Okay, I guess it isn't the end of the world but whenever I run games like Diablo, Age of Empires or Doom II from my notebook, only about 1/2 of the screen is used. I have tried nosing around the BIOS and display properties, but can't see how to get these programs full screen. Not matter what resolution I run, only that part of the display is used. It is a HP 3390n notebook with a Silicon Motion Lynx3DM display adapter.

Doesnt someone from HP browse this board? Is this just part of normal notebook life? I don't play games too often (can you tell by the old game titles?) so it is not too big of a deal, but it is a bummer for $2000.

This is why I have the policy of "Always ATI" on a laptop video chipset.

The effect you are seeing is due to the video card not expanding the image to fill the LCD, instead it is just displaying it at it's native resolution. (Remember, LCDs have a specific resolution. Say for example it has 800 pixels across and 600 down. If something is displayed at 640x480, a border of 80 on the top/bottom edge, and 60 pixels on the left/right sides will be used.) Double check the display control panal and the BIOS settings to make sure, but if there is not a setting for this, it probably won't let you stretch it.

All laptops I have seen with ATI based video solutions can stretch the image to full screen, and they do a nice job on both text and graphics. Other video solutions will stretch it, but leave horrid edge problems in text mode, and similar problems in graphical mode. If it's your decision on the laptop, always look at the video solution, since this is one of the main components of the laptop that you will have to deal with every time you use the system.

If you use one of the Windows code ports of doom, such as ZDoom or Doom Legacy, you will be able to run it full-screen. Just set the resolution to the screen's resolution.

AOE and Diablo are going to be trickier, as they do not allow different screen sizes if I recall correctly.

>> This is why I have the policy of "Always ATI" on a laptop video chipset.

Does anyone here have experience with notebooks containing the GeForce2GO chipset? I'm currently looking for a new notebook, and was considering the Dell Presicion M40, which should have plenty of horsepower for the next couple of years (it's a brick though).

I heard that new chip is the first notebook chip to actually have 3d support. I am not sure how well the 2d performance compares, but in the past, even if a notebook said "supports 3d" or something, it actually didn't. I guess the "chip" may have supported 3d, but often the integration to the notebook prevented it from functioning. The chip you mention is supposed to kick butt and if I were in the market for a notebook again, I would insist that it had one.

Does anyone here have experience with notebooks containing the GeForce2GO chipset?

Yes, and I still stnad with my Always ATI stance. It was somewhat groundbreaking when it came out in that you could play modern 3D games on it, but at low resolutions and a huge drain on the battery. It lacked features that ATI chips usually have for 2D, and didn't seem like a huge advantage. ATI had a Radeon Mobility at about the same time that had less of the 3d peformance, but better looking DVD, battery life, etc... NVidia is basicially a very good 3D chip maker, but the lack the experience I feel is necessary for a good all around solution like what a notebook needs.

ATI did just recently release a Mobility Radeon 7500 chip, and it is about equal to the ATI Radeon 32 meg cards in PCs. Not too shabby for a laptop, and it's currently the fastest 3D solution in the mobile space. NVidia is working on a chip to replace the GeForce2Go, but it's still a ways off from showing up in a laptop. Personally if you can find one, get a Mobility Radeon 7500 based system. Otherwise, decide what is more important. Moderate 3d peformance, but no extra frills on 2d + bad battery life, or poor 3d peformance, but great for everything else. Most laptops I see now in the "brick" range have either the ATI chip or the NVidia one.

(The experiences on the GeForce2Go relayed from an avid gamer friend who had a Dell with the chipset in it. He ended up selling it and went to a lighter laptop by another company with an older ATI chip in it. He now just plays games on his desktop again.)

My real problem with first-person-shooter gaming on a laptop isn't so much the graphics cards as it is the pixel persistence latency on LCD displays.

I mean, I can play QuakeWorld using software rendering just fine on any recent laptop. And for the LAN parties my friends and I put together, QuakeWorld is still the most popular. And for the big LAN parties, Half-life running Counterstrike will run fine on most laptops, too. So if I could bring a laptop to my LAN parties, it would really increase the portability and I would go to a lot more LAN parties. I'd buy a laptop if that were the case.

But I haven't bought a laptop. Because the screens still suck for first-person shooters. When I spin 180 degrees and shoot at someone, I need the pixels to crisply display each and every frame, not show me ghosts of the last twenty frames. By the time I can actually see what I'm looking at, I've overshot my mark by a dozen frames or so, and I miss, or I fall into the lava. Nope, can't have that.

But if EVERYONE is plying on a laptop, then the playing field must be more even.. but I don't have even a "decent" home machine, so I am not suffering from withdrawl. My notebook outpaces my home pc hands down... (except that only 40% of the screen is used on doom2!) I did manage 18 frags to my co-worker's one however.... which I DON'T recommend because now he won't play.

Brad

Well there is two things in the pipeline that may make things easier for lan goers. Forst is better LCDs. My Sony 18.1 inch isn't bad at all with the pixel refresh. All LCDs are not the same, so just like everything else its a matter of finding one that you can stand to use.

The other solution is flat panal CRTs. IBM came up with the design, and gave it to monitor makers. Expect cheeper then existing CRT displays to appear hopefully next year, with slightly more bulk then an LCD.

For a while, my lan gear was a desktop replacement class notebook (the one I had at the meet) with a mini dock holding a Voodoo 3. I would usually use a spare monitor at the persons house, and it worked well (Since at the time, we all worked at Gateway and bought at least one monitor, I grabbed a 27 inch while I was there for cheap).

The other solution is flat panal CRTs. IBM came up with the design, and gave it to monitor makers. Expect cheeper then existing CRT displays to appear hopefully next year, with slightly more bulk then an LCD.

Do you have any links to any info about the above? I hadn't heard anything about any new CRT technology coming around.

I have plenty of insight into the rest of the stuff in the thread too, but will stay out for reasons of bias (if anyone had asked more precisely what I'd be doing in San Fran next month, or for whom, then it might be more clear. :)

Bruno

Come on, a little bit of bragging about one's company new cool products never hurt anybody (unless he was under NDA )

Do you have any links to any info about the above? I hadn't heard anything about any new CRT technology coming around.

All I could find now was this story here. The one I saw a while back was complete with pictures of how it works and was a bit more detailed.

Come on, a little bit of bragging about one's company new cool products never hurt anybody (unless he was under NDA )

Drakino already bragged for me. :) I'm not so concerned about breaking NDA - I wouldn't. But, you have to tip-toe carefully when talking about the competition in public. Some people are lawsuit happy unfortunately.

Bruno

Hi Tony,

Hm, I just held a LAN party this weekend for a bunch of friends, and I ran my computer on a 15" LCD screen, with not problems of trailling pixels whatsoever. (Heck, I even managed to frag some Nazi's, and never fell into the lava).

The new LCD screens are far better than they used to be. Of course it's not a 120 hz CRT yet, but I found it surprisingly good even for FPS stuff.

Anyway, I've ordered the M40, so I'll give you my opinion on it when it arrives. I just saw and held the unit today, to feel out it's size and weight. It wasn't that bad (not compared to their early Inspiron units anyway).

I'm pretty exited to see the 15" on the M40 with 1600 x 1200 resolution.

I do know not to expect a lot of battery-life from it (less than 2 hrs), but what can you expect with a huge processor/graphics card.... nothing comes free (not even a lunch according to tanstaafl).

I ran my computer on a 15" LCD screen, with not problems of trailling pixels whatsoever.

Was this LCD screen on a laptop, or was it a separate desktop AC-powered model?

Hi Tony,

It was a seperate AC-powered monitor. Just saw the EIZO 465 the other day (16" TFT), it's really nice. Contrast isn't that great, but the updates are fast.

Anyway, I chickened out on ordering the Dell M40, and went for the C400. I guess I'm tired of lugging heavy notebooks around.

It remains to be seen if a 95% size keyboard does the job though.

It was a seperate AC-powered monitor.

Okay, fine.

Somebody let me know when they make a LAPTOP with zero pixel refresh latency and a kickass 3D chipset with a good amount of video memory.

No current LCD is as fast as a good CRT, but there are a number of acceptable ones.

The best you can get in a laptop is the Radeon Mobility 7500 (ATI). Just announced availability in PC laptops on Thursday. I'm not sure what the memory configs are in the first systems though.

Bruno