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Kyle posted a link to this French site on the front page of HardOCP:

http://www.tt-hardware.com/article.php?sid=2133

The article has 3Dmark2001 results for a laptop equipped with the new NVidia GeForce4Go 440 with comparison to the Radeon Mobility 7500.

As Damage pointed out in his GeForce4 article, the new GeForce4Go appears to be based on the NV17 (GeForce4 MX) core, lacking the shaders found in the Radeon 8500 or GeForce3 / GeForce4 Ti GPUs.

I must say that I am disappointed to see the new NVidia chipset still bested by ATI's Radeon Mobility 7500. While either of the systems benchmarked here will run circles around any other laptop in 3D gaming, they still don't perform at the level of desktop computers that cost a whole lot less.

I was wondering what the sentiment was here, whether the Radeon Mobility 7500 or the GeForce4Go were considered fast enough for routine gaming, or if gamers still had to stick to desktops. Opinions?

Depending on what you're willing to accept detail wise, a Voodoo 3 is acceptable for routing gaming, so you can easily extrapolate to the fact that the 7500/GF4Go are acceptable so far as I would be concerned.

Laptops IMO aren't gaming platforms primarily because of their form factor, you'd probably need an external keyboard/mouse to do this properly which works against a laptop's primary advantage, that of portability. Coupled with the fact they are expensive and are extremely difficult to upgrade (in a fast paced graphics market that's an enourmous disadvantage) they'll probably be staying out of the 'routine' gaming market despite the advent of decent graphics options on them.

I've a GF2Go in my laptop and while it's capable of running anything I need it to well enough, compared to desktops it's already looking old. But I could still play Tribes 2 on it if I needed to, so casual Laptop gaming certainly is good enough.. but not routine.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: nitrile on 2002-02-17 09:05 ]</font>

I agree that laptops aren't meant to be gaming machines. The heat those things give off on my lap is enough to piss me off but the fact of the matter is, many laptop users probably want to play games at least to some extent. Granted, I don't have a laptop that is worthy of quake 3 but I would like one.

A few of you guys are missing the point.

Laptops are aimed at the business/mobility market, where users are interested in running powerpoint and long battery life. Most mainstream business users (and that is the majority of the market, by a huge margin) don't even have a say in whether or not the machine will play halflife, and would use it for that anyway. The most-played game on a radeon 7500 mobility or GF2go is solitaire, probably folled by hearts, minesweeper, and freecell (in no particular order). I can play those games on an old isa trident card, if I wanted to. (yeah, that's the desktop market, but you get my point)

I understand that most laptops aren't used for gaming. However, when you go to the trouble of putting a huge power-hungry 3D graphics system like the GeForce4Go into one, you have to think that it's there for some purpose. If you did not plan to use your laptop for gaming, wouldn't you buy one with a graphics chip that wouldn't drain the battery as fast as the GeForce4Go does?

Laptops have reached the point that they can do everything that a desktop can do (at two or three times the cost). I wondered if folks thought that they had reached the point that laptop gaming was acceptable.

I believe that nitrile's points are valid: ...they are expensive and are extremely difficult to upgrade (in a fast paced graphics market that's an enourmous disadvantage) they'll probably be staying out of the 'routine' gaming market despite the advent of decent graphics options on them.

Personally, I don't really want a laptop. I've got one on my desk at work and two at home. If I'm somewhere else, I don't want to be bothered.

I've got a Dell Inspirion 8100 with Radeon 7500 on my plans for this winter/next spring (or Radeon 8500 Mobility if it's out then). The R7500M is more than plenty to play most of the more common LAN fodder at the 1600x1200 the TFT runs at. Hell, 800x600 pixel doubled shouldn't look too bad, and that oughta haul at that res.

I'd say yes, if you're a casual gamer. With a desktop for the really big gun games, absolutely yes.

You'll probably want to glue a good trackball to the side, though.

I agree, laptops are not made for games and are kinda worthless at first person shooters. However, I played Baldurs Gate I and II on a laptop and was quite happy with the performance (PIII-600/ATi Rage Mobility). My girlfriend has a dell8100 (PIII-1Ghz,TNT2) and she has no problems with Alice and quakeII.

At work, late at night, a lot of the group members will play RTS games like command and conquer-Tiberian sun and even Rouge Spear with few problems.

Gaming is a mixed bag on laptops, but the underlying theme seems to be that it will be adequate, but not spectacular.

Agreed - My Inspiron 8000 (PIII-850 w/- 32MB ATi Rage Mobility M4) is fine for Counterstrike (although I'm never the first into each level) and RTS games, but doesn't really cut it for Q3 or UT.

Bruce

I feel its a lot about money too. If I'm going to college and have the money I'll spring for the extra dollars so I could have a portable gaming machine and a word processor in one that is easily portable.

yep will "try" to get me a gaming laptop later this year when i go back to school in the fall

Actually, one of my housemates has a laptop he uses to run EverCrack on a second account to help with muleing, etc. Onboard Trident and it runs Luclin reasonably well.

-Howard

While not trying to come off to harsh Everquest and the Luclin expansion aren't exactly harsh on the system requirements. Granted the 512 ram thing is just mind boggling though. The game looks so crappy yet needs 512 of ram to see all the models?! I could rant about that for a while but I won't.

My friend used to take his dads laptop to school and play duke nukem in the back of the class.

ahhhh, memories