[xtheendx]

I am in the market for a new laptop. I am about to be a Junior persuing a degree in game programming. I want a laptop that will be optimized for making games. I am not sure what that would be, any help from those of you who are professionals would be helpful. I just dont want to buy something that will be useless to me. Should i go PC or mac, what kind of GPU, processor, memory..etc...any info would be helpful.


thanks

josh

[Toxicterror]

if you want to program games on it its almost a must to use a pc because as far i know, normal games dont work on macs.
or are you going to program games for macs?

whats your money range that you want to spend into a new laptop?

(tell me if i'm wrong.... im not a pro )

[firebolt]

OK. So I was diggin around some sites and I found this list. Try an answer most of the questions please.


1. What is your budget?

2. What size notebook would you prefer?

a. Ultraportable; 12" screen or less
b. Thin and Light; 13" - 14" screen
c. Mainstream; 15" - 16" screen
d. Desktop Replacement; 17"+ screen

3. Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places or leaving it on your desk?

4. Will you be playing games on it; if so, which games?

5. How many hours of battery life do you need?

6. What OS do you prefer? Windows (XP or Vista), Mac OS, Linux, etc.

7. Would you prefer standard or widescreen?

8. From the choices below, what screen resolutions would you prefer?

Standard
a. XGA -1024x768 - Large and easy to read text + graphics icons, but you fit less stuff on the screen.
b. SXGA - 1400x1050 - Compromise resolution between XGA and UXGA.
c. UXGA - 1600x1200 - Very small text and graphics icons, you can fit lots of stuff on the screen.

Widescreen
d. WXGA or WXGA+ - 1280x768/800 or 1440x900; Wider viewing version of XGA, good for movie viewing or spreadsheets.
e. WSXGA+ - 1680x1050; Wider viewing version of SXGA, good for movie viewing or spreadsheets.
f. WUXGA - 1920x1200; Wider viewing version of UXGA, good for movie viewing or spreadsheets.

9. Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you?

10. When are you buying this laptop and how long do you want this laptop to last?

11. How much hard drive space do you want; 40GB to 500GB?

12. Do you need an optical drive? If yes, a CDRW/DVD-ROM, DVD Burner or Blu-Ray drive?

This post has been edited by firebolt: 12 May 2009 - 03:05 AM

[Ändrew]

If you want a nice prebuilt powerful laptop check www.alienware.com.au or if our of Australia www.alienware.com they probley make the best gamming + multiperpus laptops ever. (There extremly good for WoW players)

[KYA]

Developing on a laptop blows. Just putting that out there.

[Nykc]

KYA, on 12 May, 2009 - 08:05 AM, said:

Developing on a laptop blows. Just putting that out there.

I have no problems developing on a Laptop.

but I don't use winblows either. just saying...

edit - actually I have even developed on a Laptop in the windows environment. The bank I worked for, our entire staff of developers were issued Laptops because we were on call 24/7 and we were able to work from home and remote into the servers if need be.

This post has been edited by Nykc: 12 May 2009 - 07:39 AM

[Ed_Bighead]

And you're probably not going to want to spend a lot so you can play games on it. You're better off getting a desktop for that. It'll save you a lot of money.

[xtheendx]

firebolt, on 12 May, 2009 - 02:03 AM, said:

OK. So I was diggin around some sites and I found this list. Try an answer most of the questions please.


1. What is your budget?

15000 -2000

2. What size notebook would you prefer?

15- 17in



3. Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places or leaving it on your desk?

taking soemtimes

4. Will you be playing games on it; if so, which games?

WoW....whatever comes out and i like

5. How many hours of battery life do you need?

1-2

6. What OS do you prefer? Windows (XP or Vista), Mac OS, Linux, etc.

vista or linux

7. Would you prefer standard or widescreen?

WS

8. From the choices below, what screen resolutions would you prefer?

Widescreen
d. WXGA or WXGA+ - 1280x768/800 or 1440x900; Wider viewing version of XGA, good for movie viewing or spreadsheets.
e. WSXGA+ - 1680x1050; Wider viewing version of SXGA, good for movie viewing or spreadsheets.
f. WUXGA - 1920x1200; Wider viewing version of UXGA, good for movie viewing or spreadsheets.

F

9. Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you?

no

10. When are you buying this laptop and how long do you want this laptop to last?

2 years

11. How much hard drive space do you want; 40GB to 500GB?

500

12. Do you need an optical drive? If yes, a CDRW/DVD-ROM, DVD Burner or Blu-Ray drive?

CDrw and DCDR drive




thanks guys...hope that helps.....

[markhazlett9]

Toxicterror, on 12 May, 2009 - 01:54 AM, said:

if you want to program games on it its almost a must to use a pc because as far i know, normal games dont work on macs.

ROFL, this is funny.. "normal games?" lol... Now adays quite a few games run fine on mac, unless you don't consider things like CoD, and the entire blizzard family "normal games"

Cheers

[KYA]

Nykc, on 12 May, 2009 - 07:07 AM, said:

KYA, on 12 May, 2009 - 08:05 AM, said:

Developing on a laptop blows. Just putting that out there.

I have no problems developing on a Laptop.

but I don't use winblows either. just saying...

edit - actually I have even developed on a Laptop in the windows environment. The bank I worked for, our entire staff of developers were issued Laptops because we were on call 24/7 and we were able to work from home and remote into the servers if need be.

Not on call developing, "developing developing"

[Nykc]

We used our laptops for everyday developing...

You do not need a desktop to be a developer, that is like saying you need a bible to be a christian.

This post has been edited by Nykc: 17 May 2009 - 10:20 AM

[Goodfix86]

if anyone is still reading this thread...

What's the deal with Alienware?

I can buy a laptop from HP with the hardware as the one Dell (Alienware) makes and it'll be hundreds of dollars less. I don't get it.

[debjit625]

For me PC(i mean Desktop in general) is best for games development ,why because we can extend it on the hardware front and on laptops its not so much possiable
Now for your GraphicCard, its one of the main stuff(hardware) in game development and its totaly upto you in the sence of what addon tech.. you will give to your game or in general on graphic card the more video ram you have the more rendered frames you can store on them but it also depends on GPU of the card how fast it can render data and see what type of processing does it support like pixel,vertex,lighting and what interface it can go with like OpenGL,DirectX(many goes with both) ,and a bit more when selecting a GraphicCard see how it is connected to computer (on which bus) like if PCIe is their it will be the best option next its AGP its also good and last PCI interface old tech.. ,PCIe is the most best so when buy your motherboard check it should support PCIe ,ya laptops also contains PCIe .
In short in your GraphicCard the best you can have is the more video ram,more gpu speed ,more frame rate ,the more pixel it can fill or render,how many polygon it can draw i.e vertex processing ,lighting i.e 3d lighting .

Good Luck

This post has been edited by debjit625: 23 January 2010 - 02:53 PM

[Lemur]

Should have started a new thread. You probably looked at the hard drive instead of the specifics.

Check the RAM, DDR3 is much faster than DDR2
Check the CPU, how many cores, and the clock speed (that's huge)
Check the Hard Drives RPM
Check the amount of dedicated memory on the Graphics Card

Specifics specifics specifics. HP is meant to be a home/office, alienware is designed to be cutting edge and perform on games (Actually the price at equal specs is pretty close)