[tWiStEdArRow]

ive seen a lot of gaming laptops over the edge of 3000 dollars but only have 512 mb ram while others have dual vga cards but a much slower processor.

So my question is what is needed to play games. What is more important in gaming over other things.
Comps main specs are VGA card, Processor, Ram, Hardrive +hardrive speed, etc.

Lets say we have 2 laptops identical except one has 512 mb ram and a 512mb vga card while another has 2gb ram but 256 mb vga card (same model). So what is better for gaming

What about the processor speed is it important or is the hardrive speed more signigicantly important or is it the vga card .

If they all are important what is more important. Like the in above example which pc would come out on top.
What about processor speed to what extent does Speed in Ghz affect gaming.

If i know this then and only then can i finally know what parts of the comp/laptop to customize when i custom build my own.

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ive seen a lot of gaming laptops over the edge of 3000 dollars but only have 512 mb ram while others have dual vga cards but a much slower processor.

So my question is what is needed to play games. What is more important in gaming over other things.
Comps main specs are VGA card, Processor, Ram, Hardrive +hardrive speed, etc.

Lets say we have 2 laptops identical except one has 512 mb ram and a 512mb vga card while another has 2gb ram but 256 mb vga card (same model). So what is better for gaming

What about the processor speed is it important or is the hardrive speed more signigicantly important or is it the vga card .

If they all are important what is more important. Like the in above example which pc would come out on top.
What about processor speed to what extent does Speed in Ghz affect gaming.

If i know this then and only then can i finally know what parts of the comp/laptop to customize when i custom build my own.

Thats alot of questions. About what is needed to play a game depends on the type of game and generally how new of a game or which 3d engine the game is based on.. It varies greatly..

512mb of ram isnt going to be sufficient for gaming in general as alot of the newer complex games requires 1gb of memory to get a good gaming experience.. If you have 1-2gb of ram then you are fine overall for gaming.

About the processor speed, again it varies greatly because it depends on how old the chip is, which core it is and the technology put into the chip.... The recently released INTEL Conroe chips push out more power with a lower GHZ clock rate so you cannot rely just on the ghz rating alone. In the PENTIUM 4 era amd chips had there own type of cpu speed rating like for example if an amd chip had an operating frequency of 2.0 ghz and was called the 3200+ this means its equivalent to a pentium 4 3.2ghz even though the amd chip only has a 2.0ghz processing speed...

The intel conroe chips are faster than any of the earlier intel chips also..

Lets say we have 2 laptops identical except one has 512 mb ram and a 512mb vga card while another has 2gb ram but 256 mb vga card (same model). So what is better for gaming

The computer with 2gb of ram would be better because 512mb of ram would blow big time and would cause you to get video lag or choppy gameplay in your games especially the newer 3d intensive games like fear,cod2, farcry, etc with all the eyecandy on.

The processor is important but only to an extent if you have a computer with a generally good speed of a cpu you will be fine.. The GPU (video card) would be one of the most important parts and the ammount of memory on the machine.. If you have over 2gb of ram on your machine its not going to give you alot of improvements like it would from 512mb to 1gb of ram would..


On a laptop the harddrive is very important especially on a "GAMING" Laptop. If you have a 4200rpm harddrive in a laptop with a high end video card you will see lower performance than you thought you were paying for..

No gaming laptop should have a 4200rpm harddrive..

[jrm20]

ive seen a lot of gaming laptops over the edge of 3000 dollars but only have 512 mb ram while others have dual vga cards but a much slower processor.

So my question is what is needed to play games. What is more important in gaming over other things.
Comps main specs are VGA card, Processor, Ram, Hardrive +hardrive speed, etc.

Lets say we have 2 laptops identical except one has 512 mb ram and a 512mb vga card while another has 2gb ram but 256 mb vga card (same model). So what is better for gaming

What about the processor speed is it important or is the hardrive speed more signigicantly important or is it the vga card .

If they all are important what is more important. Like the in above example which pc would come out on top.
What about processor speed to what extent does Speed in Ghz affect gaming.

If i know this then and only then can i finally know what parts of the comp/laptop to customize when i custom build my own.

Thats alot of questions. About what is needed to play a game depends on the type of game and generally how new of a game or which 3d engine the game is based on.. It varies greatly..

512mb of ram isnt going to be sufficient for gaming in general as alot of the newer complex games requires 1gb of memory to get a good gaming experience.. If you have 1-2gb of ram then you are fine overall for gaming.

About the processor speed, again it varies greatly because it depends on how old the chip is, which core it is and the technology put into the chip.... The recently released INTEL Conroe chips push out more power with a lower GHZ clock rate so you cannot rely just on the ghz rating alone. In the PENTIUM 4 era amd chips had there own type of cpu speed rating like for example if an amd chip had an operating frequency of 2.0 ghz and was called the 3200+ this means its equivalent to a pentium 4 3.2ghz even though the amd chip only has a 2.0ghz processing speed...

The intel conroe chips are faster than any of the earlier intel chips also..

Lets say we have 2 laptops identical except one has 512 mb ram and a 512mb vga card while another has 2gb ram but 256 mb vga card (same model). So what is better for gaming

The computer with 2gb of ram would be better because 512mb of ram would blow big time and would cause you to get video lag or choppy gameplay in your games especially the newer 3d intensive games like fear,cod2, farcry, etc with all the eyecandy on.

The processor is important but only to an extent if you have a computer with a generally good speed of a cpu you will be fine.. The GPU (video card) would be one of the most important parts and the ammount of memory on the machine.. If you have over 2gb of ram on your machine its not going to give you alot of improvements like it would from 512mb to 1gb of ram would..


On a laptop the harddrive is very important especially on a "GAMING" Laptop. If you have a 4200rpm harddrive in a laptop with a high end video card you will see lower performance than you thought you were paying for..

No gaming laptop should have a 4200rpm harddrive..

[tWiStEdArRow]

so all in all ram should be around 1-2 gb , processor should be around 1.66 ghz for core 2 duo and vga needs to atleast 256 mb, and hardrive should be 7200 rpm. Did i miss something?

[kidnova]

When looking at video cards, yes 256 mb is important, but the performance is largely dependent on the number of pipelines. For instance, the 7600GT has 12 pixel pipelines, the 7900GS has 20, and the 7900GT has 24. They all have 256mb of GDDR3 memory, but there is a huge performance difference because of the pipelines.

[dsenette]

so all in all ram should be around 1-2 gb

just for my two cents here....the accepted sweet spot for xp pro as far as ram goes is 512....the issue with gaming and system ram is when your video card uses shared system ram instead of using it's own...the newer high end cards (especially the SLI ones) aren't using shared ram...they use their own ram...so if you've got 2 awesome video cards running in tandem (SLI) that each have 256 ram...then you've got in essence 512 of dedicated video ram..and 512 dedicated to the system..so you can afford to not have as much system ram when you've got alot of video ram

this also applies to the processor...as with good graphics cards...they use their own GPU instead of the CPU to process the graphix...thereby taking the load off the processor during gaming...

Edited by dsenette, 14 September 2006 - 07:13 AM.

[jrm20]

When you mentioned this quote....

Lets say we have 2 laptops identical except one has 512 mb ram and a 512mb vga card while another has 2gb ram but 256 mb vga card (same model). So what is better for gaming

You said if the laptops were identical but one had a 256mb video card and the other had a 512mb card and they were both the (same model). They make versions of video cards with 512mb on the card. You dont have to be running sli to get 512mb of video memory.. Anyway what im getting at is even if a laptop had sli on it which they do make sli laptops now, if it had 512mb of system memory also you would still get choppy gameplay in games meaning the choppy coming from insufficient SYSTEM MEMORY on memory eating games like Battlefield 2... It does not matter how much video memory you have, with 512mb of system memory on a sli laptop it would still be choppy on certain games like Battlefield 2 for example with all video settings set to max...


All of the serious gamer sli laptops have 2gb of ram as default.. Look at the Hypersonic aviator sli notebook. It has 2gb of ram default as an example.

512mb of system memory is fine for the low to mid level gamer and for web surfing and basic apps.

When you upgrade from 512mb of system ram to 1gb there is a whole world of difference. From 1gb to 2gb you do see a difference but only in demanding applications. 512mb of system memory on a gaming laptop just doesnt cut it. 1gb would actually be fine for now. 2gb of ram is best for the "hardcore gamer".

[Gamerlicious]

It really depends on the game. Elder Scrolls Oblivion takes a top end video card to be able to play properly. World of Warcraft needs a lot of RAM to run correctly. The Sims 2 is most dependent on the processor than anything else.

[warriorscot]

You unfortunately still need alot of RAM in the system for games as the ram is used for other things even if you have masses of vid memory more memory always helps.

[tWiStEdArRow]

thx to everyone above this post for their input. SO i get how much ram / vga requirments what about processors what is normal what is extra and what is waaay TOOO MUCH

[jrm20]

thx to everyone above this post for their input. SO i get how much ram / vga requirments what about processors what is normal what is extra and what is waaay TOOO MUCH

LOL different cores have different speeds and amd vs intel so this is another question that varies..

The Intel conroe core 2 duo is the way I would go like I said many times... If you save up $300 more dollars you could probably get exactly what you wanted with a high end video card and 2gb of ram and a higher end conroe core 2 duo.. Your budget is like right at the borderline for getting what you are expecting so I would probably save up $300 and get exactly what you wanted.

Edited by jrm20, 19 September 2006 - 09:19 PM.