I am thinking about purchasing Thinkpad T41 (or a Dell D600). It's a great machine on paper (1.6GHz Pentium-M, 768MB RAM, 40GB 5400RPM HD). The only "problem" is that is has teh 32MB Radeon Mobility 9000, and I understand that unlike the 64MB version, the 32MB card only has a 64-bit memory bus. What I don't understand is what this means to me in terms of gmaing.

First off, gaming is not a priority on this machine, since I plan on using it more for website development and such. But I would like to be able to play some games. I am not planning on playing any of the cutting edge stuff, like DOOM 3, Half-Life 2, Painkiller, etc...I have a powerful desktop for that.

But I would like to be able to play Warcraft 3, SimCity4, Freedom Force, and Age of Mythology and Rise of Nations. I'd also like to be able to play these games at a decent framerate (25-30fps), and with details turned up for the most part.

Will the 64-bit memory bus cripple the laptop that much? Or will the Mobility 9000 coupled with a good chunk of system RAM and a fast CPU make it so I cam play these games and enjoy them?

Anybody else play games with a "crippled" 32MB Radeon Mobility 9000?

Thanks in advance.

kservice

 

 

 


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