SofaKingA

I am about to purchase a new laptop within the next 24 hrs. I am a big pc gamer but the primary reason for purchasing a laptop is for school. I want something that I can play games on but I am new to gaming laptops. I have customized a computer with HP and it is as follows:

Intel Core 2 Duo- 2 GHz 800Mhz FSB
2 GB DDR2 RAM
383 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400

The video card is my main concern. Would I be able to play any game on the market with this rig. Thanks!

Prophecy

I'd wager you could play most games but not with all the bells and whistles on.
The top end games that are coming out at the end of this year and next will give you a run for your money.

With luck Lasereth will stop by this thread, he seems to be the video card guru of the boards.

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Frosstbyte

I did what you are about to do, and I have regretted it virtually ever second since then.

I would implore you to buy a 13" MacBook for your mobile computing needs (internet+word processing, I would imagine). If you have some anti-Mac fetish, obviously you can get a Dell or whatever, but I think that the Mac laptops are without a doubt the best laptops on the market at the moment. Then put the rest of your money towards building and/or buying a desktop PC for gaming. Upgrading a laptop's core components is costly and/or impossible so even if you get a bleeding edge rig right now, in a few years you will be dying to improve something (probably your video card) and not have a good way to do so. A desktop is much more flexible and versitile and you are unlikely to have any of the performance issues which plague gaming laptops.

I spent $4k on a gaming laptop from Voodoo and it is, without a doubt, the worst purchase of my life. Laptops are too small and too cramped to effectively deal with the significant heat output that high end gaming components create. I think you will save yourself tons of headache and pain if you buy a bare bones laptop for schooling and a desktop for gaming. If you really need your gaming machine to be portable, consider investing in a small form computer like the Falcon Northwest Fragbox. If you're serious about gaming, you're likely to have an external monitor, mouse and keyboard anyway, and with a Fragbox or similar system you can do all the hot-swapping of components that laptops make difficult or impossible.

My laptop in less than two years of use has fried 1 RAM stick, all my USB ports, my hard drive and done some damage to my motherboard. Your mileage may vary.

Lasereth

If you do buy a laptop for gaming, make SURE it's a Core 2 Duo CPU (any of them), has 2 GB of ram, and has a GeForce 7900 Go series GPU in it. That 8400 is a piece of shit.

If you do not buy the BEST (and I really mean the best) videocard they have available for the laptop you will regret it.

Dell had the above laptop I mentioned on sale one week for $1,300. Look for similar deals -- they're out there.

SofaKingA

Right now I don't have the funds to buy both a laptop and desktop. Trust me I would choose the desktop everytime but my school requires me to have a laptop!

I thought the GeForce 8400 was better than the 7900. That video card is the only option they gave me when I customized the laptop.

Now Im worried. I really dont want to spend $1300 on a laptop if it is going to get fried. Keep in mind. I will not be playing games hardcore all the time. I won't have time to play games all day long everyday. Just a few weekends every month, I hope. I just want to my laptop to handle 5 hrs of gaming at a time without catching on fire. Will the 8400 suffice?

Frosstbyte

Well, I push mine pretty hard. I play WoW probably 3-5 hours a day, give or take and if I'm not gaming, I'm multitasking quite a lot. So if you're playing more casually, you'll probably be better off. Regardless of what you do, I'd recommend buying a laptop cooling pad. They run 20-50 bucks, usually, and make a pretty big difference. Regardless of what you do, I'd follow las's advice on video cards. He's the local guru, so if he says the 8400 sucks, it probably sucks. You might call them and see if they can install a different card.

SofaKingA

Yeah, I did a little more research. The 8400 is a lower end card for people on a budget. But it is DirX10 compatible. I think I would probably fit that category. I don't mind sacrificing a few frames per second and turning down the graphics as long as the game runs smoothly. I will probably invest in that cooling pad for when I want to nerd it up in the comfort of my apartment. I also need to get some external speakers and mouse. All this gets pretty expensive.

Dilbert1234567

in my book, gaming and laptop are antonyms.
from the benchmarks i've seen, the 7900 still outclasses each of the 8x00's

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SofaKingA

Yeah, I agree, but like I said my budget won't allow me to buy two computers. I'm on federal student loans! I just want a laptop that can run almost every game out there with decent performance. My days of hardcore gaming are most likely coming to an end. I am retiring my desktop and leaving it at my parents house. I had that baby for 6 years. Im gonna get emotional...

rlbond86

It will do pretty well. I have a Lenovo T-61, which has a Quadro 140M, which is essentially the same as the 8400M. You'll get a higher battery life than the 7900. Do make sure the laptop comes with power management, however. The IBM software is very good because you can set it to underclock the video card and CPU when you are using the battery. I can run games like Civ IV and Unreal Tournament 2004 perfectly while plugged in at 1280 x 800, with everything at medium quality and no Anti-aliasing. Just don't try to play on the go and expect more than like 2 hours on a 8-cell battery.