Joe Shaw Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Does anyone know of any small, light netbooks or tablets that will run CMBN? I'm on the road a lot and I don't want to carry another great honking laptop in addition to my company laptop but I'd still like to be able to play turns after work. Joe 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil stanbridge Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 It will depend on a number of things whether it will play at all, but I think the biggest thing is the onboard VGA. Unless it's something like an Intel GMA 3100 I wouldn't bother personally as it will run like a slideshow, if at all, even on the lowest settings. I haven't got a netbook anymore to try; I've got a 13" Dell instead which plays it admirably - is that not an option?. I definitely remember playing CMAK on my netbook a couple of years ago now - it had a Intel 3000 or equivalent and I think it had 3gb of ram too. It played ok on the lowest settings if I'm honest, it was more the size of the battle that killed it - but it would be very dependent on ram and VGA, more than the cpu. Ideally you'd want to run it off mains too. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 IIRC, someone posted here a little while ago that they had the game running reasonably well on a MacBook Air. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Honestly, one of the newer Fusion or dual-core Ion netbooks *might* run the game, at least GPU-wise, but for the Ions you're still looking at running a CPU-intensive game on an Atom processor, which is... not powerful, to put it kindly. It's like a P4 vs a Transmeta Crusoe chip, if you remember those. At any rate no netbook should technically meet requirements as far as I can tell. A Macbook Air is in an entirely different category with a ULV Core 2 Duo and a decent integrated card. It's actually below minimum specs for the Mac version, but it should be able to run the game decently. To put it in perspective, my old-ish desktop is three times faster, gaming-wise (3DMark05), than my beefy Macbook Pro. My Macbook Pro is *ten* times faster, gaming-wise, than an average netbook. Five time faster than an Ion netbook. I wouldn't bet on being able to play anything of any reasonable size. That said... I'd love to find a netbook that would play CM. Then I wouldn't need to haul my Macbook Pro around with me. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I would be interested to see how the new Mac Airs (just released today) handle the game. Now, you can get a MBA with a 1.8 GHz dual-core i7 (Though it will cost you a pretty penny)... not sure how how exactly that compares to CMBN's minimum system spec, since you can't directly compare the clock speed of a Core2Duo to a Core i7 1:1. The new MBAs also have the integrated Intel Graphics 3000. I have tried the demo on this graphics hardware -- it's the same as what's in the current base Macbook Pro. It handles the game reasonably well. Not highest detail settings to be sure, but not awful, either. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 My 2.6 Ghz i7 does fairly well with CM. As always with CM, though, clock speed matters. I wouldn't throw the Mac version at it and expect blistering speed. The 3000 is... an interesting choice. Compared to the 320M it's crippled in a number of ways - it's got a fraction of the shader abilities, for starters, and it benchmarks slower. And the 320M isn't exactly a heavy lifter. I don't know what they were thinking, frankly. So - actually the old Airs with C2Ds and 320Ms might do a better job with CM. Or at least about the same job. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RookieCAF Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 How about that Alienware netbook? I'm not overly familiar with it but it's supposed to be fairly decent. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 My 2.6 Ghz i7 does fairly well with CM. As always with CM, though, clock speed matters. I wouldn't throw the Mac version at it and expect blistering speed. The 3000 is... an interesting choice. Compared to the 320M it's crippled in a number of ways - it's got a fraction of the shader abilities, for starters, and it benchmarks slower. And the 320M isn't exactly a heavy lifter. I don't know what they were thinking, frankly. So - actually the old Airs with C2Ds and 320Ms might do a better job with CM. Or at least about the same job. Interesting. Like I said, when I tried the game on a 3000-equipped MBP it was able to put out acceptable, albeit not spectacular, detail and framerates. But I've never tried the game on a system with a 320M, so I can't really make any comparison there. Based on what you say, for the purposes of us Mac CM gamers, I suppose now might be a good time to try to pick up last generation's top-end MBA or Mac Mini on the cheap, if one were looking to buy one of these form factors in the near future... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Yep, I got your bug reports. I'm still hunting for a 3000-equipped tester to help us out with that. Yeah, the C2D/320 combo was halfway decent, so a last-gen MBA would work well. Better than the i7/3000, I'd think. I'd want to see more benchmarks, of course. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Yep, I got your bug reports. I'm still hunting for a 3000-equipped tester to help us out with that. Always nice to hear you guys are on the ball and actively supporting the Mac gaming community! Just so to make sure people reading this thread have the full story, the "bug reports" Phil is referring to above described one crash to desktop in 6+ hours of playing on an Intel HD 3000-equipped MBP. So, so at least in my experience, it's not a pervasive problem, such as the problems that have cropped up on old X1600-equipped Macs. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Always nice to hear you guys are on the ball and actively supporting the Mac gaming community! Thanks! I do try. Just so to make sure people reading this thread have the full story, the "bug reports" Phil is referring to above described one crash to desktop in 6+ hours of playing on an Intel HD 3000-equipped MBP. So, so at least in my experience, it's not a pervasive problem, such as the problems that have cropped up on old X1600-equipped Macs. Oh, yeah - I doubt anything will compare with the incomparably bizarre X1600. The sheer number of problems that thing had is... epic. I'm just being pro-active with the 3000. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sakai007 Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 On my old 2.2Ghz Dual core Intel Celron equipped laptop, 3GB RAM, Integrated Intel Graphics, CMSF played put it wasn't the prettiest thing to watch in the world. Even with the details turned down it was a bit much. I am now using a 2.5Ghz Dual-Core AMD, 3 GB RAM, nVidia 128MB equipped desk top and both CMSF and CMBN run very well. The details are set to medium and it is very smooth. CMBN is just a little bit slower then CMSF, due in part to the much more complex terrain, but is very, very playable. Just letting you all know that it doesn't take anything near top of the line to run CMBN well with a desktop. I can see having an issue with a laptop with less power then the one stated above although. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freyland Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 How about that Alienware netbook? I'm not overly familiar with it but it's supposed to be fairly decent. My wife uses a high-end ASUS Republic of Gamers notebook I bought her for $1500. Has 17 inch screen ands weighs only 8 lbs. Would be happy to post specs when I get home tonight if you are interested in details. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 How about that Alienware netbook? I'm not overly familiar with it but it's supposed to be fairly decent. Yeah, the M11x would probably run the game pretty well. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collingwood Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Yep, I got your bug reports. I'm still hunting for a 3000-equipped tester to help us out with that. Hi Phil, I have a MBP that arrived fresh one week ago, OSX 10.6.8, 8GB RAM, i7 @ 2.2GHz, Intel HD Graphics 3000 ... if there is any testing I can help with, happy to. Someone mentioned a crash-2-desktop on theirs, I have had a couple of those but that's in over a dozen hours of play. cheers 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Shaw Posted July 21, 2011 Author Share Posted July 21, 2011 Thanks for the info guys. Joe 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colladillo Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 Yeah, the M11x would probably run the game pretty well. It absolutely does! I use an M11 alienware (biggers screens were too much expensive). I can run every game I tried (CMx1, CMx2, FallOut 3, Silent hunter 5, SWTFU, Mount&Blade: Warband, DawnOfWarII, PanzerCommandOstFront, etc). I play CMBN without any trouble, I can play with "better" or "best" graphical setup, but usually I play in "balanced". 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YankeeDog Posted July 21, 2011 Share Posted July 21, 2011 Some interesting early benchmark information about the new Macbook Airs. Pretty impressive speed improvements over the previous generation: http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptop/apple-macbook-air-13-2011.aspx?mode=benchmarks http://electricpig.co.uk/2011/07/20/2011-macbook-air-benchmarks-are-amazing-outperforms-all-2010-macbook-pros/ I'd like to see corroboration from other tests, and definitely not the full story as far as CM gaming goes -- These tests do include performance running World of Warcraft, though, and IIRC WoW, like CMBN, is single-core code, so the results are at least somewhat relevant. But in any event, I think it is interesting just how much the Core i5 and i7 chips outperform the Core2Duo chips on a clock cycle-for-clock cycle basis, even on tests that should be that using only one core. Apparently that "Turbo Mode" thing isn't just a marketing slogan. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdwinSchneider Posted April 13, 2013 Share Posted April 13, 2013 Does anyone know of any small, light netbooks or tablets that will run CMBN? I'm on the road a lot and I don't want to carry another great honking laptop in addition to my company laptop but I'd still like to be able to play turns after work. Joe I have both tablet and notebook. It is nice to have these wonderful live to make like smooth 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Williams Posted April 13, 2013 Share Posted April 13, 2013 I feel sorry for you guys that travel a lot. I build my own desktops and my current one is as big as a small car (exaggeration, but it's big) and the clicky keyboard I am using (vintage IBM type M) is probably bigger and weighs as much as your whole laptop, plus I run dual monitors, main is a 27 inch and secondary is a 19 inch. Edit: However, in order to make a useful suggestion for you jetsetters: http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-m11x-r3/pd An 11 inch laptop that should certainly run CMBN/CMFI. Pricey, though. Also....Windows 8 sucks, IMO. Try to get it with Windows 7, if you still can. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdwinSchneider Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 I have both tablet and notebook. It is nice to have these wonderful live to make like smooth What other gadgets do you love to have guys with while traveling? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altipueri Posted April 14, 2013 Share Posted April 14, 2013 Plays fine on my £180/$200 Asus netbook. Oh, sorry that's CMx1. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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