Advice on new machine for playing flash games please

VoucherMan

My (cheap) laptop is fine for everyday use but when the kids use it to play games on it takes ages to load the screen - Facebook games seem to be the worst.

I asked a friend at work who suggested a quad core machine with a separate graphics card (at least 256MB) and a lot of memory.
A quick look on the web suggest over £1000 for a laptop so I've decided to get a desktop instead.

Is he right with his advice or is that a bit excessive for playing flash based games?

Any advice on minimum processor type/speed, graphics card size/make, & memory requirements.

Suggestions / links to recommendations also welcomed.

I've no plans to use it for anything else as my laptop is fine for my needs at present. That said, if it's better/quicker than my laptop I may start using it.

Budget is £500 - less would be better.

pcombo

Does internet connection not come in to that advice.

Come on lol quad core and atleast 256MB to play a flash game *I dont think so*

What you internet speed + current laptop spec.

VoucherMan

pcombo wrote: »

Does internet connection not come in to that advice.

What you internet speed + current laptop spec.

Sorry, I'm on Virgin broadband 10Mb/s.

My laptop is EI system, Pentium Dual T2370 @1.73GHz with 1GB RAM - fine for general browsing, spreadsheets & word-processing, not much good for anything else.

pcombo wrote: »

Come on lol quad core and atleast 256MB to play a flash game *I dont think so*

I've no idea about the required spec - that's why I came to ask for advice from you guys.

pcombo

Ok it "would" seem you have decent connection. The spec you provided should be more than enough to play flash games.

VoucherMan

pcombo wrote: »

The spec you provided should be more than enough to play flash games.

Do you mean the spec of my existing machine?

Sometimes when they load a game it takes a minute or more to load. Or is that just because they're using Facebook/

joeypesci

That's just due to the Internet speed. You don't need a quad core to play flash games or loads of memory. Your friend at work is an idiot, sorry. Cynical me, being in IT myself, sometimes feel people say that because they either have a PC they want to sell or will offer to build it for you. Knowing full well it's over priced and over powered for what they know you need.

Just a basic laptop will be fine. But you may want to look at a semi distant one for future proofing. Check out ebuyer.com, it's where I buy all my IT kit when I build my PCs.

S0litaire

Depends on what graphics card your laptop has...
Sounds like it's an Intel integrated card (very basic and terrible for Flash)

Any laptop that has a Nvidia graphics card will handle Flash a lot better. (The drivers use the graphics card to do all the heavy work of running the flash rather than the CPU).

VoucherMan

joeypesci wrote: »

sometimes feel people say that because they either have a PC they want to sell or will offer to build it for you. Knowing full well it's over priced and over powered for what they know you need.

Just a basic laptop will be fine. But you may want to look at a semi distant one for future proofing.

Thanks. that's what I like about MSE. Just helpful advice with no unnecessary sales pitch.

joeypesci wrote: »

build my PCs.

:eek: I'll stick with a pre built off the shelf model. I can manage adding some extra RAM but that's technical enough for me.

I'd still like to get another machine. Better to have one each than have to share mine.

S0litaire wrote: »

Depends on what graphics card your laptop has...
Sounds like it's an Intel integrated card (very basic and terrible for Flash)

Any laptop that has a Nvidia graphics card will handle Flash a lot better. (The drivers use the graphics card to do all the heavy work of running the flash rather than the CPU).

Can't find any details for graphics card. Just SiS Mirage 3 Graphics display adapter - if that means anything.

As for the Nvidia graphics card - am I likely to find a sub £500 laptop with one or are they only in better spec machines?

S0litaire

You could try seeing if you can update flash.
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
Or try here:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashplayer10/

The latest flash also tries to use the Graphics to run flash as well.

pendulum

I have a quad core system (clocked @ 3.1Ghz) and still find that some flash games run slow. My system has 2x GTX 260 graphics cards too, 8Gb RAM and fast broadband so its more than capable. I just put it down to the way either Flash itself or the Flash games are written (poorly), which will make them run slow on any system. For example, Pool Master on Facebook often used to run jerky and quite slow on all my computers (2x Desktops, 2x Laptop) for months until recently when I assume they improved the code, because now it works fine on all of them.

That said, check your laptop to make sure its always running in high performance mode whenever you wish to play flash games on it. Running it on balanced or power saver mode could have quite a bad effect while trying to play flash games.

neneromanova

VoucherMan wrote: »

Sometimes when they load a game it takes a minute or more to load. Or is that just because they're using Facebook/

It's more than likely because of facebook. I have trouble loading games sometimes and I have a dual core laptop with a good graphics card.

Also when do you try to play games? You also have to think yeah ok you can get 10mb/s for internet, but if you live in an area where everyone is using the interent at the same time and you're only on one line for the area, then it will make loading slower.