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The FragBook
Petaris writes "For all of you hard core gamers out there a new choice is availiable for gaming notebooks. Introducing the Falcon Northwest FragBook. This notebook will be in direct competition with gaming notebooks from several competetors including Alienware and VooDoo. Falcon-nw, VooDoo, and more recently Alienware are the place to look for insanely high end and usually fairly expensive gaming systems. The gaming notebook, a more recent arrival in the industry, promises more recent processors than are commonly available for notebooks. Just make sure you stock up on batteries or settle in next to an outlet. :)"
Gaming a while ago on my Inspiron 8200 which has well better specs than my normal destop and it came nowhere near the performance on my desktop. The sceen refresh seemed to be struggling badly to keep up with the game. Crappy sound takes a lot away from enjoyment of the game as well.
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I couldn't find a Linux installation report about a FragBook yet. But since the FragBook TL is based on Intel's Centrino technology here is some generic information about Linux on Centrino laptops. The FragBook DR comes with a 17" display. Here is some generic information about Linux on laptops with 17" display.
No, you don't use it for striping in a gaming system. It's purely a hardware failsafe. Level 1 mirroring. Pure redundency.
You only need to spin the drive when you write to it, which in a gaming system is a very occasional occurance. We're not talking "Enterprise" order processing database here. We're talking writing back to the config file after a gaming session is over and the ability to switch to that drive if the primary drive fails while actually gaming.
So it's a drain on the battery, but nowhere near twice the drain.
And I certainly never said that using a laptop for a LAN party makes a lot of sense anyway.
KFG
"Call me silly, when I go FPS, for audio I go headphones. Laptops amazingly enough are much closer to you then your 21inch screen. I'm a full yard back from my 20inch and am perfectly comfortable. Most people i've observed choose a monitor placement that is roughly the same as a piece of paper letter sized at arms lengh."
Not at all silly. As a 'Professional Gamer' (as in, I compete in leauges and attend large lan competitions), I can safely say any gamer worth anything has headphones. Most popular are the plantronics Audio.90's which are nice, decent quality, and insanely cheap($30). A lot of people say theirs broke easy, but at $30, its worth the risk. Then theres more expensive stuff like the pc150's and other high end phones. Pretty much anything listed here is good for gaming.
That site(thegamercompany.com) is filled with great hardware for gaming.
My oppinion is a nice high end desktop for gaming, maybe a lower end shuttle for lanning (which can double as your desktop, depending on pricerange), and a fujitsu lifebook for actually working. The only gaming I'd want on a laptop would be simple things like 16bit console emulation, anything more just wouldn't work. Laptop lcds are small and can ghost/have dead pixels. Laptop keyboards are flimsy plastic (as is the Logitech Elite keyboard which has became standard, but of course I won't abandon my model-m). And of course you'll need an external mouse and power source for any real use.
If you really wanted to make a FragBook (LanBook?) I'd say build a laptop without a keyboard and just a real nice screen thats durable, easy access to plug in keyboard/mouse/cat5/power, and just market it for the lanners.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
A 17" PowerBook for unixy needs (i.e. Mac OS X and Linux). That 1.5ghz is roughly equivalent to a P4 running at 2.5 ghz
In many applications it really is, but unfortunately, gaming is not one of them. In games, 1 GHz of a G4 is actually quite like 1 GHz of a P4 (there's no noticeable difference to the player, that is). No, I made no scientific research on this topic, but I played a lot on Macs and PCs since many years. There's also circumstantial evidence to my claim - system requirements of Mac game ports usually state the same CPU clock as their Windows equivalents. Being as much a Mac addict as I am, I wouldn't recommend powerbook as a "fragbook", even if the recent models should be quite capable with the 128 VRAM Radeon 9700 Mobility cards. But even if you put the lack of some titles aside (what if the LAN party you are invited to plays "Counterstrike"?), the 1.5 GHz CPU is exactly what it is, a 1.5 GHz CPU.
I am a Mac user. I am even a Mac gamer. I am even a Mac LAN gamer (as a geek parent, I play strategy games with my kids on iBooks/iMacs connected via Airport). I agree that Macs have interesting advantages in this case, like the incredible ease of the wireless LAN creation. But I wouldn't qualify any of the current Apple machines as a "fragbook" - and they certainly don't need that kind of publicity.
Just cause it says 9700 pro doesn't mean that it is... the mobile cards go a good bit slower than the equivalently rated desktop parts...
;) ) constraints, they're not gonna be as cool as the upper end desktops... but then again, that has always and will always remain true. On the plus side, they're easy to carry and the wifi is nice.
techbargains.com + dell OR powernotebooks.com will save you a good bit over your voodoos and alienwares...
also busses/ram/hard drives tend to be slower in laptops as well, just a few things to remember. Laptops have come a long way, and now they'll even play the newest games at good res without freezing, but due to heat and size (and therefore monetary
Get yourself a Sager Notebook from PC Torque and save yourself a couple thousand dollars.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM