SimCity 4, Core i3, Intel GMA 3000, and YOU!

[Equinox 1,209]

I am thinking of purchasing a new, very budget, laptop. I am currently looking at a packaged Dell offered through Amazon, the Inspiron 14R listed here. It is running with 6GB of RAM, a 2.3GHz Core i3 Sandy Bridge, and an Intel GMA 3000 chip. Two questions, only one of which gets this topic posted in this particular forum, so I'll start with that: will this run SimCity 4 well? Better than my 2006 XPS laptop with a 2.16GHz Centrino-era processor?

Secondly, how do people feel about the deal on that laptop? Decent? Can I get a better processor for the same amount of money in any other package anyone has seen recently? Should I buy it? Will I be playing SimCity 4 at work in no time?! (I feel like perhaps the STEX should hope so.)

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Well, look who's there! Sorry, but I just can't start this thread on topic. I sure hope you're back, and not just "sort of". It's great to see you here!

Back to topic: I can't comment on prices because I live outside the US. All I can say is that I play SC4 on a Win7 64-bit system with 4 gigs of RAM and an Intel Core i3 with 2,4 GHz, and it runs like a charm. The gfx hardware in my notebook is better because it's a dedicated chip and faster than Intel's solution, but in terms of SimCity, this aspect shouldn't matter at all.

All in all, yes, the CPU upgrade should help SC4 performance a lot, and I suppose your old computer used 1 GB RAM or less, so the memory upgrade should help, too.

The most important question IMO is whether you're planning to use that thing for anything else, because in that case a 15" screen and a full keyboard (with decent cursor keys and number block) may be worth considering, even if they come at the price of only 4 GB instead of 6. It all depends on your personal preference and your usage pattern, of course. Are you ok with the glare panel? Myself, I don't like these things, so a non-glare display was high up my priority list - but of course, that's just a personal thing as well.

I hope someone from the US will be able to comment on the price.

[Equinox 1,209]

Well hai there yourself buddy, it really has been a long time. The price is pretty solid. I guess what I was ultimately wondering is, how much is that Intel 3000 going to kill me in the SC4 realm? And is an i5 really that much better for SC4? SC4 is a single-core coded game, as far as I am aware (although please correct me if I am wrong), and isn't the main difference between the i3 and the i5 the upgrade from 2 to 4 cores?

Also, totally a P.S., any chance you could (presuming you are a mod in this forum) delete my duplicate thread?

My bad.

P.P.S. I won't make any promises, but I am dying to get back into this game and I think some mad tweaking of all those (in my experience) poorly-statted NDEX buildings is in order. Just a thought... and a starting point.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Welcome back. You can delete that duplicate yourself, you know. Just open it and push the delete button.

I am not in the currency zone so I can't comment on your prices.

The game will run just fine on that machine. As with any laptop be sure it doesn't overheat and start slowing/quitting on you. Make sure it has lots of ventilation.

Since I don't need portability, I run a desktop. Much less money, easily upgraded, easy to add new peripherals, and has a nice big air plenum.

In today's terms you don't need much of machine to run SC4. With that one you can run in software rendering mode and it won't seem much different. The CPUs are plenty fast enough now. Use the single CPU count option to ensure freedom from some annoying crashes. -CPUcount:1 does the trick. Leaves the other core(s) to look after the shop. Even works on my latest version of Linux with wine.

[Meg 368]

Equinox! Good to see you

[T Wrecks 10,209]

I guess what I was ultimately wondering is, how much is that Intel 3000 going to kill me in the SC4 realm?

In the SC4 realm probably not at all. Concerning the gfx adapter, there's a certain threshold above which the game does what it's supposed to do - it's not like you can benefit from ridiculous Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering performance and run the game at 60 fps instead of 35 fps. I guess a contemporary Intel 3000 on-chip gfx adapter is at least as powerful as the old nVidia Geforce 4200Ti I have in my old PC (this old piece of hardware cannot even play HD videos smoothly, which Intel's chiop graphics can!), and that old nVidia board is by far sufficient to run SC4 in hardware mode without any problems or performance issues.

The on-chip gfx will probably limit you in other games (true 3D, real-time rendering, dynamic calculations, AA/AF) compared to a dedicated graphics chip, but in terms of SC4? I don't think so.

And is an i5 really that much better for SC4? SC4 is a single-core coded game, as far as I am aware (although please correct me if I am wrong), and isn't the main difference between the i3 and the i5 the upgrade from 2 to 4 cores?

AFAIK, there's more benefit to an i5 than the number of cores, but still: Since SC4 runs on one core anyway, the performance gain is probably negligible and not worth the price increase. When my sister planned to buy a notebook, we had a look at some tests and figures and found out that the upgrade from i3 to i5 makes much sense for heavy Photoshop users, for example, but for SC4? I guess while an i5 may yield a bit more performance, the cost increase would be disproportionate. Personally, I guess I wouldn't do it just for SC4.

P.P.S. I won't make any promises, but I am dying to get back into this game and I think some mad tweaking of all those (in my experience) poorly-statted NDEX buildings is in order. Just a thought... and a starting point.

This base might already be covered, because when I translated and re-lotted the old NDEX classics for SimCityKurier.de, I tweaked the stats - feel free to have a look at this page and browse through the search results... you'll find many of the NDEX evergreens. While the descriptions are in German, the stats are listed and should be readable for anyone who knows about the inside of a building exemplar file... You might also notice some lot designs that are different from the original uploads.

Back in the old days, you played a very decisive role in getting me on track, but I used that initial momentum to get rolling on my own.

[Jazzmaster 716]

Good to see you here. I wasn't around during the peak operating days of NDEX, so its nice when older members come back to the site even if they aren't going to turn back on the machine that once ran.

Do you have any sort of budget for your next computer? I live in the US and I researched notebook computers for many months before purchasing one, so I can definitely be of assistance, but I should know where your budget is first. Amazon is a good site for discount PC's. Another good site to purchase laptops off of is Newegg.com.

About the GPU, it sounds like a variant of Intel HD graphics. I've tried SimCity 4 with Intel HD and it ran OK, but I somehow managed to enable Intel "extreme graphics" which ran off of the Intel HD but SimCity 4 ran even better with that. Just thought I'd point that one out. You really don't need more than 512 MB of dedicated or integrated graphics to run SimCity 4, and the 256 GB max that your GPU would crank out (according to Wikipedia) would probably be just fine, too.

  Edited February 13, 2012 by Yoshiisland  

[Equinox 1,209]

P.P.S. I won't make any promises, but I am dying to get back into this game and I think some mad tweaking of all those (in my experience) poorly-statted NDEX buildings is in order. Just a thought... and a starting point.

This base might already be covered, because when I translated and re-lotted the old NDEX classics for SimCityKurier.de, I tweaked the stats - feel free to have a look at this page and browse through the search results... you'll find many of the NDEX evergreens. While the descriptions are in German, the stats are listed and should be readable for anyone who knows about the inside of a building exemplar file... You might also notice some lot designs that are different from the original uploads.

Well, this is just fantastic and legendary news! Fantastico!

I will be sure to investigate and check this out. Thank you!

So, back kind of on topic, comput0rz. I am kind of tossing around the idea of this one now, but am somewhat sad about the purported poor-performance scrolling. Anyone know if two-finger scrolling is enablable on this or like-built Sony comps? I do love Sony, I do confess, but I am a bit squeamish just for the lack of good scrolling from what like one or two of the reviews say. This sucker really looks like it could knock down quite a few games though and the 1600x900 res does make me happy -- and by that I mean it doesn't make me cry like the 1366x768 does. (Says the guy with a 17" laptop running 1920x1200.)

So, what do we think about that?

Also, thank you dearly to whoever suggested Newegg; I don't know why I wasn't looking there already.

P.S. Hi Meg!

[Equinox 1,209]

Never mind! I read on some college dude's blog that you can install the Synaptics touchpad driver and obtain decent results. Fantastico. So... off to the state's only Sony store sometime soon to lay my hands on it, then I will probably be purchasing it through Newegg as linked, for the price point!

Now... anyone know any coupons?!

Thanks for the input guys. I figure I could have made do with that Dell, and the GMA, but really, the resolution is what kind of kills me. I like my wallpapers big & clear and my text tiny & crisp.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Never mind! I read on some college dude's blog that you can install the Synaptics touchpad driver and obtain decent results. Fantastico. So... off to the state's only Sony store sometime soon to lay my hands on it, then I will probably be purchasing it through Newegg as linked, for the price point!

Now... anyone know any coupons?!

Thanks for the input guys. I figure I could have made do with that Dell, and the GMA, but really, the resolution is what kind of kills me. I like my wallpapers big & clear and my text tiny & crisp.

Giggle. I can only add that my enthusiasm for this game went up at least an order of magnitude when I got a wide-screen monitor and a driver that supported it properly. (LM 12 with ATI/AMD fglrx on wine 1.4-rc2). On my machine this runs better in software mode because wine is still getting their DirectX controls straightened out. They seem to be very slow at hardware buffer switching.

You'll be running Windows, I assume, so you won't have any of the technical fun I am having.

[Jazzmaster 716]

Nice pick. The 6630M is capable of maxing out more recent games at lower resolutions, although I wouldn't expect to be playing games like Crysis or Metro 2033 on ultra (both of those games are honestly boring, but anyways). The screen is small but the resolution more than makes up for it.

  Edited February 13, 2012 by Yoshiisland  

[Equinox 1,209]

Honestly, I tend to dig more on indie/Steam games most of the time. Well, that and hardcore racing sims, but I can stick to my PS3 for that for now, until later when the hardcore [desktop] gaming rig comes about of course. And yes... I am definitely on Windows.

See, this statement is funny because I type this from a system rigged up with #! at the moment. But considering it's on an 8" netbook with bare-minimal specs, that might make more sense. I am a Windows guy through and through; what can I say, I loves me my foobar!

[hamsterTK 93]

I had to sell my newly built linux desktop because I desperately needed a laptop instead(unforeseen circumstances) and bought one with the specs you describe. I have generally been able to play(on medium-low settings) TF2, Minecraft, etc as well as the more casual/indie games available on Steam on the most recent generation of integrated Intel graphics. You couldn't say that a few years ago, that's for sure.

For SC4, I've been playing on software rendering with a custom resolution set in the file path, and it works beautifully with no silly glitches or artifacts.

Actually I was going to dare suggest actually checking brick and mortar stores if you were in the market for a generic "budget" laptop. Best Buy had an exclusive price drop on some low end Toshiba laptops, selling them for only $379 USD. On NewEgg the same one was like $450. Even after local sales tax I paid less for everything including a messenger bag for it. Just don't let the obnoxious salespeople bother you too much

  Edited February 14, 2012 by hamsterTK  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Honestly, I tend to dig more on indie/Steam games most of the time. Well, that and hardcore racing sims, but I can stick to my PS3 for that for now, until later when the hardcore [desktop] gaming rig comes about of course. And yes... I am definitely on Windows.

See, this statement is funny because I type this from a system rigged up with #! at the moment. But considering it's on an 8" netbook with bare-minimal specs, that might make more sense. I am a Windows guy through and through; what can I say, I loves me my foobar!

Well, at the moment I am running software mode for Linux wine because wine has hardware buffer switching problems (still!). You ought to see what it does to the image when it runs out of buffers. This could be a symptom of either wine or my amd/ati fglrx driver. This is the first version that really recognized by system will run DVI.

  Edited February 14, 2012 by A Nonny Moose