Laptop Guide for Gamers - Help & Resources

TBH, i didnt find any laptops on your site that i can recommend for gamers. once you get asus and sager up there though...

Well of course the most important aspect of it would be a dedicated graphics card. 128MB-256MB preferably.. anything less will be crippled. Second would be to have at least 1GB of RAM. Third would be the resolution.. but some would see this as personal preferences. The amount of heat the notebook gives off is another important factor when I research for a new notebook. The system should have a good cooling system for the GPU card and CPU to breath. I bought my ASUS Z70VA because it was the best all around lightest notebook available with an ATi x700.. plus the fact that it looks very sleek and professional.

video memoery does not make a huge difference.

for decent gaming, you will want an x700 or a 6600go. in teh future there will also be the x1600 and the 7600 go replaceing them

for high end gaming, it is recommended to get either a 6800go or a 7800go.

lcd's, glossy is preferred, but certainly not a must. they need to be high resolution however, no less than 1680x1050 for 15.4" and 1920x1200 for 17" for a good experience. if you want something hcepaer, then 1280x800 for 15.4" and 1680x1050 for 17".

good cooling is important...

upgradability

sound quality, number of speakers(does it have a subwoofer?), 5.1 sound, etc.

fast harddrives(sony sucks ass at this). 5400rpm at least. 4200rpm is seriously out of the question. 7200rpm is recommended *if* price is not an issue.

no celerons, pentium m and turion only. no pentium 4's either, but athlon 64's are OK for non-mobile systems.

I'll concur with all that Drizek has said and plase emphasis on upgrade-ability. Noone wants to buy a laptop that they have to fork out butt-loads or in the next year. Laptops are progressively closing the performance gap between themselves and desktops, it's about time the upgrade-ability gap closed futher than just HDD, RAM and CPU.

Mike Check

First thing you need is to seperate the many different type of games and the screen resolution of the LCD. Since LCD looks best in native mode. The higher resolution you go, the more demanding it would get for the graphics chip. A game that runs fine with a MR9700 at 1280x800 (WXGA) may choke at 1680x1050 (WSXGA+) and probably will be unplayable at 1920x1200 (WUXGA) at the same detail level. There are ways to get around this by lowering the detail and effect or switching to a lower res but there comes a point where the trade off make the gameplay no longer fun. As to the type of games, most will fall under the following categories.

First person shooter (FPS) like Doom 3 and Halflife 2 and Flight simulations like are the most demanding. You can play them at decent detail at 1280x800 with a nvidia Go6600 or a ATI MR9700 or X600. At higher res, you'll probably want Go6800/X700 or better.

Real time strategy (RTS) like Warcraft 3, Age of Empire III probably next on demand. The good thing is that they usually can be played at non-native resolution with minimal lost of detail and high framerate is not as important. RTS player can probably get by with the later Go5XXX series and MR9500, X300 and up.

Roleplaying games (RPG) are the next step down. RPG are usually story driven and while having the high graphics detail is great, you can lose a lot of the detail without affecting your enjoyment. Most RPG will probably be playable even on some of the Go4XXX series, MR9000 series, X200 and up. Some of the older ones will probably even work on the better integrated graphics chips.

Well, this is just an general overview, you will probably find exceptions in each category but this list should give a good starting point.

For the resolution I find 1440x900 for a 17" widescreen more then enough.

With the current mobile GFX chips you won't be using very high resolutions anyway.

Screen resolution is important. On 17" monitors Wuxga is prefered on the Dell forums. On 15.4" monitors WSXGA+ is prefered.
There should be enough viewing angle. Quote; "Dell wide-aspect UltraSharp LCDs have slightly narrower viewing angles of +65/-65 (horizontal) and +50/-50 (vertical)." This is standard for gaming notebooks.
A glossy screen is better than a matte screen.
185 cd/m2 (nits) screen brightness is a minimum.
300:1 contrast is a minimum.
Widescreen is better for upscaling dvd's.

Integrated graphics are not acceptable.
Hypermemory is not acceptable.
The standard for Dell gaming is the nvidia 6800 go. No less for a gaming notebook.

Sound. It needs a subwoofer. And speakers louder than 1 watt.

1 gig ram is standard.
Dual channel.
533 MHz or higher.

Atheros Wlan cards and wireless routers are the best.

Windvd with TrimensionDNM is seen as the best dvd player.

And lcd tuning software of some sort is nessessary, standard.

Glosse vs. Matte is mostly a preference, personally I wouldn't buy glossy, no matter what the specs... just cause I think its excessive for a laptop and hurts my eyes =P.

As far as upgradability, every laptop can upgrade the CPU, Hard Drive and RAM. The upgradability aspect is: Does the laptop have an MXM GPU? And if so, will the MFR produce an upgrade you can swap out, should one be released on the market?

1) GPU: You need a dedicated gfx card, high end a 7800 or 6800 or ati equivalent. Mid-range an x700/6600. Below that, not very useful anymore for a gaming rig.
2) CPU: Pentium-M, AMD Turion, for desktop replacement an x2 or even fx-55/57. Avoid the pentium 4s at all cost, they dont belong in a notebook and their performance in games is mediocre at best.
3) RAM: 1 GB RAM minimum......suggested 2 GB for games such as BF2.
4) Screen: All preference, however, make sure it fits with the gfx card. You dont want to put an x700 in a 17" WUXGA notebook. Wont play any games. Although, very few games are even playable with all settings on high on a WUXGA with even a 6800.
5) Harddrive: 60 GB 5400 RPM drive is minimum on a gaming rig. Might want to up to an 80 GB 5400 RPM drive. For top of the line rigs, must be a 7200 RPM drive...no excuse on that one (talking about 2500+ rigs here).
6) Souncard: On a top of the line, have a dedicated audigy available. Very helpful in that regards.

all laptop speakers will suck. a decent pair of headphones will be far better than even teh best laptop speakers. TBH, i would rather have a laptop with an integrated audigy 2 that has no speakers than one that has 4 speakers and a subwoofer powered by integrated audio.

dual channel is not a requirement because most laptops only have 2 slots. it is a bad idea to get 1gb in dual channel. it seriously hurts upgradability and dual channel does not have any significant performance improvement over single channel.