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If Apple made a gaming laptop
- Thread starter KnightWRX
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Then what do you consider a 'gaming' laptop? I'd love to know.
Yeah I bet, because adding one option suddenly means you want every option, right?
LOL, how the hell is that a strawman? You're pulling a strawman by calling strawman.
Alienware Mx17/18
>Alienware
Dude, be serious about it. There is no such thing as a "Gaming Laptop", anyone thinking that is just kidding himself.
Alienware is just overpriced pseudo-mobile parts with the battery life of 20 minutes.
You dont need great battery life from a gaming laptop. You can carry it to LAN partys and plug it in the wall. Or just use it at home on your desk without having to have a big desktop taking up room
That still doesnt mean its not a machine with desktop parts cramped together to make it look like a laptop that heats quite high on a minimum level or overeats due to cramped together mid-high desktop class parts.
There is no such thing as gaming laptop.
I don't because to me it's a loose ambiguous term. But if I had to COMPARE different laptops in terms of which is better for gaming, I'd qualify everything from the aesthetics to whether or not the gaming laptop even comes with the OS that's gonna be running most of my games to proprietary gamer geared tech like Switchblade, not just the chips on the board.
No clue what this even means
Cause I never said anything about running modern games off Pentium 4's even though you brought up something stupid like that just to knock down. I'm with the other guy - CPU's are not the key bottleneck for gaming. Which is why you had to go back 10 generations of chips to act like they are.
A custom built PC doesn't come with Windows unless you buy it. Whether it comes default or not doesn't matter. Hardware is hardware.
"Car salesmen must have a lot of fun with you"
So I replied with: asking for one option to be added does not mean you want every option added, therefore their 'fun' stops there.
I went back that far because you are making it seem as though the processor is useless. If that was the case then everyone who builds a custom built PC wouldn't bother with the highest-end CPU they can buy. More and more games are supporting multi-threading. When your GPU isn't the bottleneck your CPU will be, and for the best performance, the last thing you want is your CPU bottlenecking.
Most don't bother with i7 processors, and many that do are going for overkill. An i5 is more than sufficient for most gaming needs, but a top of the line GPU will do far more noticeable good than a GPU from the next highest price tier.
The CPU is important, but you don't need an i7 for most games.
I have yet to see an iPod Nano with games.
Because A) Its not the only bottleneck, B) The bottleneck turns out to be superficial.
Its because of how we code in the graphics pipeline. This is going to be massively oversimplified because I have no clue what level of understanding you are at.
Traditionally, when we code up a rendering engine, we basically dump the textures and polygon data onto the graphics card with no real consideration of preprocessing or streaming order and let the graphics card do its stuff. This is some cruft leftover from the Quake3 Engine philosophy. Newer rendering engines are much smarter, like ID Tech 5 or Naughty Dog Engine. They basically go "Do I need this (thing) soon?", if the answer is yes, the CPU prepares the assets, does some prepossessing, preemptive AA and lighting etc before streaming it to the GPU.
This relieves the GPU of some processing power while also utilizing the CPU more. In result we get an impressive performance boost, higher quality AA (MLAA) and the ability to stream a willy shriveling amount of data into the GPU because the CPU is smart enough to process the assets beforehand and make informed decisions. We also lessen our reliance on prebaked assets like in UE3.
My first gen iPod nano has games. Brick, Music Quiz, Parachute, Solitaire. They aren't complex games but they are games none the less. That's all it needs to be a gaming machine right?
That other bit was interesting though, thanks.
More proof that people will willingly pay through the nose for the same specs or worse because it's housed in a pretty case.
Razer sells you overpriced (beyond ridiculous pricing IMO) peripherals... you still wonder why they are irrelevant? However, it is a good thing you notice such fact.
On a very serious note:
A MacBook Pro is not a gaming laptop. It never has been and never will. Apple can throw the best marketing at it, but there is no, and never will be, such thing as a gaming laptop.
If you want to game, build your own computer, or buy a pre-built with specs dedicated to games.
Great post, I completely agree. As for Razer, they seem to mostly specialize in peripherals, but a gaming mouse and keyboard won't fix a players poor strategy. However, if people find that they like the mouse (or anything else) enough to justify the price, go for it, just the same as Apple products really. My friend still kicks ass in FPS games with any mouse you throw at him, it's the player not the peripherals.
I'll grant that Razer mice are quite popular (it appears), and boy do they look cool.
There's probably something to them, though I've never used one myself. I might just pick one up for kicks, though.
I'll grant that Razer mice are quite popular (it appears), and boy do they look cool.
I hear the Mamba is actually decent, but in my opinion nothing beats Logitech mice.
Roger that. I always keep a mouse handy "just in case" (if I want to game once in a blue moon) and my mouse of choice in that respect is the Logitech G9.
Though I do prefer turn-based strategy games (and some RTS) and point-and-click adventures, which really don't require mice. However when I was big into AVP II (one of the very few shooters I actually liked) a mouse was indispensable.
You know what I use for gameplay and it still gets me through winning many of my matches online?
A Microsoft wireless mouse, and a Dell keyboard. The mouse I bought at Best Buy for $19.99 (special price + coupon) and the keyboard is a hand-me-down from a friend.
Both work perfectly without any of the gimmicks or über-fancy things these 'gaming' peripherals bring. Like you said, it's the player behind the peripheral, not the peripheral that matters.
I use a free Microsoft keyboard and mouse. Gets the job done no problem
I'd still prefer a Logitech m950 just for comfort
If you got skills, you can play ball in flip flops instead of sneakers
But the peripherals have a place just like high end sneakers
If some gamer wants a mouse with better laser tracking, better ergonomics for long sessions, counterweights, more buttons, the ability to program macros, etc, there you go
I use a G9 too.
The Razers and the Logitechs are roughly the same price and compete for the same market. Logitech tends to do funny stuff with keyboards. Razer tends to do funny stuff with mice. If you're a gamer who plays a lot of MMORPG's you'd see the appeal in the Razer Naga or that funny looking thing called the Nostromo.
I may be wrong but I'm speculating this laptop will bust because of the high price point. The draw is the Switchblade interface, which is very cool but it's not gonna catch on if nobody can afford it. If I were Razer I would've tried to manufacture just the interface as a peripheral as cheaply as possible. Or just released the standalone Switchblade that was shown at CES.
Agreed. Back when I used a mouse regularly I was always in search for the most comfortable mouse. What in your opinion is Razer's most comfy mouse for everyday desktop use? One I can really rest my hand on comfortably. I'm more of a palm-grip type (I like full palm support) and I prefer light mice that offer very little resistance when moved around.
I've only used one Razer, and that's the Naga. It's lighter and smaller than the G9 and doesn't have the things that make the G9 comfortable like that outer shell and the weight cartridge. The main feature is the thumb buttons on the side, which is really useful if you play a game where you have a ton of hotkeys. Other than that I really have no clue about Razer mice. I do like Razer as a company though, because they're willing to put out weird looking crap just to see if it hooks.
With gaming peripherals I've only tried the G9, the Ideazon Fang, the Naga, and the G13 (which is Logitech's equivalent of the Nostromo). The G9 is a great mouse even if you aren't a gamer. I liked the Fang a lot because the layout made it easy to play shooters and hit hotkeys and it made me never wanna go back to a regular keyboard for gaming. And I tried the G13 and realized I don't have the patience to learn how to use it correctly.