Need laptop purchase advice please
 

I am considering buying a laptop Sunday.

Intel Pentium T4200 Processor
3072MB DDR2 Memory
2 total memory slots
Maximum memory expansion 4096MB
Intel Graphics Media Accellerator 4500M(shared) with up to 1309 MB graphics memory
802.11 b/g WLAN
250GB Hard drive

My concern - will I be able to play POTCO on this reasonably? I mean without insane lag (relative to what we all already experience).

Thank you in advance for any help you can give me.

All of that appears quite sufficient.

My concern would likely be:
Intel Graphics Media Accellerator 4500M(shared) with up to 1309 MB graphics memory

Not familiar with the video adapter, although ive had decent luck with the onboard Intel adapters. Not real fond of Shared memory though.

If it doesnt work to your satisfaction can you take it back? ;)

I'm not sure Zep - it's going on sale Sunday, a Compaq, for $349, which I thought was an excellent deal. Since it's a sale item I'll have to check about the return policy.

Thank you very much for your help!!!

Key to getting a computer that runs a game like this well is to have a dedicated graphics card.

Hi Ben!

Oh - so the "shared" graphics accelerator is really a big obstacle then? Hmmm...can that be upgraded after purchase?

If not - this is the graphics info for the other one I was considering, although it too says "shared": Graphics Engine: ATI® Radeon™ 3100
Graphics Memory: 256MB-1406MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory

Since I'm obviously way out of my knowledge base here please feel free to tell me if neither one of these graphics options is really adequate for the game. That's primarily what I'll be using it for.

Thank you again! :)

It looks ok from first glance. To be honest, I agree with Zep, but with a few other issues. Chances are you're gonna have Vista 64 bit as your operating system. With 3072 mb of ram, you'll probably have at most, 2048 of it, since vista doesn't share memory well. That should be enough, depending on how much memory pirates will take up.

Again, the video card does not get high marks from me. Shared memory means exactly that.

Okay - can I ask you guys to talk to me as if I were 5 years old? Should I just wait and save my moolah for a dedicated graphics card? I'm such a techno-doofus that I really don't know what I'm doing and I don't want to spend money on something that won't give me optimal POTCO game performance.

I'm perfectly fine with waiting if I can have a suggestion of what video (card? type?) I should be shooting for.

And thank you all again. I hate to be a bother, but I don't want to shell out hard-earned dollars for something that's going to cause hair-pulling in the long run.

I admit I'm totally out of my depth here and need guidance to the nth degree. I guess, what I'm asking, is: if you were shopping for a new laptop, what specs would you be looking for?

I think that you should take note of what Dr. Zeppers said, then I personally would look at a computer with better memory.

Oh wow truffle - can you please tell me what memory I should be looking for.

I hate being so needy, but I just don't know what I'm doing here.

I believe the hard part here is that when it comes to laptops, not many have the ability to use a dedicated videocard, most have it built in. Now the chipsets they use will vary. Intel chipset is very compatible, but not known for its performance, which is something you want for your gaming. I think your going to want to find a laptop with an ATI, or Nvidia chipset for video adapter, the ATI Radeon 3100 you mentioned earlier probably isnt that bad, but again the problem is, laptop video adapters are built by each laptop manufacturer. You cant go and buy an ATI Radeon 3100 videocard for your PC (at least I doubt it). I run the game on ATI Radeon cards on both my PCs (x1950s) not laptops, but I believe the ATI chipset im using is OLDER than that 3100 that was mentioned, and I have no problems. Stick with a name brand chipset like ATI (Radeon) or NVIDIA (dont know thier chips). Try to avoid "shared" memory for video. If you do, then try to get as much ram in the laptop as possible so sharing that ram wont be a detriment.

Heed the information about running Vista that was previously mentioned as well. I am not a Vista user, but know it uses more memory than XP does, and despite MS's claims I do not think it manages it quite as well. Typical MS tradition, their next OS release will probably be top notch :)

Memory is a very important factor on whether you get a lot of lag, or no lag at all. I can get into the detail of it, but just to keep this simple, if you're on a PC, I really suggest 6 or 8GBs of memory.

Wow - this is excellent information! Thank you all SO very much.

I won't be buying a laptop this weekend then. I'll be saving up and using this info as a guideline.

You're a great resource. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this!

Like other people have said here a good graphics card would cover you, but if you are an avid gamer and play other games more demanding then pirates i would suggest atleast 6 gb of ram to speed up your processor (correct me if im wrong im not much of a hardware guy)