Laptop specs? (Big Time)

[Lobo]

Just wondering if you could tell me if my performance, for CM, will be satisfactory on this system?:

Dell Inspiron 5000 Laptop, P3 600 MHZ, 96 MB RAM, 8 MB ATI mobility -P 3D video 2xAGP video card.

I am mostly wondering about the video card, since I have no knowledge of laptop video card capabilities. Will I be able to run CM using the "3D" portion of the card (Hardware accelerated) instead of running it in software mode?

I currently run the demo on my desktop, which is; A Celeron 450 (well, overclocked to 450), 96 MB RAM and a RIVA TNT 1 video card and am very satisfied with it.

Thanks for any input.

Of course, Windows 98 : )

[This message has been edited by Lobo (edited 05-19-2000).]

[gaffertape]

The key:

Are you running Windows NT?

If so, you can't get the appropriate DirectX drivers. Windows 95 or 98 is fine though.

[Schrullenhaft]

Several users reported problems with the ATI Rage Mobility video chipsets. The following was a solution posted by "Eridani" that involved the BETA demo, how well it holds up for the GOLD demo I don't know:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If I start a game in 1024x768 resolution and then set my laptops resolution down to 800x600, when I click on combat mission on the taskbar the cursor works perfectly. I now have 3 clones of combat mission running, one was started while I was 640x480 native, one 800x600 and the third 1024x768. I am now in 800x600 and the 640x480 and 1024x768 both work flawlessly. if I switch up to 1024x768, then the 640 and the 800 will both work, but 1024 won't anymore.

It seems that if CM changes the native resolution when I maximize it, everything works, when it just uses the native (windows) rez, the cursor goes haywire...

I don't know if this helps at all... It makes sense to me though... any idea if this will keep happening with the gold version?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Lobo]

Thanks for the info Schrullenhaft. I went back through "search" and found some of the conversations (I should have done that before ). Not sure if they fixed the problem, but it sounds like most people aren't happy with the Mobility video card.

Maybe I should look at another laptop, instead of the Dell? I don't want a Compaq and not sure that I want a Toshiba either. Maybe I'll look at what Gateway has to offer.

[Lobo]

Hmm, just looked at the Gateway laptops..They use the ATI mobility card too. NEC didn't even list their cards and they didn't have anything comparable anyway. Any other laptops that use a quality video card?

[kingtiger]

I have DELL Inspiron 7000 w/64 MB and PIII 450 and that glitchy ATI Rage Video and the DEMO runs beautifully. Wait time is a little high when setting the opposing force to 150% - results in the CPU needing to calculate three times as many moves.

However overall turn calculation and playback is only slightly different than my desktop with all the bells and toys and whistles.

I am not a big fan of DELL, but I would have to say the game runs perfectly fine with the DELL laptop. Any laptop will have a significantly slower hard drive (5400 rpm or less) resulting in basically slower performace than any comparable desktop. My PIII 450 DELL is no faster than my DELL Celeron 366. Currently, with all laptops, the bottleneck is the Hard Drive.

Richard Kalajian

[Schrullenhaft]

Lobo - One problem you may run into with some of the newer name-brand laptops is that ATI has taken over the video chip market for them. If it isn't an ATI video chip, then it probably doesn't have 3D acceleration (and you will end up using software-based rendering, which can be significantly slower). There may be clones out there that may have some other 3D video chip (some old NVidia chipsets ?), but laptop clones can be quite questionable quality-wise and few of them offer any 3D performance enhancement.