Project64 on a notebook?

[cartz]

Hi,

I currently own a Mac but want to get a notebook PC in order to run Project64. I want to buy a second hand machine and not buy anything more powerful than needed to successfully run Project64 hence spending as little as possible.

What I'm unsure of is video specs for notebooks because all of the requirements listings refer to additional video cards that are obviously not applicable to notebooks. Or is it simply the case that it won't run successfully on a notebook?

Thanks,

cartz.

 

[RadeonUser]

I own a Dell Inspiron 8600 with a pentium m 1.6 ghz and a Radeon Mobility 9600 that doubles as my testing rig so PJ64 on a laptop is very possible.

For the best experience I'd say get a processor thats at least in the gigahertz range and try to get the video with pixel shaders. The latter may prove to be rather difficult to do since laptop video tends to have similar names to desktop counterparts but completely different specifications.

If a pixel shader capable laptop is out of the question as it can get quite pricey then try to aim for something that people say is good. As far as I'm aware all work on the non shader side has come to a halt so not buying something with at least pixel shader 1.1 support would be a "bad" move in the long run.

If its *just* for PJ64 it doesnt need to have too much ram, 256MB or maybe even 128MB would be more than enough (Depending on the operating system). Video something with pixel shaders, the higher the better but the more expensive. A cpu thats 800 mhz to 1 ghz+ should be more than enough unless you want to run the more intense games.

 

[ScottJC]

Depends which game you want run in Project64, Perfect Dark/Goldeneye for example won't run well unless you've got about 2ghz under the hood, the rest is not as bad, though.

I've got a laptop, it ran Tetrisphere pretty well but it is about running about 2.4ghz; I should expect nothing less

 

[Knuckles]

using an old laptop or one having a crappy video card in (SiS/intel) will need more CPU power to run. Just take smth that is in the same specs as (at least) the minimum requirement for PJ64

even on my P3 750, using a good combination of video plugin and video settings, I can get some games to run ok... not the top quality due to the crappy ATI M1 8Mb in it but I can play some games...

 

[Acorn]

More comments on the slow side:

I have a P3 600, ATI M1 again (laptop). It will run a few games, like Knuckle's. Really, the choice is as much emulator and games... if you are willing to put 98 on, you can run Corn - it'll run full speed for all the games it runs. 1964, or even ultrahle with a glide wrapper will run a few more games at reasonable speeds on slow comps.

Since you specificaly ask about Project64, I can give you the specs of my slowest desktop system that will run games fullspeed.

A 1GHz P3 with 256mb of ram, windows xp, and a tnt2 orig (16mb I think). Hopefully that is helpful, you've already been given information on what to look for in the higher end.

 

[gamefreaks]

My advice is to go for CPU speed. I have a Sony C1-MHP with a 866Mhz Transmeta Crusoe, and a Mobility Radeon M6. (No pixel shaders, no vertex shaders, no TnL).

With Jabo's D3d, the graphics are fine (Just as good as the 6800GT in my desktop, but some games are quite slow. (~40VI/Sec, CPU taking 60-75%)

 

[Smiff]

i don't know anything about notebooks, but i should warn you, in the long term, pixel shaders v2+ will be more and more important for N64 emulation. the blend modes the N64 has are too complex for anything else, if you want correct high level emulation (and low level would require a missively faster cpu and not look nearly as good anyway). just my 2p.