Thinkpads Forum

Hey all...I haven't played a game in...like forever? So a buddy came by and had Doom 3 with him, and when I said that I had always wondered, but didn't care enough to find out as to how the now relatively old game was supposedly an incredible breakthrough for gaming in 2004 when it was released.

Just a couple of general question for you serious Pro gamers. How would my ATI FireGL V5200 work with it, and just games period??? I did some searching and the V5200 is considered for business and professional applications, and also that it is "based on" the x1600 card.

What does that mean? Can/Should I install drivers for the x1600 for gaming, and if so, would that be beneficial for gaming?

I guess I should use XP for gaming, as it is so much smaller and that would leave more resources for the sophisticated games???

Thanks from a total n00b when it comes to gaming... I totally want to see a graphic-intensive game on my (hopefully powerful enough?) system! I have fond memories from beating Doom and Doom 2. Addictive as hell!

You'll be able to play just fine. I ran Doom 3 on my FireGL T2, an old dinosaur based on the Radeon 9600. It didn't look as pretty, but I still beat the game just fine. However, your computer might struggle to run any game made in the past year.

Pocket Aces wrote:You'll be able to play just fine. I ran Doom 3 on my FireGL T2, an old dinosaur based on the Radeon 9600. It didn't look as pretty, but I still beat the game just fine. However, your computer might struggle to run any game made in the past year.

Yea, I figured it would...I stripped XP down to nothing, so should I do XP up with the x1600 drivers? Doom 3 should run at full capacity now though, no? 3 1/2 years old...no core duo's then... Hmm...

ATI Drivers are sorta universal. You download one package for all cards. It will utilize your system as for what it's capable of. The card you mentioned is a decent card and can play games good enough for sure, older ones no problem.

SHoTTa35 wrote:ATI Drivers are sorta universal. You download one package for all cards. It will utilize your system as for what it's capable of. The card you mentioned is a decent card and can play games good enough for sure, older ones no problem.

Cool. Awesome. Thanks...I did some more digging of my own...And I remember installing the latest set through System Update and it said ATI RADEON/FIREGL series something...

Alright, XP has been stripped naked of everything and demoted to my gaming OS. Some of the demos I've seen are...gulp...CRAZY vivid (drool) smoking hot on this screen. W-O-W...I haven't played games for like a decade...

Thanks again!!! Half Life 2 downloading by way of Steam...

Crunch wrote:Just a couple of general question for you serious Pro gamers. How would my ATI FireGL V5200 work with it, and just games period???

I created a thread a while back called "Can Your ThinkPad Run That Game?". You might find that thread helpful. Since it was moved to another forum, here is the direct link...

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=53742

Hope this helps.

Roadster wrote:I created a thread a while back called "Can Your ThinkPad Run That Game?". You might find that thread helpful.

Awesome tool! Thanks! Some guy gave you crap about posting it. It does a LOT more than give you what's on the back of a box. And I don't buy games in stores. It's 2008. Digital downloads! It even shows outdated driver versions for each part of the system.

Not that it needs to do more than the box. This jokster must have never heard of the concept of CONVENIENCE.

Thanks again, Roadster!

Cool! Glad someone on this forum found it useful.

BTW, from personal experience, I can tell you that Half-Life 1 & 2 (Steam versions) run really well on my T60p with the ATI FireGL v5250 card. So does Halo: Combat Evolved, Far Cry, Call of Duty 1 & 2, and The Orange Box.

Happy gaming!

Roadster wrote:Cool! Glad someone on this forum found it useful.

BTW, from personal experience, I can tell you that Half-Life 1 & 2 (Steam versions) run really well on my T60p with the ATI FireGL v5250 card. So does Halo: Combat Evolved, Far Cry, Call of Duty 1 & 2, and The Orange Box.

Happy gaming!

Awesome. Yea, HalfLife 2 runs flawlessly on Vista, and I didn't even bother with turning off Aero, etc. I have a Steam account, so I guess if I wanted to use XP, I'd have to re-install 'em all, huh? Do you run Vista or XP? I probably need to max my baby out with 3GB of RAM if I don't want to run into any problems with graphic-extensive stuff? What do you think? I didn't encounter any problems with my T2600, so once the T7600 is in, the sky's the limit? ...I might just have 'em send me two 2GB chips w/ dual-channel RAM and do 4GB.

Anyway, thanks again, and happy gaming yourself!

Crunch wrote: Awesome. Yea, HalfLife 2 runs flawlessly on Vista, and I didn't even bother with turning off Aero, etc. I have a Steam account, so I guess if I wanted to use XP, I'd have to re-install 'em all, huh? Do you run Vista or XP? I probably need to max my baby out with 3GB of RAM if I don't want to run into any problems with graphic-extensive stuff? What do you think? I didn't encounter any problems with my T2600, so once the T7600 is in, the sky's the limit? ...I might just have 'em send me two 2GB chips w/ dual-channel RAM and do 4GB.

Reinstalling games is very easy with Steam. All you need is your license number(s), and Steam does all the heavy lifting. In fact, I have multiple PCs in my house with all my Steam games installed on each. Whenever I want to play on a particular machine, I just log into my Steam account and play.

I've just updated my profile to reflect my current hardware configuration. I've always run Windows XP Pro, but I'm now running 4 GB of RAM in dual channel mode. (I know the XP 32-bit system only recognizes 3 GB, but DDR2 RAM is so [censored] cheap right now that I went with 2 x 2 GB, and installed the spare 1 GB stick in my daughter's X60 laptop, bringing her machine to 2 GB, which is more than adequate for her needs.)