going to college need a labtop

[Seigfried Of Pandy]

Going away to college soon (albany if anyone happens to go there) but i know nothing about computers at all and i still want to be able to play ffxi at school. could anyone help me out with the specs i would need to run ffxi ok.
I def dont care or want to spend the money on a super ultra computer. i just want to be able to play fine without problems, or if i need one to play it on a labtop to let me know but i figured since its a old game it shouldnt be a problem but i really have no idea. thanks alot to those who can help me out.

[sekaran]

I know nothing of laptops.. but that Dell XPS M1330 doesn't look bad. I'd personally get a Macbook Pro and bootcamp Vista/XP on it. :]

[Popeh]

Using a windows emulator for playing a game isn't usually ideal.

Usual rules apply when looking for a laptop really. I won't list laptops because most people will always go with their own choice, regardless of other peoples suggestions.

For a laptop with gaming capabilites, your gonna be spending more than your average laptop.
You need to ensure you have dedicated graphics and not onboard memory shared ones, 2GB+ RAM if it's a vista machine, duel core cpu and the rest is down to your own choice; design, DVDRW, Hard drive, screen size etc. A nice feature to consider for FFXI is to get one with a built in number pad, as using a seperate one is a nightmare.

Anything below the above features is generally considered an internet/word processing machine as opposed to something which will smoothly play games.

[sekaran]

Bootcamp isn't a Windows emulator.

[Elesirdur]

If you're going to get a MacBook and run Bootcamp, do it with XP. Vista seems to be a bit hit or miss with some of the MacBook's hardware when it comes to games, but XP is just fine. One of the things that does suck about the regular MacBooks, not the Pros, is the RAM issue. They max out at 2x512 from the factory so you need to get 2x1GB if you want a proper 2GB RAM setup, which will add a couple hundred bucks to the cost of your system.

Oh and just remember that anything that's powerful enough to play games seriously like a desktop is going to be big, heavy, and only have a very limited battery life. If you're willing to spend in the $4000-5000 range you can get smallish and powerful, but otherwise you'll be lugging around a big 17" or 19" unit with 2-3 hrs of battery time.

Lenovo's (neé IBM) laptops are fantastically durable, have good power, and can play games. They don't make big desktop-replacement units but models that are designed to be portable and powerful. Check them out.

[Cephius]

Did anyone even read this guy's question? He doesnt want to spend money on the high end computers and he asked specifically about FFXI, which doesn't have the spec requirements of newer games. To actually answer his question, any laptop with about 2Ghz processing power, a gig of RAM, and a 256MB (could probably even get away with 128) will run FFXI just fine. These come standard on any laptop in the $900-1100 range. If FFXI and word processing is the only things you're going to be doing with it, go for a low-end Dell or whatever. If you planning on trying to play Half-Life2 or something though, take the advice of the other posters.

[Cjskater]

Did anyone even read this guy's question? He doesnt want to spend money on the high end computers and he asked specifically about FFXI, which doesn't have the spec requirements of newer games. To actually answer his question, any laptop with about 2Ghz processing power, a gig of RAM, and a 256MB (could probably even get away with 128) will run FFXI just fine. These come standard on any laptop in the $900-1100 range. If FFXI and word processing is the only things you're going to be doing with it, go for a low-end Dell or whatever. If you planning on trying to play Half-Life2 or something though, take the advice of the other posters.

You don't even need that lol. 1gig ram is for multitasking (if you like to do ALOT while playing FFXI), 256mb gpu is waaaaaay overestimating, you would do perfectly fine with a 64-128mb. 2ghz seems right though, any dual core would do fine though also. As long as you don't get integrated graphics. Any new laptop should run FFXI at full settings without tampering with registry.

[Popeh]

Did anyone even read this guy's question? He doesnt want to spend money on the high end computers and he asked specifically about FFXI, which doesn't have the spec requirements of newer games. To actually answer his question, any laptop with about 2Ghz processing power, a gig of RAM, and a 256MB (could probably even get away with 128) will run FFXI just fine. These come standard on any laptop in the $900-1100 range. If FFXI and word processing is the only things you're going to be doing with it, go for a low-end Dell or whatever. If you planning on trying to play Half-Life2 or something though, take the advice of the other posters.

If your going to go for this type graphics/smoothness, just buy a PS2 and a bog standard laptop!

[Mifaco]

HP dv6000 laptop, $800, wal-mart, has everything you need to run FFXI + dual-core support.

go go go

[Seigfried Of Pandy]

im actually gonna check that out lol. thanks for the help everyone