Some Laptop Questions

[TevashSzat]

I'm thinking of getting a gaming laptop for a while now, yes you guys can all laugh at me and whatnot, but I am not getting a desktop and carrying it around anymore; it is simply too much of a pain to unplug everything and reset everything everytime

Anyways, before I buy it I just have a couple of questions:

1) How does laptop videocards compare to normal desktop ones, ie how would the nVidia GeForce Go 8600M GT 512MB DDR2 16X PCI Express compare to a desktop GeForce 8600M GT?

2) Most laptops I've looked at are widescreen; does it pose much of an issue with most modern games with the streching or do most modern games support widescreen resolutions now?

3) I am probably going to get 4 gigs of RAM just because I can and RAM is relatively cheap. That means a 64 bit OS too and I've heard some bad things about 64 bit Vista and its ability to run some games. What are they and have most of the issues with it been fixed in SP 1?

4) Are Solid State Harddrives worth the extra money? If I don't get them, I'm just gonna stick with a 7200 rpm one

[LittleGrizzly]

Im too incompetent too answer your questions but i bought a laptop for gaming and its great, i can play games or surf the net wherever i want to in the house... on the toilet... in the bath... whilst making food.... whilst lying in bed (my personal favourite) i also use it as a portable dvd player, all the time we watch movies on my laptop in my friends car, i think a laptop is great myself, you get less bang for your buck but you can bang almost anywhere you want to !

With some businesses hosting free wi-fi networks as well you can surf the net on your own laptop whilst out and about, or you could just get on those mobile internet connections and use it wherever you want.

One piece of advice as well, if your going to be carrying it around a lot some kind of insurance might be a good idea as thier easily damaged but not easily replaceable parts...

[Lemur]

1) How does laptop videocards compare to normal desktop ones, ie how would the nVidia GeForce Go 8600M GT 512MB DDR2 16X PCI Express compare to a desktop GeForce 8600M GT?

See for yourself. General rule is that engineers are focused on heat and energy savings when they make a laptop part, so performance is going to suffer.

2) Most laptops I've looked at are widescreen; does it pose much of an issue with most modern games with the streching or do most modern games support widescreen resolutions now?

Go have a gander. My understanding is that to be certified as "Games for Windows" a game must be compatible with widescreen. So we have that to thank the whole failed GfW initiative for, if nothing else.

3) I am probably going to get 4 gigs of RAM just because I can and RAM is relatively cheap. That means a 64 bit OS too and I've heard some bad things about 64 bit Vista and its ability to run some games. What are they and have most of the issues with it been fixed in SP 1?

Once again, if a game is certified for "Games for Windows," it should be Vista 64 compatible. Then again, Microsoft has a long history of jacking around their own certification programs, so your mileage may vary. XP games should be playable, to the best of my knowledge, although you may have to do some fidgeting with permissions. And don't forget you can run games in compatibility mode.

4) Are Solid State Harddrives worth the extra money? If I don't get them, I'm just gonna stick with a 7200 rpm one

At the moment, no, they are not. I have yet to see a test that shows a compelling speed increase from SSDs, although they do help with battery life, if that's your bag.

Another thought -- what you really want sounds like a luggable, not a classic laptop. They used to make real luggables, looked like suitcases with desktop PC parts and an LCD screen that folded into the lugging. Anybody know if these are still being made? Got a link to a manufacturer? 'Cause a lot of people who wind up buying laptops do so because they want to work on two different desks, not because they're road warriors, and I think for gaming a classic luggable would make way more sense.

[Husar]

Concerning Vista 64bit, most of my newer games run on it, with older games you may get some problems, since the next Microsoft OS will only come in a 64bit version I would recommend most developers to make their games compatible with a 64bit OS anyway, don't know if any of them listen to me though.

Concerning SSDs, lately I read that in many cases they even reduce battery life, mainly because they use the same amount of energy all the time, they know only on or off, while HDDs can have several energy saving modes etc and will only peak out during certain actions. But somneone tested it and sometimes the same laptop would last an hour or so less with an SSD inside.
Concerning, speed, it seems to depend a lot on whether you read, write, what brand the SSD is and whether it is an SLC design(expensive but fast, ten times the lifetime of MLC) or an MLC design(cheaper, slower, can die really fast and not recommended to install an OS on). some of them really leave even those WD velociraptors behind, especially when reading many small files, because they have ay lower access times. IIRC MTron have some of the best in their portfolio at the moment while some others do not really live up to their specifications. also consider that an SSD will pretty much die after a certain amount of writes to each sector, it may be possible to still read the data but not to write any anymore, this is why one should not install an OS on MLC(multi level cell) designs because they allow for some 10000 writes only while SLC(single level cell) usually allows for ten times as much, perhaps more if technology advances, but an OS with it's swapfiles etc. will usually use up those writes faster than if you use it just to drop some data onto it, also keep in mind that Vista will just start defragmenting your HDD now and then when the PC is idle and SLCs are also considerably faster than MLCs, but they cost twice as much or more per GB usually.

So far I'd say stay away from SSDs, especially for a laptop since I suppose they are keen to put MLCs into them because of the lower price, unless you're going to get some elite super duper laptop and they specifically meniton it has an SLC design, but even then it might just drain a lot of power.

[Lemur]

Concerning SSDs ...

Interestingly, no sooner did we start talking about SSDs in the forum than Ars Technica did an article on shake-ups in the SSD world. Seems the hardware manufacturers are less-than-pleased with the OS support they're getting.

Samsung is taking the matter a step further by including software and operating systems in its push for a more SSD-friendly computing market. To this end, Samsung says its engineers are in talks with Microsoft about SSD support in Vista. Presumably, the effort is to make Windows cognizant of the kind of device it is accessing, so that different optimizations can be applied and perhaps different file systems used for SSDs and HDDs. Microsoft is already in similar talks with Sun about including SSD optimizations in ZFS, which is supported in Solaris and BSD and will be supported in Apple's upcoming 10.6 "Snow Leopard" OS.

There's good detail in the article about exactly how hard drive optimizations make zero sense for SSD drives ... I know, it seems intuitive and obvious, but I guess some people felt it needed to be proved.

[Quirinus]

2) Most laptops I've looked at are widescreen; does it pose much of an issue with most modern games with the streching or do most modern games support widescreen resolutions now?

I just got a laptop with widescreen about a month ago, and one thing I've learned is: no. For starters, games like RTW claim to support widescreen (the option is there) but all it really does is to stretch the original resolution waay out of proportion to fit the screen. Those games that do support widescreen, typically the newer games, are too laggy to be run on the entire widescreen anyway. So now I play my games with a (sometimes huge) black border. It's actually not too bad once you get used to it, but all that extra screen space is useless, you might be better off getting a smaller-screened computer, eh?

So I'd say if you're looking at a laptop for mainly gaming purposes, avoid widescreen at all costs.

[TevashSzat]

I just got a laptop with widescreen about a month ago, and one thing I've learned is: no. For starters, games like RTW claim to support widescreen (the option is there) but all it really does is to stretch the original resolution waay out of proportion to fit the screen. Those games that do support widescreen, typically the newer games, are too laggy to be run on the entire widescreen anyway. So now I play my games with a (sometimes huge) black border. It's actually not too bad once you get used to it, but all that extra screen space is useless, you might be better off getting a smaller-screened computer, eh?

So I'd say if you're looking at a laptop for mainly gaming purposes, avoid widescreen at all costs.

The problem is that I have been unable to find any laptops with normal resolution. Thats simply because it is easier to fit a 16:10 screen ration on a laptop screen since it corresponds with the keyboard dimensions better

[Husar]

Most newer games should support widescreen very well, especially shooters. And for the games that don't, I do not really see the problem with black bars, I could just as well complain about the black frame of my notebook.

[Quirinus]

Most newer games should support widescreen very well, especially shooters. And for the games that don't, I do not really see the problem with black bars, I could just as well complain about the black frame of my notebook.

I don't actually mind the black bars overmuch myself, just saying that if you're getting a laptop mainly for gaming, might as well save some money and buy one with a smaller screen.

The problem is that I have been unable to find any laptops with normal resolution. Thats simply because it is easier to fit a 16:10 screen ration on a laptop screen since it corresponds with the keyboard dimensions better

My laptop has the dimensions, but it's widescreen to accomodate a webcam above the screen.

[Whacker]

I don't actually mind the black bars overmuch myself, just saying that if you're getting a laptop mainly for gaming, might as well save some money and buy one with a smaller screen.

Bold underlined emphasis mine. That's always the first mistake to begin with. Never ceases to amaze me that people do this, and 99% of the time they have nothing approaching a "real" need for a laptop to begin with. One pays so much more and gets so much less, which on top of that becomes obsolete that much quicker, and it's not upgradeable at all really.

[Lemur]

Those games that do support widescreen, typically the newer games, are too laggy to be run on the entire widescreen anyway.

Here's the real problem, and it's nothing to do with widescreen. Most laptops have too much screen for their video card from a gamer's perspective. Think about it — the more screen real estate you're filling up, the more graphic power you need. Even the dimmest gamer understands that playing Crysis at 640x480 is a different animal from running it at 1440x900. And the "luggable" laptops have screens at much higher resolutions than that.

And yet the graphics cards that go into laptops are gimped by the requirement for low heat and low energy. You see where this is going, right? Big, wide screens with millions of pixels to fill, wimpy graphics cards trying their best not to overheat in a closed environment ... do I need to spell it out?

[JR-]

i would not buy a gaming machine with less than the equivalent power to a Geforce 9600GT, which means either:
9800M GTS -
http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_9800m_gts.html

or:
an AMD/ATI 3870M