Laptop graphics, what do you have and how well does it play?

I am in the market for a new laptop. I am looking for a 14" model and the only real requirement I have is that it can play CoH smoothly, and hopefully with at least decent graphics setting (as in medium, not low). So with all the research I am doing on finding the right card, I figured I should just go ahead and ask.

So, what laptop/graphics chipset are you using and how is your performance on your settings?

Thanks for all your input, hopefully once I know I can finally pull the trigger on a new laptop!

Well, I've a couple of machines that both handle CoH fine... at least the live version. One is an Asus with a 15" 1280x800 screen, Intel Core2Duo T6400 2GHz CPU and GeForce 9300M GS video card. It's ok at medium - medium/high settings due to the lower resolution screen; I bought it a year ago for ~$600, I generally see framerates in the 30-40 range. No way would I expect this machine to handle Ultra Mode though.

My second machine is considerably more powerful, I bought it as a portable video editing workstation and plunked down nearly 3 grand for it... it has a 17" 1680x1050 screen, Core2 running around 2.5GHz and a GeForce 7950GTX dual GPU video card. It's capable of running the current live version with most settings maxed or one step down and delivering an average FPS in the 40-50 range. This machine IS capable of running some of the Ultra Mode goodies, albeit with a significant performance hit.

A good place to look for a laptop is www.powernotebooks.com, they're highly reliable and you can order exactly what you want, with or without an OS. The prices are quite attractive; what Dell would charge 3k for you can get from them for around 2k.

Cool. One thing I should probably mention is that I am looking for a nice, portable notebook. I am looking at 14 inch screens right now. I have seen a few that use the 9300 GPU and it seems that will be one of my best options.

Any others, let's see 'em.

It would be nice to have a resource that tells people "this is what I have, this is how it runs"

It would definitely make finding the right machine easier.

Thanks for the advice. Yeah I am still thinking more about a 14 inch as my "final answer". Considering this has to be a general use laptop, I dont need Ultra mode support, or 100+fps. I just need something lightweight and portable to play the game at decent settings. I am looking at some Asus models that include a 9600m GS card, and I am thinking that as long as I have a card at that level or higher I should be fine.

This post was originally to give some sort of idea of what level of laptop graphics are necessary to play the game at acceptable levels. Any other posts as to what others use to play Co* would be very helpful!

I bought an ASUS laptop for my son at Christmas that has a ATI Radeon 4570 graphics card that runs CoH suprisingly well for a mid-range card. The model I got for him is a 15.6" screen, so it wouldn't be what you're looking for, but the graphics card is moderately priced and handles CoH's demands very ably.

According to this chart--which you may find useful in general:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-...ist.844.0.html

it falls just slightly below the 9600M; but I was impressed how good everything looks considering it's a $650 laptop.

EDIT: Took a quick look at the 14" laptops available at Newegg, and this one caught my eye; fast processor, good graphics card for $850:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220634

My laptop has an NVidia 7950 card in it, and I run okay, albeit at somewhat reduced settings for world detail and particles (which I don't mind at all). Granted it won't handle Ultra Mode at all, but it does fine overall. I've played in Grandville and on Hami raids with it.

I'm hoping to get a new system in the not-so-distant future, but I'll have this for the mobility when I'm away and want some gaming.

Hmm, I was just looking for a laptop as well. Although I'm looking for something like $600 or less price range. Only 'real' requirement is that I can either add a mobile broadband card to it (internally) or I can just buy a USB verizon broadband stick (which I'm probably leaning to anyways).