Netbook Space Sims.
Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2010 2:29 am
Hello, around these parts I'm known as Ironhound. Many of you are aware that I have been testing various space sims that work with a netbook. I plan to create a small list of games, and methods to get them running on your netbook. However, first we need to answer a few fundamental questions.What is a netbook?
A netbook is nothing more then a compact computer. It's designed for travel and generally comes with a small (10inch) screen and a complete lack of a CD drive. In their current generation, most netbooks come with a rather wimpy processor, and an even worse graphics card. For example, lets take a look at my HP.HP Mini 1101gb Ram (2 after self installation.)1.6Ghz Atom ProcessorIntel GMA 950 Integrated Graphics Card.Windows 7 Starter (simplified version of Windows 7)How about some history?Netbooks are an offshoot of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project; a non-profit effort to put small, cheap, computers into the hands of school children in third world countries. Several large companies have made large donations to the project, and many third-world schools have ordered them -- to the tune of tens of thousands of units per country or more. The goal for OLPC is to make a laptop for $100 that is good enough to run a word processor and a browser so that the kids can connect to classroom software at their school... and they can also learn from Google and Wikipedia (and SSC!).When computer manufacturers build something, it is to their advantage to build a LOT of them. The more they make, the cheaper they become. So, for the manufacturers to come close to the $100 goal set by OLPC, they have to sell more... more than the mere tens of thousands ordered.The solution was to upgrade the OLPC by adding more memory, a hard drive, and Windows, in order to make it popular in other markets.The result has been phenomenal... so many people just want a small machine that runs a browser, and that is exactly what they get with a netbook, for $2-400. With LogMeIn, a netbook is like a remote console for a larger computer. The uses for netbooks have very few limits, if you get creative. With a couple of add-ons, netbooks can be a single device that replaces a GPS unit, a DVD and CD player, and a speakerphone (Skype).Netbooks rock.However, netbooks are intentionally low-power devices. The goal is long battery life in a tiny (2 lb / 1 kg) device. Most netbooks use Intel's Atom processor -- an Ultra Low Voltage version of their Core technology. Current generation is single-processor, but Intel plans multi-processor Atoms as well. As you say, most also use Intel's GMA graphics processor, because it is also ultra-low power (and inexpensive). The combination is sufficient to run XP and common office applications (I recommend WinXP and Office 2003 for netbooks). It is definitely NOT a high-power setup... but it is good enough for MANY purposes.Note that the odd screen (typically 1024 x 600) is just the screen -- the GMA controller works great with higher resolutions on an external monitor.There are a few netbooks with add-on graphics controllers . Usually they also have upgraded memory, disk, and price tag... in the $800-$1,000 range. At that price point you have to really WANT a tiny device, because it competes with slightly larger laptops with several times the horsepower of a netbook.Even with a better graphics controller, netbooks still have a low-power CPU, as well as similarly low-power (and, therefore, sluggish) I/O for disk and memory.In other words, netbooks are limited in their ability to perform well for many games.But netbooks are SO useful, for so many purposes, that it is only natural to want to find a game or two that will work.*THANKS BULLWINKLE*Are there options for improving performance with Netbooks?
Unfortunatly your average individual who just picked up a netbook doesn't really have the knowledge on how to change a processor or sumsuch. However, their are options for improving performance.+Adding Ram. Most netbooks contain the capacity for at least 2gigs of RAM. Simply, this is your memory, and they come in 'cards' of 512, 1Gig, 2Gig, and so on. Again, Ram is the workhorse of your computer, doing all of the hard labor, pushing and operating. The 'muscles' if you will of your computer. Increased Ram (OF THE PROPER TYPE!) can exponentially increase performance. Video Ram is something else entirely, and will be covered somewhere else. The slot can be found near the battery case on your computer, or near the motherboard. Again, most of this is pretty far above average joe's head, so looking up an actual guide online would be ideal.+Operating System. Hopefully your netbook came with Windows XP, or Windows 7 Starter. In both cases, performance should be ideal. However, XP may be faster due to less graphical requirements. Having never owned XP I cannot vouch for this.+Battery Power Setting. This can be found in the lower right corner of the screen, near your clock. A little battery icon. Depending on your OS, right click, or left click it. Once you find the 'Select a Power Plan' option, put it in High Performance. Netbooks have an outstanding battery life, and even on High Performance mine gets a good four to five hours of functionality. You'd be surprised at how much FASTER your system runs on high power.My buddy just spent $400 on a new graphics card for his desktop, can I?
As far as I know, in most cases, no. Sadly, most netbooks come with integrated graphics cards. This means that you can't change out your graphics card due to the fact that it is built directly into the mother board. Newer video cards provide more Video Ram, and more graphical features. Shaders, pixel enhancers. etc etc etc. Vram for any video card is ESSENTIAL to video game awesomeness. 64MB isn't going to play the latest games. 1GIG is pretty good, and should tide you over for a few more years. In most cases video ram cannot be found on your computer, so you should google your card. (I.e. ATI XXXX Video Ram)Also of note when trying to play games, most netbooks come with some strange resolutions, and the inability to use resolutions that the computer doesn't have. For instance, the GMA Intel 950 ONLY allows 1024x600(as opposed to the standard 1024x768) and 800x600 This can be a HUGE caveat as most older games don't support these alien resolutions.Enough talk! Gimme' a list!Lets take a look at my system again.HP Mini 1102Gb Ram1.6Ghz Atom ProcessorIntel GMA 945 Integrated Graphics Card. (64-128VRAM)Windows 7 StarterTHE LISTBOLD - Works. Italics - Does not. *I did not even bother with games that had higher system requirements, so please don't ask about X3 TC or Evochron Legends.+ Escape Velocity Series. + Endless Sky+ Wierd worlds return to Infinite Space + FREESPACE 1&2 (Requires Freespace Open to run. Not sure why.)+ Freelancer (Make sure to turn the settings down, as it crashes when it gets too system intensive.)+ Oolite (Runs at a slow pace, and selecting a system for jump takes a bit. Don't even bother with Griff's graphical mods.)+ Privateer Gemini Gold (KEEP THE DEFAULT INSTALL DIRECTORY)+ The Ur Quan Masters+ Final Frontier Elite - (Works great, would suggest JLFFE.)+ DeathWar 3030 + DeathWar Redux + Independence War Series (Just make sure you get a joystick.)+ Noctis IV CE + Star Nomad 1&2DOSBOX*EliteElite plusFrontier First EncountersMegatraveller 1Megatraveller 2Plants edgeProject NormadProtostarSpace RogueStarflightWing Commander-no soundWing Commander 2Master of Orion 1&2-Flight Commander (Sluggish, and not optimized for netbooks. Videos don't work.)
-Galactic Civ II (Doesn't support lower resolutions.)
-Starflight 2 (Crashes on start.)* Dosbox is a small program for windows that allows you to open a DOS environment to run your DOS games on. It can be complicated, and I highly recommend using a fan-made interface, like D-Fend. (Google it.)This list is in progress, and far from complete, if you have any SPACE SIMS that work great on netbooks, let me know.
A netbook is nothing more then a compact computer. It's designed for travel and generally comes with a small (10inch) screen and a complete lack of a CD drive. In their current generation, most netbooks come with a rather wimpy processor, and an even worse graphics card. For example, lets take a look at my HP.HP Mini 1101gb Ram (2 after self installation.)1.6Ghz Atom ProcessorIntel GMA 950 Integrated Graphics Card.Windows 7 Starter (simplified version of Windows 7)How about some history?Netbooks are an offshoot of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project; a non-profit effort to put small, cheap, computers into the hands of school children in third world countries. Several large companies have made large donations to the project, and many third-world schools have ordered them -- to the tune of tens of thousands of units per country or more. The goal for OLPC is to make a laptop for $100 that is good enough to run a word processor and a browser so that the kids can connect to classroom software at their school... and they can also learn from Google and Wikipedia (and SSC!).When computer manufacturers build something, it is to their advantage to build a LOT of them. The more they make, the cheaper they become. So, for the manufacturers to come close to the $100 goal set by OLPC, they have to sell more... more than the mere tens of thousands ordered.The solution was to upgrade the OLPC by adding more memory, a hard drive, and Windows, in order to make it popular in other markets.The result has been phenomenal... so many people just want a small machine that runs a browser, and that is exactly what they get with a netbook, for $2-400. With LogMeIn, a netbook is like a remote console for a larger computer. The uses for netbooks have very few limits, if you get creative. With a couple of add-ons, netbooks can be a single device that replaces a GPS unit, a DVD and CD player, and a speakerphone (Skype).Netbooks rock.However, netbooks are intentionally low-power devices. The goal is long battery life in a tiny (2 lb / 1 kg) device. Most netbooks use Intel's Atom processor -- an Ultra Low Voltage version of their Core technology. Current generation is single-processor, but Intel plans multi-processor Atoms as well. As you say, most also use Intel's GMA graphics processor, because it is also ultra-low power (and inexpensive). The combination is sufficient to run XP and common office applications (I recommend WinXP and Office 2003 for netbooks). It is definitely NOT a high-power setup... but it is good enough for MANY purposes.Note that the odd screen (typically 1024 x 600) is just the screen -- the GMA controller works great with higher resolutions on an external monitor.There are a few netbooks with add-on graphics controllers . Usually they also have upgraded memory, disk, and price tag... in the $800-$1,000 range. At that price point you have to really WANT a tiny device, because it competes with slightly larger laptops with several times the horsepower of a netbook.Even with a better graphics controller, netbooks still have a low-power CPU, as well as similarly low-power (and, therefore, sluggish) I/O for disk and memory.In other words, netbooks are limited in their ability to perform well for many games.But netbooks are SO useful, for so many purposes, that it is only natural to want to find a game or two that will work.*THANKS BULLWINKLE*Are there options for improving performance with Netbooks?
Unfortunatly your average individual who just picked up a netbook doesn't really have the knowledge on how to change a processor or sumsuch. However, their are options for improving performance.+Adding Ram. Most netbooks contain the capacity for at least 2gigs of RAM. Simply, this is your memory, and they come in 'cards' of 512, 1Gig, 2Gig, and so on. Again, Ram is the workhorse of your computer, doing all of the hard labor, pushing and operating. The 'muscles' if you will of your computer. Increased Ram (OF THE PROPER TYPE!) can exponentially increase performance. Video Ram is something else entirely, and will be covered somewhere else. The slot can be found near the battery case on your computer, or near the motherboard. Again, most of this is pretty far above average joe's head, so looking up an actual guide online would be ideal.+Operating System. Hopefully your netbook came with Windows XP, or Windows 7 Starter. In both cases, performance should be ideal. However, XP may be faster due to less graphical requirements. Having never owned XP I cannot vouch for this.+Battery Power Setting. This can be found in the lower right corner of the screen, near your clock. A little battery icon. Depending on your OS, right click, or left click it. Once you find the 'Select a Power Plan' option, put it in High Performance. Netbooks have an outstanding battery life, and even on High Performance mine gets a good four to five hours of functionality. You'd be surprised at how much FASTER your system runs on high power.My buddy just spent $400 on a new graphics card for his desktop, can I?
As far as I know, in most cases, no. Sadly, most netbooks come with integrated graphics cards. This means that you can't change out your graphics card due to the fact that it is built directly into the mother board. Newer video cards provide more Video Ram, and more graphical features. Shaders, pixel enhancers. etc etc etc. Vram for any video card is ESSENTIAL to video game awesomeness. 64MB isn't going to play the latest games. 1GIG is pretty good, and should tide you over for a few more years. In most cases video ram cannot be found on your computer, so you should google your card. (I.e. ATI XXXX Video Ram)Also of note when trying to play games, most netbooks come with some strange resolutions, and the inability to use resolutions that the computer doesn't have. For instance, the GMA Intel 950 ONLY allows 1024x600(as opposed to the standard 1024x768) and 800x600 This can be a HUGE caveat as most older games don't support these alien resolutions.Enough talk! Gimme' a list!Lets take a look at my system again.HP Mini 1102Gb Ram1.6Ghz Atom ProcessorIntel GMA 945 Integrated Graphics Card. (64-128VRAM)Windows 7 StarterTHE LISTBOLD - Works. Italics - Does not. *I did not even bother with games that had higher system requirements, so please don't ask about X3 TC or Evochron Legends.+ Escape Velocity Series. + Endless Sky+ Wierd worlds return to Infinite Space + FREESPACE 1&2 (Requires Freespace Open to run. Not sure why.)+ Freelancer (Make sure to turn the settings down, as it crashes when it gets too system intensive.)+ Oolite (Runs at a slow pace, and selecting a system for jump takes a bit. Don't even bother with Griff's graphical mods.)+ Privateer Gemini Gold (KEEP THE DEFAULT INSTALL DIRECTORY)+ The Ur Quan Masters+ Final Frontier Elite - (Works great, would suggest JLFFE.)+ DeathWar 3030 + DeathWar Redux + Independence War Series (Just make sure you get a joystick.)+ Noctis IV CE + Star Nomad 1&2DOSBOX*EliteElite plusFrontier First EncountersMegatraveller 1Megatraveller 2Plants edgeProject NormadProtostarSpace RogueStarflightWing Commander-no soundWing Commander 2Master of Orion 1&2-Flight Commander (Sluggish, and not optimized for netbooks. Videos don't work.)
-Galactic Civ II (Doesn't support lower resolutions.)
-Starflight 2 (Crashes on start.)* Dosbox is a small program for windows that allows you to open a DOS environment to run your DOS games on. It can be complicated, and I highly recommend using a fan-made interface, like D-Fend. (Google it.)This list is in progress, and far from complete, if you have any SPACE SIMS that work great on netbooks, let me know.
Another oldie, how about the original Wing Commander and another I just remembered, Epic?