Advice on Computer Purchase? EDIT: I really messed up.

The Crowing One

Hey everyone!

I've had a long-running desire to purchase a laptop for gaming-on-the-go. For the majority of my life I've been a huge supporter of consoles, but over the last year I've been making a huge shift to Steam/GoG/etc. for PC gaming. I also tend to travel for work (see my sticky) 50% of each month, and this isn't often a huge issue but sometimes I'll end up in the middle of nowhere by myself in a hotel room. I have plenty to keep me occupied, but it would be awesome if I could hop on and run a round of TF/Tribes with my girlfriend or just sit back and enjoy Dear Esther.

I currently haul a lot of devices around with me: my company laptop, three phones and my A500 tablet. I can't game on my company computer (duh), and Android is still a very, very limited platform for gaming.

There are a few options I've been mulling over:

1) I could buy a mid-range laptop. Pretty self-explanatory. I wouldn't, necessarily, want to have something that could run the latest and greatest at 60fps, but if it could run games from 2006-2009 decently, I'd be very happy and would get a ton of use out of it. Team Fortress is my primary game, so the bar isn't set too high.

2) I've spoken with my boss and my company's IT dept and they've given me a thumbs up on booting off a eSATA external drive (basically, as long as I can't access the company internal drive with my own OS and mess stuff up, they have no issue). I'm a bit wary of this, but the laptop in question is pretty new and could handle what I want to throw at it. I'm also a bit squeemish about this option, for understandable reasons. It's also the cheapest option, as I could pick up what I need for about $100, easy. let's just say that my company computer is closer to the $2k range than otherwise.

3) Not buy a new PC. I'm also pretty fine with this, as I'm really pretty comfortable with my current entertainment options, even if they're limited.

4) I also have an old, old Dell Inspiron 6000 that used to be able to handle things like The Longest Journey and Diablo 2 without a sweat, but now seems to be unable to do anything besides precariously lock up sometimes when browsing the web. I have written this old laptop off (it's from 2006 and wasn't that great then), but if I could breathe some life into it and get even something like Half-Life working (it did, once upon a time) I'd be very happy.

My budget is rather a value proposition, but I will say that I'd hope to keep any new laptop at the under $500 range. I don't want/need a $2k system (my home PC is for that kind of stuff). If I could find something that would run TF2 decently for $300, I'd jump.

So, H/A, any thoughts? Any suggestions? Anyone have any experience with option #2? I'm really just looking at exploring some options, and the most likely result will be option #3. if there's a way to get in some actual gaming on those lonely nights, it would be awesome.

Thanks!

bowen

I'd honestly say go the eSata route. The last thing you want to do is carry around 10+ lbs worth of laptop if you go anywhere.

The Crowing One

Yeah, I tend to agree, Bowen, though I'm hesitant to tinker with my work computer. In addition to my IT dept., I spoke to a friend in IT who went through some boot exercises with me and thought that I wouldn't have any issue with the company going that route (i.e. I'd have an issue if PointSec stayed active or if there were any communication between my external OS and my internal drive). I'd be curious if anyone has experience with PointSec to confirm or deny.

But it certainly seems the simplest and cheapest option.

bowen

You're using encryption and all that? I had assumed they'd set the boot order to the eSata port first, so anytime you plugged in your drive it'd boot to that, then to the internal one if not present. If the work drive is encrypted then you're probably fine, the OS on the eSata would likely just ignore it?

I don't deal too much with hardware based encryption so someone else would be better to answer that one.

schuss

Honestly, I'd double-fist laptops. I tend to do it for any extended travel for my work (thankfully rare), but it's not that bad when you check your work laptop. That said, I work for a large company with all important data on the network profile vs. local on the laptop.

The Crowing One

schuss wrote: »

Honestly, I'd double-fist laptops. I tend to do it for any extended travel for my work (thankfully rare), but it's not that bad when you check your work laptop. That said, I work for a large company with all important data on the network profile vs. local on the laptop.

Yeah, I'm not opposed to carrying two laptops. On top of my normal packing it really doesn't make a huge difference. I have a lug around a bunch of stuff, and the majority of travel I do is by car so I have the benefit of a larger large mobile storage locker.

The real question is if any of those $250 Asus models could handle TF2 without me wanted to break it. If I'm going to buy a new laptop I'd kick myself if it couldn't run at least TF2 well (that's pretty much my benchmark). Any suggestions in the sub $500 range? is that even worthwhile at that price?

bowen

Eh that's pushing it, you could probably run everything on low-medium? I probably wouldn't spend less than $1200 for a laptop to do gaming on, especially things that use source like TF2 and l4d2 type stuff.

The Crowing One

bowen wrote: »

Eh that's pushing it, you could probably run everything on low-medium? I probably wouldn't spend less than $1200 for a laptop to do gaming on, especially things that use source like TF2 and l4d2 type stuff.

Alright, that's helpful. I'm pretty computer literate, but laptops are their own beast, it feels like. That eSATA options is looking better and better.

bowen

Yeah the lower end laptops tend to be cheap on video card level stuff, but I've been out of the loop for a year or two so that may not be the case? The sub 800 ones always had cheap intel cards.

schuss

bowen wrote: »

Eh that's pushing it, you could probably run everything on low-medium? I probably wouldn't spend less than $1200 for a laptop to do gaming on, especially things that use source like TF2 and l4d2 type stuff.

I have a laptop I bought 3+ years ago for $600 that runs everything up through D3 fine. Connect a mouse and you can FPS without issue.

bowen

What level of settings though? Most people can't stand not running on high for those. I can't imagine you'd be running D3 on a 600$ 3 year old laptop on anything more than low.

schuss

bowen wrote: »

What level of settings though? Most people can't stand not running on high for those. I can't imagine you'd be running D3 on a 600$ 3 year old laptop on anything more than low.

Yes, the settings are low, but I don't really play games for the graphics. Hell, for LoL and SC2 I tanked my own settings for quicker framerates.

bowen

Yeah. Some people really like dem dynamic shadows.

The Crowing One

bowen wrote: »

Yeah. Some people really like dem dynamic shadows.

I'm in a similar boat as Schuss in that I don't care as much about high settings. I get that on my pc at home where I do the majority of my gaming. Schuss, what did you get?

Griswold

Some laptop options in the $500-$700 range with non-terrible graphics. None of these are amazing, but they'll run TF2 fine.

I also happen to hate 17.3" laptops. I think they're ridiculously large and unwieldy.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246328
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215411
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215417
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834214870

schuss

The Crowing One wrote: »

bowen wrote: »

Yeah. Some people really like dem dynamic shadows.

I'm in a similar boat as Schuss in that I don't care as much about high settings. I get that on my pc at home where I do the majority of my gaming. Schuss, what did you get?

I game on an old inspiron 15 with a mobile nvidia card. Just pump the RAM and proc, as well as make sure there's a real video card in it. My desktop is getting long in the tooth as well, but it's still reasonably pretty. It's insane how overpowered most modern computers are.

Gaslight

schuss wrote: »

I game on an old inspiron 15 with a mobile nvidia card. Just pump the RAM and proc, as well as make sure there's a real video card in it. My desktop is getting long in the tooth as well, but it's still reasonably pretty. It's insane how overpowered most modern computers are.

We can thank consoles for holding game development back.

schuss

I don't think consoles are to blame, I think it's more that assets that look good at super-HD resolutions are EXPENSIVE. I would not go over 15" on a laptop you actively plan on traveling with.

Draygo

Ok few things of note, booting windows 7 off a usb is a very difficult task to get setup. Esata is much better but depending on the laptop you may have issues. When you hit that point post in this thread and I should be able to scounge up my step by step on how to get win7 booting off an external esata disk without some of the issues I ran into when I did it.

bowen

eSATA isn't USB. eSATA should be recognized just like an internal SATA disk to the BIOS.

The Crowing One

I'm leaning heavily on the eSATA route. Here' the laptop I'd be running it through: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834157632

I assume it'll be pretty simple to hook it up and install an os. Any thoughts?

corky842

With HPs and other modern laptops, you usually just hit a key at POST to select the boot device.
Make sure your IT department has a recent backup of your laptop, just in case you do something silly like install the new copy of windows to the internal drive.

The Crowing One

corky842 wrote: »

With HPs and other modern laptops, you usually just hit a key at POST to select the boot device.
Make sure your IT department has a recent backup of your laptop, just in case you do something silly like install the new copy of windows to the internal drive.

Yeah, I'm going to do the OS install from my personal PC so I don't screw anything up. I should have the external drive by Wednesday (in time for my next trip on Thursday). This is probably all solved unless I come accross any issues with the boot order. It should be pretty straightforward.

bowen

Be careful with that, if you don't install it on the system you're going to use, you may have issues with certain drivers not present (if the host computer's SATA uses ACHI instead of IDE or whatever). Plus motherboard drivers and all that.

The Crowing One

bowen wrote: »

Be careful with that, if you don't install it on the system you're going to use, you may have issues with certain drivers not present (if the host computer's SATA uses ACHI instead of IDE or whatever). Plus motherboard drivers and all that.

Good point. I'm going to play it as safe as possible to begin. Worst case is that I'd just wipe and reinstall on the laptop if necessary.

Jars

if you have your home machine you probably know not to buy something with an integrated card? well, either way do not buy anything with an intel graphics card. they have a fraction of the power of even the cheapest dedicated card.

The Crowing One

Jars wrote: »

if you have your home machine you probably know not to buy something with an integrated card? well, either way do not buy anything with an intel graphics card. they have a fraction of the power of even the cheapest dedicated card.

I'm going with an external eSATA booting from my work computer, which has an integrated card. If it can run older games okay I'm fine.

The Crowing One

Alright, so I really messed up.

I installed the new OS onto my external drive, and now I can't boot back into my normal drive. "The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible." is the message I now show.

Is this a bootloader issue? The internal is XP and I installed Win7. I'm screwed.

Dehumanized

Yeah, the bootloader probably ended up getting moved over to your eSATA drive. You'll need to boot from a Windows XP disc and repair your install. I haven't had to do one in a while (the Windows 7 bootloader process is different), so any additional guidance I could offer past that point would be via google...

Jebus314

The Crowing One wrote: »

Alright, so I really messed up.

I installed the new OS onto my external drive, and now I can't boot back into my normal drive. "The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible." is the message I now show.

Is this a bootloader issue? The internal is XP and I installed Win7. I'm screwed.

Sounds like a bootloader issue. Are you trying to boot into the internal, through the bootloader, with the external plugged in? What happens if you remove the external drive? Seems like you should have the bootloader installed on the external drive, and when it is removed, the internal should just boot normally.

edit- I'm just going to add that I don't really know anything about bootloaders. Maybe installing one anywhere nixes the other ones that exist. At any rate, the repair disc is a good suggestion.

finalflight89

Windows likes to only have one bootloader - you're going to need to repair the bootloader on your main hard drive, then add an option to boot to the external.

The Crowing One

finalflight89 wrote: »

Windows likes to only have one bootloader - you're going to need to repair the bootloader on your main hard drive, then add an option to boot to the external.

Can you do that from an OS booting on a different drive?

Dehumanized

Should be possible. Can't give you XP-centric instructions, but my current system has the main OS on a separate disk from where the bootloader is located. You'll need to get into repair/recovery mode, though.

The Crowing One

Dehumanized wrote: »

Should be possible. Can't give you XP-centric instructions, but my current system has the main OS on a separate disk from where the bootloader is located. You'll need to get into repair/recovery mode, though.

I've been reading and trying, but I can't seem to get it to work.

corky842

Remove the esata drive first. Basically what you do is insert the XP install disc and boot from it. Then something should come up that says something like "A previous installation was found, press r to get to the recovery prompt." So push r and a command prompt should come up. Type "fixmbr" and it should fix the problem.