HL2 graphical scalability...

[Absinthe]

Well, before I headed off to university, I figured I'd get a laptop for practical purposes. Unfortunately, do to the inherent nature of laptops being slower than they're desktop counterparts, my gaming selection has shrunk some.

I could live without Doom 3 and Bloodlines. I wasn't intending on purchasing BF2. As long as I have HL2, I'm fine.

Except it's not fine. HL2 chugs like a dying beast even on the absolute lowest settings. I have a 2.0 GHz processor, 1 GB of DDRAM, and plenty of hard drive space. The gfx card is some generic that came with the computer and I don't know what exactly the specs are, but I'm fairly certain it's not that great.
Any way, for a game that's supposed to be able to run on low system requirements, I'm getting a lot of performance issues. Is it something ****ed up on my end, or am I gonna have to dig out a tweakguide?

I need my HL2.

 

[Tomarru]

Im afraid its your generic crap gfx chip thats the problem, its sharing system ram no doubt so the performance wont be great. Really to do any gaming on a laptop you need one that specifically states it has an ati or nvidia chip with its own dedicated ram. You might get it running with the lowest settings possible, but other than that youre stuck.

 

[Absinthe]

****...

 

[giant384]

u wont really be able to play games well on a laptop unless u buy a $3,000 one

 

[Ikerous]

u wont really be able to play games well on a laptop unless u buy a $3,000 one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834224026
1500 at newegg
Thast the one i want at least : p

 

[giant384]

thats not bad never heard of ABS though

 

[DrDevin]

thats not bad never heard of ABS though

What? ABS is quite a brand name company although it specializes in cheaper computers vs. falconNW and voodoo.

Also that seems like a good deal for a laptop and yes I suggest you pick up a notebook with a decent GFX card as that is the most important part of a gaming computer!