HP nx6110 Laptop

[scallybert]

I've been looking at the minimum system requirements to see if I can run Phoenix on my laptop.

It's an HP nx6110; Display adapter - Mobile Intel(R) 915G/GMS, 910GML Express Chipset family; Intel Pentium M 1.73GHz; 1GB RAM.

It's the graphics/display adapter that bothers me.

The Phoenix pages specify a minimum of "Geforce 4200/ATI 9600 with 128MB". I can't really relate that to the Intel chipset in the nx6110.

Anyone know if Phoenix will run on an nx6110, or this Intel graphics chipset ?

Alternatively, am I likely to get a sensible answer from Phoenix on this ?

[robgt]

Anyone know if Phoenix will run on an nx6110, or this Intel graphics chipset?

I would doubt it. Generally speaking, onboard graphics won't run games etc with high graphics requirements - they need to have a suitable expansion card.

Cheers,
Rob

[jboweruk]

I wouldn't recommend any laptop for games, unless it was priced in at nearly 2 grande. You tend to find that most laptops are designed as an extension of your home desktop, in other words to do stuff on then transfer it back. They don't really like playing games, even the built in ones.

And yes I know Phoenix isn't really a game as such, but as far as a lappy is concerned.....

[scallybert]

I wouldn't recommend any laptop for games, unless it was priced in at nearly 2 grande.

I get what you're saying, but this is (well, was when I bought it) a reasonable laptop. I bought it for multi-track recording (home-studio vocals, mixing, etc), and it's been fine for that kind of stuff. It runs FMS perfectly happilly.

My assistant at work is way better at PC HW stuff than me, and he's just pulled a Geforce FX5200 128MB out of a draw. He reckons this is old, and the Geforce 4200 Phoenix specify must be even older.

I can stick this Geforce card in my home desktop, but I'd rather use the laptop - or have the option of doing so.

I think really I'm going to have to try it, or find someone that has run Phoenix on this Intel chipset.

[SimonN]

Scallybert,

I'm going to disagree slightly with the others and say that I think it will probably work. I'm no IT guru, just speaking from personal experience. I'm running Phoenix on my IBM T42 laptop. It's a good couple of years old, here's the spec:

1.73 Centrino, 1GB of RAM and, now the important bit, ATI RADEON 7500 onboard graphics.

The graphics card is considerably below what Phoenix recommends but it runs perfectly, albeit with the graphics turned down slightly (Phoenix sets the level itself).

Now, I'm not guaranteeing it'll work for you, but it works fine for me!!

Simon

[robgt]

I've just checked the spec of my Acer 5720 Gemstone laptop - it uses the Mobile Intel GM965 Express chipset, which I guess is a step up from the 915?

The display adaptor uses the Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor - not sure how this stacks up?

What I do know is that my laptop chucks a blue screen of death and restarts if I try to run phoenix!
This could be entirely unrelated to hardware - I do not know?
What I do know is that every time I tried to run it, it BSOD'ed on me!

So... I really don't know for sure, but I still have my doubts
LOL
Cheers,
Rob

[scallybert]

Thanks for the various replies.

It sounds like there's at least some chance of it working.

I've mailed Phoenix for their view - so we'll see what comes back.

[Mikee]

I bought a Compaq Presario V6642EM Notebook.it was a £500 laptop... just so I can down load my flycamone2 video's and Phoenix when Im away from home

Phoenix works great on it at the medium detail level

hope this helps

Mikee

[scallybert]

Impressive Service

I e-mailed info@phoenix-sim.com about this at 1900 last night. I got a reply back at 2015. Which is pretty impressive.

"We have looked at the system specifications you mentioned, and think that there is a possibility that the video card installed in your computer may be below our minimum specifications.

"Phoenix may still run perfectly, so we would suggest you download our demo program from our website (www.phoenix-sim.com/downloads.htm). This program uses the same graphics and physics engine as the full version, so if the demo functions correctly then you can be confident that the full version will also."

I tried this, and it seemed to work well at the 'lower' setting. It also worked at 'medium' and 'higher', but the time flow seems slightly jerky in places. I'd be perfectly happy with 'lower', though.

One thing I did notice is that the CPU utilisation was up close to 100%. While my laptop CPU is apparently a higher spec than required, the more basic graphics hardware is probably not offloading the CPU in the way the higher spec stuff would.

Anyway, I reckon I'll be buying it soon.

[robgt]

Great news!
I'm going to have to check my drivers and try again on mine I think...

Cheers,
Rob

[SimonN]

Scallybert,

Just a thought, you may find that your laptop runs slower when it's running on it's battery. My only really works with Phoenix when it's plugged into the mains otherwise it's very "jerky". It's something to do with the powersave settings and I'm sure you can turn it off but I haven't bothered. Try running the demos on the battery and then the mains and see what happens.

Simon

[t4ttyt3ddy]

I run phoenix on my laptop and it works fine!! Its a Dual core pentium with an Nvidia Ge-Force 7200 graphics set and it works good, Plug mine into my 32" LCD telly too and its really good!!!

[scallybert]

[...]you may find that your laptop runs slower when it's running on it's battery.[...]

I'd forgoten about that. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedstep has information about this kind of technology.] It looks like it might only have an effect when the batery is low, though.

I was running on the mains when I checked, so I guess I've either got jerkiness or battery drain to look forward to if not on mains...

t4ttyt3ddy - I think your laptop's a bit better than mine. Actually, it looks better than my work desktop...

[t4ttyt3ddy]

lol it was a pressy from the wife as I do software development in my spare time! so needs to be quite a fast one lol

[tapemonkey]

I run Phoenix on an old Dell Latitude (about 4 years old) with a mobile P4 1.8 MHz processor and 768MB of ram. The graphics card is a Mobility Radeon 7500. I have got it to run fine, setting everything to "Low", but I have had to cheat a bit to get it to run smoothly. On the older versions of Phoenix you could set the exhaust smoke to "None", but now you can only set it to "Low" or "High". I find even on low, it is doesn't run smoothly. With it set to "None" it is very smooth. So if you get problems, try the below.

Open "My Documents\PhoenixRC\Settings\defaultOptions.sim" in notepad.

Then change options.default_particleQuality = "None"

This will stop the exhaust smoke and all will be smooth as silk.