As more and more of us switch from computers to laptops, one of the key questions asked by customers is ‘how can I improve my laptop for gaming?'
One of the first points to note is that advances in technology mean you don't need to have a dedicated gaming laptop to enjoy playing computer games. Serious gamers will still benefit from taking on-board all the appropriate technology that is available, especially if their taste is at the more cutting-edge side of the market. However, nowadays even notebooks are perfectly capable of providing excellent gaming platforms.
As far as technological advancements go, there have been many factors which have led to this improvable in the gaming potential of even the cheapest laptops. Foremost amongst these are the improvements that have been made to processors, such as the Core 2 Duo. This is now available in budget machines, while the Atom processor is now available in dual-core spins. All these innovations help to propel gamers through multi-threaded games at an excellent pace.
As well as advances in processors, memory capabilities have come forward in leaps and bounds. A capacity that would previously have been unheard of for laptops, such as 1GB, is now available as standard. Not only that, it is also easy to upgrade any laptop's memory to 2GB or even more yourself.
The most noticeable area where there have been advances in the technology affecting gaming PCs has been through improvements to graphics.
Intel's Graphics Media Accelerator was once the frequent target of complaints by gamers – but this has come on immensely. It can now be utilized for playing games that once would have required computers causing many thousands of dollars.
In order to get computer games performing at reasonable speeds, you really need to select lower quality settings. The one point to note is that there are the occasional games out there that demand DX10 hardware. Even this isn't necessarily as limiting as it first appears. Intel offers support for the DX10 API with the GMA X3100, 4500 and HD ranges. For compatibility reasons, most games offer a DX9 codepath in any case. In addition, all the Intel chips support the revision of
Microsoft's API. And while DX11 hardware has been available for a while, there are no DX11-only titles on the shelves, and few under development.
Your machine's desktop display is the biggest barrier to a favorable gaming experience. Best to drop this as low as it will go, until your reach the ideal minimum of 30fps. Experimenting with settings will eventually produce the optimum combination.