Question for you computer guys.

[KahrMan]

My 13yo son is just dying... He has to use a 4-5 year old compaq pressario laptop. Its to old and all his friends computers are faster. He loves COD World at War for his xbox and wants to get it for the computer also. He likes playing WOW and other online games.

When you look at computer ads they have 17 million different versions and options. What he needs is a computer fast enough and powerful enough to play these online games without lags. What computers should I be looking at? Specifically what kind and how fast a processor and video card should it have.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Guest Astra900]

I dunno either but there were some custom gaming computers for sale in the classifieds here.

http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/vbclassified.php?do=ad&id=475

[TripleDigitRide]

Just about any new computer will play those games just fine. I don't play them, but a close friend plays WOW every waking moment. He has a $445ish computer from Wal-Mart, and it's more than able to keep up. I don't know the brand for sure, but I'm almost positive that it's an HP.

[TripleDigitRide]

Here is the computer he just bought.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10859132

When he's away from home, this is the laptop he uses.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4369209&CatId=17

[TGO David]

Tell him to suck it up; that when you were a kid, you had to walk uphill both directions, in the snow and barefoot, just to use punch-cards to program the UNIVAC to play tic-tac-to with you.

[Guest Herm]

tell him to just keep playing on his xbox 360, CPUs get outdated so quickly its hard for the average person to keep up.

[Guest mikedwood]

tell him to just keep playing on his xbox 360, CPUs get outdated so quickly its hard for the average person to keep up.

I gotta agree,

The game consoles are made for gaming. No Antivirus to slow it down either. Computers are made to do everything adequate and slow with age, due to junk in the registry I think.

[Tobashadow]

Tell him to suck it up; that when you were a kid, you had to walk uphill both directions, in the snow and barefoot, just to use punch-cards to program the UNIVAC to play tic-tac-to with you.

Shoot if my boy ever had to type in 12 pages of machine line coding taking hours and hours to complete hoping that you did not make a mistake on one single byte out of around 45,000 of them out of a magazine just to play a suped up version of pong on the Commodore.

He would never play a game again!

[TGO David]

Shoot if my boy ever had to type in 12 pages of machine line coding taking hours and hours to complete hoping that you did not make a mistake on one single byte out of around 45,000 of them out of a magazine just to play a suped up version of pong on the Commodore.

He would never play a game again!

Oh, so you've done plenty of Peek and Poke commands just to get a game published in a magazine huh?

Been there. Done that. What a PITA!!!

[Guest Dean_JC78]

PCs are kind of stable right now. Mine is 2 years old (Except GFX Card is 1 year old) and can run any game I want on all high settings with no issue.

I tend to advise against laptops for gaming rigs because they cost more and are not set up to do real upgrades. If you MUST go with a laptop here are some min specs.

2gigs of ram. (4gigs optimal)

512 gfx card

17inch screen with nice high res ability

Those are your 3 main things for a gaming rig. The rest you can sacrifice on size and such like the CPU, HD, etc.

If you went with a desktop it would cost you way less. I am build a brand new PC that would be good for the next few years for under 2k. If I rebuilt my current PC which still runs anything on high, I could do it for half that. But if you build your own, you will have to trouble shoot it yourself unlike getting something from Dell, Alienware, etc.

If you buy a laptop... go Alienware and win your kids some extra "cool" points with his friends.

[Guest RISC777]

Only input I've got is go with a machine that has an nVidia video chip.

nVidia

notebook gaming

Edited March 14, 2009 by RISC777

[KahrMan]

Tell him to suck it up; that when you were a kid, you had to walk uphill both directions, in the snow and barefoot, just to use punch-cards to program the UNIVAC to play tic-tac-to with you.

Been there and done that.....problem is he doesn't care...

[KahrMan]

PCs are kind of stable right now. Mine is 2 years old (Except GFX Card is 1 year old) and can run any game I want on all high settings with no issue.

I tend to advise against laptops for gaming rigs because they cost more and are not set up to do real upgrades. If you MUST go with a laptop here are some min specs.

2gigs of ram. (4gigs optimal)

512 gfx card

17inch screen with nice high res ability

Those are your 3 main things for a gaming rig. The rest you can sacrifice on size and such like the CPU, HD, etc.

If you went with a desktop it would cost you way less. I am build a brand new PC that would be good for the next few years for under 2k. If I rebuilt my current PC which still runs anything on high, I could do it for half that. But if you build your own, you will have to trouble shoot it yourself unlike getting something from Dell, Alienware, etc.

If you buy a laptop... go Alienware and win your kids some extra "cool" points with his friends.

Thanks for the info.

[DaveTN]

Buy the most you can afford (or want to spend at the time). Games are defining computers today. Use to be CAD and others graphics applications; they are nothing compared to today’s games.

Ask him what he wants; he probably knows more than most of the people responding here.

But most any up to date computer should be able to keep up with on-line gaming. Lag is caused by your internet speed not your computer speed. (Unless you have a really old computer.)

[Guest RISC777]

Also keep in mind a portable/notebook can have externals attached to enhance the use of it when playing games - external display, external mouse or/and other gaming devices, external speakers, etc.

[Rightwinger]

Make him take out the trash and be happy to have a Mom an Dad and a place to sleep tonight.