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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

A "Come on, Intel!" Moment

It seems like the more I research the N2600 and its accompanying GPU, the GMA 3600, the less powerful they become. See, the GMA 3600 has a core clock of 400 MHz, which is great compared to previous generations. Problem is, that only applies to the shader and texture mapping units of the GPU. The PowerVR SGX545 core that the GMA 3600 is based on doesn't come with any Render Output units, or ROP's. Intel adds 4 of them, just as the GMA 950 had, and twice as many as the GMA 3150. Here's the rub: they can clock the ROP's at whatever speed they care to use, and they chose 200 MHz. Slowing down the ROP's reduces performance, naturally, enough to keep the GMA netbook series from playing Half-Life 2 (without tweaking). Is it enough to make performance worse than previous generations? Absolutely not. The new GMA 36x0 is better or equal in every way. The margin of improvement is just smaller. In the majority of applications, the GMA 3600 can't compete with the GeForce FX 5600, released over 9 years ago. It's more of a super Radeon Xpress 1150, and even then the Radeon integrated graphics can beat the GMA 3600 in memory bandwidth with a dual-channel DDR2-800 configuration.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Featured Game: Midtown Madness

Drive around like a maniac with no repercussions
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2a/Mm1_boxshot.jpg Year: 1999
Genre: Racing
Recommend: YES


















Got the need for speed? Well, you could play one of the Need for Speed games, or you could give Midtown Madness a try. There's nothing quite like hurtling down a Chicago freeway in a Panoz GTR-1 at 200+ MPH, trying to evade the cops. Or you could rumble down the avenue in a Freightliner Century, crushing every Geo Metro in sight. However you play, Midtown Madness gives you a super-fun experience, and the graphics aren't bad, considering the game's age.

What you'll need

You don't need to have the slightest worry about this game. If you can run Windows XP, you can run Midtown Madness. EDIT: You might have to reduce the graphics a bit for Cedar Trail netbooks; I get 13-32 fps on maxed out settings at 640x480.

Reviews and Awards

 Midtown Madness's most positive reviews (90% equivalent) came from Allgame and PC Zone, while the worst, 7/10 and 7.7/10 (still respectable) were given by Total Video Games and GameSpot, respectively. Midtown Madness was praised for its realistic vehicle models (for player-driven cars) and accuracy in portraying Chicago. On the other hand, the game was criticized for its poor performance on lower-end hardware (no big deal for netbooks) and AI intelligence, among others.

Tips
No, you can't commit vehicular homicide in Midtown Madness. If you could, the 'E' rating would be revoked in a heartbeat.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Featured Game: Metro 2033

Uh, no.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/07/Metro_2033_Game_Cover.jpg Year: 2010
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Survival Horror
Recommend: NO















I'll be quick about this; the graphical demands of Metro 2033 simply butcher anything a netbook can give. Maybe if you overclock the Radeon HD 7340 to 1.23 GHz and the system RAM to 2 GHz you can get it to work, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
Screenshot from Giant Bomb

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Featured Game: Lego Star Wars: The Video Game

Great game for the kids
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/81/Legostarwarsthevideogame.jpg Year: 2005
Genre: Action Adventure
Recommend: YES























It's glaringly obvious: Lego Star Wars is not a franchise meant for the avid gamer. Heck, there's no 'game over' message to be found anywhere in the game. But for the 11-year-old with sci-fi tendencies, this game's a blast, not to mention it plays wonderfully on any Windows netbook.

What you'll need

 All you really need is 512 MB of RAM (half that on ION 2, but who has that kind of netbook with that much RAM?) and around half of a gigabyte of hard drive space.

Reviews and Awards

OK, so LSW didn't win any prestigious awards, but it was the 13th best selling game of 2005, behind Guild Wars and The Sims 2, to name a few. Lego Star Wars was named Game of the Year by Kidzworld.com (who?) and received a 77/100 score on Metacritic. IGN rated the game at 8/10 (great), saying "it has personality, puzzles, cooperative modes, replay value, low violence, a lack of frustrating difficulty, and most importantly, it has Darth Vader... Darth Vader makes everything better -- it's a fact."

 Tips

Should you find yourself playing this game in multiplayer mode, don't be a jerk and stay behind to collect every single stud in the map. You'll probably get booted off and have to rejoin anyway.
Sure, big blasters look impressive; too bad they aren't any more effective than regular blasters

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Featured Game: StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty

Tweaking necessary
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/20/StarCraft_II_-_Box_Art.jpgYear: 2010
Genre: Real-Time Strategy
Recommend: Ehh.....
















There's just no way around it; StarCraft II is a heavy game for netbooks. Even with the most powerful netbook out there (A6-5200-powered), tweaking might still be required to get the game to run smoothly. Once you do, though, the reward is well worth the effort.

What you'll need

Before you even attempt to run StarCraft II, you have to meet certain requirements. For starters, 2 GB of RAM is absolutely necessary, unless you're running an ION 2 platform on Windows XP. You'll need a dual-core CPU from the following list: Atom N550, N570, N2600, or N2800; AMD C-60, C-70, E-300, E-350, E-450, E1-1200, E1-1500, E2-1800, or E2-2000. If you don't have to tweak anything, consider yourself fortunate.

Reviews and Awards

 StarCraft II has been highly praised from every direction: story, gameplay, multiplayer, graphics, and more. The game scored around 93% on the aggregator sites GameRankings and Metacritic, and received 10/10 or equivalent ratings from at least 4 sources. However, some have criticized the game for its lack of LAN multiplayer support.

Tips

"Well," you say, "I don't know how to tweak a game!" Fear not, it's not that difficult. See this site for assistance.
Screenshot from the StarCraft Wiki