Gaming laptops are great alternatives to gaming devices like the X Box 360, which doesn’t quite offer much in terms of portability. Currently, the top 5 gaming laptops in the market include the Alienware 14, the Samsung Series 7 Gamer, the Asus G750JX, the MSI GS70, and the Gigabyte P2742G. If you’re thinking of buying a powerful gaming laptop, but aren’t quite aware of the aspects responsible for creating an optimal gaming experience, stick around. Through the course of this article, you will be acquainted with the crucial factors that you need to take into account before buying a gaming laptop.
The Graphics Processing Unit
Graphics processing units are important for an optimal gaming experience. The faster they work, the smoother is the graphics. This will help you to game with a high level of detail, sans any jerking. In most laptops, you will be provided with an integrated graphics card, meaning there is no dedicated graphic processing unit for the laptop. Although these integrated graphic cards are cheap and drain less power, it isn’t the best solution for gamers, simply because these graphic cards share the main RAM of the CPU.
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On the other hand, having a dedicated graphics processing unit entails separate memory storage space. The major advantage of having dedicated storage is that there is lesser amount of time needed for transfers between the graphics card and its dedicated storage. This results in better graphics rendering, helping to eliminate latencies during game-play.
The integrated graphics cards are required to share a common memory area with the other processors, which may cause serious issues while running games with high-end graphics. Some of the best graphics cards in the market include AMD Radeon HD 8970 M, the NVidia GeForce GTX 675M SLI, and the NVidia GeForce GTX 780M SLI. These graphics cards are often a part of the top 5 gaming laptops in the market.
The Hard Drive Capacity
The hard drive capacity on your laptop is important for boosting overall gaming performance. That’s because when you install a game on your laptop, it gets stored on your hard drive.
The speed of your hard drive is directly proportional to the speed at which your game loads. The RAM, graphic card, and processor work in conjunction with the hard drive to produce the best possible gaming performance. If your hard drive is loaded with bad sectors, it will definitely hamper your gameplay and might even cause the game to crash. It is highly recommended that you opt for a 7200 RPM hard drive for optimal performance. Mostly, gamers should shoot for nothing less than a storage space of 1 TB, as games often run into a few gigabytes.
Random Access Memory
The amount of RAM that comes with a laptop directly affects graphics during games. Since RAM is required for carrying out simple tasks such as storing, writing and reading data at any given time, imagine the RAM needed for executing games with high-end graphics! Present-day games such as Half Life and Call of Duty need a great amount of RAM. It is also important to note that these numbers will increase with the release of updates of existing games and new games.
Most people often listen to music while gaming, which also occupies a significant amount of RAM. Therefore, it is important to choose a RAM that not only offers you smooth gameplay, but also enables you to run other tasks in the background.
While most laptops come loaded with a 2 GB RAM, gaming laptops need to have at least 4 GB. This will help to keep the cost low and performance high. Keeping in mind the advancements that would take place over the next few years, it is wise to invest in an 8 GB RAM for your gaming laptop.
Native Resolution And Aspect Ratio Of The Screen
The native resolution of a laptop typically refers to the best setting that will produce high quality images on the laptop screen. Although most gamers aren’t really bothered about having soft edges for their graphics, it may prove to be a problem for those who use their laptop for surfing the web and other similar tasks.
Different video screens such as those of a TV or movie theatre, come in varied proportions. In the context of laptops, some models come with a widescreen format, while others have a standard aspect ratio. Gamers might find widescreen laptops a problem, though. This is because most games these days aren’t designed for wide screens. When playing these games on a widescreen, you’ll notice that the game stretches abnormally across the screen, affecting your gameplay. Although you can play your game in the intended resolution with black bands on either end, the gameplay wouldn’t prove to be as good as you’d like.
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The Rise And Fall Of Your LCD Screen
The Rise and Fall we’re talking about here is not the rise and fall of the LCD screen technology. These are terms used for determining the speed at which a computer screen is able to render the graphics of a computer game. Until recently, LCD screens have had a major issue rendering graphics at a speed same as that of a computer game.
Laptop gaming was once regarded as an impossible task. However, in recent times, several LCD Gaming laptops offer 25 milliseconds or less of fall and rise time, while most average off-the-shelf laptops come with a rise and fall time of 40 milliseconds or less. Inadequate rise and fall times can prove to be a major issue for gamers, as they can’t play as well if they aren’t able to view the images properly.
