Netbook gamers

Hillskill

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I have just picked up a Samsung NC10 netbook, I just wondered whether any of you had similar Netbooks and had much joy gaming on them ? Ideally i would love to get football manager 09 going but will wait until I have done my RAM upgrade first.
Here is a list I have found after doing a google of games that definitely work on the NC10 (and probably most netboks):

Regular games
==============

Audiosurf - works, but im not really convinced that its playable even at the lowest settings
Alien shooter vengeance - works. mild slowdown at times
Aquaria - works but there is some slowdown. turn off reflections and other stuff.
Arcanum of Steamworks and Magick Obscura - works very well
Arx Fatalis from gog.com - works very well
Ballance - works very well
Baldurs Gate 2 - works very well
Beyond Divinity - works very well
bullet candy - works but theres major slowdown at times.
Clive Barkers Undying - works very well
Darwinia - Works
Deus Ex - Works and plays really well
Descent 3 from gog.com - works well
Diablo 2 + expansion - works really well
Discples 2 from gog.com - works very well
Divine Divinity - works really well
Dungeon Keeper 2 - works
Eschalon Book 1 - works
Fallout 1 & 2 - works really well
Fate - works. lowest settings for minimal slowdown
Final Fantasy VII - works well.
Final Fantasy VIII - works well. use ff8 launcher to get higher resolutions
Football Manager 08
Football Manager 09 (both can run well on a netbook with a few tweaks, details on how are here.)
Freelancer - works very well
Freespace 2 from gog.com - works very well. download tool from fsoinstaller.com to get it working even better on the NC10.
Future Boy - works very well
Giants Citizen Kabuto from gog.com - works well
Gothic from gog.com - works very well
Gothic 2 - works very well
Grand theft auto 3 - see Vice City comments.
Grand theft auto Vice City - works and gets fairly playable framerates (15-20) for mild play
Grand theft auto San Andreas - see Vice City comments
Grandia 2 - works
Gun - works
Gunman Chronicles - works very well
Half Life - Oppposing Force - Blueshift - Works and works very well.
Haegemonia - works
Hinterland - works well
Homeworld 2 - works
Hostile Waters - works very well
Jack Orlando - works
Lego Star Wars - works well. requires 3danalyze to run properly. settings i used in 3danalyze are - anti-detect settings both ticked - force SW TnL - emul HW TnL caps
Lionheart - works
Max Payne 1 & 2 - works well
MDK 2 - works
Mr Robot - works well
Neverwinter Nights - works well
Noone Lives Forever 1 & 2 - works very well
Oddworld Abes Exoddus - works well
Peggle Deluxe - works well (currently £3.49 in Steam sale Dec 08)
Planescape Torment - works well
Sacrifice from gog.com - works well. some mild texture flickering on the landscape. probably driver related.
Septerra Core - works well
Shadowman - works
Sid Meiers Pirates! - works well
Simon the Sorceror 1 & 2 from gog.com - works
Sin 1 - Works
Soldier of Fortune 2 - Works very well
Space Trader - Works
Spore - Works amazingly well considering its so new. lowest detail settings needed and its playable.
Starcraft - works well
Starlancer - works but may be prone to crashing every now and again.
Star Trek Final Unity - works but there are heavy speech playback problems.
Stonekeep from gog.com - works very well. some mild slowdown probably caused by dosbox emulation.
System Shock 2 - works well. needs to be in compatibility for windows 2000 to avoid a black screen on level load + turn off visual themes aswell just incase.
Tachyon The Fringe - Woah thats a big gun!
Templay of Elemental Evil - works
The Longest Journey - works very well
Toca RAcer Driver 2 - Works at lowest detail settings and is playable for the most part.
Tomb Raider Anniversary - works but the framerate renders it pretty unplayable unless you angle the view towards the floor.
Trackmania Nations Forever - works, but its fairly slow even on lowest details
Ultima IX Ascension - works very well
Unreal Gold - Works really well
Uplink - works really well
Vampire the masquerade Redemption - works very well
Warcraft 3 + expansion - works well
Warhammer 40k Dawn of War - playable
Wizards and Warriors - works
World of Goo - works well
XIII (13) - works very well
X-Gold - Works well


Massively Multiplayer Games
=======================

Angels Online - works
Dungeon Runners - works
EuDemons Online - defaults to a resolution thats greater than the native nc10 res. can be played and played well but will need scrolling of the screen to see all.
Eve Online - works. classic mode used. playable but dont expect to be engaging in fleet warfare.
Flyff - works
Guild Wars - works. fairly playable at lowest settings.
Maple Story - works well
Seal Online - works but its a little slow.
Trickster Online - works
Vendetta Online - works. game is quite scalable.
World of Warcraft - works well enough for general leveling. dont try any raids on it.


Quite surprised to see that Spore apparently plays very well, I think I will definitely give that a go aswell as FM09.
 
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would the sims 2 work or is it a bit too demanding?
 
would the sims 2 work or is it a bit too demanding?

Its only a gut feeling but if Spore works more or less perfectly then The Sims should be fine. Its an older game and alot less processor hungry. Been running around getting ready for xmas today so haven't been able to test anything yet (want to get some ROMs going to).
 
Spore would have been designed to work with multiple cores, so can work well on a technically low powered device.


A game designed to only use 1 core may struggle. It depends how good the multi-threading emulator can do with a single thread designed app.
 
I've just bought an NC10 for use with my studies. I'm really impressed with it & seems a very capable wee machine.

Not sure if the fact that World of Goo works on it is a good or bad thing though! (grades may slip a bit I think) :laugh:


Edit: Noticed on the OCUK forums that one of the guys says he's been able to run FM09 on his NC10. He doesn't go into details about how what ram / settings he's using though or how playable it is.

I tried a few emulators (ZSNES, Gens & Kawaks) last night and they all work a treat. The games really benefit from running on a smaller screen and all the ones I tried ra in full screen mode at full speed.

Also tried an N64 emulator. Whilst it can handle most games ok (as long as you don't run multiple apps) I'm getting intermittent crashes. Not figured out what's causing them yet.
 
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I've just bought an NC10 for use with my studies. I'm really impressed with it & seems a very capable wee machine.

Not sure if the fact that World of Goo works on it is a good or bad thing though! (grades may slip a bit I think) :laugh:


Edit: Noticed on the OCUK forums that one of the guys says he's been able to run FM09 on his NC10. He doesn't go into details about how what ram / settings he's using though or how playable it is.

I tried a few emulators (ZSNES, Gens & Kawaks) last night and they all work a treat. The games really benefit from running on a smaller screen and all the ones I tried ra in full screen mode at full speed.

Also tried an N64 emulator. Whilst it can handle most games ok (as long as you don't run multiple apps) I'm getting intermittent crashes. Not figured out what's causing them yet.

What Emulators were you using ? I haven't messed around with any in years so I am a bit unsure on where best to start.
FM09 is a must for me. Hopefully will get my RAM upgrade done this week and will then start looking into getting FM09 running acceptably. I used to play in a online League with the same guys every week on FM08 and that caused it to run very slowly so I might have a lower expectation then most.

Will report back any findings.
 
The emu's I use are:

GENS (megadrive)
ZSNES (SNES)
Kawaks (NeoGeo & CPS 1 + 2)
Project64 (N64)

Project64 works fine on my desktop but both the public and beta release are hit & miss with the NC10. Have read a couple of other reports saying the same thing.....guessing it must be to do with the gfx as spec-wise it should be capable of running it.

No hitches with the other 3 though. The keyboard isn't great for most games but easily sorted if you hook up a pad. :)
 
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The emu's I use are:

GENS (megadrive)
ZSNES (SNES)
Kawaks (NeoGeo & CPS 1 + 2)
Project64 (N64)

Project64 works fine on my desktop but both the public and beta release are hit & miss with the NC10. Have read a couple of other reports saying the same thing.....guessing it must be to do with the gfx as spec-wise it should be capable of running it.

No hitches with the other 3 though. The keyboard isn't great for most games but easily sorted if you hook up a pad. :)

thanks, will look into them. Got my brother bringing SCUMM round so we can get all misty eyed over Monkey Island 2 and Sam & Max :thumbsup:
 
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Are these games being run though steam or stand alone.

I've bought a couple of games through steam and they seem to run much slower on my netbook.

scrub that - some settings I hadn't configured. Runs ok now.
 
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Please add to the list Peggle Deluxe.

Runs brilliantly on my netbook and can currently be had for £3.49 in the steam sale.
 
how would i be able to get world of warcraft on my netbook?
 
Please add to the list Peggle Deluxe.

Runs brilliantly on my netbook and can currently be had for £3.49 in the steam sale.

Thanks, I have added it to the list.

how would i be able to get world of warcraft on my netbook?

Are you using your netbook on a home network ? If yes you can share your DVD drive on your network and simply install the game from that drive onto your network. Navigate to that drive from "my Computer and double click the suitable Executable file......install should start.
I have never played or looked into WOW but as its a popular game it may be available as a download direct from the WOW site !? Maybe someone could confirm ?
In other news, I got Scumm onto my netbook which is an emulator for all the old Lucas Arts (and some other companies) point and click adventures. It was never really in doubt that it would work perfectly but for the record it does :D
Football Manager 09 is my next mission. I have seen it for £20 instore at Game so may take a look at Steam this afternoon....see if it saves me a trip :smashin:
 
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Great thread. I have a netbook so its nice to see a list of games I could have installed.:smashin:
 
In other news, I got Scumm onto my netbook which is an emulator for all the old Lucas Arts (and some other companies) point and click adventures. It was never really in doubt that it would work perfectly but for the record it does :D

Excellent. Probably means other emulators such as MAME will work as well.
 
Hi - I have tried Football Manager 2008 on the NC10 and get an error when running - the required screen res is 1024x768 but the NC10 only has 1024x600 - not sure if there are any switches that can be used when running FM08 to get it to change the playing resolution??? Anyone have any experience of getting this working?

Thanks, Paul
 
Hi - I have tried Football Manager 2008 on the NC10 and get an error when running - the required screen res is 1024x768 but the NC10 only has 1024x600 - not sure if there are any switches that can be used when running FM08 to get it to change the playing resolution??? Anyone have any experience of getting this working?

Thanks, Paul

Paul there are definite work arounds. I haven't tried any of these personally but have read that results are great. I will post back details in the morning and maybe even pick up a copy for myself tomorrow aswell :thumbsup:
 
Ok, I still haven't tested this myself but the link below (copy and pasted here for those that need it) is information on how to get FM08 & 09 running quite nicely on your netbook. Full credit to Billyboy80 from the Samsung forums of this info:

link: Samsung NC10 Community: Forums / Games / How to run Football Manager 08 and 09. Very Simple!

Have had loads of hassle trying to get FM08 and 09 to run. I have seen a few suggestions of how to get small screen to run but the only one that worked on both 08 and 09 was this:

1. Right click on the desktop shortcut after install and select properties.

2. Paste the following into the target box. "C:\Program Files\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2009\fm.exe" -windowed -small_screen

or add -windowed -small_screen on the end of the existing target. Leave a space after the fm.exe" and -windowed.

3. There must be spaces between fm.exe" and -windowed and between -windowed and -small_screen
(There is no " after -small screen)

I have tried inserting -small_ screen -windowed" and this does not work for me.

FM 09 seems to run fine as long as you don't select preferences as this causes it to crash. It loads matches quickly and does not seem to need the disc after loading up the game.

Delighted I can now finally play FM on my NC10.


Please bear in mind the 3d match engine(fm09) will not run well on a netbook and you should have this disabled in game. (bit of a gimmick IMHO anyway)
 
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Thanks - got it working - noticed a few issues in game - like the training screen - you can't see the squad, but you can allocat players to training schedules via their individual screens so not much of an issue!

Thanks for your response - regards, Paul

Ok, I still haven't tested this myself but the link below (copy and pasted here for those that need it) is information on how to get FM08 & 09 running quite nicely on your netbook. Full credit to Billyboy80 from the Samsung forums of this info:

link: Samsung NC10 Community: Forums / Games / How to run Football Manager 08 and 09. Very Simple!

Have had loads of hassle trying to get FM08 and 09 to run. I have seen a few suggestions of how to get small screen to run but the only one that worked on both 08 and 09 was this:

1. Right click on the desktop shortcut after install and select properties.

2. Paste the following into the target box. "C:\Program Files\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2009\fm.exe" -windowed -small_screen

or add -windowed -small_screen on the end of the existing target. Leave a space after the fm.exe" and -windowed.

3. There must be spaces between fm.exe" and -windowed and between -windowed and -small_screen
(There is no " after -small screen)

I have tried inserting -small_ screen -windowed" and this does not work for me.

FM 09 seems to run fine as long as you don't select preferences as this causes it to crash. It loads matches quickly and does not seem to need the disc after loading up the game.

Delighted I can now finally play FM on my NC10.


Please bear in mind the 3d match engine(fm09) will not run well on a netbook and you should have this disabled in game. (bit of a gimmick IMHO anyway)
 
Anyone know if Half Life 2 works on the NC10 or similar? Havent played it in a while so it would be good to have something to do whilst at work!
 
I tried Half Life 2 with settings at lowest and at 1024x600 and it was unplayable due to a choppy framerate. I didnt get the chance to try it at 640x480 but will try later and report back. Does anyone know how to increase the video memory on the NC10? Im sure mine is stuck at 8MB shared!
 
So is FM2009 totally playable on one of these netbooks? Im not bothered about the full 3D pitch but would be nice if it runs ok as im getting a netbook in the next couple of mths and im a huge fan of FM
 
Can remember if this has already been mentioned or not.

This site seems excellent in analysising your pc/laptop to see if it's capable of running certain games:

Can You RUN It?
 
Anyone looking to play source based games (hl2, cs:s, tf2 and especially left 4 dead) on atom based machines here's some advice:

Don't bother, at all.

My system is an msi wind with a 2gig stick of ram and the internal RAM set to be used as onboard video ram. The atom is also overclocked to 1.9ghz through the latest firmware and then onto 2.2ghz through setfsb + a custom heatsink. As far as I know it's the fastest possible netbook you can have besides the asus n10

Source games barely scrape 5 fps with all settings minimum at 640 x 480. I even tried using a custom config file and it's really not worth anyone's time. the only thing that runs at a decent rate is the graphics test.

Just a heads up for anyone thinking of trying it, not that it'll stop people as I never listened to the warnings :suicide: :D
 

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