Advice for Farming Simulator 2011

FanadMan

Hi

First off - was referred to post here by a Mod in games so sorry if it's in the wrong place.

Have a friend who is buying a netbook for her young son - is an MSI U180 from Argos. He already has the FS 2011 disk but it wouldnt work on their own computer (talk about tears on Christmas day!)

I've looked around on different sites to check if this netbook will run the game for him but can't find any info on the graphics chip that it has. According to Argos, it has an Intel GMA 3600 with 256MB RAM (not sure if shared or dedicated) but the MSI site says it has GMA 3650. Neither of these chips are shown on sites like Game-Debate.

My friend really wants to get that game working for her son so if anyone could help, might prevent more Xmas tears

Thanks

-( i )- Wicker

I'm afraid its not looking likely, the following site rates both of those graphics chips very poorly:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Graphics-Media-Accelerator-GMA-3650.60195.0.html

Netbooks really are designed just for internet use and maybe watching movies, they're not really to be used to intensive applications such as games, and in reality you'll need to spend big money on a laptop that will run most games.

mordeith

Hey,
That graphics chip would not have a hope of running FS 2011 unfortunately. I have the same game and run it on an i7 laptop with a Radeon 565v card which is a Class 3. The GMA 3650 is a class 5. One notebookcheck.net the GMA 3650 only manages 1 fps on Dirt 2 which is essentially unplayable. I also have Dirt 2 and can play it on my laptop albeit with some settings reduced.
Essentially no netbook will be capable of playing any kind of half decent game.
Sorry man.

EDIT: I feel for your friend though. My 5 year old son loves FS 2011.

Firblog

I've seen machines play flight simulator but not farm simulator.. wtf is it with that game?

mordeith

Firblog wrote: »

I've seen machines play flight simulator but not farm simulator.. wtf is it with that game?

You'd have to have a love of agricultural machinery to understand

Tea_Bag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEJHrmliVQw

FanadMan

Well, got delivery of one of the MSi U180s. My friend wanted to buy a netbook for each of the two kids. Had to go through the setup so they would be ready on the 25th (isn't Santa smart that he knows the kids names lol).
Got it all personalized early so thought would try FS2011 in case. Installed fine but was bricking when starting it. Was shocked to see the startup logos appear....and then the game menu!
Started a game - took about 5 mins to load and was terrible quality so reduced the graphics to minimum and it started grand! After pimping out the all the settings and it worked grand!

Goes to show that some of the wee netbooks are more powerful than we thought :-D