I Want A Computer

[Strike For The South]

And I want to do these things

-Connect to the internet
-Run all of microsoft office
-Run Itunes
-Run games like HOI 3 and MTW (maybe VI, tell me if Im getting to fancy) These would be the only games I would run

I would like to do this for as cheap as possibile

No I am pretty much computer illeteraite when it comes to these things. So I'm throwing myslef on the mercy of the court.

[Ja'chyra]

You get all that on most £400 laptops these days

[Strike For The South]

You get all that on most £400 laptops these days



400 British pounds = 589.48 U.S. dollars

[Ja'chyra]

laptop or desktop?

Desktop will be cheaper.

[Ja'chyra]

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/asus-x5ae-sx002v-04287937-pdt.html

That would do for the basics that you mentioned

[Strike For The South]

A laptop, as a college student I must have one ~;)

So you're telling me I really dont have to search far and the lower end stuff will do the job?

[Ja'chyra]

Aye, no problems.

I would get a dual core processor, preferrably 1.9Ghz +, at least 2Gb RAM (3 would be better) and a non integrated graphics card if possible. If you're itunes is anything like mine you'll want a 250Gb hard drive as well, 30-40 for music and the rest for porn.

[Beskar]

A laptop, as a college student I must have one ~;)

So you're telling me I really dont have to search far and the lower end stuff will do the job?

You are asking to play games which are completely old school. If you said anything within the last couple of years and the future, then you would have to obviously go higher.

[drone]

If you want to run MTW, make sure to get a ATI video card. nVidia will only break your heart. And I think stay away from Win 7 64 bit.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Basically, you could get any budget laptop of, say, 2007 and still do all of that just fine. I could get RTW to run, albeit barely, on an ATI 200M chip and 1.45Ghz Pentium dual core with 1GB of RAM when it still ran Vista. So I don't see why not MTW.

As far as graphics go, apparently the Intel graphics chip stuck on core i3 and i5 processors does a fair job at its number crunching. It doesn't have dedicated memory, but it does have low power requirements and the fact it's on a core i chip to go for it. Seeing as you don't want to play things that require much more than decent 2D acceleration, I expect such a set up may be more value for money than one which gives you an integrated graphics card -- at least at your price point (which is “as cheap as possible”, right?): you get a far better CPU in exchange for graphics grunt you don't use, and you get additional battery life and lower system temperatures, too. Might depend a little on how much little you value the looks of your laptop, though; as the only `cheap & cheerful cheap' core i3 ones I so far saw were otherwise quite austere business budget laptops.

[Husar]

I'm not sure about HoI3, it doesn't seem to run too well on my 2GHz dual core with 4 GB RAM and a 8600M GT, well, apart from the fact that it always crashed sooner or later...
Or maybe I just put the settings a bit too high?

[pevergreen]

8600M GT
Dahm dahum.

Then again, my laptop with that g-card can run L4D on high...

[Husar]

Dahm dahum.

Then again, my laptop with that g-card can run L4D on high...

The point being that an 8600M GT is still faster than anything a 400 pound laptop will have...
And it runs most games relatively fine as long as you keep AntiAliasing disabled.
With HoI 3 I would guess the CPU is more of a problem because it has to simulate a lot of things going on around the world, slows down considerably when there is war I think.

[Strike For The South]

If you want to run MTW, make sure to get a ATI video card. nVidia will only break your heart. And I think stay away from Win 7 64 bit.

Is that something I can install myself

Thanks everyone

[Ja'chyra]

Not on a laptop unless you know what you're doing

[Megas Methuselah]

Yeah, I was told you can't really play around with a laptop's physical body. And a video card isn't software that can be installed, but a physical piece of plastiky card that you stick into your machino. Easy enough with a desktop, but I'm not a guy willin to put my laptop on the operation table.