A few quick questions

[Lame-Skeptik]

First off, hello to everyone as I am new.

Ok, a few months back I built myself a nice little gaming desktop only to realize the only games I religiously played were Diablo II and AoE-II, which can run on almost ANY system. So I'm selling it to a friend. I was thinking of building a new cheapo desktop. A tiny little MicroATX system that could do what I needed when I remembered the glorious thing a ThinkPad was.

So a few questions:

Does anyone have experience with playing Diablo II and/or Age of Empire II on an x31/x32? I assume it would be fine as the requirements for D2 are 8mb video ram and the x31 runs the Mob. Radeon 7000 which has 16Mb. (Kudos here as I'm an ATI fanboy)

The main reason I'm looking into ThinkPads is the amazing battery life. And I hang around in a coffee shop a lot and it'd be nice to have a little electronic companion when none of my fleshy companions are around. With a brand new battery, and brightness settings on low, an underclocked CPU, and wifi off, how much battery life, guesstimated of course, do you think I could get? How about watching an AVI/MP4/other video files? Or gaming with Diablo II (no wifi, I play single player)? Or surfing the internets? And the x31 I'm looking into comes with the Ultrabase so I've been looking at the UltraBay battery. Is that really worth it? I haven't really looked for too much info on it, but an additional 2+ hours would be nice on those days that no one seems to show up at the coffee shop.

Also, what would be the "best" HD to upgrade to? I've read a little on it here on the forums, but they all rate "best" by quiet-ness. Which I suppose will be nice. But I don't care too much. I've read that there's not too much of a difference between the 5400 and the 7200. I assume the 5400 would take less battery, which is my main "selling point", and I am a pretty patient guy. A few extra seconds/minutes won't bug me too much.

I know this is a lot to ask, especially since I'm new and haven't helped anyone else out yet. I don't expect too much, but any help is muchly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
JP

[galactus]

Hello, both games will work in X31 atleast but you may have to put the details a bit lower.

[Harryc]

Welcome to the forum. Assuming a brand new battery, and all settings on low, I'd guess 4 hours run time. Add another 1.5 hrs with a new Ultrabay battery. Watching video files is no issue on an X31. Max out the RAM to 2GB and get a fast hard drive. How much storage are you looking for? There are many different sized capacity hard drives. Do you need 250GB, for example? 7200rpm drives did not come in larger than 100GB for that machines IDE interface, but 5400rpm drives go up to 250GB.

[Lame-Skeptik]

Thanks for the quick responses.

For the games on low settings, Diablo II only has 2 settings, and those are resolution. AoE II is pretty much similar. There is basically one setting; low. Good old days when graphics weren't as important as gameplay.

And thanks for the info Harry. I don't think I'll need anything bigger than 60Gb or so as I plan on investing in a portable HD. Unless you can direct me to a nice cheap 250Gb drive. It's always nice to be able to plug an external into my friends computer and watch my moves on their 65" screen.

[jtt3011]

Sounds like what you need is a netbook. One with a 10" screen should do the job, and 6 - 10 hrs on a single battery charge should be possible. Cost you about the same as a used Thinkpad X series. But I bet you'll want to do a bit more than just play Diablo in the cafe!

[godling]

Greetings, and welcome!

I've an x31 of my own, with a not-brand-new battery, and I usually get 2-3 hours of watching movies off the hard drive with max brightness and wireless on. So battery life should be great for you there.

As for the best HDD to upgrade to, if you're not looking for massive space (since you'll be using an external drive) you might want to look into an SSD. I'm about to pick up this 32GB drive for $75, and it's lighter than an HDD:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820208445

[edit: Scrap that link. I just read a bunch of reviews, and apparently that SSD is horrible for operating system use -- still, the concept of an SSD for the x31 intrigues me]

Re: the netbook suggestion someone made, not a horrible idea ... if you don't mind tiny keyboards. I have large hands. I was looking into swapping from my x31 to an S10, which might be fine, but I know the Aspire One is way too small for me after playing w/ my niece's for a while.

[Lame-Skeptik]

I haven't played around too much with any netbooks save a few times at Best Buy. I also have large hands and the full size keyboard is always nice.
I'm more attracted to the x31 because of the ultrabase though; I've never liked USB disc drives. Don't know why.. I just don't.

I almost went with an x41t, but I have a budget to keep in mind

As for wanting to do more than Diablo II at the cafe, maybe. I'll use it to solve disputes about movies via IMDb, and other assorted arguments via Google. And maybe continue my D&D campaign that I've been working on for years.. at 256 pages in Word so far!

The only thing I'm sad about is that now I won't be able to play F.E.A.R. 2 ........ or I'll just con my friend onto getting it



As for the SSD idea. I'm strongly considering it. It would increase battery life and speed (however marginal, it's still an increase). But I've done very little research on the subject. But I'm already planning on looking into it. ..After I pimp out all the other parts of my x31.

[Lame-Skeptik]

A quick question about the Card Bus Slot Type II

Is there an SD Card reader that will fit in there?
(Possibly SDHC)

Thanks in advance!

[godling]

A quick question about the Card Bus Slot Type II

Is there an SD Card reader that will fit in there?
(Possibly SDHC)

Thanks in advance!

Here's one on eBay http://cgi.ebay.com/PCMCIA-Card-Adapter ... 1|294%3A50 for $20 ...

-godling