need suggestions for a used laptop for gaming

[Tim]

Someone I know wants me to find them a used laptop computer. Its primary purpose will to be to play World of Warcraft on, so the video card will have to be pretty darn good. They didn't specify if they want regular or widescreen.

Other than that, it should be able to take 1 GB of RAM, and I'll load Windows XP Home on it. We don't want a Vista computer.

No particular brand preference, but one of the bigger companies would be preferred.

So what laptops might be able to do this job?

[Leonardo]

Check me if I'm wrong, but WoW does play best on a high end video card, but it also plays acceptably well on older cards, just slower and with less detail. I'm not a gamer, but I do know that WOW players, many of whom have older systems, still enjoy the game very much.

I just don't think you're going to find a used laptop with a superior video card for a decent price. Maybe I'm wrong.

Don't forget to post in Deal Depot and Trading Post, Tim.

Good luck to you.

[mmonnin]

WoW does not need a real beefy video card to play. The graphics can be turned down to reduce lag. The main problem is going to be in the major cities with other characters around. A decent laptop from the past 2 years or so I think will be ok.

[Leonardo]

My daughter plays it on a four year old laptop that is nothing special at all, even when it was new. Never heard her complain about the game play.

[Thrax]

Realize, though, that most people who play on those ancient/decrepit video cards have never played it on a real system, and therefore have no reference. To them, < 30 FPS with smudgy textures is totally fine.

[mmonnin]

And its not like WoW had top of the line graphics when it came out in Nov 2005 to begin with.

[Leonardo]

To them, < 30 FPS with smudgy textures is totally fine.True, but if they are on a budget, why raise their expectations too high?

[jared]

... or the graphics and gameplay will be fine until you go on a raid or run through a busy village then all of the sudden it drops to 10 fps.

All the notebooks I have seen that run WoW smoothly with no lag were no older than two years old and cost them a pretty penny.

[mmonnin]

Raids are fine, even with 40 people and all kinda of flashy colors everywhere, Raids are MUCH better than the major cities in WoW. Instances are on their own server or something, ever see everyone in your guild all of a sudden go offline...except for those in an instance somewhere? When BC came out the outdoors was horrible. 1-2 second lag on casts, but instaces played like normal.

[Thrax]

I never had that issue. :confused:

[mmonnin]

Which one? Where your entire guild went offline? I've seen everyone from 1 continent drop before.

[Thrax]

My server had cont. crashes last summer, but not since. Never had the BC casting lag, which is what I was referring to.

[mmonnin]

Are you horde? Thats enough to explain it all. That was only like the first day/few days with literally like 80% of the servers population in the same zone. Its fine now.

[Thrax]

No, Alliance on CC. Wish I was still Horde. :(

[mmonnin]

Oh yeah the lil gnome warrior.

Norge and I were grouped up killing some random mobs outside of HH on release day. By the time he saw my frostbolt hit a mob another frostbolt was nearly on its way. He hardly got to swing at anything before it was dead. That was the worst I have ever seen lag. Worse than opening hours of the gong ringing for AQ, or the Nax opening event (although that was spread out across many zonesz).