Suggestions for Games on a Laptop

Scottish

I have a Dell x300 (got it through work).

I believe it's not the best for 3D graphics (it has the integrated Intel chipset or something).

I'd really like at least one game that's good and that will play ok on my machine. Any suggestions??

petes

solitare..seriously though could do with a little more info on the specs.

Mad Mike

My desktop was out of commission for a few weeks last month so I was reduced to gaming on an aging laptop. Nevertheless I had a great time dipping into the archives. I suggest that you look for some of the all time greats from a few years ago:

Pre 2000 games that you really should play:
DeusX
Half Life I
Age of Empires
Homeworld 1
Z-steel soldiers
Fallout
Unreal

Post 2000 games (The First person shooters may be more than your on board graphics can handle):
Hostile Waters
Sacrifice
Morrowind
Gothic (I and II)
Neverwinter nights
Medal Of Honor Allied Assault
Dungeon Siege
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
No One lives forever 2

All of these are first rate games and are available on budget.
If you are serious about gaming on a laptop you will probably need to get a seperate mouse - the touch pad just doesn't do it for most people.
Also - be warned about old games they sometimes need hefty patches to be downloaded in order to get them to work on your brand new version of windows XP so access to a broadband internet connection would be a bonus.

petes

Mad Mike wrote:

My desktop was out of commission for a few weeks last month so I was reduced to gaming on an aging laptop. Nevertheless I had a great time dipping into the archives. I suggest that you look for some of the all time greats from a few years ago:

Pre 2000 games that you really should play:
DeusX
Half Life I
Age of Empires
Homeworld 1
Z-steel soldiers
Fallout
Unreal

Post 2000 games (The First person shooters may be more than your on board graphics can handle):
Hostile Waters
Sacrifice
Morrowind
Gothic (I and II)
Neverwinter nights
Medal Of Honor Allied Assault
Dungeon Siege
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
No One lives forever 2

All of these are first rate games and are available on budget.
If you are serious about gaming on a laptop you will probably need to get a seperate mouse - the touch pad just doesn't do it for most people.
Also - be warned about old games they sometimes need hefty patches to be downloaded in order to get them to work on your brand new version of windows XP so access to a broadband internet connection would be a bonus.

Deus Ex a must as with half life, they will keep you going for ages. The post 2000 games for an x300 with onboard graphics would be a bit of a struggle. Have to admit though Its been a while since I though about sacrifice. Was brill!

Commissar

Mad Mike wrote:

Dungeon Siege

I thought this was one of the dullest and most predictable games I had ever played. I don't understand how you can call it a First Rate game.

petes

Commissar wrote:

I thought this was one of the dullest and most predictable games I had ever played. I don't understand how you can call it a First Rate game.

Wow nice bit of input there. Any recommendations?

Fysh

I was going to recommend BattleZone 1 but then remembered that, on my old PC with an intel 810 graphics chipset it seemed to have trouble running. check the activision site for compatibility info if you're interested - it's a great (though often under-rated) mix of FPS and RTS gaming.

Aside from that, you should take this opportunity to learn about the many joys of emulation.

Commissar

Reccomendations? Sure....

Civilisation.
Baldur's Gate.
Most of what you said (Especially Hostile Waters) with the big exception of Dungeon Siege.

super_furry

Get Snes9x and some SNES ROMS and enjoy.

Scottish

Thanks guys, I'll look to pick some of them up.

I'd completely forgotten about emulation. Could be the way to go.

The x300 is a 1.4 ghz centrino, with about 600 megs of ram. It says that the intel chipset will take memory as needed up to about 64mb but I don't believe that.

I think I'll need some games to pass the time in Dublin airport.... :rolleyes:

Fysh

Depending on the chipset it will, but it's pretty rubbish compared to an actual graphics card with its own memory.

Just thought of a couple more FPS games you could go for - Sin was pretty fun, and Blood 2 : The omen was a great laugh with things like the pesticide spraygun, voodoo doll, and black hole gun (although the sniper rifle was open to being exploited for its power and range). Both run fine on my old PC with the 810 chipset so should be grand for you.

You could also check out Sold Out Software's range - most game shops should have at least some of the titles (and even places like Eason's have carried them on occasion) which are both old enough to have modest spec requirements and good enough to be worth re-releasing. You can't go wrong with stuff like Thief or Carmageddon, but you may want to double check the compatibility pages to be doubly sure...

Mad Mike

Commissar wrote:

I thought this was one of the dullest and most predictable games I had ever played. I don't understand how you can call it a First Rate game.

Looks fantastic
Brlilliant interface and controls
Dissapointingly repetitive gameplay

IMHO Dungeon siege is a lot of fun If you play in short bursts but I admit it gets extremely repetitive if you play for very long. However because the controls are so straightforward and intuitive you can leave the game for several months and take up where you left off at a later date. I actually finished it over a period of about 2 years!!!

Mad Mike

Hey I've just come across this:

http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-010471.htm

Intel provides a list of games known to be compatible with the 855 chipset that comes with your laptop. The list is pretty impressive. It includes a lot of the game I recommended. No one lives forever 2 won't work and it looks like you won't be playing Far Cry or Doom 3 but the sublimely brilliant Call of Duty gets the green light.

TerrorFirmer

You were making the laptop out to be far worse then it actually is! Looking at the list of games, it can run alot of games fine! Even moderately new ones.

Lol - and then theres people here advising on ancient games as if it was a 300mhz machine you had.....

Anyway, regardless, all the games mentioned are worth a look anyway, good spec or not....

superfly

you can get Sacrifice off theunderdogs.org

superfly

this site tests your xp machine to see if your games work on it
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/games/gameadvisor/default.mspx

petes

Mad Mike wrote:

Hey I've just come across this:

http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-010471.htm

Intel provides a list of games known to be compatible with the 855 chipset that comes with your laptop. The list is pretty impressive. It includes a lot of the game I recommended. No one lives forever 2 won't work and it looks like you won't be playing Far Cry or Doom 3 but the sublimely brilliant Call of Duty gets the green light.

Some great games in there. Half Life 2 with a workaround!!!!

petes

superfly wrote:

this site tests your xp machine to see if your games work on it
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/games/gameadvisor/default.mspx

Wouldnt put too much reliability on this site.

Scottish

Mad Mike wrote:

Hey I've just come across this:

http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-010471.htm

Intel provides a list of games known to be compatible with the 855 chipset that comes with your laptop. The list is pretty impressive. It includes a lot of the game I recommended. No one lives forever 2 won't work and it looks like you won't be playing Far Cry or Doom 3 but the sublimely brilliant Call of Duty gets the green light.

Excellent, thanks for that. Gives me loads more options.

CiDeRmAn

Simply put get MAME onto your system, plenty of places online in the states selling legal romsets I believe, obviously only play roms of games you already own!
Also SNES, Megadrive, Nes, and the rest.

Jip

Fair play Mad Mike, I've the Intel 915GM Express Chipset in my laptop and I looked up the game compatibility page for that. Half Life 2 got the green light so I downloaded the demo last night. It had no problems playing it at all and it looked very well and smooth. The recommended settings are not at their highest but they're not set to the lowest either. Granted, I only played it briefly but I haven't noticed any real slow down but then again the screen hasn't been too busy.

Scottish

Just got Call of Duty for £9.99 on play.com

Thanks again Mike

jester77

You might want to be careful with some of the older games. I got DeusEx for mine and it's not playable, damn game goes at 100 miles an hour! Haven't come across a solution for it yet.

petes

jester77 wrote:

You might want to be careful with some of the older games. I got DeusEx for mine and it's not playable, damn game goes at 100 miles an hour! Haven't come across a solution for it yet.

And there is guys out there paying top money to get them kind of frame rates

I have come across this problem before but was never arsed looking for solution.

/me is lazy.