Project Lore

Misconceptions Cleared Up It seems that there was a bit of confusion in the WoW On A Netbook post from last week.  Enough, in my opinion, to warrant an entire response post, rather than a rebuttal comment.  So here we are, returning to the topic to clear the air, set things straight and sprinkle in a few additional points. Judging by the comments there are a few issues to tackle including the definition of a netbook, why the hell I would try to run WoW on such a piece of hardware and why it may matter to you, our loving readers.  First and foremost, a netbook is a laptop that is primarily designed for web-browsing and e-mailing, with no maximum requirements on how that can be done.  Rather the tertiary concern is that of battery consumption, leading the hardware engineers to nerf and throttle the buzzwords of computing, GHz, GB (RAM) and GB (HDD space), to save power.  In the end, the netbook and laptop (aka notebook) discussion turns into the "a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square" discussion.  Simply put, a Netbook is a subset of the laptop sector.  It also happens to be the fastest growing computer market, more on that later. Being an IT professional by design, design being my college degree, I tend to stay up on the latest trends in computing.  I get asked my opinion on the topic all the time, so if I fall behind I feel that I am doing a disservice to friends and colleagues.  Unfortunately, my three plus year old laptop continues to stand toe-to-toe with every single netbook currently available.  Once I took purchase of upcoming events for this summer, E3, BlizzCon and Penny Arcade Expo to name a few, I broke down and added the conservatively priced Asus EEE PC 1000HE to my line-up of machines.  It enters as my third active WoW-capable machine.  Third is the key word.  I have plenty of other machines that can play WoW, but this baby was purchased to make travelling easy.  Playing WoW on it is a bonus, a huge one, that I made a requirement during my netbook research.  I do not want to play on a netbook, I am just forced to when traveling.  Of course, that doesn't stop me from wanting more powerful netbooks. I understand that many people may not find discussions on the latest computing trends to be incredibly interesting, but they should at least be informative.  If you, or your parents, haven't already purchased a shiny new machine for the upcoming school, business, or gaming, year then you'll likely to begin your research sometime soon.  Desktop machines your cup of tea?  Then move on to something more directly WoW related.  A Mac user till death?  Allow me to point you elsewhere.  However if space, portability, money or power consumption (go green!) are your concern then netbooks should be at the top of your list.  For those in this boat, hopefully the end of the summer will bring an ION-based machine, or a sexier, cheaper ASUS N10J. Do you see a netbook in your future, or do you prefer lugging around a machine that can double as a murder weapon (Alienware) in crucial situations? P.S. Just kidding Apple fans!  I have a Powerbook sitting at home too!

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It's Possible, But Not Fun In mid-May I finally broke down.  With E3 approaching, BlizzCon tickets in hand and PAX just two weeks after that, I realized that I couldn't delay a new laptop any longer.  After scrutinizing numerous netbook or netbook-style PCs I went with my gut and purchased the Asus EEE PC 1000HE. From a basic user's standpoint, the machine is a glorious meld of metal, wiring and plastic.   Sure, the thing attracts smudges like stink on a monkey, but the battery lasts an eternity.   I was able to fly from Philadelphia, land in Denver for a layover, and then continue on to Los Angeles without being tethered to the archaic power grid.  The 1000he's impressive wireless capabilities comes from Intel's Atom architecture, Asus' Super Hybrid Engine that allows throttling of the processor, and a low power profile in Windows XP.  Of course, there's power, and then there is power. My bit of QQ over Netbooks revolved around their lack of GPU power.  Just because my hand was forced into the purchase of a lackluster model, for me, doesn't mean that I wouldn't try to push it.  After spending a few hours downloading WoW, TBC, WotLK and patches (there's no CD/DVD-ROM drive) to the slow harddrive, I fired up the MMORPG and waited.  To my surprise, the game got to load screen in a fashionable time.  Of course that's just the load screen, not a big accomplishment. An excruciatingly long wait later (Tommy Tallarico suggested I upgrade the machine with a solid state drive.  A good suggestion, but that would make the machine seep an extra 50% from my moth-ridden pockets.), and I am loaded into Icecrown.  With everything at the bare minimum (shadows, textures, color depth, no add-ons) the game is playable in only the loosest sense of the term.  With framerates that fail to count with toes I won't be making a habit of entering Azeroth from Asus's slim gateway, but it is suitable for housekeeping activities and certain daily quests. The little machine is impressive visually and technologically, but it falls flat when it comes to pushing polygons.  All things considered the purchase was a good one.  That doesn't mean I won't be watching for the second generation of Netbooks to make non- raiding and PvPing a possibility.  Come on ION. In E3 news, The Grinder (shown behind closed doors) looks and plays as described, Left 4 Dead on the Wii.  Batman Arkham Asylum is the dark Batman I have been looking for, but I can see the seemingly awesome combat system becoming repetitive.  The scale of Just Cause 2's (closed doors again, aren't I special!) open world and the amount of ways to dispatch enemies are a pair of features to get excited about.

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It's been nearly four years since I put my last laptop to pasture.  Although my trusty HP Pavilion dv5000 has treated me very well, it is showing its age thanks to Wrath's slight bump in system requirements.  You may recall that many Apple machines were nixxed as supported systems thanks to their choice of Intel's GMA950 on-board video solution.  It turns out that the once sexy card in my dv5000 (ATi Xpress 200m) is on the cusp of inadequacy.  The hulking laptop can still play WoW at an almost acceptable framerate, so long as I don't mind a level of detail dating back to years gone by.  A laggy and crappy looking 1024x768 presentation just doesn't cut it for this gaming snob. The age and capabilities of the dv5000 isn't the only reason that I have begun shopping around though.  The laptop market has become the new focus of computer companies high and low thanks to consumer desires.  It's a radically different market than it was two years ago thanks to the influx of R&D dollars.  And lately, an entirely new market has sprung forth, the "Netbook" line.  If you aren't a technogeek, fret not, a Netbook isn't some new toy or technology that you will be forced to use or follow (hello Twitter).  It's a sub-category of the laptop market that combines the wireless connotations of the internet with a very small laptop. I know what you're thinking.  How can I expect a netbook, a machine designed with low battery consumption in mind and target capabilities of e-mailing and websurfing, to run World of Warcraft?  It's quite simple really, if you check the latest line of netbooks, nearly all of them sport a mobile version of the GMA950 that is superior to the original release.  So getting barebones support of WoW is certainly not out of the question.  In fact, some models sport GPUs on the level of the Xpress 200m, but fail in other aspects.  As consumers its our job to tell companies what we want, and although I am just one customer, I am one customer that can explicitly tell you what he wants and knows how realistic those requests are. So ASUS, Acer, HP, Samsung, Apple, are you listening? Because here it is:  I want a netbook that can run games from five years ago at a good clip.  I want a netbook with a 92%, or larger, size keyboard with a minimum resolution of 1024x768.  But, it must remain capable of a solid battery life (4+ hours).  Why not just get one of your beefier - weight and power - laptops?  Because that isn't what I want. Let your engineers play with the integrated chipsets from Intel and the mobile versions of discrete cards from Nvidia (hello ION) and ATi.  Lord knows they want to, tinkering is in their nature.  I understand that the battery will be eaten alive while playing those games, that isn't the issue.  Just make use of the mobile chipsets that disables the power hungry components of said devices when they aren't in use.  The flash videos on ProjectLore.com do not require 3D rendering components to be on.  Oh, and I certainly understand if this mild "gaming" netbook is a bit more expensive than the other offerings. My request is not outlandish or unrealistic in any way.  This episode of wishful thinking can be realized if some company puts in the research to create a netbook that is superior to a better-than-average laptop from four years ago.  I would never want to "upgrade" to a laptop that can't actually do something the old guy can.  I'm chomping at the bit for my desires to be realized simply because we are so close to that point.  As it stands now the ASUS EE PC 1000HE is in my sights with its stellar battery life and 2GB max RAM, but that GMA950 pisses on my excitement.  Why couldn't they have rolled with a X3100?!^one*() Sorry for the ++nerd in this post, but the topic has been on my mind a lot lately.  I will be doing some serious traveling over the summer and obviously my laptop - whichever it may be - will be coming with me.  While any machine will allow me to write and browse the web, how could I live without my WoW?  Just look at pixiestixy.

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