Gaming on the go. Mobile PC gaming challenge!

Sonar

I'm a dedicated gamer. PC only please and I haven't touched my 360 in months. My roommates like to joke about being able to launch shuttles from my room. Nothing like that really, NASA only uses me as a triple backup.

But I'm going to take a new job soon and it's possibly one of the most difficult jobs to regularly game with. I'm talking about becoming a truck driver.


Don't laugh (ok laugh) but it's one of the few jobs with a warm body only requirement and 50k+ out of the gate. I figure I do this a couple of years, I'm out of debt and ready to go back to school.

That does leave me in a nasty position concerning gaming though. So I turn to you dear forumites with too much time on your hands, I want the ultimate mobile gaming rig.

Rules:

It has to be chargeable from the truck without killing said trucks batteries running or otherwise.

It has to truly be mobile. I understand that outside of a wireless Xbox type controller there will be no true game peripherals. No more HOTAS on a regular basis.

It's gotta be capable of good wifi access, location dependant (kinda easy this, pretty much anything out there has wii, but if theres a good mobile way to boost the signal...)

It's gotta handle the games. Not just Civ4 or TF2. It's gotta at handle Sims 3 with ease and at least let me edit missions in ARMA2.

Frankly I'm looking at an Alienware gamer laptop after a couple of paychecks.

But I want any advice you good folks can shove in my direction.


Thanks!

bobmyknob

I think those Alienware laptops are your best bet. Since you'll be charging/running it off of the truck battery a small form factor PC is out of the question, and the laptops will (hopefully) be more power efficient. Just read up on laptop video cards to make sure you're getting a capable one. Obviously battery life will be ridiculously short, so you're going to have to have it plugged in whenever you're gaming.

For the wi-fi question, there are some wireless cards that have plugs for external antennas.

ronya

Consider a Sager, I guess. I've been hearing bad things about Alienware on the interwebs.

True mobility and high-end gaming really don't work well together, but I daresay any new upper-tier laptop will be able to handle the games you mention (but not necessarily on maximum settings). Dell XPS and such. You only need to look to Sager and Alienware and so on if you want to run games at max settings, but these are invariably not quite mobile.

A mobile laptop will have a 17" screen or less, anyway, so be aware of this when checking video card capabilities. You won't need that 1920x1600 performance capability if your 15" screen only has 1366x768.

You mentioned charging; be aware that getting one full hour of battery life while gaming is already very good. This is true no matter what laptop you use. If you want battery life while gaming, you'll have to get used to a handheld.

WiFi: use a USB external or PCMCIA card with support for an antenna. I'm not sure random wifi outlets will be usable for TF2 play, but you might get lucky...

Apogee

I'm a bit jarred at your requirements - a good gaming laptop eats batteries and cost a ton. I'd personally go for a good netbook, and get some old-but-good games on it. Old Mechwarrior/Commander, Deus Ex, you get the picture. Seems much more reasonable to me, especially if you're trying to get *out* of debt :P.

WraithXt1

I'm about to have the same issue next time I deploy to Iraq or afghanistan.

I plan to pick up one of those newfangled laptops with the DESKTOP i7 processor in them. The battery life is under 30 mins, but you have a full powered desktop processor in it to kick games in the teeth with.

kpeezy

Don't get a netbook...

I like the idea of using a wireless 360 controller. Lots of games support it now natively and I bet it would be a lot more convenient than KB/M. Also, as long as you charge the laptop while driving, it shouldn't have any affect on the truck's battery, right? That's how I understood it. When I was young our baseball team would have a SNES and TV running in the car off of the cigarette lighters so I bet the laptop would be fine.

Just get something with the specs to run what you want and I bet you'll be fine.

Frem

A gaming laptop isn't a desktop, but it's still going to eat a lot of power. If that's an issue, what Apogee said is rather good advice. Speaking as someone who games on an Intel graphics card, it's really not that bad, and I suspect a netbook would have a longer lifespan. I've seen several people with gaming laptops at my university, and most of them have had issues with overheating at some point.

I dunno. But for your requirement that it be a PC, I'd almost have to recommend grabbing a DS and a copy of Civ Revolutions.

kpeezy

Have you guys even used a netbook? Browsing the net can be a pain in the ass, much less trying to play a game.

He can't have a desktop. Netbook is a terrible recommendation since it does absolutely nothing he wants. There's no reason not to get a real laptop with specs that can actually run recent games. It's the only option he has. I assume it will almost never leave the charger so who gives a fuck about battery life.

Frem

kpeezy wrote: »

Have you guys even used a netbook? Browsing the net can be a pain in the ass, much less trying to play a game.

I've used several. The horribleness of using it largely depends on which one you get.

kpeezy wrote: »

It's the only option he has.

He has plenty of options for gaming on the go; he's just artificially limiting them to this particular area. There's nothing wrong with that, but if he's going this route he needs to be extra careful about what he buys.

The primary concern for gaming on a laptop is heat. Make sure it's well ventilated. You probably won't want it on your lap, some of these things heat up to 55+ degrees Celsius.

A secondary concern is power consumption. You can easily be looking at a constant power usage of ~100 watts while gaming. Is this going to be an issue if you're running it (and possibly a fan or air conditioner) off a truck battery?

NotebookCheck is pretty much completely invaluable for researching this sort of thing. They do extremely detailed analysis of many laptop models.

Dark Shroud

Recommending a netbook for this kind of situation is just stupid.

If you go the 360 controller route then you should order a wired one from Amazon. It won't require chargeing and you won't have to deal with the wifi dongle or play & charge kit.

Stormwatcher

The said he wants to play current games. He knows PC games. He knows he wants modern games. He's probably played the old games a lot already.
Telling him to buy a netbook and play 10 year old games is pretty bad advice.

Dark Shroud

So I found this thing at newegg, it's prety beefy: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834147996

You can back off to a duel core just make sure you have a dedicated video card with it's own memory.

Ex: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115594

corky842

Alienware isn't the only one that makes gamer-quality laptops. Pretty much anything with a good-quality non-integrated video card should handle games fine. Besides the major manufacturers like Dell, HP, etc., Asus has some good ones.

One thing to consider is the mouse. Because you mentioned the 360 pad, I assume you're comfortable playing shooters and such with a gamepad. If you aren't, there might not be enough space to easily use a mouse. Don't get the tiny laptop mice, they really suck.

Get a cooling pad or something. You aren't going to want to play for long with the laptop roasting your legs and other, more vulnerable, parts of your anatomy.

For the wireless signal, it's possible to get an external card and replace the antenna with a cantenna. That should help with the signal in some areas, but it usually requires you to void the warranty of a wireless card. Probably best to do that with a used card, or just look for one with a replaceable antenna.

Frem

corky842 wrote: »

One thing to consider is the mouse. Because you mentioned the 360 pad, I assume you're comfortable playing shooters and such with a gamepad. If you aren't, there might not be enough space to easily use a mouse. Don't get the tiny laptop mice, they really suck.

Get a trackball. They doesn't take much space, and they're phenomenal for first person shooters. They are really awkward to use for about two weeks and your score will go through the floor, but then you get used to it and it's amazing.

The only problem is that you have to spend 30 seconds or so cleaning the little rollers before each gaming session. :P

Dark Shroud

Frem wrote: »

corky842 wrote: »

One thing to consider is the mouse. Because you mentioned the 360 pad, I assume you're comfortable playing shooters and such with a gamepad. If you aren't, there might not be enough space to easily use a mouse. Don't get the tiny laptop mice, they really suck.

Get a trackball. They doesn't take much space, and they're phenomenal for first person shooters. They are really awkward to use for about two weeks and your score will go through the floor, but then you get used to it and it's amazing.

The only problem is that you have to spend 30 seconds or so cleaning the little rollers before each gaming session. :P

If you're going to get a trackball make sure you get a Trackman specifically. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826104156

I had the original serial model and it was awesome. They don't need that much cleaning, about once a month or so depending on how oily your hands are vs how often you wash them.

killa283

whatever you do

dont custom build an alienware unless you are getting atleast 10 of the same one.

they will take your money when you order it
they will not start building the laptop until they have all the parts for it.
they will not stock the parts for it until they have a certain number of orders for the same laptop (10)
if it needs warranty work, they will not fix it until they get the part they need
they will not stock the part they need until they have a certain number of orders for the same part (10?)
they will keep your laptop until it is fixed
so, if the screen is broken and is no longer made/purchaseable, you will never get the laptop back.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

battery life is gonna suck. period. im not sure how much drain itll take from a car battery, but you will probably be fine for a while with any power inverter

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ASUS makes some fairly nice "gaming" laptops. you can find a P8700 + 6GB RAM + GTX260M laptop for about $1100.

I bought one in May for $1200 and it only had a 9800M. If I had only waited...
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The biggest problem in performance!
COOLING!
the newer ASUS laptops will get even hotter. a gtx260m running in the same form factor as a 9800m may be just as good as the 9800m

the one i have, with the 9800m, already blows out extremely hot air when maxed out. a cooling pad + exhaust turbocharger helps quite a bit, but only to a point.

i really dont know if its possible to get max performance out of that hardware with just a cooling pad and exhaust turbochargers.

~~~~~~~~~
crysis test

high will run smoothly with cooling pad and turbo chargers
medium will run smoothly with cooling pad

kpeezy

If I was getting a laptop mouse (I need to) I would definitely get the VX Nano. I actually like it. I've played with an MX518 for 4 or 5 years now I guess and the VX nano feels like they just kind of chopped off parts of an MX518 to make it smaller. It still feels really nice in your hand (I hold mice with my fingers and no palm fyi). Best Buy has it in store to play with where I live.

And WOW I can't imagine ever playing an FPS with a trackball. Does anyone who plays with a trackball want to play some kind of online FPS game with me? I really want to see how well someone can aim with a trackball mouse (seems so interesting). PM me or something.