Author Topic: Running the touhou games on a netbook?  (Read 19225 times)

saiyoucho

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Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« on: May 03, 2009, 09:35:48 PM »
Ok so I tried to look around on google and on the forums for some answers on how touhou is handled by netbooks. But sadly I didn't find any answers at all. >_>

So can anyone tell me how the netbooks hold up against touhou? I'm planning on picking up a Acer Aspire One A150 for easy file access while traveling, but I'd like to play touhou on the go as well.

On my current laptop these are the stats of the different games:

EoSD: No problems
PCB:  No problems
IAMP: Unknown/Not tested (Probably works)
IN:  No problems
PoFV: Unknown/Not tested (Probably works)
Stb: Unknown/Not tested  (Probably works)
MoF: Not sure, but it probably wont work. >_>
SWR: Strangely enough it works, with some lag.
SA: Extreme and utter lag and deformed screens. Wth?
UFO: Same issues as SA, with even more lag if possible.

Did some mayor change go through around MoF? I don't seem to have much issues with the older games, but SA and UFO and probably MoF too, works extremely horrible and are completely unplayable.

This may be because my current laptop is about 4 years old with about the words video card in the history.

So that's why I was wondering if the games and especially also the later ones as SA and UFO would work good on a netbook?

The graphic card in the Acer Aspire One A150 is a "Intel GMA 950" if that helps. I don't really know too much about graphic cards at the moment so I'm not sure how it would handle.

Any information is greatly appreciated, and it would be even better if someone who owns a netbook could confirm if the games do work on it.

Thanks.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2009, 12:30:10 AM by saiyoucho »
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Alice

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #1 on: May 04, 2009, 05:14:31 PM »
Ok so I tried to look around on google and on the forums for some answers on how touhou is handled by netbooks. But sadly I didn't find any answers at all. >_>

So can anyone tell me how the netbooks hold up against touhou? I'm planning on picking up a Acer Aspire One A150 for easy file access while traveling, but I'd like to play touhou on the go as well.

On my current laptop these are the stats of the different games:

EoSD: No problems
PCB:  No problems
IAMP: Unknown/Not tested (Probably works)
IN:  No problems
PoFV: Unknown/Not tested (Probably works)
Stb: Unknown/Not tested  (Probably works)
MoF: Not sure, but it probably wont work. >_>
SWR: Strangely enough it works, with some lag.
SA: Extreme and utter lag and deformed screens. Wth?
UFO: Same issues as SA, with even more lag if possible.

Did some mayor change go through around MoF? I don't seem to have much issues with the older games, but SA and UFO and probably MoF too, works extremely horrible and are completely unplayable.

This may be because my current laptop is about 4 years old with about the words video card in the history.

So that's why I was wondering if the games and especially also the later ones as SA and UFO would work good on a netbook?

The graphic card in the Acer Aspire One A150 is a "Intel GMA 950" if that helps. I don't really know too much about graphic cards at the moment so I'm not sure how it would handle.

Any information is greatly appreciated, and it would be even better if someone who owns a netbook could confirm if the games do work on it.

Thanks.
My older laptop also uses Intel graphic card, it is Intel X1300 and slowed down when running SA and UFO. Even my 2.5 GB RAM didn't help the performance. I guess performance problem on your netbook are caused by 2 factor:
1. Processor, since netbook using Intel Atom, its performance for graphic reduced greatly. It is even worse than older Intel Pentium Dual Core.
2. Graphic Card, Intel graphic card is not suitable for any newer game. It has some issues when rendering graphic that using pixel shader and probably SA and newer Touhou series using pixel shader even not very intense.

I suggest you to upgrade your RAM first if you insist to play Touhou games on netbook though it wouldn't help much. Even my notebook sometimes slowed down when playing SA and UFO, I'm using Acer 4730ZG. I already upgraded my RAM to 4GB and my graphic card is ATi HD3470.

I'm sure there is no way to play SA and UFO on netbook with flat frame rate at 60 FPS.

Edible

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #2 on: May 04, 2009, 08:16:12 PM »
Once netbooks start rolling out with Ion (9400m+Atom), I would imagine all touhou games should run more-or-less flawlessly.

Alice

  • 英雄不怕太陽高
Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #3 on: May 05, 2009, 01:43:29 AM »
Once netbooks start rolling out with Ion (9400m+Atom), I would imagine all touhou games should run more-or-less flawlessly.
It still a problem running touhou games on netbook since it still using Atom. Intel Atom benchmark is only half of Celeron 430 performance and everyone knows, Intel Celeron sucks and not suitable for any games.

Edible

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #4 on: May 05, 2009, 01:58:00 AM »
It still a problem running touhou games on netbook since it still using Atom. Intel Atom benchmark is only half of Celeron 430 performance and everyone knows, Intel Celeron sucks and not suitable for any games.

I was under the impression that several Ion netbooks would consist of the Atom 330 (dual core) + geforce 9400m.

saiyoucho

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #5 on: May 05, 2009, 04:43:37 PM »
I think I made the wrong impression here.
I don't own a netbook yet, so I wont know how the games handle on it.

My current laptop is just a really old normal one with the worst graphic card on the phase of the earth.

This is the model name of my current laptop: EASYNOTE B3602 D

And this is the name of the graphic card it has:

S3 Graphics UniChromeTM Pro IGP

Also my current laptop only has 764mb ram, but for some reason started showing it as 704mb in system properties.

And to add more info about how bad it is when I try to play SA or UFO on it, I get around 4-6fps even on the options menu.
And some weird video glitch where it looks like there's 2 windows mashed together when I try to play it.
All this makes the game completely unplayable. >_>

And just to keep away further misunderstandings:

I don't own a netbook yet, what I was asking is if the games could run on them since I am planning on buying one. Thank you. =)
« Last Edit: May 05, 2009, 04:45:16 PM by saiyoucho »
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Edible

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #6 on: May 05, 2009, 08:59:10 PM »
Currently?  They will run about as well as your laptop handles them; depends on the netbook.

If you're going to get a netbook and want it to run games reasonably well, wait until one with the Atom 330 + Geforce 9400m are available.  They will start rolling these out this summer, in theory.

saiyoucho

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #7 on: May 05, 2009, 11:24:32 PM »
Currently?  They will run about as well as your laptop handles them; depends on the netbook.

If you're going to get a netbook and want it to run games reasonably well, wait until one with the Atom 330 + Geforce 9400m are available.  They will start rolling these out this summer, in theory.
Is there any info on when these would be released and what the price tag would come to?

I'd need to get one at the beginning of August, if I'm to be able to use it for my upcoming trip. Although I'm imagining a high price on those new ones.

I'm guessing the price over here would be quite over the top seeing how the Acer Aspire One A150 3G is about 450$ in stores here in Sweden.
Take me to your library, give me your spellbooks.

Edible

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #8 on: May 05, 2009, 11:33:35 PM »
Pricing isn't really available, but I'd expect a price increase of no more than US$50 over the current netbooks.

I believe they will start to ship Ion-packing netbooks in June/July, so you may see Atom 330-packing ones following soon after.  Keep your fingers crossed.

(TSO pays more attention to this stuff than I do; perhaps she'll chime in)

saiyoucho

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #9 on: May 05, 2009, 11:58:56 PM »
Pricing isn't really available, but I'd expect a price increase of no more than US$50 over the current netbooks.

I believe they will start to ship Ion-packing netbooks in June/July, so you may see Atom 330-packing ones following soon after.  Keep your fingers crossed.

(TSO pays more attention to this stuff than I do; perhaps she'll chime in)
Not really sure what Ion-packing means. But if they start to ship in June/July, I'm almost sure that it'll take some extra months before they are available here.

It just feels like we get the second hand technology as soon as new stuff is released overseas. >_>

Hmm, I'll head by some stores on my way to Japanese class tomorrow. Maybe they have a demo of some netbooks in stores that I could try to run the UFO demo on from a usb stick. It's worth a shot. =P
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Edible

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #10 on: May 06, 2009, 12:01:27 AM »
Ion is nvidia's vehicle that pairs their 9300/9400m chips with the Atom processor.

helvetica

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #11 on: May 06, 2009, 01:36:48 AM »
I wouldn't plan on any netbooks being able to Touhou until AMD's platform comes out (Yukon).  Even with Ion, the Atom processor is a pathetic piece of shit and will barely be able to handle anything beyond light computer use.  The only advantage of Ion is the fact it has enough GPU butt to offload video processing from the stupidly weak processor, which is the magic that allows 1080p h264 playback to be possible.

You could try to go with a Via Nano-based netbook, Nano is easily twice as fast if not far more than Atom and Via's integrated graphics are better than anything Intel has to offer.


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Alice

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #12 on: May 06, 2009, 02:15:27 AM »
VIA Nano might give a hope to run Touhou games but I still not recommend it. Low power consumption processors (either Atom or VIA Nano) are not good for gaming.

helvetica

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #13 on: May 06, 2009, 03:28:04 PM »
AMD's netbook platform, Yukon, should definitely be able to, as it's not designed to be a completely stripped and gutted processor like Atom, especially since it'll have the fantastic 780G video chipset (or its successor), probably the best integrated graphics out there.  Nano could probably do it fine, as it's a pretty damn fast processor for the segment it's targetted at, and VIA integrated graphics are pretty good now.


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He thought that on that same day he was to take the city of Priam, but he little knew what was in the mind of Jove, who had many another hard-fought fight in store alike for Danaans and Trojans."


saiyoucho

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #14 on: May 08, 2009, 02:27:44 PM »
AMD's netbook platform, Yukon, should definitely be able to, as it's not designed to be a completely stripped and gutted processor like Atom, especially since it'll have the fantastic 780G video chipset (or its successor), probably the best integrated graphics out there.  Nano could probably do it fine, as it's a pretty damn fast processor for the segment it's targetted at, and VIA integrated graphics are pretty good now.
From all the sound of that, it seems that the price would get a lot higher?
I can't really afford to spend a lot on a beefy monster netbook. Especially since I'm also planning on getting a beefy monster laptop when I get back.

I'm going to head over to the store again with the Direct X9 files and try if I can get UFO to run on their instore machines.

If it doesn't work, I can just assume that it will run EoSD and PCB at least. And hey, some Touhou is better than no Touhou right?
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helvetica

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #15 on: May 08, 2009, 09:34:04 PM »
I'm assuring you, it's not going to be running any TH game, as Atom is a pisspoor processor and Poulsbro sucks ass.  And Yukon/Nano-based netbooks aren't going to be much more expensive, if at all, since they're going to have to remain competitive with Atom-based ones.

Just to make sure, I'm asking a friend of mine who just got a netbook how well they run.


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He thought that on that same day he was to take the city of Priam, but he little knew what was in the mind of Jove, who had many another hard-fought fight in store alike for Danaans and Trojans."


saiyoucho

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    • Touhou Sweden
Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #16 on: May 08, 2009, 11:34:49 PM »
I'm assuring you, it's not going to be running any TH game, as Atom is a pisspoor processor and Poulsbro sucks ass.  And Yukon/Nano-based netbooks aren't going to be much more expensive, if at all, since they're going to have to remain competitive with Atom-based ones.

Just to make sure, I'm asking a friend of mine who just got a netbook how well they run.

I actually went to a local computer store before they closed today.

They had no problems with me trying out the games from my usb stick I brough along so I can confirm that EoSD and PCB runs smoothly without issues on the Acer Aspire A150 3G.

And on top of that EoSD, PCB and IN runs smoothly on Asus EeePC 1000HE.

For some reason I got some unknown error on the Acer with IN. And I still haven't been able to try out if the UFO demo works on either since I need to slap the direct x 9.4 file on there.

But all the games that I tried which worked, were running in full 60fps even during insane bullet barrages.
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helvetica

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Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #17 on: May 09, 2009, 04:41:33 AM »
Then I guess Intel really sorted out their driver issues (at least somewhat).  When Poulsbro was released 3D acceleration was broken and all sorts of fun issues.


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He thought that on that same day he was to take the city of Priam, but he little knew what was in the mind of Jove, who had many another hard-fought fight in store alike for Danaans and Trojans."


saiyoucho

  • *Ahem*.. Mukyu!
    • Touhou Sweden
Re: Running the touhou games on a netbook?
« Reply #18 on: May 09, 2009, 04:31:03 PM »
Looks like I might be picking up a Asus EEE PC 1000HE then.
After checking some reviews and battery life it seems like an excellent choice.
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