Laptop

[Tokyoman 0]

Have you got laptop and play on it? I would to buy a laptop, but I don`t know which. Naturally it muss be good on playing sc4de, that game goes very goooood (on higher settings) without mistakes. Pls report about your laptop with sc4 (sc4de, rh).

[Robbie Robb 0]

I'm playing on an HP zd8225ca widescreen notebook. I've got it running with pretty much all the settings at max in full screen mode. I'm using the forceres switch so that the game runs at the notebook's native 1440x900. It works BEAUTIFULLY!

[shivsood 5]

i recently bought a dell laptop it was fairly fast, but simcity is torture to play on it-it goes sooooooooo slowly(though it doesnt exit itself like my desktop version)

[digger313 47]

One of my computers is a toshiba Satalite p30 with 1.5 g ram.

Works awesome with all settings on high

[condor 0]

Any reasonably eqipped laptop available today should suffice for SC4-RH.  Most laptops are at least as good as most desktops.  Good playing parameters for SC4 would include 2.0 GHz (or better) Pentium processor, 1GB RAM and a dedicated 64MB (or better) graphics chip.  My system is a bit overkill for SC4 (but I run a few true 3D games, which SC4 is not).  My system specs:  2.20MHz Pentium M, 2GB RAM, 256MB ATI X700 graphics chip.

[The Milkman 1]

I got a widescreen Sony Vaio and it works well.

[scrap104 0]

My laptop is what I mainly use to run SC4rh. All settings set to high. Things slow down when I run a city of 2,000,000 or more and/or a complex transit network.

Pentium M 1.5 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 32 MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9200. 1280x800 res (1024x768 fullscreen or 800x600 windowed), 60 GB HD (5400 RPM 8MB Cache)

Originally I had 512 MB of RAM and noticed an improvement in performance once I upgraded to 768 MB and later 1024 MB.

[the olive 0]

I would highly recomend Leveno (IBM) because they are the most reliable and if you play SC4 your laptop will be very hot due to bad cooling compared to a desktop, they may be a little more expensive, but it will last much longer,  especially if you play a lot of games with it.

[ace41690 0]

I have a Dell Laptop.....its old.....

Pentium4M@1.8Ghz

1Gb ddr 266 ram

Geforce 4 440 Go graphics card with 32Mb memory

Run it on 1600X1200 resolution, with everything else turned on High.

..........Performance is Mediocre at best, but the gig of ram helps.............

[thesonofgray 0]

I'm running a Compaq R3000Z. I don't think they offer the specific laptop anymore but its running an AMD Athlon 64 3500, 1GB RAM, and a nVidia GeForce4. It's a hefty thing but it runs all of my games flawlessly. I usually have SC4RH playing while I have Firefox open surfing ST and Limewire downloading music.

[redfox85 659]

zv6175ca

AMD 3500+ (2.2 Ghz), 1GB RAM, x200 128mb dedicated, most settings at high except automa, and it runs fine. Once I reinstall windows it should do even better!

[Praetorian Cohort 0]

As much as it pains me to say this, you're going to want to go Intel with laptops. Personally, I like IBM (now Lenovo). My family has had a total of three, and even the oldest one is still chugging along.

Plus, Lenovos have a TrackPoint, in addition to the TrackPad! TrackPoints rule!

[storms991 0]

I play on a Dell Inspiron 5150, it has 512 RAM, 3.2 Ghz, 64MB Graphics card, 14.9 inch screen.

[thesonofgray 0]

Hey PC, I'm just curious as to why you (painfully) reccommend Intel. I think Intels are great but I chose to go with an AMD because I heard (and read reviews) that they manage things like games better than Pentiums. Maybe I'm wrong? I dunno, I'm no computer wizard. I just thought you might have some insider info that I don't.

[tchaos713 5]

Unfortunately, Intel is still king of laptops. The Pentium M (and now the Core Duo) simply are the best. They top the AMD Turion64 in almost every benchmark. I suppose a regular old AMD Athlon64 would give you a speed advantage, but it would be hot and would sap your battery life. I am currently looking at purchasing a Macbook Pro, despite that I will never, ever put an Intel chip in my desktop.

[MayorTim 16]

Are my eyes decieving my or did The Milkman post here?  WB Milkman!

Also, Robbie Robb, I am VERY interested in exactly how you managed to get SC4 to run at your own resolution. Do you think you could clarify a little more and maybe provide some links?

[jlmiksch 0]

I have a Gateway M675XL I bought when I worked there. I got it stacked out for the time and I have no problem running SC4 on it. System specs: Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz with HT technology, 2048Mb PC3200 system memory, 80GB primary and secondary hard drives, 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9600, 17" LCD active matrix (max resolution 2048x1536)

[jackel.22 3]

i play on my toshiba satalite, its quite old now but it still works. if only i knew how to change the graphics sards on these things it only came with a 32mb one.

but yeh toshiba's are really good and they dont breake. and noow you can get some really good ones for under

[-HITMAN- 0]

Rock

3.8 GHZ Pentium 4 670

2047 MB RAM

240 GB HDD (2 x Partition)

LCD 17"

SC4 Resolution: 1680 X 1280

NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 256 MB

[Swamper77 90]

I have a Compaq/HP Presario with Nvidia graphics and an AMD Athlon 64 processor. The screen is a lovely 1200x800 screen. The screen resolution makes the game's camera angle seem lower than it really is. And if you thought those buses were long with a normal screen.....

The only thing I hate about it is that XP Service Pack 2 is on it. If I try to move or delete a .dat plugin file, Windows Explorer crashes. I use a program called ExplorerPlus to get around this issue.

-Swamper77

[Robbie Robb 0]

Originally posted by: MayorTim Are my eyes decieving my or did The Milkman post here?  WB Milkman!

Also, Robbie Robb, I am VERY interested in exactly how you managed to get SC4 to run at your own resolution. Do you think you could clarify a little more and maybe provide some links?quote>

I've already filled Tim in on this, but for any others that are wondering. SimCity4 has support for custom resolutions. I found this little tidbit in the list of switches over at EA's SimCity site. There are two switches you need:

-CustomResolution:enabled (other option is 'disabled')

-r

So my switches look like this:

-CustomResolution:enabled -r1440x900 -introff

According to the documentation the -r only needs to be set once but I just leave it in. Why bother editing a shortcut that works just fine?

[Praetorian Cohort 0]

Originally posted by: thesonofgray Hey PC, I'm just curious as to why you (painfully) reccommend Intel. I think Intels are great but I chose to go with an AMD because I heard (and read reviews) that they manage things like games better than Pentiums. Maybe I'm wrong? I dunno, I'm no computer wizard. I just thought you might have some insider info that I don't. quote>

AMDs are indeed better at pretty much everything desktop-wise, but the Pentium M and Core Solo/Duo chips trump the Turion 64 in everything, from performance to heat to power used.  As tchaos said, the Athlon 64 is better than the Turion 64, but the amount of heat it generates is not acceptable for something you're supposed to put in your lap.

[thesonofgray 0]

Yeah. My AMD Athlon 64 does pretty much heat my room in the winter

I don't even think Athlons are available in laptops anymore. And I haven't seen any tests on the Turion. I guess Intel has won this battle.

[tchaos713 5]

You can still get the Athlon64 in high-end "desktop replacement" type laptops.  However, I think it is AMD's desire for the Turion64 to be the answer to the Pentium M.

To that end, from the January 2006 issue of Maximum PC:

	Turion 64 MT-28 (1.6GHz)	Pentium M 740 (1.73 GHz)
Mobilemark 2005 Battery Life	209 Min	227 Min
Mobilemark 2005 Performance	137	184
PCMark 2005 Overall	1685	1610
PCMark 2005 CPU	2166	2793
Photoshop CS (sec)	571	587
Premiere Pro (sec)	1090	800

Both were tested in identically configured Fujitsu Lifebooks - The S2110 for the Turion64 and the S6240 for the Pentium M.

For the moment, Intel has the advantage, however I'm sure that AMD will adjust, just as it did from its early Athlon XP problems.

[Brand 0]

Im on an alienware area 51 laptop and it works absolutely beautifully"

[hamsterTK 93]

I have a HP Pavilion zd8000 widescreen and it runs great on it.

[tjperry88 24]

My suggestion is get what I am using. Gateway CX200X Convertible Tablet Notebook. Not only do you get to play the game on a 14inch wide screen with awesome graphics, the tablet pen acts as your mouse in the game so you can fold the screen down and play as you walk around or just as you would be writing on paper. Sick of the mouse and sick of the keyboard taking all the space and the mousepad annoying you? This machine has it all built nicely. The only down side is in SC4 the Tablet Mode Keyboard does not show as an option so if you were to enter Tax rates or city names and such you would have to lift up for the keyboard. Other than that it was an awesome investment and great gaming and educational computer. Hope this helps.

P.S. If you think a 14inch Widescreen for a laptop is small(what I thought at first too) then you are wrong, it actually is perfect size, not to big, not to small.

[Kippis05 2]

heh. I used to use a laptop for SC4 play, but it was sooooooooooo slow. It took about 5 years to get out to the region view lol. It's a Compaq Presario 700 laptop with 1.7 Ghz. Good thing I upgraded to an HP Pavilion desktop, which has 3.2 Ghz of speed. (very fast) I do think that Athlon processors are available on laptops still, though few and far between. Everybody's going Intel. In terms of laptop useage, i think a Dell XPS notebook should do the trick. Although I haven't been keeping up with laptop technology recently.

[dpk 0]

I have a HP Pavilion zv6130us w/ 1.5GB RAM. SimCity 4+RH+NAM plays great. Even on my largest city (400-700k pop depending on density) a year goes by very quick. I don't know if it's available any more, but there are newer models in the line. Mine, minus the 1GB additional RAM, was around $1k, which was the magic price point I was aiming for.

A big advantage it has over other laptops is that it has dedicated video RAM.

It does get rather hot in my lap while playing SC4, though.

[mizmayor 8]

Originally posted by: storms991 I play on a Dell Inspiron 5150, it has 512 RAM, 3.2 Ghz, 64MB Graphics card, 14.9 inch screen.quote>

cool! I've got a 5150e, with 1024 RAM. I've had it for over 2 years now. I specifically configure this machine so I could play SC4. I looked at the recommended specs on the box, and met or exceeded them. I think my screen is 15.? inches, though. works pretty well with sc4. worked faster before I loaded it up with plugins from the STEX! Anyway, I'm a happy camper with my laptop, except the cd drive is starting to get kinda wonky. owell.