[rx]

these are my laptop's specs

Alienware Area-51m
P4 3.2ghz
1gig ram
60gig HD
Radeon 9700 pro
DVD-RW

my friend has a 2.8ghz computer with the same video card, and it outperforms my computer in just about every game.

For most games I play, during the cutscenes, the audio and the video are out of sync and the audio stutters every 30 seconds or so. When I play Grim Fandango, the audio and video stutters and jerks so bad, it takes forever to watch the cutscenes.

does anyone know why my laptop is doing this? like every single game I play, the cutscenes are messed up somehow.

thanks

[super_Chris]

Its becouse the laptop 9700 is really just a dekstop 9600XT. The desktop 9700 murders the 9600 series.

[Eps]

Really, its not until you get to the 9800 in laptops (which is really an x800 cut down a lil) that you get some good performance. Plus, a P4 3.2? WTF were you thinking when you bought that. Everyone knows the centrino and the followup dothan out perform any desktop chip. Plus they use less power so your battery lasts longer. Honestly there is no way I would pay money for your laptop.

[rx]

Originally Posted by Eps

Really, its not until you get to the 9800 in laptops (which is really an x800 cut down a lil) that you get some good performance. Plus, a P4 3.2? WTF were you thinking when you bought that. Everyone knows the centrino and the followup dothan out perform any desktop chip. Plus they use less power so your battery lasts longer. Honestly there is no way I would pay money for your laptop.

these days i'm just so into music and guitars that computer is not my hobby anymore.... what's a centrino? I've heard of it, but I thought it was some crappy Celeron-equivalent processor made specifically for laptops. and I've only seen like 1.5ghz Centrinos so that they were slow as fuck at first glance.....

[super_Chris]

Originally Posted by rx

these days i'm just so into music and guitars that computer is not my hobby anymore.... what's a centrino? I've heard of it, but I thought it was some crappy Celeron-equivalent processor made specifically for laptops. and I've only seen like 1.5ghz Centrinos so that they were slow as fuck at first glance.....

You can't base a chip's performance on mere MHz allone. Appearantly even at the centrino's low speed, it still murdilates a lot of the other higher clocked chips.

[rx]

Originally Posted by super_Chris

You can't base a chip's performance on mere MHz allone. Appearantly even at the centrino's low speed, it still murdilates a lot of the other higher clocked chips.

really? so how does it manage to use less power and all? does it also produce less heat?

Intel's HT technology doesn't seem to work fine with older games...

[3dfxtwkr]

first of all centrino is a technology, not a processor.........centrino technology consists of a centrino certified mobo, proc, and wireless card i believe. its designed to use less power (in turn prolonging battery life), and to reduce the laptop footprint size. the dothan is really just an extension of the pentium 3, but obviously with some heavy modifications. bottom line the pentium m (ie dothan) runs using less power, and is ALOT more powerful than desktop pentiums 4s...........one of the hardware sites got a hold of a mobo that supports the dothan, and overclocked it to the mid 2 ghz range..........the numbers completely annihilated the highest end amd and intel desktop procs

[hans5849]

Originally Posted by 3dfxtwkr

first of all centrino is a technology, not a processor.........centrino technology consists of a centrino certified mobo, proc, and wireless card i believe. its designed to use less power (in turn prolonging battery life), and to reduce the laptop footprint size. the dothan is really just an extension of the pentium 3, but obviously with some heavy modifications. bottom line the pentium m (ie dothan) runs using less power, and is ALOT more powerful than desktop pentiums 4s...........one of the hardware sites got a hold of a mobo that supports the dothan, and overclocked it to the mid 2 ghz range..........the numbers completely annihilated the highest end amd and intel desktop procs

Tomshardware (thanks to ivwshane for posting this on the forums).

heres a little something to get your mouth wet

[rx]

thanks guys. dammit I should've done some more research before I spent $2800 on a mediocre laptop

[super_Chris]

Originally Posted by hans5849

Tomshardware (thanks to ivwshane for posting this on the forums).

heres a little something to get your mouth wet

FYI: I would not suggest trusting any of Tom's numbers. It has been proven that the man had photoshopped pictures and posted them on his site, skewing the results.

Why he did it? I dont know. But, I still don't trust that site.