New laptop good enough for Ys games?

[althena77]

Hello!

I want to buy a new laptop and as my old one was not capable of playing the 3D Ys games (VI, Felghana and Origins) I want to buy this time one, that I can also use to play these three games. I am otherwise no pc gamer and it doesn't need to be able to play other newer pc games.

One laptop I am thinking about to buy is the Acer Aspire 4920G:

global.acer.com/products/notebook/as4920g.htm

The graphic card is called ATI Mobility Radeon X2500. I read about this card, that it is not useful for playing the latest pc games but good enough for older games or later games in lower resolutions. But I think the Ys games do not use high end graphics (one reason why I like them so much as an old school gamer) so I wonder if this laptop would be capable to play the newer Ys games with and also not just in the lower resolutions.

I am not often playing games on a pc (still spend a lot of time with my Super NES ) so it is hard for me to tell for sure, but could anyone tell by just looking at the specifications of the laptop or the graphic card?

Thank you very much and greetings!

althena77

[FM-77AV]

Nice specs. This computer can play all Ys games without problems. Probably on top settings as well. Insta-buy!

[Varion]

Acer... sigh. I used to have an Acer laptop, it worked okay for the year the warranty was valid, then a few months after it was no longer covered it started falling apart with the screen turning into a blur of messy colours every so often (particularly after the screen turned back on) and games being so horribly plagued with scan lines going down them (which gives you a raging headache in 5 minutes flat) that I had to hook it up to a CRT monitor to play Origin. Which, as you can imagine, kind of defeats the object of having a laptop in the first place. Few months later the DVD drive refused to read DVDs and took like 90% of the RAM to burn them, and eventually I just gave up and bought a new one (an Asus this time, who seem to have a much better reputation than Acer while still being reasonably priced unlike, say, Sony laptops. I've only had it for a few weeks though so I can't commend on long-term survivability, though I'm pleased so far.)

As for the specs, the graphics card should be absolutely fine for Ys, probably indeed on high settings, and the rest of the specs are more than enough. It's just the make, Acer most certainly aren't known for build quality, and I certainly wouldn't buy one of their products again, though some people say they're improving and you might not have the same experiences I did.

In short, it'll play Ys fine, but how long it'll play them for before falling apart is debatable

[Adol.Christin]

Many people with an Acer experience the same problems, Asus or Toshiba is so much better in quality.

[althena77]

Thank you very much for all the replies after just one day and also the warnings

Hmm, my laptop right now is an IBM T23. Not good enough for the 3D Ys games but it was more than enough for Ys I/II Eternal and Ys I-II Complete (the first pc games I was really looking forward to in my life maybe ). However I did buy it maybe almost 5 years ago and it is working great, I only had to fix the cooler once.
I don't expect such a performance anymore these days but I still would like to use the laptop longer than just the period or the warranty so maybe I will check some other models out. Is maybe anyone playing here the 3D Ys games on a laptop and could recommend me a laptop?
Just the Ys games would be enough for and not just in lowest resolution.

Thanks again and greetings

[Varion]

Well, a little difficult to do because many models are only available in certain countries, and I imagine you'd have better luck finding good sites than me because I don't speak German. Really though, at the end of the day most laptops these days will be able to run them fine, because pretty much every new one comes preinstalled with Vista, and that demands decent enough specs anyway (the only exceptions being the really bottom of the range ones with Vista Home Basic, but there don't seem to be many of those). If you want to avoid Vista then you're going to be seriously limited, but seen as the one you linked has it I'm guessing that's not the case anyway.

I suppose if you're looking for well lasting anything with a dual core, 2gb of RAM and a dedicated graphics card will be plenty. Most dedicated cards should be able to handle Ys on max settings without breaking a sweat (and if it can't then the problem lies with poor optimisation on Falcom's part - and if that's the case everyone is going to be feeling it anyway), and if it says anything about supporting DirectX10, well, you're sorted - even if it can't play DX10 games well, Ys games aren't the level where they'd benefit from DX10 at all anyway. Most brands should be fine enough, though as I said earlier I'd recommend against Acer, and I don't seem to recall hearing much good about Dell either. Other than that it's more an issue of money, Asus seem to have the best balance between price and quality, Toshiba are a little more expensive but also seem to have a good reputation. For the record, I'm currently using this and Origin runs fine with it, laptop barely breaks a sweat, and I usually run it along with a bunch of browser windows, a few downloads, and a few kanji lookup programs.

In other words, go hunt round a few online shops and such nearish you for stuff like that and see if there are any reviews (though the use of reviews is pretty limited anyway seen as by the time people have had them for over a year they've been replaced by new models anyway). A 2 year or more warranty is a big plus too, if my last one had been 2 years I could've got a replacement... but ah well. Current one has a 2 year, but hopefully it'll last longer than that anyway.

[althena77]

Thank you very much for the long and detailed reply, I will follow your suggestions and browse a little more around and try to avoid Acer and Dell. There should be still enough time, I just want to have it here before my winter holidays start

I am not that eager to use Vista but I am also not trying to avoid it, at least I could have a first look at it and if I don't like it I can go back to XP.
But talking about Vista, do all the Ys games run fine under it? I read here, that for example Felghana is not compatible with Vista (the red line):

www.falcom.co.jp/ysf/order/index.html

And it seems, that because of that Falcom released a special version for Vista:

www.falcom.co.jp/ysf/index.html

The "problem" now is, that I did order most of my games in my Falcom game collection from the Falcom Mail Order Store and I preordered them to get the limited editions (like the great Ys I-II Complete collection in the box that looks like a book of Ys). So my Felghana will most likely not be the new Vista compatible version.
Did anyone here try the original version of Felghana under Vista, is there really no way to use it under Vista? How about the XP compatibility mode?

Thanks again and greetings!

[althena77]

Thanks again for a detailed reply

Knowing that the games run under Vista should make it much easier to find a new computer these days

When I made up my mind which one to buy and tested the games on it I will let you know about my experiences here.

Thanks again and greetings!