I bought a laptop!

[stuh505]

Well, it's about time.  What kind of 21 year old computer science / computer engineering student doesn't own a laptop?

After being forced to adjust to other people's mouses at work, after constantly crawling into the dusty dark behind other people's PC's to insert my USB storage device into their unweilding crannies, after faithfully lugging my 80 pound monitor up 6 flights of stairs 10 times in the past year, after considering taking up an off-shore internship...I finally decided to take the plunge..it should be here in a few days...and I can't wait!

Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz,, 512MB DDRAM, 60GB HD, DVD+R/RW and CD-RW Combo Drive, 15.4" TFT Widescreen, 56K, 10/100 Ethernet, 54g wireless LAN, WIN XP  $1250

I think it was a pretty good deal.

But I'm a bit confused about the memory:
•  533MHz Front Side Bus 
•  512KB L2 cache 
•  512MB (2 x 256MB) 333MHz DDR SDRAM; 
•  maximum memory 1280MB(1 x expandable to 256MB, 1 x 1024MB) 

It seems that they are saying it has 2 slots for RAM, one of them can only fit a 256MB, the other can fit 1 GB...but it only has a 256 MB in each of them now.  Is that correct?

Also, I didn't know that RAM had a frequency associated with it (333 MHz)...what is the relevance of this number?

Also, if the L2 cache is in addition to the 2x 256 MB chips...why isn't that included in the total summary (512 MB)?

Oh, and what's the relevancy of the front side bus frequency?

I'm thinking about taking the plunge and upgrading one of the RAM cards to 1 GB (for $300) since I plan to load all of my modelling software onto it.

[stuh505]

Oh one more question...

ATI MOBILITYâ,,¢ RADEONâ,,¢ 9200 with 64MB DDR SDRAM (dedicated)

Would this be better or worse than a NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti 4200 64 MB RAM?

[BOYD1981]

remember to keep backups of anything important incase you accidentally drop the laptop and somehow wipe the harddrive, or if it get's stolen...
i'm guessing the Radeon 9200 is better than the GeForce4, as it's an ATI card

[Haddas]

I have both of those cards, and ATis one is better

[stuh505]

really?  because the ati one is the one integrated into the laptop and the geforce is a full size one in my tower...i figured the ati is a little bit newer, but that perhaps they still werent as good as full size ones

[edmundito]

Well, it's about time.  What kind of 21 year old computer science / computer engineering student doesn't own a laptop?

I don't

I need one, though! Maybe I should get mo' money.

[stuh505]

I don't

I need one, though! Maybe I should get mo' money.

You don't need more money, you just need to eat a little less pizza and a little more ramen, and wear the same clothes for more years at a time...

[stuh505]

I have both of those cards, and ATis one is better

Well I just got the laptop, and discovered that this ATI card is not even REMOTELY CLOSE to being as good as the GeForce one.  I mean, it is not even in the same league.  The GeForce could run Doom3 in 1280x1024 at maximum texture quality, whereas this ATI card won't even ALLOW me to play it at anything higher than 640x280...which is not very smooth...and the colors and contrast are messed up and it doesn't look half as good s the GeForce playing it in 640x480.  What the heck?  You obviously haven't used these two cards!

[Sylpher]

Doom 3 is better optomized to run under nvidia cards. Since those cards are considerably neck and neck, Doom 3 will naturally run better on the nvidia. However, Doom3 isn't exactly the end all be all of gaming utopia. Try some other games from varrying developers and publishers to get a good idea on the range of the card. Or better yet check your 3dmark score.

Front Side Bus (FSB) in short is the speed the memory can pass information to the CPU.

L2 Cache is a sort of mini RAM that is faster, but holds less.

The RAM's frequency is 333 mhz, considering it is DDR (Double Data Rate) if I remember correctly that would make it pc2700. This is the speed at which your RAM, itself, operates. I use the word operates cause calculates seems like it would be calling it a processing unit and I don't want to do that.

From what it looks like you have 2 slots of ram right now containing 256 mb each. Only 1 of those slots is upgradable up to 1024 mb. You will need to check your manual (or the slot itself may be marked somehow) to know which it is.

All these answers are pretty generalized.. If you would like more indepth knowledge on any of them the information is widely available.

[TheDude - LOGGED OUT]

I have both of those cards, and ATis one is better

Well I just got the laptop, and discovered that this ATI card is not even REMOTELY CLOSE to being as good as the GeForce one.Ã,  I mean, it is not even in the same league.Ã,  The GeForce could run Doom3 in 1280x1024 at maximum texture quality, whereas this ATI card won't even ALLOW me to play it at anything higher than 640x280...which is not very smooth...and the colors and contrast are messed up and it doesn't look half as good s the GeForce playing it in 640x480.Ã,  What the heck?Ã,  You obviously haven't used these two cards!

I've got a:
P4 2.6ghz
512MB RAM
60GB HD
DVD R/RW
Mobility Radeon 9600 64MB

It cost me £800 (about $1600 i believe), but that was a little less than a year ago.

Go here http://www.driverheaven.net/patje/, this tool will let you install the latest Catalyst drivers onto the MobilityRadeon, maybe that'll fix the gaming problems you have.

[stuh505]

Sylpher, this isn't really a question of "optimized" at this point...the image quality is so bad that I can barely make out what things are supposed to be, and so choppy that I could not even play smoothly at the lowest settings.  I will check out those Catalyst drivers though and maybe that will solve the problem, we'll see.  I don't really play Doom3, I am just using it as a test.

[Flippy_D]

My Radeon 9800 pro was glitching up on DOOM3, so I installed the catalyst drivers and *shazam*, it was fine.

The game, however, was rubbish, and is now uninstalled and given back to my friend.

[stuh505]

I downloaded that Catalyst thing, but the appropriate folder for it didn't seem to exist -- no folders called ATI.  There was a folder called ATI Technologies that had something in it.  So I went to ATI and downloaded their display bundle driver.  I ran the setup for that...and it says, appropriate hardware or software not found.  In the help file, it says to make sure you uninstall the previous one...so I go to add remove programs and remove the 2 ATI things I found there...ATI display driver and ATI console (i think thats what the 2nd one ws called).  After doing that, I restarted...then tried to run the ATI driver setup program again...same error message.  So I use windows update and it installs some software that allows it to see the ATI card again.  Once again I try to run the ATI setup program--same error.  ?