Centrino gaming..?

How much worse? I have a PM1.6 Ghz, a Radeon 64MB 9600, and 1GB of 266Mhz RAM. Everything that I've thrown at my system runs *fine* at the highest resolution I can give it (1280x1024, without hacking .ini files) and with every single detail set on high. What I have *not* turned on, though, is FSAA or AF. I'm talking about games like NFS:U and UT2004 Demo.

People always seem to think they need to go overboard with their system specs to get decent performance in games....what they fail to realize is that most games are programmed for the "average" system in mind, not the best; companies will sell very few games if they intended their games to be played only on high-end P4EE machines.

What's even funnier sometimes is that systems have some great hardware but little means to use it. Consider the ABS Mayhem G1, a system with everything high-end - 128MB 9600, P4 3.2 Ghz, fast 333Mhz RAM - only to have a WXGA (1200x800) display. Why have all that hardware if you can't show the pixels?

I also think it's futile to buy the latest and greatest so you can be well-off 2-3 years down the line. More than likely, you *won't* be, and I would think most of us would be itching to get the latest-and-greatest 1.5-2 years down the road, when the latest software is starting to strain our current hardware. I find it hard to believe that those who will not accept anything lower than 60 FPS for the latest games will be able to cope with getting only 15-25 FPS with next-gen. titles.

Yeah, I wish Tom's Hardware Guide or something would take a couple of Centrino laptops with different configurations (P-M 1.5-1.7 GHz, Radeon 9200/9600/9700 32/64/128 MB, etc.) and compare their gaming capabilites to a P4 laptop and a P4 3.2 GHz desktop with Radeon 9800XT 256 MB, and a slower desktop (2.4 GHz, Radeon 9600 128 MB), etc. By comparing I mean run different benchmarks, but even more importantly, test a couple of games (like UT2004, Far Cry, Counter-Strike, BF, Splinter Cell, and so on) and post the FPS they get!

Nothing would make me happier, except, of course, owning (or having the money to buy) one of those laptops (I particularly want the Sony Vaio V505EX).

This is my 1st post and I have to say I too am looking to see of a centrino machine will play DX9 games and play them well. Don't want those bricks w/ bad battery life. I'll maybe look at the new Acer 8000 w/ATI9700 when it comes out. Maybe the ABS F2 . Had an Apple alupowerbook and the looks of all other laptops pail though....not in performance but the current crop of laptops leaves something to be desired as far as looks.

Hypersonic has a new lappie out called the Aviator CX6. It uses a P-M and has a 9700 128MB card in it. Looks nice :] I just wish the screen were better. Check it out, it could be a nice option as well.

http://www.hypersonic-pc.com/2001/systems-mobile.htm

Hey all-

I just got an asus m6n, with a 64 meg radeon 9600. I dont game much, but I had to kick it around.

I threw some random demos at it. Some Sonic the hedgehog game, jedi academy, the new splinter cell demo. Jedi academy runs with everything turned up high, just beautifully. Sonic is a really fast paced game, not something I am into but I wanted to check out the colors. It was handled very well. Splinter cell got a little chunky. I was running it at 1024 by 768 I think, the first level had some wierd lighting issues, but the second level, sneaking around in the tall grass, looked phenomenal.

I havent anything to compare things too really. I dont game much, except for some demos here and there. But I do want to be able to play half life 2 when it comes out, and as it looks now, this thing will handle HL2 just fine.

Is there better out there? Sure. But, going from my 1ghz athlon with kt133 chipset, this thing is amazing. In short, its good enough for me!

Eric

From everthing I have heard on this site, the GPU is more of a bottle neck than the processor. A weak vid card with a P4 really makes little sense when it comes to gaming. However a PM with an ATI9600/9700 should keep up just fine.

centrino help!

hey all this is my first post here, and i am in fact looking at the hypersonic CX6, and it is the centrino that is worring me. I am a pretty hard core gamer, yet sadly i knwo when i go to college there is no way for me to have a desktop. I have already been told that i must have a comp for 3 of my classes and 3 more highly recommended them, so i need portability. I was looking at a completely tooled up CX6 2MG mem, 1.7 centrino, ATI9700, now do you think this could run say doom 3? as i already have it on order. so please centrino owners speak up!

azstinger, with 9700, you should be able to run Doom 3 well/ok, although probably not on the highest settings (medium+)... Assuming the game comes out sometime this century, of course.

The life story of the ECS G556.

Do yourself a favor, if you intend to game buy a P4. There is a reason gaming magazines don't review Centrinos. They don't consider them part of the gaming notebook gendre. No other way to say it. Not knocking the Centrino, it surely has it's place and audience...so no flames please.

Oh, btw Datheron, don't think I didn't see this little gem:
You wouldn't believe all the threads on this board and others where ppl have complained about the midget pixels and how distracting and completely eye-strainful it is to run with UXGA XGA+, etc. Keep seeing glowing reviews on the clairity and brightness of the WXGA wide-screen though. Note this review http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20040324/index.html To each his own. Just makin sure the author of this thread sees both sides of the notebook fence.

The PM on 855 platform is capable of medium duty gaming. The P4 is faster, but not by a whole lot. The reason that P4 notebooks are better suited for gaming is that P4 notebooks are generally built with better components, i.e. M11, or M10/128, where as you will have a tough time finding a PM w/M10 128. Some Clevos even allow you to do RAID, and that is an option that no PM system has.

P4 also has HT, but I haven't seen alot of games that take advantage of the technology yet.

My ZForceF2 scores a respectable 2800 in 3dmark 03. Not as fast as a P4 w/M10 128 (usually about 3000+) but to me, doubling the battery life is worth 10-15% sacrifice in gaming performance. [using 3dmark 03 as a gauge of course]

Centrino's are perfectly capable of some high quality gaming. I have the Gateway m505x, and I have no problem running new games on it. I run Halo on it just fine at 1024x768, medium settings, and, more importantly (because, lets admit it, the coding in Halo just plain blows), I run FarCry at least on medium high settings at either 1024x768 or widescreen (12.... whatever). She runs great.

That being said, I totally agree with dashby. If you are primarily going to game on your notebook, go with a P4. Let's be honest here. While the most important thing, for gaming, is the graphics card, you are definately better off with a P4 over a PM for serious gaming. I needed battery life, thats why i bought this baby, otherwise i would have gotten a sager. Have I ever gamed on battery? Hell no, thats just plain silly. I do some serious gaming on here, but ONCE IN A WHILE. If I want to game, I game on my desktop. This baby is primarily for work and school, with some occasional gaming breaks thrown in.

If you aren't PRIMARILY buying a notebook for gaming, I definately suggest a centrino. The performance difference is not that much, so long as you have a good graphics card.

Haha, alright, Dashby, each to his own. I intended for that to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek anyway.

But of course you're right in the sense that with pure gaming, P4 beats PM, no question. It's the best bet for current games, and it will run future games faster and last longer than the PM when games outlive this generation of processors. Once again, it's dependent on just how much you did that extra speed vs. the extra battery life.

Kwick7, you may be surprised at how much "gaming on battery" happens, esp. on a university campus. I know a guy that was playing FFXI in a student lounge, and I personally have played Simcity 4 and UT2004 on my breaks between classes. An hour of heavy gaming (at the highest resolutions, of course) cuts my battery in half, which means that I still have around 1.5-2 hours of battery to do less intensive work.

Centrinos = OWN. If you just think for one minute about when has processors EVER been the bottleneck for gaming (ok maybe 10 years ago lol), then you'd realize that a 1.7g P-M (effective 3.0 gig P4) would absolutely kills in everything!

Let me put it this way, my desktop is a P4 2.4c Dell Machine. I see people with processors OCed up to 3.8 Gigs, with a higher FSB, overclocked memory, and watercooled Graphics cards. They spent like 2X as much as I did, yet I get the EXACT same performance in real gaming, and they get like a thousand points higher than me in benchmarking. Some people I guess, are just not happy with a 6000 score in 3Dmarks03.

Either way, my point is, if your gaming, its all about the GPU. NOT the processor. Sure you will definately have higher FPS with a P4 EE 3.4 gig, vs a 1.7 P-M. But from a realistic point of view, you won't even notice it. (your eyes can't detect anything greater than 60 fps IRC).

Anyhows, I'm going to wait until the next upgrade for Dothan, with 533 FSB, Alviso and the socket change. The socket change will really give you lasting upgradeability though, which is why I am not buying a P-M based laptop until the next one comes out.

I've ordered a maxed out hypersonic cx6 and it's "expected" to ship on April 21. I'll let you guys know what I think when it arrives.

Wow, didn't realize the price difference between the P4's and P-M's on some sites. Was looking at the Hypersonic Aviator site and saw a $1100 price difference between the GX8 (P4) and CX6 (P-M). Also, wonder why they labeled the GX8 a higher numerical value than the GX7..when the 7 is actually a more powerful (and expensive processor). The GX7 has the Mobility 9700, whereas the GX8 has the 9600. Just pondering, probably a damn good reason for it.

Why did ATI name the Radeon 9600 greater than 9500? The 9500 was a faster card. Same idea goes with R8500 vs R9000/9200.

Companies name their products without logical explanations all the time.

9500 was a faster, but older model, that eventually got replaced by 9600/9800 series. Why call a newer card a lower number?

The 9 in 9000/9200 represents a new series of video cards (higher level ones being fully DX9 compatible, of course), and the 000/200 represent low entry-level performance. The 8 in 8500 represents an older DX8 series video card, and the 500 is for decent performance (in the case of 8xxx series, it's the best one).

Seems quite logical to me. At least much more so than many other companies' products.