willing to deal with 7.5 lbs and mediocre (2:30 hours) battery life, then I put another vote for the emachine m68xx/gateway 74xx series. The Athlon 64/Radeon 9600/512mb ram combo makes a damn good portable gaming machine. I can easily run UT2K4 at higher res (1280x800) and Doom 3/HL2 at 1280x800 with some of the eye candy turned off. And it only costs around 1200 for the gateway or 800-1000 on ebay for the m68xx. Awesome price/performance... just not the best battery life and not quite as light as the P-M lappies.

 

[kenan921]

I agree unless you can find a cheap dell 9200 (they had a $999 closeout special a few weeks back) the emachines m6805/07/09/10/11 or the newer gateway 7422gx are your best choices.

Good Luck

 

[RedWolf]

Another option is the Dell 860. You can find them used with a 9600 Pro Turbo 128 meg for 800-1200 depending on configuration. Good battery life, too. They really aren't any faster at gaming than the eMachines 68xx or gateway 74xx as the Pentium M isn't as good for gaming as the A64. But, due to the 9600 Pro Turbo, they're pretty even. Dell is currently closing them out, too. You also have the option of getting a refurb from Dell's Outlet that carries a full 1 year warranty.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Go grab a Sager.