Gaming on Netbooks

[DeM0nFiRe]

So like I said in the other topic, I got a netbook. When I was telling people (not here, on various hardware IRC channels) that I wanted to play some games on the netbook I got a lot of "netbooks are not for gaming" and stuff like that. Now, the games I wanted to play specifically were some of the older source games. Today I played some Counter Strike Source at 25 - 80 FPS. That's more than playable in my opinion.

So, I guess the questions I have is if netbook gaming is something that is interesting to you, and if so have you tried it yet? What games were and were not playable?

 

[Eriol Clowphengire]

Okay, for Asian MMOs...

> Grand Fantasia
> Emil Chronicle Online (as seen in this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv3g3ViIvkc )

Some other games, but you have to go for LOW settings (proven here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICZoZdz1fuE)

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

Oh, nice those are good. Oh, and another good idea is to post the specs of the machine if you can. My machine, like I said in the other thread, is AMD Neo II K125 (1.70Ghz) with ATI Radeon HD4225 (Using Catalyst 10.8 drivers) and 1GB DDR3 1066Mhz RAM.

The EEEPC 1000H that is the seashell with Intel Atom N280 (1.6Ghz) and NVidia ION right?

 

[bashful crobat]

my old laptop was srs bad (five years old with 512 ram and a processor that couldn't even tell me how fast it was I had to look it up in the dox), and I was playing shit like spore and sims 3 on it not too long ago

most netbooks are twice as good so you'd think they could handle things if you are frugal with your resources

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

Most netbooks are actually really bad. The big killer for most of the Intel netbooks is the graphics. Most netbooks with intel processors also have intel integrated graphics, which is terribad.

 

[bashful crobat]

you underestimate just how bad "srs bad" is

 

[Guest]

;D

 

[Nachos]

run crysis
its a crysis

 

[bluehazed]

You could try assault cube. It should run GREAT. Warsow might run too. It's a cool Cel-Shaded FPS.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

Yeah, I am sure Asasault Cube/Saurbraten/Cube would run fine, along with the various other Q3 clones, like Nexuiz, Open Arena and Code Red. Warsow might, although the cel shading may be cutting it close. You know, I bet you Urban Terror would run. It's a Q3 mod turned standalone that's similar to counter strike or assault cube.

 

[Ellie]

My netbook could handle Guild Wars, THUG2, and The Sims with no worries. I don't have any better games to test and didn't get around to Sims 2. That was a bottom-of-the-range Advent 4211b ("MSI Wind").

 

[Tdata]

Currently I play:

Guild Wars,
Sword2,
Sins of a Solar Empire,
Street Hacker,
MechWarrior 4: Mercs and Vengeance,
Gunz: The Duel,
Light of Altair,
Dungeons and Dragons Online,
NeverWinter Nights: 1 and 2,
Black and White,
Fable:The Lost Chapters (* A bit graphically glitchy),
Wheel of Time,
Haegemonia - Legions of Iron,
Space Colony,
Age of Empires 3: All expansions,
The Sims 1 and 2 (*2 suffers from a lower fps, somewhere around 30fps),
Defcon,
Star Wolves 3,
SAGA,
Need for Speed Underground 2,
SimCity 2000,
and Dawn of War.

All on my little netbook... ASUS EEEPC 1005HA... ^_^

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

Oh, I didn't think of trying the online games like Ijji/Nexon does. I should try some of those

 

[mawk]

Ijji/Nexon

I should try some of those

I mean, I understand you from a "they're not graphics intensive" standpoint but trust me on this one: they are the Worst Games.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

I've already played a bunch of them. Gunz was fun for a while, but I don't really like that kind of game anymore. Soldier Front is fun, but the graphics suck. AVA is fun and the graphics are decent but the maps are way to small and there's not enough of them. Combat Arms used to be like one of the best multiplayer FPS ever before Nexon stopped giving a shit about it D:

 

[mawk]

yeah, it's a shame. DFO started out similarly, and showed promise to be maybe the only decent action-oriented mmo on the market once they'd worked on some ways to reduce the monotony. instead, once Nexon got a hold of it they threw the balance way out in favour of cash items and grinding. I think maybe only Turbine has the right design paradigm as free-to-play mmos go.

regarding netbooks, I guess mine is a laptop if you wanna get technical. looking at the specs of more recent netbooks, though, this old thing really can't be considered superior in any fields except maybe resolution and processing power. can't say I play a lot of 3d games on it, but I can get away with middling settings on most of the ones I have: WoW, LoTRO, a brief stint in NWN2 (although because of my graphics driver I had to toggle off the skybox every time a new map loaded), etc. my tastes in pc gaming are pretty damn generic, and mainly limited to MMOs.

sidenote: you should play minecraft! it's kind of an mmog, sort of.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

Heh, I plan on buying it when I have a bit more money and time.

With Combat Arms tbh I don't really care that they made it unbalanced in favor of NX users. What I care about is the fact that they don't do shit about hackers. It's gotten to the point where there's like no chance you can get in a room without someone OPK'ing or Nukeing or something.

 

[Tdata]

I only play Gunz on a Private server run by a member on my Development Team... I got really sick of being called a cheater while playing 'official' Gunz... I didn't Cheat... I've just played enough that I know where all the hard spots to get to are and the best way to get there...

Got bored and installed a few more games...

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2,
Homeworld 1 & 2,
DarkStar One,
Freelancer,
Sword of the Stars,
Genesis Rising,
Nexus: The Jupiter Incident,
WoW,
The Witcher (*Had to work hard to get this one to work right),
Half Life 1 & 2,
Spore,
DemiGod,
Mount & Blade,
Star Wars: Empire at War,
Star Trek: Klingon Academy,
Star Trek: Armada 1 & 2,
Star Trek: Elite Force 1 & 2,
Star Trek: New Worlds,
Star Wars: BattleFront 2,
StarCraft,
And MineCraft. (*I like my rather large Castle. But the Lag annoys me after awhile... ^_^)

All work rather well on my little netbook... Only problem is that now I am almost out of space... ^_^

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

So I actually got Borderlands running. It was on the lowest possible settings and seemed to only barely be playable, however, I was also on battery, and currently have it set to scale back performance to save battery life. I will check it out when I get a chance to plug in, I think with that and a few tweaks it will be quite playable. I am installing Mirror's Edge now too, I am curious how that will work. I don't have gpu-based PhysX since I have an ATI GPU, so I think that the CPU is gonna be a bottleneck, with Mirror Edge's inefficient AI and inefficient CPU-based physics.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

So yeah, borderlands is actually fairly playable. Mirror's edge is too, but to a lesser degree. Borderland's has a sort of smooth frame rate, but stutters at times. Mirror's edge has a not smooth but still playable frame rate and stutters at times.

The other day I got Overlord running quite well at 1024 x 768. Very smooth frame rate, with just a couple stutters here and there (Generally when loading or saving files)