Is My Laptop Good Enough To Handle A Game?

[Daborn Meister]

Basically, do not really fancy the idea of spending a load of money on a ps3/ xbox when i could spend around £50 on my laptop to handle a game.

My Laptop is a Packard Bell MH36-U300. http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw...p;category_oid= .

The game i would like to play is either Call Of Duty 4 or Call Of Duty: World At War.

Any help would be thanked,

Joe

[Mikee]

It should be able to handle tem games. I don't see why not.

[Haz]

It's unlikely, it doesn't have the graphics capability.

[Hendrix]

Download the demos and try it?

[Daborn Meister]

I did scan around for some demos,

But i couldnt find no websites that let you download.

[Orgun_Donor]

Call of Duty 4 Specs

Minimum Requirements

Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 2800+ processor or any 1.8Ghz Dual Core Processor or better supported

512 MB RAM (768 MB RAM for Windows Vista)

8 GB of free hard drive space

Video card (generic): NVIDIA Geforce 6600 or better or ATI Radeon 9800Pro or better

Recommended Requirements

2.4 GHz dual core or better is recommended

1 GB RAM for XP, 2 GB RAM for Vista is recommended

3.0 Shader Support recommended, Nvidia Geforce 7800 or better or ATI Radeon X1800 or better

In a nut shell.... No. You may be able to get it to run, but its not going to be anything enjoyable.

[Revolver]

It's unlikely, it doesn't have the graphics capability.

I'm surprised my laptop runs HL2, but it does.

[Haz]

I'm surprised my laptop runs HL2, but it does.

The Source engine is over 5 years old, the Call of Duty engine isn't even two years old and is far more resource intensive than Source.

[Revolver]

Fair point

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

The Source engine is over 5 years old, the Call of Duty engine isn't even two years old and is far more resource intensive than Source.

Yeah but respawning enemies is whack.

[Sirius]

Try this http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest

Just choose what game you want to play and scan it, you'll have to accept the pop up box. It's for desktop pc's as far as I'm aware but if you pass a majority of them then I dont see why not.

You've only got 253mb GFX memory, but if you take the detail down on the game, remove shadows, AA, AF etc... you should be able too play, if your finding it hard to play at decent FPS try lowering the screen resolution.

If you still have problems I've got some details I can give you to edit in game that might help... if I can find them lol.

Edited April 23, 2009 by Sirius

[Krisboats]

Try this http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/referrer/srtest

Just choose what game you want to play and scan it, you'll have to accept the pop up box. It's for desktop pc's as far as I'm aware but if you pass a majority of them then I dont see why not.

You've only got 253mb GFX memory, but if you take the detail down on the game, remove shadows, AA, AF etc... you should be able too play, if your finding it hard to play at decent FPS try lowering the screen resolution.

If you still have problems I've got some details I can give you to edit in game that might help... if I can find them lol.

That just checks it against the recommended settings on the box. It still isn't a measure of whether you can actually play it. To be honest, if your dropping all those graphical options you might as well use a PSP or even your mobile phone for how utterly shit the game is going to look.

[Sirius]

That just checks it against the recommended settings on the box. It still isn't a measure of whether you can actually play it. To be honest, if your dropping all those graphical options you might as well use a PSP or even your mobile phone for how utterly shit the game is going to look.

Well thats the point, it checks your system against the reccomended settings, so if you pass, you can easily play.

Well it's still possible to mod the graphics options to get a decent fps and still have the game looking great.

You dont have to drop them all, just until it's sufficient to play, besides graphics are only half of it, gameplay is just as important.

I mean look at Goldeneye, mario kart on the N64 etc, graphics are crap but the gameplay is amazing!

Edited April 23, 2009 by Sirius

[Daborn Meister]

Went on the website,

All requirements passed minimum apart from graphics one which was below by one bar.

Damn.

[Krisboats]

Well thats the point, it checks your system against the reccomended settings, so if you pass, you can easily play.

Well it's still possible to mod the graphics options to get a decent fps and still have the game looking great.

You dont have to drop them all, just until it's sufficient to play, besides graphics are only half of it, gameplay is just as important.

I mean look at Goldeneye, mario kart on the N64 etc, graphics are crap but the gameplay is amazing!

Everyone knows that the producers don't put realistic specs for their games. They recommend cards that would struggle on medium settings and the general public buy their product only to realise their machine is light years away from playing it on full. Saying it passes the specs so it can easily play is stupidly naive, unless you like playing it at 1024x768 with everything on low and with a framerate of around 12fps. My housemates system managed the minimum specs for crysis yet he couldn't even play it on minimum with a half decent framerate.

In their day though the graphics were okay, now things have moved on and realistic environments are much more beneficial to the overall enjoyment of the game. Have you not noticed that your comparing unrealistic games with ones that have realism as their selling point, mario kart, goldeneye vs a modern day combat campaign? On low settings it looks crap and with a 2400xt you'll only be playing at 25fps with everything on low. Given that this laptop mentions nothing about a graphics solution it'll be even worse despite possibly managing to pass your requirements program.

People look back on older games with very deep rose tinted glasses, and goldeneye is a perfect example. At the time, it was great... but jumping from modern gaming to busting out the n64 your only trying to fool yourself if you think its still great. It's not, compared to what we have now its average at best. The aiming system is crap, the controllers are whack and the whole thing looks like its made from bits of card wrapped together to form shapes intended to resemble heads.

Given that this laptop has no onboard graphics solution it'll also be sharing system ram, given the average game nowadays uses a minimum of 7-900mb of RAM for textures alone that leaves barely anything for the rest of the game so he'll be dipping into the pagefile and it'll be stuttering everywhere whenever he turns around.

The processor is the only redeeming feature on this machine, but given the rest of the sytem lets it down so badly for gaming its a moot point.

[Sirius]

Well Crysis for example is a very GPU intensive game, COD4 is also very GPU intensive, I was running one of the old 8800GTX's and it could run Crysis on High settings at 1920x1080 res.

And it was fine, now Crysis looks amazing with all the high settings turned up, I only had 2xAA running but thats fine.

Now games like GTAIV are CPU intensive, if your not running a quad core CPU then the game settings will bottleneck and nomatter what sort of graphics card you have, be it an HD4870X2 or a GTX295, the game will stutter like a newborn.

Hardware has actually overtaken what game devs can throw at us now anyway so the reccomended specs are actually quite accurate. you could have a 24" Monitor or even a 30" monitor, if you had a C-i7 920 CPU, hell even one of the old Q6600's would be good. A decent graphics card, anything like a 1gb4870, 2gb4870x2, 4890, GTX260, GTX280, GTX285, GTX295 and atleast 4gb RAM, 64-bit OS and you will slay the games.

Not to mention that a decent MoBo will go far.

And if you tell me that if you got some mates together, some brews and sat there playing multiplayer goldeneye you'd be thrown out just because the Ggraphics look a bit dated then well, theres nothing more I can say.

thats the problem with people who play consoles (PS3 and Xbox360 fans to say the least) All they worry about is graphical power etc...

Well thats great but gameplay is just as important too.

And jumping from modern gaming to busting out an N64 and playing goldeneye... well... that just goes to show that game devs have lost alot of touch imo, they dont make games like that anymore... which is a shame.

This laptop has integrated GFX so it'll probably have to lower some of the settings to get decent fps, BUT if you lower the screen res and up the things like AA then you'll not notice the difference, your adding more graphical prowess but the CPu/GPu wount have to work as hard to process that, therefore giving better FPS so you wont notice the trade-off there, if you lowered the AA and upped the screen res they have to work much harder and the game will stutter so you'll notice the ugliness.

It's finding that balance between performance and power. (Yes they are two different things)

I know it's only a laptop, so dont be expecting amazing visuals, but if you ca get that tradeoff between power and performance then what does it matter anyway?

Your playing the game, your enjoying it, just because you might not have ambient lighting turned on with all the bells and whistles doesn't mean that it isnt worth it.

Edited April 24, 2009 by Sirius

[Krisboats]

Well Crysis for example is a very GPU intensive game, COD4 is also very GPU intensive, I was running one of the old 8800GTX's and it could run Crysis on High settings at 1920x1080 res.

And it was fine, now Crysis looks amazing with all the high settings turned up, I only had 2xAA running but thats fine.

Now games like GTAIV are CPU intensive, if your not running a quad core CPU then the game settings will bottleneck and nomatter what sort of graphics card you have, be it an HD4870X2 or a GTX295, the game will stutter like a newborn.

Hardware has actually overtaken what game devs can throw at us now anyway so the reccomended specs are actually quite accurate. you could have a 24" Monitor or even a 30" monitor, if you had a C-i7 920 CPU, hell even one of the old Q6600's would be good. A decent graphics card, anything like a 1gb4870, 2gb4870x2, 4890, GTX260, GTX280, GTX285, GTX295 and atleast 4gb RAM, 64-bit OS and you will slay the games.

Not to mention that a decent MoBo will go far.

And if you tell me that if you got some mates together, some brews and sat there playing multiplayer goldeneye you'd be thrown out just because the Ggraphics look a bit dated then well, theres nothing more I can say.

thats the problem with people who play consoles (PS3 and Xbox360 fans to say the least) All they worry about is graphical power etc...

Well thats great but gameplay is just as important too.

And jumping from modern gaming to busting out an N64 and playing goldeneye... well... that just goes to show that game devs have lost alot of touch imo, they dont make games like that anymore... which is a shame.

This laptop has integrated GFX so it'll probably have to lower some of the settings to get decent fps, BUT if you lower the screen res and up the things like AA then you'll not notice the difference, your adding more graphical prowess but the CPu/GPu wount have to work as hard to process that, therefore giving better FPS so you wont notice the trade-off there, if you lowered the AA and upped the screen res they have to work much harder and the game will stutter so you'll notice the ugliness.

It's finding that balance between performance and power. (Yes they are two different things)

I know it's only a laptop, so dont be expecting amazing visuals, but if you ca get that tradeoff between power and performance then what does it matter anyway?

Your playing the game, your enjoying it, just because you might not have ambient lighting turned on with all the bells and whistles doesn't mean that it isnt worth it.

Oh dear.

Reduce the resolution but add AA? you do know that running that combination in 90% of games is actually harder work for the GPU don't you because of the amount of cycles processing the AA takes up? If it was a dedicated card running 256mb of RAM then yeah, go for the lower resolution and try some AA but this is INTEGRATED. It doesn't have the processing power for any kind of AA.

My housemate has an 8800gtx with a q6600 (running at 3.8ghz) and it doesn't run crysis on high at 1680x1020 fluidly without any AA let alone a higher resolution with some. My heavily overclocked 4850 only just manages it at a constant 20fps at 1920x1200 and its a better card than the 8800gtx.

Its been known for some time now that it's only the graphical processing power of consoles that are really holding the developers back. Take crysis as an example yet again. There was no intention of running it as a multi-platform title so the developers were able to go all out and make an absolutely stunning game. It STILL brings systems to their knees and it's been out for a while and we've moved onto a completely new generation of graphics cards. COD4 is a multi platform title and as such is far easier on pc hardware due to the developers intending for it to scale well for consoles. If developers knew the client base had better hardware they'd be able to create much better games (graphically) no problem. To say that developers can't push current hardware is again... very naive.

See, yet another case of rose tinted glasses. Sure a few mates would be okay playing goldeneye... but with the choice of titles currently available for other platforms with better aiming, better controllers and better/faster graphics what's the point? Whenever you ask someone what made goldeneye so great they always say it was awesome but they can never pinpoint why. Going back to it now it feels sluggish and cumbersome to use and looks like someone just vomited over my nice new HDTV. It was great because AT THE TIME it was one of the first decent 4 player shooters that was easy to get the hang of playing. There's hundreds of games like that now.

Fact of the matter is his laptop can't play it, yet your still trying to convince him it'll be alright... allowing him to waste his money.

[pfoster23681]

I have to agree with Krisboats on some points.

Goldeneye was a breakthrough in multiplayer gaming, giving more depth and adaptability than any other game at that time. This is why it was so popular. Going back and playing it now is fine for reminiscing and for a laugh, but it has been superceded and expanded upon by almost every other multiplayer game out there.

As for Call of Duty, I wouoldn't even try. I got NFS Undercover for my laptop, with the recommended Vista benchmark set at 5.3. The minimum benchmark was 4.3, and mine was only 4.0 My laptop has a 256mb card in, but only a 3450, so after turning basically all the graphics settings off, and changing the res to 800x600, I could play it. It looked pretty dreadful to be honest, and every time AVG ran its scheduled scan at 12, the game died! I'd spend your bit of cash on a graphics card if you really want to play the game, because reducing the graphics down takes away the wow factor. You will sit there playing it wondering what it would be like, and pick faults with the graphics all day.

Saying that, this is just my opinion which I thought I would share with you. Good luck!

[Orgun_Donor]

Yea im with Kris on this one. You probably could get Cod 4 to run on the laptop, but it is going to run a bit like shit, and not be very enjoyable.

Golden Eye is shit(even back in its "heyday" it was mediocre at best when compared to a PC FPS). Why you would want to torture yourself with it in this day and age i dont know!

And you have to be silly to think that Hardware is more powerful the software devs can use.... I mean seriously! Take a step back and have a bit of a think, they are a business. The produce entertainment for people. Why produce entertainment for people if no one has the equipment to run it? Thats why it may not seem like people are not "pushing hardware".

EDIT - @pfoster, good idea about upgrading the gfx card, although being a laptop it will be nigh on impossible. First he would have to find out if the motherboard even had a PCI-e slot, which is very doubtful, then he has to find somewhere to purchase a mobile card which is again very doubtful as most of it will be built on to the mainboards. Even if he does manage the above, it will cook in he laptop because of the reduced airflow and increased heat output that it wasnt designed to handle.

Edited April 24, 2009 by Orgun_Donor

[Sirius]

@Krisboats - I know his GFX is integrated, I was just trying to make a suggestion,

I'm not trying to convince him to go and waste money on the game, all I'm saying is that he shouldn't be expecting to run it at the max specs but he could probably run it anyway.

I mean jesus I'm still using a 1.8GHz, 1 GB Ram, Integrated GFx laptop to play HL-2 and Stalker SoC, yes I've reduced the res and AA and it runs fine, now I'm not saying it's breaking the graphical bank here, it isn't always pretty but it's playable.

I know that COD4, Crysis is more intense to run than HL-2 and Stalker SoC but it's all relative, if my crappy laptop can run those I'm sure his could play COD4, my laptop is nearly 5 years old now as it is anyway.

And I was running a BFG 8800GTX OC2, it had 768mb memory, it was a master stroke for PC gaming!

I used to run Crysis and Farcry2 maxed out at 1680*1050 and on High at 1920*1080.

Why bother going for ultra settings when the game looks acceptable anyway?

The BFG 8800GTX OC2 is possibly one of the best, most groundbreaking cards ever made, most new nvidia cards from the 8, 9 and 200 generations are no more than a rejigged G80 core with an opptimised die process and slight increases to the number of processing elements in each sub-system. Unlike the move from 7 to 8 series where we moved off fixed function pipelines to a unified shader architecture. G80 was a huge leap from anything that went before and it could be awhile until we see that again.

I mean it's basically been re-released as a flagship model anyway the GTS250 is almost exactly the same, for such an old card the fact that they are replicating it and re-releasing it just shows how innovative it is.

---

@pfoster23681 - I can understand what your saying.

---

@Orgun_Donor - Awww how can you say goldeneye was shite? I'll admit though, Perfect Dark was better

I'm not saying that Hardware is up to scratch with the Devs, far from it, I mean they run multiple high powered systems just to test things like Ray-Tracing etc...

All I'm saying is that a good few months ago you'd have to spend thousands on hardware to be able to play the game at decent res with decent fps, all I'm saying is that now atleast it seems like hardware is catching up with the software, we can now play games like Crysis at decent res/ fps ok without having to spend too much money.

Edited April 24, 2009 by Sirius

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

This is exactly why I have an xbox.

[pfoster23681]

@ Orgun Donor - laptop components and casings are pretty much standard throughout the range, so he could e-mail his manufacturer and ask the question. I know with my Dell they have a list of specific upgrades that I can add to my laptop. The case may already have the required fans etc to add a graphics card? correct me if I'm wrong please?

Also, I stand by my opinion that Goldeneye rocked! Still got my N64 somewhere, and it's always good fun!

[Hendrix]

Also, I stand by my opinion that Goldeneye rocked! Still got my N64 somewhere, and it's always good fun!

You have inspired me to dig out my N64 and Goldeneye now!

[pfoster23681]

You have inspired me to dig out my N64 and Goldeneye now!

You will not be disappointed! I promise! I still say it's as much fun now as it was back then.

[Hannah Shucksmith]

You have inspired me to dig out my N64 and Goldeneye now!

Sega, for the cool kids.