Play games occasionnally on a X30 : Is that possible ?

[WarMachine]

Hello Thinkpaders !

I now write my first post here.

I apologize if the answers are already given in another post. I searched a lot before posting, but I didn't find what I want.

Hope you will forgive my english too, because I'm french... (nobody's perfect !)

Voilà, I want to buy an X30, for everyday use, everywhere. I will surf on the web, I will watch films (DVDs and DivX), I will use Office... Very basic...

But I would like to play Quake III occasionnally, and I would like to know if the i830GM can/will handle that.

My X30 will have a PIII-m 1.2 GHz, 512 MB RAM (I will stick 1 GB ASAP), and a 5400rpm Hard Disk Drive (I will change it ASAP too, with a 7200rpm Hitachi or Momentus).

I know I will not be able to run Q3:A @ 1024x768 full options, but how will it run on this machine ?

You'll probably say me I better buy an X31. I know that, and I would like to, but X31s are too expensive for me, the cheaper I saw was 450 bucks, without base, and not really in very good shape, unfortunately. So, I will buy a X30 I found at 379€. I've contacted the store to have more informations about their laptops...

Ooooh, I forgot to ask you : Could you tell me the amount of video memory I can share on the X30 ? It seems I can have 32 MB, Is that truz, or am I limited with 16 MB ?

Hope to have a lot of answers !

Thx.

W.

[WarMachine]

Nobody knows ?

W.

[JonathanGennick]

I don't know about Quake on the X30. My son however, has tried some of his games on my X30. These include Lego Star Wars, Zoo Tycoon. If memory serves, neither of the two games even ran at all on my X30.

[WarMachine]

Thx for your answer

I understand for Lego Star Wars, because it's a game that requires more juice than the X30 can offer (and it's a more recent game than Q3:A), but how strange for ZT !

Here are the specs for Zoo Tycoon :

* Windows 95/98/2000/Me/XP
* Multimedia PC with a 233 MHz processor, 300 MHz recommended
* 32 MB for Windows 95/98 and Windows ME, 64 MB for Windows 2000, 128 MB for Windows XP
* Minimum 250 MB of available hard disk space, 600 MB recommended
* Quad-speed or higher CD-ROM drive
* Super VGA video display, capable of 800x600 resolution; DirectX® 8.0a (included); 4 MB graphics card, 16-bit color capable, 16 MB recommended

The X30 should run it perfectly...

W.

[JonathanGennick]

Thx for your answer

I understand for Lego Star Wars, because it's a game that requires more juice than the X30 can offer

True, but not in the sense of a lack of CPU. It's a graphics card issue. My X30 is a 1.2Ghz machine, which is more than enough CPU to run the game. My son runs Lego Star wars on an 850mhz CPU system, with less RAM even, with no trouble, but that other machine has a graphics card. It's an old, 2x AGP, but it's a dedicated card.

but how strange for ZT !

Graphics card issue there too. Zoo Tycoon would not run on my X30, nor on my wife's R40. In both cases, the trouble seemed all down to the embedded video solution.

Maybe it's all down to the way that DirectX gets implemented on top of embedded video. In both cases the games run on an old, 850mhz system, but not on a faster 1.2Ghz system. I'd think the extra 350mhz of CPU would be enough to compensate for the lack of dedicated video. Perhaps not though.

[WarMachine]

Thx !

What can I expect for Q3:A then ?

I saw this review :

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/pr ... =14&id=548

Quake seems to run, but it's not really explicit...

W.

[Goetterdaemmerung]

I think that review makes it clear that Q3:A runs decently. 30 frames per second at the highest resolution is pretty decent for a mobile computer, and certainly playable.

[WarMachine]

If these numbers are FPS, I think Q3 is playable, too.

Soon, I will buy this machine :

http://www.laptopservice.fr/p-infos.php ... ef=26724BG



W.

[maverick]

hi, i'm a happy user of x30 myself (1.2Ghz, 512MB, 120GB Samsung 5.400rpm)
quake 3 is definitely playable, maybe not ideal, but some tweaking might get you the right frame rate
shared video memory is 64MB

[WarMachine]

Thx !!!

What tweakings do you use ?

W.

[infrar3d]

Here's a link to some old school quake 3 speed tweaks that might help out.

http://hosted.planetquake.gamespy.com/r ... edq3.shtml

But personally, on my X31 I run Q3A @ 1024x768x16, vertex lighting, and everything else pretty much maxed out and it runs great, averages about 50fps. The important thing is turning the color depth down to 16bit, that lets you run at the LCDs native res and still get a decent frame rate.

[boon]

hard to say yes since its like a comparison with gma900 and games that requires 128mb still wont be playable. But I know for sure the x31 should be able to run quake 3 for sure

[WarMachine]

Here's a link to some old school quake 3 speed tweaks that might help out.

http://hosted.planetquake.gamespy.com/r ... edq3.shtml

But personally, on my X31 I run Q3A @ 1024x768x16, vertex lighting, and everything else pretty much maxed out and it runs great, averages about 50fps. The important thing is turning the color depth down to 16bit, that lets you run at the LCDs native res and still get a decent frame rate.

Thx !

I know pretty well the tweaks of Q3A, since I've played with it during 7 years. I've played with it on an AMD K6-II 450, with a Voodoo 3 2000 card (16 MB VRAM), and 384 MB system RAM...

Since the graphics chipset is integrated on the X30, I wanted to know if the X30 is able to run Q3 full screen at decent frame rates.

It seems that it's possible, then.

W.

[WarMachine]

hard to say yes since its like a comparison with gma900 and games that requires 128mb still wont be playable. But I know for sure the x31 should be able to run quake 3 for sure

Q3A doesn't require 128 MB VRAM, it runs on very old computers.

I have no doubts about the ability of the X31 to run the game, but it was more questionnable to me to know what might happen on the X30.

W.