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XPS 1210 ? Game ?

post #1 of 18
7/10/06 at 6:43pm
Thread Starter 
I just purchased the 1210 with:

1.83GHz/667MHz
1 Gig RAM
80gig 7200 HDD
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950

This is mainly (about 98%) a work computer and I went with the integrated card to save battery life which I really, really need but...

on flights or when appointments cancel I may have time to play a few games and I am wondering how/if this machine will handle:

Rome Total War
Age of Empires 3

or am I stuck with older games?

I haven't played a PC game in a looong time (Xbox 360 guy now) and am not sure how the graphics cards compare to each other.

Thanks for your help!!
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post #2 of 18
7/10/06 at 9:17pm
well, i know for a fact that a card inferior or equal to the GMA 950 can run warcraft 3, so im not sure if that tells you anything.
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post #3 of 18
7/10/06 at 9:26pm
thats no good, thats one of the highlights of getting the M1210..
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post #4 of 18
7/10/06 at 9:49pm
if there is still time to change your order i'd really suggest you get the nvidia dedicated card.... as someone else said that card really is the point of buying the m1210. just get yourself an extra battery. a little flaw i found in their order system is that if you choose the 6 cell as your 'primary' battery and then add a 'secondary' 9 cell, you only end up spending like 30 bucks more than just buying the 9 cell.

that... and i'm not sure its been officially confirmed that the integrated graphics will run aero on windows vista, so that could be another big reason you should go with the dedicated card.
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post #5 of 18
7/10/06 at 10:34pm
Yea get the 7400 and just get an extra battery. Having a dedicated card is the whole point of that system or I just would have gotten the cheaper 1405..the 7400 will play those games..and its going to last you longer as it will still play newer games that will make the GMA950 choke..
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post #6 of 18
7/11/06 at 1:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by flashback87
a little flaw i found in their order system is that if you choose the 6 cell as your 'primary' battery and then add a 'secondary' 9 cell, you only end up spending like 30 bucks more than just buying the 9 cell.

I don't think it's a flaw! I believe this is one of Dell's cheeky method of trying to "catch unsuspecting & innocent victims!!!"
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post #7 of 18
7/11/06 at 4:26am
yeah, kind of like 7-eleven... their icee or whatever it is has the same sort of thing. spend 1.09 (+ tax) for 12oz, or 1.29 (+ tax) for 22oz. almost double your drink for less than 20% more. i fell for the 22 oz drink.
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post #8 of 18
7/11/06 at 1:44pm
Thread Starter 
Ok, I get that the dedicated card is MUCH better but again the last time I played a PC game was in the 90's. I got the above system for just over $1,000 (I know the right person) but could not get it with the dedicated graphics card and battery life is MUCH more important to me than the ability to play video games (that's what my 360 is for). I really just wanted to get a couple of games to play during potential downtime, I'd be ok with older games like AoE 2 (the last PC game I played) but if this computer will run Rome Total War and/or AoE 3 halfway decent then I'll get those instead.

Thanks for your help.
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post #9 of 18
7/11/06 at 2:21pm
What are the system requirements for the games you want to play? I pulled out my old Homeworld game not long ago..it should play games like that one just fine..
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post #10 of 18
7/11/06 at 2:36pm
Thread Starter 
Rome Total War (Minimum) = 1.0 GHz , 256mb RAM and a 64mb video card

AoE 3 (Minimum) =
PC with 1.4 Ghz equivalent or higher processor that supports SSE
256 MB of system RAM
2.0 GB available hard disk space
32x speed or faster CD-ROM drive
64 MB video card with HT&L
DirectX 9.0c or above

Those are the min. requirements...I don't have to have them on the max but I'm not sure I'd run the game on the lowest settings either. I wouldn't mind turning off some stuff (12" screen makes it hard to tell anyways I'm sure)...kinda mid level settings would work for me.
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post #11 of 18
7/11/06 at 2:44pm
It should run that atleast at medium setting...possibly higher...that 12 inch lower rez screen will help out alot..
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post #12 of 18
7/11/06 at 2:49pm
Thread Starter 
Great, thanks for your help!!!
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post #13 of 18
7/11/06 at 4:05pm
These are the specs for the GMA 950. I was thoroughly surprised:

256-bit graphics core running at 400MHz
Up to 10.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth with DDR2 667 system memory
1.6 GPixels/sec and 1.6 GTexels/sec fill rate
Up to 224 MB maximum video memory
2048x1536 at 75 Hz maximum resolution
Dynamic Display Modes for flat-panel, wide-screen and Digital TV support
Operating systems supported: Microsoft Windows* XP, Windows* XP 64bit, Media Center Edition 2004/2005, Windows 2000; Linux-compatible (Xfree86 source available)
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post #14 of 18
7/11/06 at 4:26pm
Thread Starter 
Hmm...I'm definetly not a computer expert but that looks like it should run the 2 games I asked about pretty well then. At least it looks good enough to buy/install the game and see what happens...
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post #15 of 18
7/11/06 at 4:55pm
you should be fine with those games, they should run very well. the 950 is no slouch, like the 900 was.
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post #16 of 18
7/12/06 at 3:16am
Quote:
Originally Posted by K3nt
Operating systems supported: Microsoft Windows* XP, Windows* XP 64bit, Media Center Edition 2004/2005, Windows 2000; Linux-compatible (Xfree86 source available)

aw, man, i couldn't put dos and/or windows 95/98 on one of those, what a shame (:
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post #17 of 18
7/13/06 at 9:44am
yeah, the new integrated video can run alot more apps than most people think.
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post #18 of 18
7/13/06 at 2:33pm
you might want to look into getting a lil more ram scince your IGP is using 1/4 or more of your system memory. as an aside that chip will run aero glass, you just have to give it enough mem.
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