Anyone using a laptop for gaming? If so what models do you have or can recommend that come with a good graphics card for todays games.
I'm not an expert, but I think the main thing you will need is a dedicated video card with 512MB-1GB of RAM. The standard integrated-graphics ones that come on the motherboard are not adequate for gaming.
I have a Dell XPS L502X, it has a Core i7-2620M, 8GB of RAM, 2GB Nvidia 540 Mobile graphics chip, i got it in April. It has USB 3.0 ports and 750GB HDD with JBL speakers. I can play StarCraft II with high settings, Dragon Age: Origins with no problems. FPS's with a laptop are tricky, you need a mouse to make it work best.
In all honesty I already have a i7 quad core laptop with a dedicated graphics card which is able to play games. I'm not a big pc gamer tbh. I was just wondering what people used here. I'm thinking now of a lighter laptop, easier to carry around, possibly a macbook air but those are too small. I hear an updated macbook/pro is in the works with the macbook air look which would be a 15" screen possibly higher resolution with an ssd which would finally make me jump to Apple
Pretty much. I have a laptop that I bought in 2006 and that I still play WoW on. I've also played the entire SC2 campaign on it and Civ5. I do plan on buying a new gaming rig now that I've moved but making sure my laptop had a dedicated video card and good RAM is what has made it last this long.
Yeah, it is a serious investment. The only down is the screen is 15.6" not 17 but this laptop is heavy already, 9lbs.
You really just want a 1gb card unless you want to spend much much more for less performance. It's at a good place on the perf/price curve. Which is more important on a laptop since it's usually non-upgradeable or too expensive to make it worth it....again all depending on your finances. Also the bandwidth for processing on most laptops gpus usually isn't enough to necessitate more vram but that's a generalization.