Scrolling Game Development Kit Forum
General => Off-Topic => Topic started by: bluemonkmn on 2009-07-18, 08:35:19 PM
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I've been doing some of the latest work on my "Clean Game" on a new laptop I just bought today from Microcenter. It's an Acer Aspire 5516 with 2 GB RAM and 160 GB hard drive. It's not great (only single core -- the dual core was only $50 more, though), but it was only $300! What a deal; I couldn't pass it up seeing as how I'll be taking a 10 day vacation to South Padre Island, TX in August, and there'll be wireless internet access there, and I don't dare be totally disconnected from work for that long. (Actually I didn't think about it until my boss was remarking to a colleague how I'd be gone for 10 whole days in a row, and then I thought to myself, hey that's right... if I'm going to be there, that means I won't be here! :)). So I figure there will be lulls during which I can check email at my leisure. Then there might not be quite so much of a heap of work to come back to.
Did I mention this is only $300!? :) This is amazing. There are less capable itty bitty NetBooks that cost more than this full size (wide-screen) laptop! This was really the time to buy for me. Finally hit the balance between "I don't have a good excuse to own a laptop because I'm always around a desktop" and "sometimes it'd be nice to have a laptop". I hooked it up to my 42-inch TV with a VGA cable and have been playing with it for a few hours now. I had the foresight to also get a wireless keyboard and mouse so I can use it from the couch. I finally remembered to set a frame rate limit on my clean game because it was running fast on this computer.
Anybody who's been on the edge of getting a laptop, look for an Acer Aspire 5516 ... did I mention it's only $300? :)
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that's great! my laptop im getting from college next month is about $1000 (luckily its paid by financial aid :D ) im not quite sure what's on it, but well compare once i get it...
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I've been looking at these laptops as well, which are more capable in every aspect except the graphics card than the $1000 laptop I got a couple years ago.
Quite sad, really. :(
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The one problem I've seen with it so far is that it seems to have trouble playing full screen video -- at least when hooked up to a display at HD resolution (1900 something by 1080). I tried reducing the resolution, but it still seemed a bit choppy. I'll try again later with just the laptop screen in its native resolution if I can figure out how to restore that setting :).
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That seems to happen with all the low-midrange laptops because they use quite low quality integrated graphics chips. Happens on mine too, fine at 1280x800 but 1920x1080 is a struggle.
Try a player such as VLC, which seems to be much more efficient than windows media player or winamp. (At least for me)
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Anybody who's been on the edge of getting a laptop, look for an Acer Aspire 5516 ... did I mention it's only $300? :)
That sounds cool. I should keep it in mind. :)
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Hey, bluemonk, can I know where you got the laptop. I have a friend who is looking for one.
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Micro Center. It's right on the front page at the moment:
http://www.microcenter.com/ (http://www.microcenter.com/)
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Thanks. I'll show him the link. Thanks again. ;D ;) :)
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Hey I just got my new laptop today :D:D:D:D:D I'll figure out the specs later (gotta finish homework...)
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Hey I just got my new laptop today :D:D:D:D:D I'll figure out the specs later (gotta finish homework...)
What? You bought a laptop without knowing what the specs were first? How did you choose which one to buy?!? :-[
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it came with my game development classes at college. everyone gets the same computers. i think it cots somewhere around $1500.
edit: Hey post 400! :D :laugh: :surprise: :nerd: :educated: :P 8) :) ;)
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here are some of the specs