Loaded T42p No Good for Games/Digital Media?????

[BK]

I just ordered a T42p 2379 DYU (thinkpad express), but bumped up some specs. Pent M 1.8 ghz, 1 gig RAM, ATI 128mb FIRE GL T2 video memory, 80 gig hard drive 5400 rpm, CD/DVD multi burner, 15 inch 1600x1200 IPS screen, fingerprint reader, 3yr warranty, Office 2003 software, etc. Got a discount because a good friend is an IBM employee - so it was $2800.

I do a ton of writing, and nothing beats the Thinkpad keyboard (I am replacing a 5-year old A21m), which is why I've stuck with them over Dell, etc. But I do like to play video games occasionally (eg, Madden) and like multimedia (digital video, MP3, editing digital photos).

From what I've read in this forum and elsewhere, Thinkpads aren't good gaming machines or good for multimedia. But with the specs I ordered above, are there any current games or soon-to-be games that this machine can't handle???? Looks like even the most graphic intensive games require 64mb video memory and this has twice that. Same thing with digital video/pics?

Please advise, because if this machine will be obsolete soon I'd rather get something that won't be. But given its good light weight (under 6lbs) and what I thought were great specs, it seemed a much better balance for me than buying a pure gaming/multimedia machine like Dell XPS or Alienware, some of which seem really heavy and not incredibly more loaded spec-wise (with the exception a 7200 rpm hard drive and 256 mb video cards -- but will this amount of video memory truly be a requirement anytime soon?).

[plucky duck]

Mine is GUU with same specs except the HD is the Travelstar 7200rpm and the 14" SXGA+ LCD. I can play NFSPU at the highest resolution with relatively little slowdown. With your larger screen resolution, running at the highest resolution setting (assuming the game supports it) will cause more noteicable slowdowns than my native SXGA+ display.

The FireGL is a capable card and most likely you can run most of today's games in med quality/resolution just fine.

The price you pay for your setup is hard to beat, considering you're getting a quality built Thinkpad.

I had my doubts about the FireGL card as well, but all is well, for the games that I play anyways.

[K. Eng]

Digital video and MP3 encoding are CPU dependent. A 1.80 GHz Pentium M is more than sufficient - your HDD will probably be the limiting factor here. No matter what kind of notebook you buy, the HDD will likely be slower than a desktop HDD drive.

The FireGL T2 is a Radeon 9600 class video card and will handle almost every game just fine. 128 MB is more than good enough for all but the most demanding games.

I should emphasize that one should look at the components in the system rather than who made the system when evaluating a computer for particular tasks.

An IBM X40 is terrible for 3D games, but that's because it has Intel Extreme[ly slow] Graphics, not because it's an IBM ThinkPad. On the flip side, a T42p with Radeon 9600 is pretty good in games because it has a Radeon 9600 GPU, not because the machine itself is IBM.

...
But I do like to play video games occasionally (eg, Madden) and like multimedia (digital video, MP3, editing digital photos).

From what I've read in this forum and elsewhere, Thinkpads aren't good gaming machines or good for multimedia. But with the specs I ordered above, are there any current games or soon-to-be games that this machine can't handle????
...
Please advise, because if this machine will be obsolete soon I'd rather get something that won't be.
...

[Flightvector]

I think you would be interested in the following link, it was a thread back when people were talking about benchmarks when somebody brought up Doom III, there are a good amount of quantitative and qualitative discussion about gaming and Thinkpads.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=2588

In it, I also concluded that a typical gaming priority for a T-series user's patterns is optimally 80% work and 20% gaming. This is because it will be adequate with pre-DX9, and with a good number of DX9 games with some graphics compromises. It certainly will not come close to a strong but average gaming desktop with a good DX9 card. This is definitely not labelled as a gaming laptop, GPU memory is actually hardly the deciding performance factor (ATI / Nvidia can take advantage of customers who think 256Mb of GPU memory is the magic bullet), but it will not fail at anything (heck it's a T42p). However, the fact you even consider it means it maywill do fine for you; demanding gamers would be much more concerned about ghosting.

The only real inhibition that you will run into is the high temperatures experienced during games; you will definitely see temperatures in upwards of 72 degrees Celsius after 10-15 minutes, and some get very close to throttling temperature. You may not be comfortable with this, so again, I emphasize that this should not be primarily a gaming machine.

Multimedia, unlike what you might think, actually poses no significant issues at all, I'd say a T42p could pass at this task extremely well, video and higher-level photo-editing are two of the primary tasks that I request of my T42. Even mediocre GPUs will barely break a sweat for media playback, media is almost entirely at a different level compared to complex polygon and shader rendering. The 5400 rpm HDD might be slightly less than optimal, but the 2Mb of L2 cache does do wonders for encoding operations.

Basically, given your description of typical use, I'd conclude that the T42p would be a good choice, Madden is not exactly cutting edge in terms of graphics.

[BK]

Would it be better to have a 2.1 ghz processor with a 60GB 7200 rpm hard drive (than a 1.8 ghz processor with a 80GB 5400 rpm hard drive) for any games I do play??

[Max]

I bought my T42p (2373-Q1U) with gaming in mind and the primary use. I've only installed 3 games so far. KOTOR, World of Warcraft (Beta), and Day of Defeat. KOTOR will not run. I've done some research both here and other sites and it seems that the FireGL T2 isn't supported by many game publishers. I've tried loading the modified Catalyst drivers, as well as some from DNA and Omega. Nothing I tried could make that game work.

On the other hand, WoW and Day of Defeat run perfectly with the IBM drivers. The graphics on WoW look better on the notebook than my desktop. I get some funny red dots showing up in DoD when I fire my weapon, but they are hard to notice. I'm guessing it's just because the game is so old.

I'll be installing Half-Life 2 this week and I'll let you know how that goes.

I haven't tried any major media files, except short movies and DVD's and haven't had any problems there. I use Windows Media Player, so I wouldn't expect any notebook specific issues with it.

I've toyed with the idea of returning the IBM because of KOTOR, but the system is just so [censored] cool in every other aspect. The build quality seems so much better than the Dells and Sony's I've looked at. The unit feels as solid as my Old Panasonic Toughbook (CF-71). The features are incredible and the price through EPP make put it above the competition.

-Max

[Flightvector]

Interesting to see your contrasting perspective Max, I am somewhat enlightened that it works ok for you; I guess I should be a bit less nearsighted and consider that FPS is not the only genre of games that people play, and that not all games need to push polygons and refresh rate requirements to the limit in order to be satisfying. I now could actually see how WoW could run well on a T42p. I guess it is a testament to the resilience of the T-series. I would be very interested to see your opinions on HL2 though, since I might also buy it and because it is considered graphics intensive.

[Elhabash]

When I bought my T40p it gaming was a big issue. I knew that this was one of the first computers with a good video card that still is able to save power.
Then, about a year ago, all the games I could imagine worked beautifully, even in 1400*1050. I was amazed. I had better benchmark ratings than most of my colleagues with desktop pcs (Well, they didn't spend tons of money on them like some do). It still works well with most games (Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 demo), but probably I won't install Doom3 on it anymore. To be able to do things like this on a one year old computer, we have to wait for upgradeable graphics chips, I guess (I don't like low resolutions).

You just have to live with the occasional game maybe not running correctly or not running at all, but I'll take that.
When I was on a longer train ride, I could play Empires: Dawn of the modern world for 2.5 hours, and then still watch DVD movies for the rest of the ride just being on battery...

And then, when you have to go back to work, it just feels good sitting on the best work horse, realizing that you just finished gaming on a good gaming machine...

[tselling]

I have a 15" T42P and have been playing Everquest II since beta and now the released version. It runs nicely at 1280x1024 with defaulted graphic settings. This game seems to be both very CPU and GPU intensive. On my 14" T41p I noticed the game slowed down due to overheating. The 15" T42p (1.8Ghz) seems able to dissipate the heat better so that I do not get any overheating slowdows. I am guessing its due to the larger footprint of the 15" model.

[BK]

Many thanks for the replies. I think, on balance, the T42p still fits my needs pretty well...then again, if the new T43s are coming in January.....i'm such a Thinkpad addict!

[OL]

The problem with firegl T2 is with the opengl drivers : to prevent users of regular 9600 to use the expensive professional oriented certified opengl drivers of firegl cards , ati uses some registry and bios tricks to prevent users to swap opengl drivers.

There are some solution in both directions.
For gamers we wants to use regular catalysts on the mobility firegl (3d professionals wants the reverse!!).
One solution is described in http://www.driverheaven.net/showthread.php?t=59300

the others solution is to use tweaked drivers such as dna. The versions such as dna 2.8.4.8 worked, but recent ones have troubles with firegl and opengl!
Apparently the latest one fix the problem :
http://www.dna-drivers.nl/viewtopic.php?p=21101#21101
I will test it tonight

[Max]

well, I installed Half Life 2 yesterday and it runs great at 1600 x 1200. You would not believe how good this game looks. So far it is a great story and the AI of the npc's in it, is incredible. I'm only on the first level, I'll write back when I finish it.

BTW I wasn't thinking about it and installed the dna drivers, (thanks OL!), before I tried HL2 so I don't know if the native drivers would have worked. The req's on the game aren't too big at 1.2 GHz and 256 MB of ram.

-Max