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Shopping advice?

weotuweotu
edited January 2011 in General Chat
I'm looking at getting a new laptop soon since my current one is dying and I'm hoping to finally play the ToMI series and want to play the Back to the Future series too.

Unfortunately though, I don't have $2000 to throw at a dedicated gaming laptop. So what have people been successful with so far? How do the different processors hold up? Is Intel's Core i3 fast enough? I'm hoping 4GB ram is enough...
Also, do you think the integrated graphics will be enough or do I have to look for one with a dedicated card?
Thanks in advance guys...

And before anyone says "Get a desktop," I only have enough money to get *one* decent computer and desktops are much harder to fit in ones' backpack. Just awful for the vertebrae, you know~

Thanks again~!

Comments

  • TomPravetzTomPravetz
    edited January 2011
    I think this would be best in the General Chat board. Unfortunately, due to my lack of awesome pirate mod powers, I cannot move it for you. But don't get a Dell. And welcome!
  • weotuweotu
    edited January 2011
    o_o I don't know how to move it either...

    ...but I figured it might be more technical than Gen. chat anyway, since we're talking in acronyms~


    >_>;; I used to fix all my various roommates' Dells at school. I will *never* buy one!
  • TomPravetzTomPravetz
    edited January 2011
    Yeah, but the only people who come into this board are those with issues and those with answers. General Chat is... well... more general and generates greater views. Just wait and hope someone from the TTG team moves it for you.

    I have Lenovo ThinkPad... It's pretty nice.
  • Amy LukimaAmy Lukima
    edited January 2011
    TomPravetz wrote: »
    Yeah, but the only people who come into this board are those with issues and those with answers. General Chat is... well... more general and generates greater views. Just wait and hope someone from the TTG team moves it for you.

    I have Lenovo ThinkPad... It's pretty nice.

    Moved to general chat.
  • figmentPezfigmentPez
    edited January 2011
    Are Telltale games all you're concerned with playing? Then a Core i3 w/ 4GB of RAM should be plenty. Video choice is a little fuzzier. I'm not sure what the bare minimum is, or what the current state of the el'cheapo options are, but I'm betting you're going to want something better than what Intel offers as a default choice.
  • TomPravetzTomPravetz
    edited January 2011
    Amy Lukima wrote: »
    Moved to general chat.

    Why thank you.

    And while I'm here. I'm looking for a desktop that can run Crysis well. Any suggestions?
  • FriarFriar
    edited January 2011
    What is your budget limit? Mine cost £700 ($1,100) a year ago (so knock £100/$150), and it has 4GB ram, 2.14GHz processor (intel core duo) a dedicated graphics card (nVidia GT230M), webcam, bluetooth, and even a blu-ray player. It's a sony, and it runs all of Telltales games (well, I haven't got BTTF yet) on full settings. What we found was that if you call the company up, you can customise you computer. for an extra £15, and an extra three weeks delivery time, they doubled our specs and gave us the blu-ray. I can't fault Sony. They come with software that automatically updates all your drivers, so you don't have to worry about issues there.

    I've only had issues with two games that I've run. One was Ghostbusters, which occasionally got slow and laggy (But i'm told thats common. Plus it looked fantastic.) and the second is civilization V (late in the game the load times between turns can be pretty long, 10-15 seconds. But thats understandable, given to amount of stuff that needs to be co-ordinated and processed). It runs perfectly with all my other games.
  • weotuweotu
    edited January 2011
    Thank you mods for moving it~ X3
    The only games I'm concerned with are TTG's and LucasArt's redo's of the Monkey Island games. I grew up with them and love the series~ Luckily, no Crysis requirements. ^-^;; I hear you can shoot the falling leaves in that game...

    The Blu-ray requirement is still up to debate since I don't even own any blurays right now and we have one hooked to the TV if I need to watch a movie. But I do think an HD screen and output would be essential. I wonder if it has the integrated graphics to run an HD screen, would it have power to run games though...

    Budget is about $650 USD, but I have some contacts that might be able to get me something awesome that's been refurbished for cheaper. I've also seen laptops with what I've described already, I just need to figure out if it's enough. Laptops really aren't the best gaming platform so I want to make sure it will have adequate power without breaking the bank~
  • SunnyGuySunnyGuy
    edited January 2011
    You don't need a dedicated gaming laptop for TTG's games, other than Poker Night (because of Tycho >_>) pretty much everything runs quite decently unless the computer is just really bad.

    My lap has an AMD Turion X2 Dual-Core Mobile processor, I don't really know much about this stuff so I can't say just how powerful it is, with 3GB of RAM and it has worked pretty well for the most part (S&MTDP and ToMI run at lv6 graphics, Poker Night does ok, BttF runs great without shadow or AA). I don't remember my lap being too expensive (it's an HP something or other), but considering I bought it over a year ago prices shouldn't be that high for something similar or better I think.
  • weotuweotu
    edited January 2011
    I wish companies would just put the speed in the name...try right-clicking on My Computer and selecting Properties. That should tell you the processor's speed...if it's a Windows system at least.
  • BlooglspashBlooglspash
    edited January 2011
    I have a 2.8 GHz processor and 2942 MB of RAM and can run every Telltale Game (I have to tune down the settings for the later games, so you could consider this a minimum).
  • wefeelgroovewefeelgroove
    edited January 2011
    I have a Dell Vostro 3700, here's my specs:

    Core i5 processor
    4GB of RAM
    1GB Nvidia Geforce GT 330M

    It's not a dedicated gaming laptop but it runs intensive games like Left 4 Dead or Assassin's Creed at high settings with zero problems, and Telltale's games barely put a dent in it. :) I got it brand new for about $1000, but I did look at refurbished ones that were around $700.
  • weotuweotu
    edited January 2011
    Is an "ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 Graphics with 128MB Display Cache Memory with 128MB DDR3 (sideport memory) with up to 2045MB total graphics memory" enough to run the games? I'm looking at getting the HP dv6...HP has rebates and I have a coupon~
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