I've been pondering getting one of those netbooks, but I'm wondering if I can do any gaming on one, like GalCiv2 or Civ 4 (or Elemental, when it's released.) So who has experience using a netbook, and how well do they do for some basic gaming?
I use a notebook and it works great! Just be sure you get a nice GeForce Go Mobile card like the 8600GT that I have. I would order from a company like Dell that allows you to "build your own," that way you can design it for gaming. I got their cheapest model that allowed me to use the 8600GT and I elected to stick with XP since it was going to be a gaming machine. I don't think they offer XP anymore, but I think Vista is finally nearing getting the kinks worked out in terms of gaming. Just make sure you get plenty of RAM. My proc is a 1.66Ghz Core 2 Duo, which is roughly equivalent to a 3Ghz single core, gaming-wise. If I could do anything different though, I'd probably get a much faster proc. Since you'll probably get Vista with it, I'd also get about 4GB RAM (but NOT from Dell, etc. Get it from Newegg or somewhere cheap).
Since you're posting on this site, I'm assuming that you like games that aren't necessarily graphics intensive. I could never run Crysis on my lappy, but I don't want to. It runs every TBS game that I play great, and that's all I care about. Valve games, of course, all run fantastic. The only way to play next-gen games on a laptop is to drop between 2-4 grand on one. I got mine for under $800 and it suits all my needs well. Make sure you Google a bit and look for online coupons; they're usually plentiful and can allow you to get a better setup for cheaper.
I've only had one problem gaming on my laptop: King's Bounty with settings maxed (noAA, 4xAF) was overheating and shutting me down. But, I bought a laptop cooler and haven't had a problem since. I'd recommend a cooler, since gaming creates quite a bit of heat and laptops are so compact.
One minor caveat: laptops are not designed for gaming (unless it's an XPS, Alienware, etc.) so some games may not work right. So far, I haven't found any problems though. I've played Bioshock, Rome:TW, Medieval II:TW, GalCiv2, Oblivion, King's Bounty, HOMM5, and others all on high settings. I hope this helps. Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions.
Gaming on netbooks, at the moment, isn't really an option unless you're going for older games. To hit the size and price range they need, they don't tend to have very powerful innards. Low-end graphics cards, slower CPUs and less RAM.
If you want to game, your best option is a desktop. Followed by a beefy notebook. Netbooks aren't designed to be game machines currently.
no.
Of course you can.
I just got a dell Studio with 2.6 2 core duo with 6 meg cache and 4 gig ram and a radeon graphic card and it certainly kicks.
A desktop will always be more powerful but I like having a pc that is portable. I can play most games.
People who say you can,t are just purist.
no...
Notebook != netbook
I've been playing on notebooks for the last 4 years, and I would NEVER consider downgrading to a netbook to play. Even with the latest mobile toys, you are stretched thin with a notebook to keep up with games.
Netbook? No.
How do I know? I have one...
Eee PC 901 XP
Thats a notebook.
He's talking about a netbook which has a smaller form factor.
Specification is usually:
1.6ghz Intel Atom512mb - 1Gb RAMIntel 945 chipset
1024x600 Resolution
To play without the risk of RSI you'd need a mouse and then you might as well stick to a desktop.
After noticing it stated "Netbooks", i retract my statement and go with the general opinion here and say "no"
No one's talking about notebooks. The question was if gaming on a netbook is possible. To which I'd say: Definitely not.
on netboks i dont think, but you can get for some higher price even 12" notebooks which already are realy small (like a standard paper, 210mmx290mm is already a 15,4" !!) and with low weight.
i'm currently searching for a good, powerfull but small in size and weitht notebook with 12", and there are some realy good, like the sony vaio in its different classes, but i think i will still wait a bit until the new mobile graphic cards are cheaper or a newer series is out. for playing games like warcraft 2 or maybe even age of empires 2, anno and so on a netbook could already be enough. but as you start to play games with 3D modeling, polygones and such things the netbook-option will vanish.
but both of them are two to three times as expensive as a netbook... i dont know why your desicion was a netbook, if it is the price or the mobility, but if it was the second thing, the pavilion got only 1,8 kilo... feels like a book in your little bag
As the name implies, "netbooks" are really suppose to be extra small computers whose purpose is to let you connect to the Internet with little fuss. Installing a ton of applications and games to bugger the system and bog down boot-ups really defeats the purpose of having a netbook in that sense.
So, no, you won't find a gaming netbook, and if you do, it's really a notebook rather than a netbook. Get a notebook if you really want portable gaming.
Woops! I didn't even know what the hell a "netbook" was until this post. Now that I do: NO! You cannot game on them. Not modern games anyway, maybe ancient DOS stuff.
But back to my original recommendation, just go for a real laptop like I suggested, it won't be too much more than a netbook, and it can do A LOT more stuff, like gaming!
Did you just insult the good old games of yesteryear, like Might and Magic, XCOM, and... hrm, actually those are the two series I care about!
Depends what kind of games. If you can game on an iPhone, of coarse you can game on a netbook.
Think about all those flash base games you can play. I once saw a thread showing all the real games you can play on a netbook. I'm sure if you do a search you can find a list of all playable games like starcraft.
No. You must have a decent graphics card to run games, and a netbook is pretty much defined by stripping it down to the bare essentials. It's a re-invention of the dumb terminal, for all intents and purposes. It's designed to connect to the Internet, and that's about it.
It may be able to play 2D games decently, but it'll likely give you a slideshow on all except the oldest 3D games.
Even notebooks are generally poor at gaming. I wouldn't trust anything that didn't have dedicated nVidia or ATI for graphics card. That's generally high end notebooks and desktops.
In all honesty, the desktop is still the best gaming machine, and will likely stay that way for a while.
Thanks everyone for the response. Think on this more I must. (I have a decent Desktop at home, so I can get my gaming fix just fine, and my laptop does decent enough for GalCiv2.) I don't have much experience with touchscreen, so I'll keep that in mind.
I wonder how the Nvidia Ion will run games. (And to confirm, I could care less aout graphics.)
Depends on the games you play. I'm pretty sure nobody wants to play a game at < 10 fps.
From the specs, I'd say about as poorly as a low end gaming laptop, perhaps a bit less. I'd say the Ion is mostly for video rather than gaming. The CPU (Atom) is certainly going to be quite weak, and I wouldn't count on having much memory.
Take the original Pentium and overclock it, and you have pretty much what the Atom is. It's designed to be mobile, not fast. It doesn't share all of the architectural improvements that we've seen in modern CPUs like the Core 2.
Netbooks should be perfect for running roguelikes, though.
took Blitz64 advice and tried searching for games you could play.
came across this review for the asus N10:
http://www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk/20080926939/hands-on-with-the-asus-n10-gaming-netbook.html
says he played CoD4 resonably well so i guess the answer is a yes (though with exceptions).
There are games that will run great on a netbook, alot of them webbased... Assuming you stick to those, a netbook is awesome for gaming.
It's about the same things as asking "Is it ok to eat mushrooms?".... The answer is Yes and No... It depends on what mushrooms you intend to eat....
Someone above mentioned the resolution (1024 x 600) and that can be a major factor - not all games adapt well to non-standard screen resolutions like that. Another factor can be getting the games onto the netbook - they don't have CD/DVD drives which means an external USB drive and if the game disk needs to be in the drive during play you're lugging that around too.
They are cool little gizmo's tho'. Here's an interesting related fact:
The software I develop was originally devoped to run on Cray MP supercomputers as they were the only thing powerful enough to run it. My boss just bought himself a netbook - our latest version of the software runs perfectly on it. Scary.
If you could get one with one of the GeForce 9400M graphics chips it might be ok for games which aren't very demanding. The amount of RAM would still be a worry though: Civ 4, for example, will probably not run large maps very well with only 1GB.
Of course you can play games on a netbook -
Just load a C-64 emulator on it!
Jonnan runs away quickly - {G}
Of course, this leads to the question of what types of games you play.
Sure, it'll play 2D games, emulate games for ancient OSes, and perhaps even play some of the older 3D games.
But it won't be able to play the latest 3D games.
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