Alright.. here's the story,
I work on the web coding and doing graphics, but I also work on games.
I mostly work on a Mac now, since I inherited a fabulous Powerbook, but I yearn for the gaming beast that is the PC.
I have an oldy Dell lappy that I use for cross platform testing, but it's not going to even run Minesweeper at a good FPS
Earlier this month I purchased a DELL i9300 that I liked alot, but just couldn't deal with the screen. Partly due to light leakage, and a pinched corner.. but mostly due to sparkles and the super duper high res. (Try going to GameSpot and reading and actually reading it wihout buggering up the site increasing the font size) Anyway, it went back, but I'm really trying to figure out a way to get myself a nice gaming machine for under 2gs.
It should also be noted that I have a 1/2 built desktop PC that I've been thinking about finishing for ages now. Nice case, PSW, HD, and optical drives.
Just needs the heart, brain, etc
SO here's my questions:
1) If I was to snag a lappy for gaming, is there any way I can make 1680X1050 look good on a 1920x1200 native screen? I've heard conflicting opinions on this. Even a guy at Dell told me he scaled his down.... which made me wonder. I'm guessing these people just don't mind looking at fuzzy ass text.. but maybe I'm missing something.
2) Does the Ultra in the XPS scale down to 1680 better? I've read here and there hinting that it might
3) Would it be more worthwhile to finish my desktop? My only concern with that is space, and sharing the same monitor as my Mac. After buying the parts and a DVI switch, etc... the price difference is farly negligible. I know the PC will be faster, but by enough to warrant the space it takes up?
Ultimately I want to have a machine that makes games look nice, and run well. The i9300 I purchased only had a 4200RPM drive and 512 RAM, both which I was going to upgrade if I kept it. I noticed alot of slowdown in WoW, from all the HD access, but everything else was pretty good.
With a 7200 speed drive, and 1 gig.. WoW should run without a hitch no?
So point blank it all boils down to this :
For the money, what's going to give me the nicest blend of cost and performace for the next couple of years until I upgrade, also factoring in the space and portability of the notebook
