Will it Craft?
I am in the market for a Netbook for the Fam and the only extra requirement above typical Netbook activities (surf, 'Book, 'Tube) is that it runs Minecraft smoothly (TheKid is getting it for her birthday and it will be easier on The Storm Trooper if there is another Minecraft compatible system in the house).
I'm looking at Dells right now unless another recommendation pops out at me. Specifically a Inspiron Mini 10 (1018) Netbook:
Windows® 7 Starter
Intel® AtomTM N455 (1.66GHz/667Mhz FSB/0.5MB cache)
1GB DDR3 SDRAM
Intel® NM10 Express Chipset
Integrated Intel® NM10 (video)
So the question is, Does anyone have experience Minecrafting it up on a netbook? Is the integrated video on these little guys enough?
Thanks for any recommendations / thoughts
I'm looking at Dells right now unless another recommendation pops out at me. Specifically a Inspiron Mini 10 (1018) Netbook:
Windows® 7 Starter
Intel® AtomTM N455 (1.66GHz/667Mhz FSB/0.5MB cache)
1GB DDR3 SDRAM
Intel® NM10 Express Chipset
Integrated Intel® NM10 (video)
So the question is, Does anyone have experience Minecrafting it up on a netbook? Is the integrated video on these little guys enough?
Thanks for any recommendations / thoughts
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Comments
I got mine dirt cheap, and while the HP Mini 311 and Asus 1215N are nice ION netbooks, for that price you can get a laptop with dual core, 15" screen, 3-4GB RAM, ATI HD4200 or better graphics, DVD burner blah blah you get the point.
Link
(ignore the ASUS Eee PC 1001, I'll prob be getting that for my step daughter, she doesn't Minecraft)
Most of the specs are very similar if not the same, The one thing I'm looking at is the Graphics Processor: Intel GMA 3150 or Intel GMA 500, which one is better?
I'm leaning towards the Acer Aspire One AO533-23096 as it doesn't share video memory, and has some other differences such as the upgraded battery Fatcat mentioned. CB, what's the specs on yours?
Interested in the results of this, $50 cheaper is appealing.
Thanks again,
Can I ask you to elaborate on this? Do the Atoms not surf well? Any input on java games? Specifically POGO and Cafe/Hotel games in Facebook (This is one for Sugar).
To explain I am actually in the market for 3 Netbooks, only 1 of them needs to Minecraft. The other two will just be used for surfing, Facebook Games, Google Chat, web sort of stuff.
I think I'll pull the trigger on a ASUS Eee PC 1001 for my step daughter to be able to do the above listed tasks and a Acer Aspire One AO533-23096 for the family. If it doesn't craft well then I'll continue the search or expand out to the possibility of a 12-14" notebook.
ION will, at the very least, open more of the CPU's horsepower for your benefit. Flash will actually, you know, work. So will YouTube.
As I said, it's night and day.
All that said, Minecraft may be somewhat sketchy no matter what netbook you run. It does not use GPU acceleration, it's not very optimized (alpha), and there's a surprisingly high number of things going on for such a simple-looking game. It's all CPU. At least with ION, the Atom won't have to render Aero *and* Minecraft.
I have a non-ION Asus netbook. 1005HA-P to be precise. I'm able to play flash games just fine (Evony, Boxhead, various games posted on the forums over the past year). Standard def video? No problems for me. I've even watched Hulu at acceptable framerates on it. High def... of course not, it's a freaking netbook... it doesn't even have a high def display anyway.
Of course I am running Linux... perhaps Thrax's curmudgeonly view of non-ION netbooks is more related to Window's performance on them :P
Thanks again for all the insight guys. It's why Icrontic is so Rad.