Is my laptop good enough for gaming?

GheeBuddersnaps

Estimable
Dec 24, 2014
3
0
4,510
Just wondering if my laptop is capable of running Mass Effect games at high resolution and reasonable settings (game looks good while I play). I use my laptop for school and work and would like to try some games if possible.

HP Elitebook 8770w
Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
OS: 256 GB Samsung 850 Pro
Files: 512 GB Samsung 840 Pro
Processor: i7-3610qm Quad-core 2.3GHz
Graphics Chip: AMD Firepro 1GB GDDR5
RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz

Thanks in advance
 
Which Firepro model do you have since there are several of them? According to the following link the lowest model is the Firepro M2000 and it has been ranked to slower than the Intel HD 4600, but faster than the Intel HD 4400.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-FirePro-M2000.77892.0.html


I have actually played Mass Effect 3 on my two laptops in the recent past using only the Intel HD 3000 and Intel HD 4400 rather than the dedicated graphics chip. I played it on my older IdeaPad Y470 with the Intel HD 3000 about a year ago. I played it on insanity level with the default graphic settings at 1366x768; it was a bit choppy at times where the FPS did dip into the upper teens, but I did manage to complete the entire game using only the Intel HD 3000. Last month I started to replay ME3 because there was on game that I did not completely finish from last year. This time I played the game on my Dell Latitude 3540 using the Intel HD 4400. I played it at 1600x900 resolution with the default graphic settings and while I did not have time to play it a lot, it was definitely better than playing the game with the Intel HD 3000 at a lower resolution.

The conclusion is that you should be able to play the Mass Effect trilogy on your laptop. Since the Firepro M2000 is a bit faster than the Intel HD 4400 you should see better performance on your laptop. You can always drop the resolution to 1366x768 for better performance.

The trilogy uses the Unreal 3 engine which is pretty old by today's standards, that makes games using that engine pretty easy to run on a modern laptop. Bioware is working on the next Mass Effect game. There is no official name for it yet so let's just call it "Mass Effect 4"; it will be using the Frostbite engine if I remember correctly. That means it will be more demanding on system requirements.

Just be aware that the style of gameplay for each game is different. Mass Effect 1 is more focused on RPG. Mass Effect 3 is more focused on action. Mass Effect 2 is like a combination of the two games and you loose the armor and weapons customization of the 1st game.