Laptops & SC2

Hey all, first post

First of all, sorry if this is the wrong forum, but it seemed right to me

I was a huge Starcraft 1 fan, and will be ordering SC2 as soon as I can. The thing is, I am moving away to university at the end of August, and was thinking of buying a laptop instead of lugging this 4-year old desktop 80 miles down the country.

I don't have much cash to spend on a laptop, and I don't know much about computers compared to what I used to, hehe I'm posting this because I am unsure what laptop is best (best being relative with my price-range) to run SC2. I have looked around for laptops on many sites, and have found a few. However, this one sticks out at me.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/199170

Bear in mind, I'm not buying it -just- for SC2, I need it for work, DVDs etc. The one above is the kind of price-range I am looking for.

Could anyone recommend any other laptops or give me some feedback at all?

Thanks a lot

 

I currently own an E Series Dell laptop that I used to play WoW on and currently play SC2 on. Now I'm sure that Bliz wouldn't recommend that however it will run with some tweaks.

This is mostly because laptops don't have a decent video card in them they use, for the most part, integrated video that alot of time share memory with your RAM. This will drop your frame rate considerably however with a decent Dual Core CPU and about 2 -4 Gb of free RAM you should be ok. The only time mine really slows down is when a huge fight breaks out and there is a lot going on with animations and graphics detail.

SC2 when you install it will detect the video cards capabilities and adjust your graphics options for best performance.

You will be beter off with a normal desktop and a decent 512Mb video card with it's own CPU and memory but that doesn't mean you can't play with your laptop.

 

Yes a desktop would be better to buy.
I have friends who play on their laptop that don't even reach the minimum requirements.
So you might be able to play on a laptop, but it will just be a bit choppy and would not handle big battles well.
I've tried playing on their laptops. It's choppy, but not unbearable, I still managed to play.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I have a couple questions though.

What kind of tweaks?

If I can play even on the lowest settings I will be happy. I have been looking forward to this game for too long to be bothered about having perfect graphics, hehe

The question is, will that laptop I linked be able to run it? Or can you suggest a similar priced one that is any better?

Thanks again.

 

By tweaks I really mean shutting off any services not needed and preventing your "run once" registry settings from loading up if you are going to run SC. I'm an IT Pro so I know what you can and can't do with the registry however unless you know what you are doing I wouldn't go messing around in there cause you can mess your pc up fairly well by changing the wrong things in there.

Yes that laptop on the link has better specs then mine currently does so you should be ok.

 

Alright, cool. I'll buy the laptop then. You've been a big help mate

I'll probably post in a few weeks if there are any problems running SC2. I can manage services etc, but even when I did know a little bit about computers, I wouldn't mess with the registry anyway hehe.

Again, thanks a lot

 

Isn't there a Vista/Win7 tool you can get that will actually stop/freeze programs that are not necessary to play games? I wish I could find that again.

As for the laptop at the topic of this thread... WOULD NOT BUY. I wouldn't get anything with built in Intel GFX, it will be miserable like what I'm dealing with. Even Intel's best onboard is... complete crap for any game. I would hold off and save more money. Even This one isn't quiet enough I don't think (for enjoyable gameplay).

Something like this is probably out of your range (but that is at the top end).

This seems to be the best bang for the buck I could find on that site. Man stuff is expensive in the UK! It's nearly £400 more, but you are getting soooo much more machine for that money.

Just some everyone knows, choice was based only on video card. CPU power doesn't really mean anything anymore imo. Compared to the other machines in that price range on that site, that one kicks ***. nVidia also has the better laptop drivers atm.