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Mobile vs. Desktop Gaming
Mr.Tweak writes "TweakTown has just posted an article investigating Mobile vs. Desktop gaming in their latest article entitled "New Age Computer Gaming - Mobile vs. Desktop Investigation". The article compares a Dell Inspiron 8200 with ATI Mobility 9000 graphics to a standard desktop system with nVidia GeForce4 Ti4200 graphics. Can notebook gaming really be taken seriously? We think so, and so should you!"
We all know that ID didn't want it out because they don't want people to judge the final product on it. I also belive that most people who would download and install it are big fans, and be quite aware that it wasn't representitive of the final product. But when TweakTown publishes frame rates, without even an attempt at a dislaimer, they're not doing anyone any favours.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
do laptop's always seem to be "on the brink" of desktop performance? Do sites just repeat this news item everytime a more powerful laptops come out? The Geforce2go was a major step; this is a normal business cycle advance. The performance of laptops is never anywhere near the performance level of a similarly priced desktop, and that has been static for 15 years, yet over and over again we get reports about how laptops are becoming more and more like desktops... please.
Why compare a laptop with a Radeon 9000 to a Desktop with a Radeon 9000 when you can compare it to something totally different and draw your conlusion about laptop gaming from that!
If you're looking at the performance of laptops for gaming, you make your desktop as similar as possible.. same RAM, same CPU speed, SAME VIDEO CARD. Otherwise, it's not truely useful stats.
Why buy the AlienWare laptop when you can have the exactly same laptop for much much lower price??
It's even assembled at the same factory!
Testimony of a Sony Vaio user.
I got myself a Vaio gr314mp nearly a year ago. It comes with a 1200MhZ p3 and the 16meg version of the mobility radeon 7500 and runs a lot of games fine. Multiplayer Quake 3 and Medal of Honour in 1024x768 run at a perfectly playable 30-odd fps (with some smoke effects and alpha-blending off... the card OpenGL drivers need careful tweaking to get good performance.)
My main reason for going laptop was I am on the road a lot, so a desktop isn't feasible for me. I have to say, I'm very chuffed with the results.
I love being able to lie in bed and play computer games. I spent about 2 months playing neverwinter nights on the train into work, and that made the time fly. I've even once or twice played mohaa over wireless while cooking dinner. This shit is great.
But... I don't ever expect to be playing doom 3 on this baby. The big thing is always the graphics card (lower processor speed and ram tend to be acceptable a lot longer), and I don't think I'll be wanting another laptop for games once this one loses its edge, unless I know I can plug in an external graphics card. A year of gaming for about $800 of depreciation isn't quite good enough.
Can anyone tell me why external pci-cards haven't caught on yet? Bus bandwidth wouldn't seem to be an issue if the architecture was right...
As soon as this becomes the norm, or I can swap in a new card when I want to, I will be happy to play on a laptop and pay slightly over the odds for improving game performance. But as it is, the computer I have now will soon be utterly useless in the face of new games.
The mobile gaming idea is superb, and the reality of it is great. Throw longevity in the mix and I'll never go back.
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If in doubt, visit sometime one of those gaming forums sites, like EsReallity.com. Discussions of input devices do appear there more then often.
Not to mention the fact that I yet have to see at least one gamer (pro prefferably) which uses LCD (or similar technology) monitor. :)
Leonid Mamtchenkov