In need of buying a laptop

[Morrigoon]

Originally Posted by barfownz

So, the more RAM the better? What exactly is RAM?

Only THE most important piece of information to consider when buying a computer! Modern machines you should strive for 2gb or more unless you're buying a budget machine, but you say you want to do gaming, so like a nympho at a nunnery, you need MORE RAM!

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by barfownz

Why do you hate Vista? Anything upgrade from Windows has to be better. XP was good, though.

So, the more RAM the better? What exactly is RAM?

RAM = Random Access Memory

It's where all your applications (word, anti-virus, windows interface,etc...) live when they are being run. When you start an application like Word, your computer pulls the code from the (relatively) slow hard drive and loads it into RAM.

[Morrigoon]

Yeah that too

[barfownz]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

Only THE most important piece of information to consider when buying a computer! Modern machines you should strive for 2gb or more unless you're buying a budget machine, but you say you want to do gaming, so like a nympho at a nunnery, you need MORE RAM!

This PC has 2g RAM.

I posted what graphics card this notebook has. Is it good for running Battlefield 2 at a good quality level? Or Battlefield 1942? or even Counter-Strike? What about Call of duty 4? The most recent PC game to hit the market.

[BarTopDancer]

If you're running vista with 2 gigs you can in theory play games. But it's gonna suck.

Get at least 4 gigs.

No idea about the video card. Most video cards can handle the games these days.

[barfownz]

It has a NVIDIA GeForce® 8600M

The bets of its kind is a NVIDIA GeForce® 8800M. Thats just for the 3D and quiality of the game.

8600 can play all games made from Today and below with the highest quality.

I think it has 2G RAM, but my friend has this exact laptop with the same features and he plays games perfectly!

[Morrigoon]

I'll be honest... I have *no idea* about graphics cards.

[Kevy Baby]

I just remember one vital thing to make sure the computer has: a keyboard.

[blueerica]

Originally Posted by barfownz

I think it has 2G RAM, but my friend has this exact laptop with the same features and he plays games perfectly!

If that's the case, then I'd just see if he'd let you spend some time on it for a bit, just to see how it runs. My laptop needs more memory, but I don't go around complaining to my friends (only my closest of friends). Ask him "what do you like least about your laptop?" and see if that seems like something that's going to bug you down the road.

Sometimes stuff that doesn't seem like a big deal in the excitement of buying a new computer becomes a bigger deal down the road, when the "newness" wears off, or so my experience has gone.

[Kevy Baby]

And usually with RAM, the machine is usually set up to fill the available slots with the smallest RAM sticks to hit the advertised number. For example, the machine may only have two memory slots and for a 2GB machine, they put a 1GB stick in each slot. By ordering the machine with (for example) 4 GB, they would put a 2GB stick in each slot.

I bring this up because if, down the road, you decide you need the 4 GB, you would need to purchase two 2 GB sticks and the two 1GB sticks get pulled - effectively becoming wasted money. Even if you could sell them on eBay or somewhere else, you would be lucky to get pennies on the dollar.

OTOH, depending on where you are purchasing the machine from, it may make more sense (economically) to purchase the machine with a minimum of RAM and adding the larger capacity yourself. For example, if they charge a $200.00 premium for 4 GB of RAM (compared to 2 GB) and you can get two 2 GB sticks for $50 each, it would make sense to go that way.

Bottom line: I say get the 4 GB